The Last of Bukári Moshi

When we had emerged from the tunnel the sun was already glowing crimson through the tops of the trees. As we reached the track, the short tropical twilight was beginning to fade, and before we had followed its windings for a quarter of a mile, the light had gone and the stars were twinkling through the rifts of the cloudy sky. It was fortunate that the night was not completely overcast, for had it been, I should have had no means of judging the direction in which our flight was leading us; as it was, an occasional glimpse of the “pointers” of the Great Bear told me that our average course was to the north-east.

As the darkness closed in, it became impossible to maintain the pace at which we had started, for the track, although less obstructed than many forest roads, furnished but rough travelling; but we trudged along as fast as the nature of the ground would allow us, only pausing now and again to listen for sounds of pursuit. Our long and arduous day’s work had made us weary enough, but the fear of recapture was a spur that would have driven us forward even though we were dropping with fatigue; and the chance of being overtaken was not so remote either, for the path along which we were travelling appeared to be the only one that passed near to the tunnel, and its existence could hardly be unknown to the people of Aboási.

Hence it seemed highly probable that a party would be sent to examine this path as soon as our traces had been found in the tunnel, and it was not unlikely that we were already being followed; so we pressed on hour after hour, until the stars that had peeped out through the haze of the lower sky, looked down upon us from the zenith, and told us that half the night was spent.

The country hereabouts seemed almost uninhabited, for we saw no sign of any human dwelling until past midnight; when we hurried, as silently as we could, through the deserted street of a tiny hamlet, apparently unobserved except by an unseen pariah, whose high falsetto howls were still audible when we had left it half a mile behind.

There is, however, a limit to human endurance, even under the stimulus of fear, and about two hours after midnight we agreed that we could go no further without a rest; so striking off the path to the left, we pushed our way a short distance into the forest until we reached a large tree with high buttressed roots like those of the silk-cotton. In a triangular space between two of these roots we sat down and composed ourselves for sleep, half reclining with our backs against the butt of the tree; but we had scarcely begun to doze when a loud purr sounded from within a few feet of us, and as we both at once sat bolt upright, a large, dark shape moved noiselessly away.

The faint red light of the rising moon now began to filter through the trees and dimly illuminate the space opposite our resting place. Across this space there presently crept a large, shadowy form, which moved without a sound, and which I could now plainly make out to be a leopard. I rapped the hilt of my knife sharply against the tree, and the creature turned and trotted away; but in less than a minute a soft purr came from the dusky obscurity beyond, and then a half-smothered miall like the voice of a great tom-cat. Bukári and I both clapped our hands and shouted, whereupon a loud rustling in the undergrowth close by told us that the brute had made off again; but it had hardly gone when the long-drawn, melancholy cry of a hyæna sounded from the opposite direction, and presently as we sat stock-still and listened, a grey silhouette with high shoulders and green, glowing eyes stole silently across the dimly lighted space until a low, rumbling growl from the dark bushes made it turn and shuffle away, snarling and tittering as it went.

Sleep under these circumstances was impossible, in spite of our fatigue. All night the leopard hovered round, now creeping close up with insinuating purrs, now mialling savagely at a little distance, now growling and spitting at some prowling hyæna. Nor were these the only disturbers of our peace, for all the monkeys of the forest seemed to have assembled to fight and quarrel in the tree above us; a veritable parliament of pottos had foregathered close by; while shortly before dawn a measured tramp and the crashing of branches told us that a troop of elephants was passing.

So the night wore slowly and wearily away, and the first streaks of daylight found us still sitting wide awake in the angle of the root buttresses; but as the sun rose, the nocturnal beasts crept away to their lairs and left us alone, and at last we were able to lie down in peace on the soft earth and forget our miseries in sleep.

The afternoon sun was slanting through the trees when I awoke and rose, yawning and stretching my stiffened limbs. Bukári still slept, and as I was loth to wake him, I occupied myself by making short excursions, keeping always well within sight of the tree, in the hopes of picking up something eatable. In one of these journeys, as I came round the trunk of a small tree, I perceived a large hornbill on the ground. The bird’s back was towards me, and it was busy tearing the skin off a plantain, which it had probably stolen from some village, so I was able to steal up behind it without being observed; and eventually with a sudden grab I seized it by the tail feathers, and in spite of its kicking, squawking, and snapping with its huge beak, I bore it in triumph back to the tree.

The noise that the creature made as I twisted its neck, woke Bukári; so without more ado, I dismembered the warm carcase, and we proceeded to devour it, and a most disgusting and cannibal-like repast it was; notwithstanding which I ate up all the flesh I could scrape off the bones, while as to Bukári, who had the advantage of not being able to see what he was eating, he gobbled up flesh, skin, and entrails with a horrible relish, and seemed to have half a mind to finish up with the feathers.

When we had breakfasted in this prehistoric manner we made our way back to the path and resumed our journey, but we were both stiff and tired from the previous day’s exertions, and crawled along rather sluggishly. After half an hour’s weary trudging we heard the crowing of a cock, and a bend in the path showed the entrance to a small village.

I had serious doubts as to the wisdom of venturing into the neighbourhood of any human habitation, but Bukári urged me to try to get some food, and while we were debating I perceived that we were already observed; so I walked boldly into the street, leading my companion, and looked about. A single glance showed me that we were the objects of the keenest curiosity, for in less than a minute the entire population of the village had assembled, and stood about staring at us and whispering together, but keeping at a respectful distance nevertheless. Our strange appearance might, indeed, have accounted for their surprise, but there was something in their manner that filled me with uneasiness and suspicion, and I determined to make our stay as brief as possible.

As Bukári spoke the Ochwi or Ashanti language, I led him up to the group of villagers, to whom he made his appeal in a gruff, abrupt manner, but pitifully enough, eliciting, however, no more satisfactory response than an emphatically expressed desire that we should leave the village at once; but as we were turning disconsolately away, a fat, elderly woman bustled into her house, and immediately returned with a large, roasted yam, which she put into Bukári’s hands, and then taking us by the shoulders, fairly ran us out of the village, exclaiming in an undertone, “Go! quickly, as far away as you can, and keep off the road!”

The friendly hint was not thrown away, and, when we had thanked the good-natured soul, I ostentatiously dragged Bukári off the path and re-entered the forest to the right in sight of the whole village; but after walking parallel with the road for a quarter of a mile, I crossed it and plunged into the forest on the left. I did not, however, go far from the track, for the evening was coming on apace, and I felt that we must keep on the move through the darkness; it being evidently impossible to sleep in the forest without the protection of a fire; and whereas it was quite impracticable to attempt to walk through the forest in the dark, the road would be comparatively safe, as it is unusual for Africans to travel at night.

With what remained of daylight we sat down to make our meal off the yam, which I cut evenly into two parts, falling upon my half with the avidity of starvation; but Bukári, who usually ate like a wolf, made so little progress with his portion, that, when I was crunching the last fragment of rind, he had barely scooped out half the mealy inside.