The Romantic Adventures of Mr. Darby and of Sarah His Wife (49 page)

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Mr. Darby awoke from what seemed to have been several hours of deep, refreshing sleep. He did not at once open his eyes, but lay enjoying those mingled sensations of feebleness and energy, lethargy and clear-headedness, which attend the first moments of awakening from healthy sleep. He had soon remembered where he was; but now his taste for adventure had reasserted itself and his sense of the insecurity of his position was no more than a sharp sauce to season the thrilling thought that he was actually on the very threshold of the Jungle. But
was
he? If he were to open his eyes, wouldn't he, in sober fact, find himself surrounded by the familiar objects of his cabin on the
Utopia
? Wasn't all this confused memory of floating on the sea, swimming upon a convenient current into the improbable Sampoto, wading ashore to that suspiciously theatrical Mandratia, the relics of a dream from which he was just waking? A sudden hoarse shriek sent a thrill of alarm through him. That must be Lady Gudgingham whom Punnett was pushing through the port-hole. He opened terrified eyes and saw a green parrot staring at him, head downwards, from the leafy canopy above his head. Seeing him move, the bird shrieked again and climbed, hand over fist, into hiding among the great leaves. This was the
Jungle right enough, and, if other proof were wanting, there, within reach of his hand hung a burning cluster of scarlet orchids. Mr. Darby sneezed.

‘Awake, sir?' asked Punnett's voice.

‘Yes, Punnett, yes!' Mr. Darby replied, and next moment, looking like an uprooted cauliflower that has gone hopelessly to seed, Punnett, stark naked except for a pair of capacious green drawers, appeared round the curtain of orchids. Mr. Darby noted that the drawers consisted of a single enormous leaf in which Punnett had contrived leg-holes. They were secured round his waist by a girdle of some vine-like plant. In both hands he carried another large leaf, a substitute for a tray, on which were heaped certain unrecognizable fruits. He smiled apologetically at Mr. Darby.

‘I hope you'll excuse my dress, sir. You'll find it's quite usual in Mandratia. My suit and underwear are out to dry.'

Mr. Darby suppressed an incipient grin and sat up. ‘And is this … ah … breakfast, Punnett?'

‘Yes, sir. You'll find most of the fruit in these parts remarkably good, sir, and I've grilled something a little more substantial to begin with. My cigarette-lighter withstood the immersion, sir, so I was able to make a fire. I shall send the firm a testimonial when we get home. I've got your razor with me, too, sir. I'd taken it to my cabin to strop it and I slipped it into my pocket when I came to call you this morning.'

Mr. Darby was not at the moment interested in the possibility of shaving. He was hungry, very hungry, and he fixed the grilled object with eager spectacles. ‘What is it, Punnett? A filet of veal?'

‘No, sir. I think you'll find it very tasty, though. Don't burn your fingers, sir.'

Mr. Darby hesitated. ‘I think I should feel more … ah No, sir. I think you'll find it very tasty, though. Don't burn your fingers, sir.'

Mr. Darby hesitated. ‘I think I should feel more … well, more the
thing
in my trousers, Punnett. I presume they're dry by now.'

Punnett brought them, Mr. Darby put them on, and both sat down to breakfast.

Mr. Darby ate with gusto and even Punnett showed traces of restrained pleasure in the meal.

It was not till it was over that Punnett ceased to parry Mr. Darby's persistent questions about the nature of the grill. The truth shook the little man: an expression of profound doubt gathered on his face. But the crisis lasted no more than a moment: his brow cleared and a smile broke through his spectacles. ‘To think,' he said, ‘that I should live to breakfast off grilled tortoise. I must write and tell Mrs. Darby.' Suddenly his face lengthened. ‘But No, sir. I think you'll find it very tasty, though. Don't burn your fingers, sir.'

Mr. Darby hesitated. ‘I think I should feel more … but I suppose I can't write, Punnett? I suppose there's no post?'

‘No, sir, no post here, sir; at least not until the trader makes her yearly visit. If you'll excuse me, sir, I'll be getting on with my work.'

With his customary formal deference Punnett left the room, so to speak, and Mr. Darby found himself once more alone with his thoughts. No post! It had never occurred to him that there would be no post, no way of letting Sarah know that he was alive and well, no way of summoning a ship to be ready in case No, sir. I think you'll find it very tasty, though. Don't burn your fingers, sir.'

Mr. Darby hesitated. ‘I think I should feel more … well, in case he found that the Peninsula did not suit him. He had had so much to think about, or rather to experience, during the eternity since he had fallen overboard, that he had had no time to realize details such as these. But now that he had started, he went on. Sarah would get anxious when his periodical telegrams failed to arrive: she would be sure to guess that something dreadful had happened. When would she learn No, sir. I think you'll find it very tasty, though. Don't burn your fingers, sir.'

Mr. Darby hesitated. ‘I think I should feel more …? But of course! His wits made another leap. Of course, she would know
now.
They would have wired to his home address from the
Utopia:
they would have wired and told Sarah that he was drowned. The thought appalled him. Was there nothing he could do to let her know that he was alive? He was seized with an impulse to set off at once, to walk, walk, until he found a post office. Poor Sarah, she would be in despair. A vivid picture of her seated at the empty dining-table in Moseley Terrace, her arms flung on the table and her head lying on her arms, flashed upon his mind. She was wearing widow's weeds. A long crape streamer hung from her head
and drooped over the edge of the table. The vision and the sense of his home that accompanied it were so intense that for a minute or two he actually lived and moved in Newchester; and when the screech of a green parrot, leaning grotesquely out of the tree overhead, recalled him again to Mandras, he was like a diver who has risen too suddenly to the surface.

But when he had regained his full consciousness and once more realized Mandras, he realized too his utter helplessness. They could do nothing but wait for the trader that called once a year. And now an awful question presented itself. When was the trader due? Perhaps, blessed thought, it would arrive to-morrow. Perhaps—and so terrible was the idea that Mr. Darby felt his bowels melt within him—perhaps she had arrived and departed yesterday. A sense of terrible isolation overcame him. He felt as if he had died and gone to some solitary limbo: every human contact had fallen from him. Sarah (his heart ached every time he thought of her), the Stedmans, the Cribbs, Mr. Marston, McNab, young Pellow, Lord and Lady Savershill, Princep, had become for him the ghostly memories of another life. His mind turned its vision elsewhere and other ghosts flitted by—Mr. Amberley, Gudgeon (the only real ghost among them), poor Mrs. Gudgeon, Lady Gissingham, that charming woman. Leaning on his couch of leaves, naked but for his pyjama trousers and his spectacles, Mr. Darby reviewed this spectral parade and his heart turned to stone. Thank God, Punnett at least was spared to him. If it had not been for Punnett he would have been dead by now, or as good as dead. On Punnett he pinned all his hopes.

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A lunch, as excellent and as unnamable as the breakfast, did much to cheer Mr. Darby, and the extraordinary peacefulness of the little Eden between jungle and river in which they had established themselves, gradually induced in his mind a forgetfulness, almost a disbelief, in savages. It was Punnett who, as soon as lunch was over, brought the savages back into reality.

‘If you'll excuse me, sir,' he began, ‘I think I'd better give you a few hints in case of surprise. There are two things to bear in mind, sir, when we come up against the natives as we're sure to do sooner or later. In the first place, you must be most particular, sir, not to show fear. Seeing you're not frightened of them makes them frightened of you. If you behave yourself solemn and strange-like, they may think you're a god. Your spectacles will help, no doubt, if you'll excuse the remark: there'll be something uncanny about spectacles to folk not accustomed to them. So do your best to carry on as if you were a god, sir, if I may suggest it, especially if I don't happen to be here, sir. If I am here I may be able to put the wind up them, if I may use the expression, by saying things to them, but I think I'd better go and scout round a bit now, to try and find out what they're up to. I took the opportunity, when you were asleep this morning, sir, to run along to a village a matter of about a mile from here, and I found it empty,—the village there all right, much the same as when I was here with Professor Harrington, sir, and still occupied, but not a soul, man, woman, or child, in the place. There's something very unusual up, at the moment, sir, not a doubt of it, and I think it would be as well if I could find out what it is.'

With Punnett's words all Mr. Darby's apprehensions returned, but he found enough self-control to disguise them from Punnett, just as Punnett had recommended him to disguise them from the savages.

‘Very well, Punnett,' he replied with a very creditable show of unconcern. ‘Do what you think best. You'll find me here,' he paused and there was a suspicion of a quaver in his voice as he added, ‘at least I hope you will, when you get back. Only, don't get lost, Punnett.'

‘I know the place too well for that, sir,' Punnett replied. ‘You can rely on me, sir.'

Mr. Darby rose from his couch and went out to see Punnett off. Hung on a shrub outside the arbour Punnett's coat and, under it, his trousers confronted them limply, every line of them eloquent of Punnett. Mr. Darby gazed at them, then
at the new Punnett, then at the clothes again. A smile spread over his face. ‘Why, they're more like you than
you
are, Punnett.'

Punnett smiled sadly back. ‘I'll leave them there to look after you in my absence, sir,' he said as he made his way among the rocks and soon vanished into the dense screen of vegetation.

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Nothing happened during Punnett's absence and Mr. Darby, growing by degrees so accustomed to the presence of danger that he even sensed in it a sort of awful pleasure, began to stroll more adventurously about the little bay. The sun was very hot and—necessity being the mother of invention—he broke off a trailer of scarlet orchid and twisted it into a very tolerable hat. The presence of several fat green lizards, basking in the hot sand, was at first rather unwelcome, but when they scuttled away at his approach, his apprehensions were relieved and he stepped down to the river's edge. The water was as transparent as pale green glass, and pulling his pyjamas up his thighs till they became little more than bathing-drawers Mr. Darby proceeded to paddle knee-deep along the margin, enjoying the delicious coolness. Further explorations showed him that the indefatigable Punnett had contrived among the rocks a little chamber roofed with boughs and creepers, outside whose doorway he had made an immense heap of dry stuff, as if for a bonfire; and Mr. Darby amused himself by gathering litter to add to the pile.

When he had tired of this, he became even more bold and, threading his way among the rocks, came to where the tangle of foliage was a dense and towering wall. Even there his adventurous spirit was not content to stop: with an effort he parted the tough stems of the leafage and thrust himself within. The screen closed behind him and Mr. Darby stood, no longer only in dream, alone in the virgin jungle. A sombre twilight filled the place, a silence like death, and a strange odour, half perfume, half stink, of exotic flowers and decaying vegetation. Once the loud derisive shriek of a parrot
pierced the stillness and once a huge gleaming blue butterfly sailed towards him on motionless wings and would have settled on his bare chest if he had not driven it off. Mr. Darby stood there in awestruck wonder, looking, listening, smelling. He turned his eyes to the tree-tops. A ceiling of mottled luminous green, remotely high, roofed the huge empty place. Then, far away in the pillared dimness, a loud, mad chattering broke out, died, and broke out again. Was it bird, beast or savage? Mr. Darby turned round noiselessly, pushed his way through the green wall and, with the feelings of one who has partaken of a solemn religious mystery, returned to his sunny bay. It seemed to him that he had returned from a visit to another world, a beautiful, sinister world far older than the comfortable world of men. The shades lengthened by degrees, the hour of sunset could not be far off. Somewhere inside him two little worms of fear and loneliness began to gnaw insidious channels. He returned to his couch on tip-toe and sat down; and when at last his listening ears detected sounds of snapping twigs, a flame of terror blazed up in him. It was an exquisite relief when the gaunt phantom of Punnett emerged into the open.

Punnett had nothing very definite to report. A vast concentration of the Mandrats was occurring in the great clearing called in Mandratic Umwaddi Taan, The King's Clearing, which lay about seven miles inland. In this clearing lived the King of the Mandrats and the concentration there must have been caused by an event of extreme gravity. It was there that the seven great bonfires were burning. Punnett had seen them and had had a glimpse of wild dances and heard a chorus of wailing chants for which he had been unable to account. More than that he could not say. He had passed two villages on his way and both were totally deserted: he suspected that the whole tribe was gathered in the King's Clearing.

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