Shadoof

“ Going to his former place, he cast in his line, and in five minutes it was fast to a good-sized fish, which after a struggle was landed safely, while before long another was caught as well.
“Man never knows what he can do till he tries,” cried Shaddy merrily. “Why, we can live like princes, gentlemen. No fear of starving! Fish as often as we like to catch ’em, and then there’s birds and other things to come. You don’t feel dumpy now, Mr Rob, do you?” ”

“ And all the while the fiddling, piping, strumming and hooting, with screech, yell and howl, went on in the curious chorus, for they were indeed deep now in one of Nature’s fastnesses, where the teeming life had remained untouched by man.
“Well,” said Brazier at last to the guide, whose figure, seen by the light of the fire, looked as wild as the surroundings, “had we not better get on board? You can hear nothing through that din.”
“Oh yes, I can, sir,” replied Shaddy. “I’ve got so used to it o’ nights that I can pick out any sound I like from the rest. But we may as well turn in. ”

“ Wild beasts don’t tame very well. You can trust dogs and cats, which are never so happy as when they are with human folk; but I never knew any one who did very well with other things. Ah, here’s another of my steps!”
He went to his men again, for they were rowing along a smooth-gliding reach, at the end of which rough water appeared, and all hands were called into requisition to help the boat up the long stretch of rapids, at the end of which, as they glided into smooth water again, Shaddy declared that they had mounted a good twenty feet. ”

“ Rob drew a long breath, and Joe shuddered.
“Well,” said Shaddy quietly, “that’s just how you take it, young gentlemen. Seems so horrible because it was a big serpent. If it had been a worm six inches long you wouldn’t have thought anything of it. Look at my four chaps there: they don’t take any notice—don’t seem horrid to them. You’ll get used to it.”
“Impossible!” said Brazier.
“Oh! I don’t know, sir,” continued Shaddy. “You’ve come out where you wanted to, in the wildest wilds, where the beasts have it all their own way, and they do as they always do, go on eating one another up. ”

“ I paid for the license on Jack's behalf and gave the change to the minister, and we were about to thank Spoof and say good-bye to the little company when they announced in concert that they were coming over to Fourteen. In vain we protested that the roads were bad, that the night was settling down, that the sky looked like a storm. All these perfectly good reasons why they should stay at home were converted into arguments why they should come. Spoof, as host, yoked up the oxen and insisted that he would drive the bridal party; our jumper would carry five as well as four. ”

“ I calls it skill.”
“Why, it was a mere accident.”
“Hark at him!” cried Shaddy, looking round at the trees as if to call their attention to the lad’s words. “Says it was an accident when I told him to aim straight at the thing’s shoulder, and there’s the arrow right through it from one side to the other, and the poor brute dead as dead.”
“But I hardly aimed at it, Shaddy,” protested Rob.
“Of course you didn’t. A good shot just makes up his mind to hit a thing, and he hits it same as you did that lizard. Well, sir, that’s one trouble off my mind; and I can say thankfully we shan’t starve. ”

“ Have you ever heard of people who were ’hoodoos’? I guess you have. Well, sometimes I’m afraid I’m just that—like the snakes in that ring. I’m afraid I bring bad luck to people—people I like. It isn’t the harm to me that ever frightens 124 me. I guess I can fight that; but no one can fight a ’hoodoo,’ I guess; and your arm—”
“Oh, see here! Wake up, ’Tana, you’re dreaming! Who put that cussed nonsense into your head? ‘Hoodoo!’ Pshaw! I will have patience with you in anything but that. Did any one look at you last night as if you were a ’hoodoo’? Here comes Max ”

“ Rob was silent, and Brazier shook his head.
“You see, it’s like this, sir,” continued Shaddy: “people as have never been in these woods can’t understand what it means, when it’s just this: Shut your eyes and go a dozen yards, turn round, and you’re lost. There’s nothing to guide you but your own footsteps, and you can’t see them. You may live for a few days by chewing leaves, and then it’s lie down and die, wishing you were a monkey or a bird. ”

“ Spoof may have advantages—I admit his travel, and all that—but will those things keep him big? Won't section Two bound him in a year or so, just as you say Fourteen bounds me now? Is he different clay; less ox, more soul?"
"Section Two can never hold Spoof, because he—because he is big, don't you see? He reads, he thinks, he sings, he dreams. No section can hold one who does those things." ”

“ This was now one glorious suffusion of amber and gold, for the sun was below the horizon, and night close at hand, though, after the gloom of the primeval forest, it seemed to Rob and his companions as if they had just stepped out into the beginning of a glorious day.
“Don’t see no fire,” growled Shaddy. “We’re all horribly down about losing poor Mr Jovanni. But we must have rest and food, or we can’t work. Here, my lads, where are you?” he shouted in the dialect the men best understood. ”

“ Just then Shaddy leaped ashore with a rope, after carefully seeing to the fastening of the other end.
“May as well give you gents a hint,” he said: “never to trust nobody about your painter. It’s just as well to use two, for if so be as the boat does break loose, away she goes down-stream, and you’re done, for there’s no getting away from here. You can’t tramp far through the forest.” ”

“ Shaddy uttered a low growl, like some thwarted animal, and said, in an ill-used tone,—
“Why, I could fetch his head off with one good chop, and—”
“Look, look!” cried Joe. “Mind! Take care!”
“Yes,” shouted Rob; “it’s coming round this way.”
Neither could see the reptile; but the swaying herbage and the rustling, crackling sound showed that it was in rapid motion.
“Nay,” growled Shaddy, “he ain’t coming this way—only right-about-facing. It is his nature to; he’s going to make for the water. That’s what those things do: get down to the bottom and lie there, to be out o’ danger. Look, Mr Rob, sir ”

“ If Indians can kill birds, beasts, and fish with their bows and arrows, surely a young Englishman can.”
“I shall try, Shaddy.”
“Of course you will, and try means win, and win means making ourselves comfortable till we are taken off.”
“Then you think we shall be some day?”
“Please God, my lad!” said Shaddy calmly. “Look! Yonder goes Mr Brazier. He’s forgetting his troubles in work, and that’s what we’ve got to do, eh?”
Rob shook his head.
“Ah, you’re thinking about poor young Jovanni, sir,” said Shaddy sadly, “and you mustn’t. It won’t do him no good, nor you neither. ”

“ He raised his head as well as he could, turned his haggard face full upon Shadrach, and glaring at him from his hollow blood-shot eyes, said,
“Shadrach, I am going to die, and it’s because I can’t get any water. If you don’t go and bring me a pitcher of water, after I’m dead I’ll come back and HAUNT you! I’ll HAUNT you as long as you live!” ”

“ The truth then flashed upon the mind of Sadoc, and when he related to his brother the history of the hen, it was as clear to their minds as to his own, that it was to her that his father’s prediction related, and that this was the bird that was to bring such riches to the family. They saw that honesty, and a careful attention to duty, was more likely to bring a man to prosperity at last, than roguery and selfishness. ”

“ Rob suggested it and Shaddy replied angrily:
“Look here, youngster, if ever you want a nickname call yourself Wet Blanket. What a fellow you are for making the worst of everything! Some one lay down to rest here, didn’t he?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“And I’m sure. Now look at the places where the flowers have been snapped off. I know what you’re saying to yourself: ‘wild beast or Indian!’ Now, I ask you, sir, as a young English gent who has been to school and can read and write, do wild beasts and Indians go about picking flowers or collecting anything that isn’t good to eat?” ”

“ A sickening nausea overtook Shad, and he sank upon his toboggan, faint and dizzy with an overpowering weakness. His imagination was getting the better of him.
It is always dangerous and sometimes fatal for one to permit the imagination to assert itself in seasons of peril. Will power to put away thoughts of to-morrow, to think only of to-day, to do to-day the thing which necessity requires, coupled with a determination never to abandon hope, is a paramount essential for the successful explorer to possess. ”

“ That same afternoon after a quiet discussion of their position, the result of which was to convince Brazier and Rob of the utter hopelessness of any attempt to escape, they joined with Shaddy in the most sensible thing they could do, namely, an attempt to forget their sorrow and misery in hard work.
“If we want to be healthy,” Shadrach had said, “we must first thing get a shelter over our heads where we can sleep at nights, clear of the heavy dews, and which we can have ready next time it comes on to rain.” ”

“ In one of these lay Sadoc, the son of Imri. He had toiled at the oar with his companions during part of the night. About the fourth watch he became weary, and giving his place to another, he retired to the stern, to watch in stillness the event of the storm. He was chilled by the spray which dashed over him, and his soul was awed by the roaring of the winds and waters. He looked towards the east; the dawn was there, but it brightened not; and the dim grey light only shewed the white surges as they broke against the sides of the vessel. ”

“ As he spoke he moved off in the direction pointed out by their guide, while Shaddy chuckled directly they were alone.
“That’s the way, Mr Rob,” he said; “give him something to think about and make him busy. ‘A merry heart goes all the day; a sad one tires in a mile,’ so the old song says. Mind, I don’t mean he’s merry, but he’ll be busy, and that’s next door to it. Now then, I’m ready. Let’s get the string on and bend our bow.” ”

“ But tell me further, O Zadok, is it possible for me to see this queen whom my father turned to stone?”
“Nothing is easier,” said Zadok.
“Then,” said the young man, “I command you to take me to where she is, so that I may see her with mine own eyes.”
“I hear and obey,” said the Demon.
He seized the young man by the girdle, and in an instant flew away with him to a hanging-garden that lay before the queen’s palace.
“Thou art the first man,” said Zadok, “who has seen what thou art about to see for seven-and-thirty years. ”

“ Perhaps if you were fenced in on Two, you might break out toward Fourteen!"
"Frank! Please don't be unkind—and unfair. . . . . . . . I am thinking about Spoof, and it is just because he is not bounded by section Two. You and Jack and Jake think he's a greenhorn, and you play your silly little tricks on him, but his world is the world, and yours is Fourteen, and Jack's is Twenty-two, and Jake's is—whatever his section is. He's so big, so big!"
"I see. Spoof has travelled more than we have. He has seen more of the world. He has met more people. And so he is big! ”

“ Still, in the light of the trader's blunt philosophy, and of his own assurance that he was no fool, Shefford felt it incumbent upon him to accept a belief that there were situations no man could resist without an anchor. The ingenuity of man could not have devised a stranger, a more enticing, a more overpoweringly fatal situation. Fatal in that it could not be left untried! Shefford gave in and clicked his teeth as he let himself go. And suddenly he thought of her whom these bitter women called the Sago Lily. ”

“ If he’s alive still you couldn’t reach him that way.”
“If he’s alive!” groaned Rob.
“If he’s alive,” said Shaddy, repeating his words. “Steady a moment! He may be up in one of the boughs, for he’s as active as a monkey in rigging and trees.” ”

“ I have done all things, whatever powers I had I have expended and have drained, nothing I see have I prevailed; all my labour hath been spent out, sorrow hath remained. How then shall my heart rest from such men, except I say, “Who shall give me wings?” “As to a dove,” however, not as to a raven. A dove seeketh a flying away from troubles, but she loseth not love. For a dove as a type of love is set forth, and in her the plaint is loved. Nothing is so fond of plaints as a dove: day and night she complaineth, as though she were set here where she ought to complain. ”

“ The King of the Demons of the Earth, a great and hideous monster, named Zadok, was his servant, and came and went as Aben Hassen the Wise ordered, and did as he bade. After Aben Hassen learned all that it was possible for man to know, he said to himself, “Now I will take my ease and enjoy my life.” So he called the Demon Zadok to him, and said to the monster, “I have read in my books that there is a treasure that was one time hidden by the ancient kings of Egypt—a treasure such as the eyes of man never saw before or since their day. ”

“ By him I was made acquainted with several others belonging to the same gang, and on his guarantee of my trustworthiness, they talked freely before me.
One day Shadow was brought forcibly to my mind by a chance remark dropped by one of my new friends.
"Have you seen the young chap we've got in the Black Hole?"
This was the remark.
Could they mean Shadow?
At once I pricked up my ears.
"No," was the reply. "I want to see him, though. What does he look like?"
"A young fellow with a smooth face, not more than eighteen, and slender as a girl."
It tallied with Shadow's appearance. ”