CHAPTER XXVIII

KIDNAPPED

"GOOD night's work that, Tiny, old bird," remarked Colin.

"Yes, you lucky beggar," agreed his chum enviously. "Of course, it's jolly sporting of you to divide your share, and I'm grateful. At the same time, 'tisn't the same, if you can understand. S'posing, for instance, it had been my lucky shot, you'd understand then."

"It was a jolly good thing I picked up those explosive cartridges by accident," conceded Sinclair. "It was a fluke--absolutely."

"Colonel Narfield would have been snuffed out if you hadn't," said Tiny. "The ordinary .303's had no more effect than tickling a wild cat with a straw. By Jove! I am sleepy ... aren't those niggers kicking up an infernal row?"

"Let's slow down a bit and miss most of the dust and noise," suggested Colin. "We can keep an eye on the bearers just as well, if not better."

Checking their horses, the two chums allowed the bearers to draw on ahead. It was a case of distance lending enchantment to the scene, as the early sunlight glinted on the muscular, copper skins of the wildly-excited natives.

"Ugh! The flies!" exclaimed Tiny. "That one nearly jumped down my throat. 'Tain't all jam being in the rear of a procession--eh, what?"

"I'm going to have the best piece of the ivory sawn off," declared Colin, ignoring his companion's complaint and reverting to the subject of the spoils of the chase. "Then I'll send it home to my people. And a chunk for Dr. Narfield, too. Probably the head will shove it in the school museum with a notice on it, 'Shot by an Old Boy,' sort of thing. My word, I'm jolly glad I came out here, aren't you?"

"Better'n fooling round in an office, any old day," declared Tiny. "More than likely I'd have been under the turf now if I'd stopped at home."

"And now you're quite fit," remarked his chum.

"Hope so," said Desmond. "There's one thing, I've lost that rotten cough .... Hullo! We're nearly into the forest. Hadn't we better hurry along a bit. If those niggers took it into their heads to do a bunk, you'd lose your ivory for a dead cert., old son."

"Half a mo!" exclaimed Colin. "My girth's slipping a bit. Hang on, old man."

Throwing his reins to his chum, Sinclair dismounted and deftly readjusted the slack girth. Then, climbing into the saddle, he urged his horse onwards.

By this time the rear of the column was nearly three hundred yards ahead and already in the shade of the dense foliage. The bearers, probably with the idea of keeping up their courage in the gloom, redoubled their shouts.

"What a contrast!" remarked Desmond as the two lads entered the forest. "After the glare I can hardly see a yard----"

His remarks were cut short in a totally unexpected manner. From a stout branch of a tree immediately overhead two hide ropes, terminating in running nooses, were dexterously dropped over the shoulders of the astonished lads.

Before they could utter a sound--even if they had, the din made by the native bearers would have deadened it--they were jerked out of the saddles and hauled aloft.

At the sudden tightening of the noose, Colin immediately relaxed his grip of the reins and instinctively made a frantic ineffectual grab at his slung rifle. The noose, pinning his arms tightly against his sides, rendered the attempt futile.

Like a shoulder of mutton hanging from a roasting-jack, Colin found himself being hoisted upwards, spinning round and round, and more than once colliding with his companion in misfortune.

The _coup_ had been neatly planned and dexterously executed. Strong, lithe, brown hands emerging from the leafy cover gripped the two lads, stifling their unheard shouts for aid. Other hands grasped their rifles, cutting the leather slings in order to disarm the kidnapped youths.

Then, bound hand and foot and effectually gagged, Colin and Tiny were laid at full length upon a broad branch thirty feet above the ground, with a dozen or more sinewy, active men keeping guard over the captives and others in the higher branches watching with much approval the deft work of their companions.

Then someone spoke in a tongue that neither Colin nor Tiny recognised, although by this time they had a useful smattering of the native dialects in use around Kilembonga.

There was no doubt about it--the man in charge of the kidnappers knew how to handle them. The discipline was perfect. Unlike most African natives, who can hardly ever carry out any work silently, these men maintained absolute quiet, moving with the precision and smoothness of a well-regulated machine.

Each captive was carefully lifted from branch to branch until they were at least eighty feet above the ground. During the operation the men took particular pains not to break off any of the foliage, methodically bending the twigs that hampered their progress, and not allowing any part of the captives' bodies or clothing to come in contact with the bark.

The next step was to pass the prisoners literally from hand to hand and from tree to tree, the close formation of the massive branches forming an almost continuous arboreal highway.

As fast as each native passed on his load he dropped to a lower branch and made his way to the front of the long line of bearers ready to renew his part in the endless human chain, so that at the end of an hour Colin and Desmond were at least two miles from the scene of their capture.

Here the party--captors and captives--descended to the ground. More natives were waiting with two hammock-like litters of woven grass. Into these Colin and Desmond were placed, no attempt being made to remove either their gags or their bonds.

Then at a rapid pace, but with the same orderly silence that characterised the opening stages of the operations, the natives moved off, the two litters being borne in the centre of the long double file.

At the end of a tedious journey, in which Colin calculated they had covered from ten to twelve miles, the _cortège_ halted in an open space, bounded on three sides by the forest, and on the fourth by a cliff rising sheer to a height of two thousand feet.

The gags were then removed and the prisoners' ankles freed, although their arms were still securely bound as before. Then into a vast circle of armed warriors Colin and his chum were led, to find themselves confronted by a gigantic man holding a gleaming axe of yellow metal. By his side was a pillar of wood, somewhat resembling the mediaeval executioner's block.

"If they've brought us all this way for the purpose of cutting off our heads," thought Colin, "all I can say is they've gone to a lot of unnecessary trouble. Tiny, old man," he added aloud, "for goodness' sake don't let them see we've got the wind up. Let them see we're Englishmen."