Jules Verne For Children: 16 Incredible Tales of Mystery, Courage & Adventure (Illustrated Edition). Jules Verne
the native language furnishes with so much prodigality.
Did the clouds cease to rise on the eastern horizon and veil the tropical sun? Did they vanish before the exorcisms of this new wizard? No. And just at this moment, when the queen and her people imagined that they had appeased the evil spirits that had watered them with so many showers, the sky, somewhat clear since daybreak, became darker than ever. Large drops of rain fell pattering on the ground.
Then a sudden change took place in the crowd. They then saw that this sorcerer was worth no more than the others. The queen’s brows were frowning. They understood that he at least was in danger of losing his ears. The natives had contracted the circle around him; fists threatened him, and they were about to punish him, when an unforeseen incident changed the object of their evil intentions.
The magician, who overlooked the whole yelling crowd, stretched his arms toward one spot in the enclosure. The gesture was so imperious that all turned to look at it.
Mrs. Weldon and little Jack, attracted by the noise and the clamor, had just left their hut. The magician, with an angry gesture, had pointed to them with his left hand, while his right was raised toward the sky.
They! it was they! It was this white woman—it was her child—they were causing all this evil. They had brought these clouds from their rainy country, to inundate the territories of Kazounde.
It was at once understood. Queen Moini, pointing to Mrs. Weldon, made a threatening gesture. The natives, uttering still more terrible cries, rushed toward her.
Mrs. Weldon thought herself lost, and clasping her son in her arms, she stood motionless as a statue before this over-excited crowd.
The magician went toward her. The natives stood aside in the presence of this wizard, who, with the cause of the evil, seemed to have found the remedy.
The trader, Alvez, knowing that the life of the prisoner was precious, now approached, not being sure of what he ought to do.
The magician had seized little Jack, and snatching him from his mother’s arms, he held him toward the sky. It seemed as if he were about to dash the child to the earth, so as to appease the gods.
With a terrible cry, Mrs. Weldon fell to the ground insensible.
But the magician, after having made a sign to the queen, which no doubt reassured her as to his intentions, raised the unhappy mother, and while the crowd, completely subdued, parted to give him space, he carried her away with her child.
Alvez was furious, not expecting this result. After having lost one of the three prisoners, to see the prize confided to his care thus escape, and, with the prize, the large bribe promised him by Negoro! Never! not if the whole territory of Kazounde were submerged by a new deluge! He tried to oppose this abduction.
The natives now began to mutter against him. The queen had him seized by her guards, and, knowing what it might cost him, the trader was forced to keep quiet, while cursing the stupid credulity of Queen Moini’s subjects.
The savages, in fact, expected to see the clouds disappear with those who had brought them, and they did not doubt that the magician would destroy the scourge, from which they suffered so much, in the blood of the strangers.
Meanwhile, the magician carried off his victims as a lion would a couple of kids which did not satisfy his powerful appetite. Little Jack was terrified, his mother was unconscious. The crowd, roused to the highest degree of fury, escorted the magician with yells; but he left the enclosure, crossed Kazounde, and reentered the forest, walking nearly three miles, without resting for a moment. Finally he was alone, the natives having understood that he did not wish to be followed. He arrived at the bank of a river, whose rapid current flowed toward the north.
There, at the end of a large opening, behind the long, drooping branches of a thicket which hid the steep bank, was moored a canoe, covered by a sort of thatch.
The magician lowered his double burden into the boat, and following himself, shoved out from the bank, and the current rapidly carried them down the stream. The next minute he said, in a very distinct voice:
“Captain, here are Mrs. Weldon and little Jack; I present them to you. Forward. And may all the clouds in heaven fall on those idiots of Kazounde!”
CHAPTER XVII
Drifting.
It was Hercules, not easily recognized in his magician’s attire, who was speaking thus, and it was Dick Sand whom he was addressing—Dick Sand, still feeble enough, to lean on Cousin Benedict, near whom Dingo was lying.
Mrs. Weldon, who had regained consciousness, could only pronounce these words:
“You! Dick! You!”
The young novice rose, but already Mrs. Weldon was pressing him in her arms, and Jack was lavishing caresses on him.
“My friend Dick! my friend Dick!” repeated the little boy. Then, turning to Hercules: “And I,” he added, “I did not know you!”
“Hey! what a disguise!” replied Hercules, rubbing his breast to efface the variety of colors that striped it.
“You were too ugly!” said little Jack.
“Bless me! I was the devil, and the devil is not handsome.”
“Hercules!” said Mrs. Weldon, holding out her hand to the brave black.
“He has delivered you,” added Dick Sand, “as he has saved me, though he will not allow it.”
“Saved! saved! We are not saved yet!” replied Hercules. “And besides, without Mr. Benedict, who came to tell us where you were, Mrs. Weldon, we could not have done anything.”
In fact, it was Hercules who, five days before, had jumped upon the savant at the moment when, having been led two miles from the factory, the latter was running in pursuit of his precious manticore. Without this incident, neither Dick Sand nor the black would have known Mrs. Weldon’s retreat, and Hercules would not have ventured to Kazounde in a magician’s dress.
While the boat drifted with rapidity in this narrow part of the river, Hercules related what had passed since his flight from the camp on the Coanza; how, without being seen, he had followed the kitanda in which Mrs. Weldon and her son were; how he had found Dingo wounded; how the two had arrived in the neighborhood of Kazounde; how a note from Hercules, carried by the dog, told Dick Sand what had become of Mrs. Weldon; how, after the unexpected arrival of Cousin Benedict, he had vainly tried to make his way into the factory, more carefully guarded than ever; how, at last, he had found this opportunity of snatching the prisoner from that horrible Jose-Antonio Alvez. Now, this opportunity had offered itself that same day. A mgannga, or magician, on his witchcraft circuit, that celebrated magician so impatiently expected, was passing through the forest in which Hercules roamed every night, watching, waiting, ready for anything.
To spring upon the magician, despoil him of his baggage, and of his magician’s vestments, to fasten him to the foot of a tree with liane knots that the Davenports themselves could not have untied, to paint his body, taking the sorcerer’s for a model, and to act out his character in charming and controlling the rains, had been the work of several hours. Still, the incredible credulity of the natives was necessary for his success.
During this recital, given rapidly by Hercules, nothing concerning Dick Sand had been mentioned.
“And you, Dick!” asked Mrs. Weldon.
“I, Mrs. Weldon!” replied the young man. “I can tell you nothing. My last thought was for you, for Jack! I tried in vain to break the cords that fastened me to the stake. The water rose over my head. I lost consciousness. When I came to myself, I was sheltered in a hole, concealed by the papyrus of this bank,