Black Ivory Part 28

STRONG MEASURES LEAD TO UNEXPECTED DISCOVERIES.

"I'm terribly worried and perplexed," said Lieutenant Lindsay one afternoon to Midshipman Midgley, as they were creeping along the coast in the neighbourhood of Cape Dalgado.

"Why so?" inquired the middy.

"Because I can learn nothing whatever about the movements of Marizano,"

replied the Lieutenant. "I have not spoken to you about this man hitherto, because--because--that is to say--the fact is, it wasn't worth while, seeing that you know no more about him than I do, perhaps not so much. But I can't help thinking that we might have learned something about him by this time, only our interpreter is such an unmitigated a.s.s, he seems to understand nothing--to pick up nothing."

"Indeed!" exclaimed the midshipman; "I'm surprised to hear you say so, because I heard Suliman whispering last night with that half-caste fellow whom we captured along with the other n.i.g.g.e.rs, and I am confident that he mentioned the name of Marizano several times."

"Did he? Well now, the rascal invariably looks quite blank when I mention Marizano's name, and shakes his head, as if he had never heard of it before."

"Couldn't you intimidate him into disgorging a little of his knowledge?"

suggested Midgley, with an arch look.

"I have thought of that," replied Lindsay, with a frown. "Come, it's not a bad idea; I'll try! Hallo! Suliman, come aft, I want you."

Lieutenant Lindsay was one of those men who are apt to surprise people by the precipitancy of their actions. He was not, indeed, hasty; but when his mind was made up he was not slow in proceeding to action. It was so on the present occasion, to the consternation of Suliman, who had hitherto conceived him to be rather a soft easy-going man.

"Suliman," he said, in a low but remarkably firm tone of voice, "you know more about Marizano than you choose to tell me. Now," he continued, gazing into the Arab's cold grey eyes, while he pulled a revolver from his coat-pocket and c.o.c.ked it, "I intend to make you tell me all you know about him, or to blow your brains out."

He moved the pistol gently as he spoke, and placed his forefinger on the trigger.

"I not know," began Suliman, who evidently did not believe him to be quite in earnest; but before the words had well left his lips the drum of his left ear was almost split by the report of the pistol, and a part of his turban was blown away.

"You don't know? very well," said Lindsay, rec.o.c.king the pistol, and placing the cold muzzle of it against the Arab's yellow nose.

This was too much for Suliman. He grew pale, and suddenly fell on his knees.

"Oh! stop! no--no! not fire! me tell you 'bout 'im."

"Good, get up and do so," said the Lieutenant, unc.o.c.king the revolver, and returning it to his pocket; "and be sure that you tell me all, else your life won't be worth the value of the damaged turban on your head."

With a good deal of trepidation the alarmed interpreter thereupon gave Lindsay all the information he possessed in regard to the slaver, which amounted to this, that he had gone to Kilwa, where he had collected a band of slaves sufficient to fill a large dhow, with which he intended, in two days more, to sail, in company with a fleet of slavers, for the north.

"Does he intend to touch at Zanzibar?" inquired Lindsay.

"Me tink no," replied the interpreter; "got many pritty garls--go straight for Persia."

On hearing this the Lieutenant put the cutter about, and sailed out to sea in search of the `Firefly,' which he knew could not at that time be at any great distance from the sh.o.r.e.

He found her sooner than he had expected; and, to his immense astonishment as well as joy, one of the first persons he beheld on stepping over the side of his ship was Azinte.

"You have captured Marizano, sir, I see," he said to Captain Romer.

"Not the scoundrel himself, but one of his dhows," replied the Captain.

"He had started for the northern ports with two heavily-laden vessels.

We discovered him five days ago, and, fortunately, just beyond the protected water, so that he was a fair and lawful prize. The first of his dhows, being farthest out from sh.o.r.e, we captured, but the other, commanded by himself, succeeded in running ash.o.r.e, and he escaped; with nearly all his slaves--only a few of the women and children being drowned in the surf. And now, as our cargo of poor wretches is pretty large, I shall run for the Seych.e.l.les. After landing them I shall return as fast as possible, to intercept a few more of these pirates."

"To the Seych.e.l.les!" muttered the Lieutenant to himself as he went below, with an expression on his countenance something between surprise and despair.

Poor Lindsay! His mind was so taken up with, and confused by, the constant and obtrusive presence of the Senhorina Maraquita that the particular turn which affairs had taken had not occurred to him, although that turn was quite natural, and by no means improbable.

Marizano, with Azinte on board of one of his piratical dhows, was proceeding to the north. Captain Romer, with his war-steamer, was on the look-out for piratical dhows. What more natural than that the Captain should fall in with the pirate? But Lieutenant Lindsay's mind had been so filled with Maraquita that it seemed to be, for the time, incapable of holding more than one other idea--that idea was the fulfilment of Maraquita's commands to obtain information as to her lost Azinte. To this he had of late devoted all his powers, happy in the thought that it fell in with and formed part of his duty, to his Queen and country, as well as to the "Queen of his soul." To rescue Azinte from Marizano seemed to the bold Lieutenant an easy enough matter; but to rescue her from his own Captain, and send her back into slavery!

"a.s.s! that I am," he exclaimed, "not to have thought of this before. Of course she can _never_ be returned to Maraquita, and small comfort it will be to the Senhorina to be told that her favourite is free in the Seych.e.l.les Islands, and utterly beyond her reach, unless she chooses to go there and stay with her."

Overwhelmed with disgust at his own stupidity, and at the utter impossibility of doing anything to mend matters, the unfortunate Lieutenant sat down to think, and the result of his thinking was that he resolved at all events to look well after Azinte, and see that she should be cared for on her arrival at the Seych.e.l.les.

Among the poor creatures who had been rescued from Marizano's dhow were nearly a hundred children, in such a deplorable condition that small hopes were entertained of their reaching the island alive. Their young lives, however, proved to be tenacious. Experienced though their hardy rescuers were in rough and tumble work, they had no conception what these poor creatures had already gone through, and, therefore, formed a mistaken estimate of their powers of endurance. Eighty-three of them reached the Seych.e.l.les alive. They were placed under the care of a warm-hearted missionary, who spared no pains for their restoration to health; but despite his utmost efforts, forty of these eventually died-- their little frames had been whipped, and starved, and tried to such an extent, that recovery was impossible.

To the care of this missionary Lieutenant Lindsay committed Azinte, telling him as much of her sad story as he was acquainted with. The missionary willingly took charge of her, and placed her as a nurse in the temporary hospital which he had inst.i.tuted for the little ones above referred to. Here Azinte proved herself to be a most tender, affectionate, and intelligent nurse to the poor children, for whom she appeared to entertain particular regard, and here, on the departure of the `Firefly' shortly afterwards, Lindsay left her in a state of comfort, usefulness, and comparative felicity.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

DESCRIBES SOME OF THE DOINGS OF YOOSOOF AND HIS MEN IN PROCURING BLACK IVORY FROM THE INTERIOR OF AFRICA.

A dirty shop, in a filthy street in the unhealthy town of Zanzibar, is the point to which we now beg leave to conduct our reader--whom we also request to leap, in a free and easy way, over a few months of time!

It is not for the sake of the shop that we make this leap, but for the purpose of introducing the two men who, at the time we write of, sat over their grog in a small back-room connected with that shop. Still the shop itself is not altogether unworthy of notice. It is what the Americans call a store--a place where you can purchase almost every article that the wants of man have called into being. The prevailing smells are of oil, sugar, tea, mola.s.ses, paint, and tar, a compound which confuses the discriminating powers of the nose, and, on the principle that extremes meet, removes the feeling of surprise that ought to be aroused by discovering that these odours are in close connexion with haberdashery and hardware. There are enormous casks, puncheons, and kegs on the floor; bales on the shelves; indescribable confusion in the corners; preserved meat tins piled to the ceiling; with dust and dirt encrusting everything. The walls, beams, and rafters, appear to be held together by means of innumerable cobwebs. Hosts of flies fatten on, without diminishing, the stock, and squadrons of c.o.c.kroaches career over the earthen floor.

In the little back-room of this shop sat the slave-dealer Yoosoof, in company with the captain of an English ship which lay in the harbour.

Smoke from the captain's pipe filled the little den to such an extent that Yoosoof and his friend were not so clearly distinguishable as might have been desired.

"You're all a set of false-hearted, wrong-headed, low-minded, scoundrels," said the plain-spoken captain, accompanying each a.s.severation with a puff so violent as to suggest the idea that his remarks were round-shot and his mouth a cannon.

The Briton was evidently not in a complimentary mood. It was equally evident that Yoosoof was not in a touchy vein, for he smiled the slightest possible smile and shrugged his shoulders. He had business to transact with the captain which was likely to result very much to his advantage, and Yoosoof was not the man to let feelings stand in the way of business.

"Moreover," pursued the captain, in a gruff voice, "the trade in slaves is illegally conducted in one sense, namely, that it is largely carried on by British subjects."

"How you make that out?" asked Yoosoof.

"How? why, easy enough. Aren't the richest men in Zanzibar the Banyans, and don't these Banyans, who number about 17,000 of your population, supply you Arabs with money to carry on the accursed slave-trade? And ain't these Banyans Indian merchants--subjects of Great Britain?"

Yoosoof shrugged his shoulders again and smiled.

"And don't these opulent rascals," continued the Briton, "love their ease as well as their money, and when they want to increase the latter without destroying the former, don't they make advances to the like of you and get 100 per cent out of you for every dollar advanced?"

Yoosoof nodded his head decidedly at this, and smiled again.

"Well, then, ain't the whole lot of you a set of mean scoundrels?" said the captain fiercely.

Yoosoof did not smile at this; he even looked for a moment as if he were going to resent it, but it was only for a moment. Self-interest came opportunely to his aid, and made him submissive.

"What can we do?" he asked after a short silence. "You knows what the Sultan say, other day, to one British officer, `If you stop slave-trade you will ruin Zanzibar.' We mus' not do that. Zanzibar mus' not be ruin."

"Why not?" demanded the captain, with a look of supreme contempt, "what if Zanzibar _was_ ruined? Look here, now, Yoosoof, your dirty little island--the whole island observe--is not quite the size of my own Scotch county of Lanark. Its population is short of 250,000 all told--scarce equal to the half of the population of Lanark--composed of semi-barbarians and savages. That's one side of the question. Here's the other side: Africa is one of the four quarters of the earth, with millions of vigorous n.i.g.g.e.rs and millions of acres of splendid land, and no end of undeveloped resources, and you have the impudence to tell me that an enormous lump of this land must be converted into a desert, and something like 150,000 of its best natives be drawn off _annually_--for what?--for what?" repeated the sailor, bringing his fist down on the table before him with such force that the gla.s.ses danced on it and the dust flew up; "for what? I say; for a paltry, pitiful island, ruled by a sham sultan, without army or navy, and with little money, save what he gets by slave-dealing; an island which has no influence for good on the world, morally, religiously, or socially, and with little commercially, though it has much influence for evil; an island which has helped the Portuguese to lock up the east coast of Africa for centuries; an island which would not be missed--save as a removed curse--if it were sunk this night to the bottom of the sea, and all its selfish, sensual, slave-dealing population swept entirely off the face of the earth."