Black Ivory Part 33

Soon afterwards the lake was reached. A large dhow was in readiness, the gang was embarked and ferried across to a place where several rude buildings and barrac.o.o.ns, with a few tents, indicated that it was one of the inland headquarters of the trade in Black Ivory.

The moment our travellers landed Marizano led them to one of the nearest buildings, and introduced them to his master.

"Yoosoof!" exclaimed Disco in a shout of astonishment.

It would have been a difficult question to have decided which of the three faces displayed the most extreme surprise. Perhaps Disco's would have been awarded the palm, but Yoosoof was undoubtedly the first to regain his self-possession.

"You be surprised," he said, in his _very_ broken English, while his pale-yellow visage resumed its placid gravity of expression.

"Undoubtedly we are," said Harold.

"Bu'stin'!" exclaimed Disco.

"You would be not so mush surprised,--did you know dat I comes to here every year, an' dat Engleesh consul ask me for 'quire about you."

"If that be so, how comes it that _you_ were surprised to see us?" asked Harold.

"'Cause why, I only knows dat some white mans be loss theirselfs--not knows _what_ mans--not knows it was _you_."

"Well now," cried Disco, unable to restrain himself as he turned to Harold, "did ever two unfortnits meet wi' sitch luck? Here have we bin'

obliged for days to keep company with the greatest Portugee villian in the country, an' now we're needcessitated to be under a obligation to the greatest Arab scoundrel in Afriky."

The scoundrel in question smiled and shrugged his shoulders.

"Yoosoof," cried Disco, clenching his fist and looking full in the trader's eyes, "when I last saw yer ugly face, I vowed that if ever I seed it again I'd leave my mark on it pretty deep, I did; and now I does see it again, but I haven't the moral courage to touch sitch a poor, pitiful, shrivelled-up package o' bones an' half-tanned leather.

Moreover, I'm goin' to be indebted to 'ee! Ha! ha!" (he laughed bitterly, and with a dash of wild humour in the tone), "to travel under yer care, an' eat yer accursed bread, and--and--oh! there ain't no sitch thing as shame left in my corpus. I'm a low mean-spirited boastful idiot, that's wot _I_ am, an' I don't care the f.a.g-end of a hunk o'

gingerbread who knows it."

After this explosion the sorely tried mariner brought his right hand down on his thigh with a tremendous crack, turned about and walked away to cool himself.

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

PROGRESS OF THE SLAVE-RUN--THE DEADLY SWAMP, AND THE UNEXPECTED RESCUE.

We will now leap over a short period of time--about two or three weeks-- during which the sable procession had been winding its weary way over hill and dale, plain and swamp.

During that comparatively brief period, Harold and Disco had seen so much cruelty and suffering that they both felt a strange tendency to believe that the whole must be the wild imaginings of a horrible dream.

Perhaps weakness, resulting from illness, might have had something to do with this peculiar feeling of unbelief, for both had been subject to a second, though slight, attack of fever. Nevertheless, coupled with their scepticism was a contradictory and dreadful certainty that they were not dreaming, but that what they witnessed was absolute verity.

It is probable that if they had been in their ordinary health and vigour they would have made a violent attempt to rescue the slaves, even at the cost of their own lives. But severe and prolonged illness often unhinges the mind as well as the body, and renders the spirit all but impotent.

One sultry evening the sad procession came to a long stretch of swamp, and prepared to cross it. Although already thinned by death, the slave-gang was large. It numbered several hundreds, and was led by Marizano; Yoosoof having started some days in advance in charge of a similar gang.

Harold and Disco were by that time in the habit of walking together in front of the gang, chiefly for the purpose of avoiding the sight of cruelties and woes which they were powerless to prevent or a.s.suage. On reaching the edge of the swamp, however, they felt so utterly wearied and dis-spirited that they sat down on a bank to rest, intending to let the slave-gang go into the swamp before them and then follow in rear.

Antonio and Jumbo also remained with them.

"You should go on in front," said Marizano significantly, on observing their intention.

"Tell him we'll remain where we are," said Disco sternly to Antonio.

Marizano shrugged his shoulders and left them.

The leading men of the slave-gang were ordered to advance, as soon as the armed guard had commenced the toilsome march over ground into which they sank knee-deep at every step.

The first man of the gang hesitated and heaved a deep sigh as though his heart failed him at the prospect--and well it might, for, although young, he was not robust, and over-driving, coupled with the weight and the chafing of the goree, had worn him to a skeleton.

It was not the policy of the slave-traders to take much care of their Black Ivory. They procured it so cheaply that it was easier and more profitable to lose or cast away some of it, than to put off time in resting and recruiting the weak.

The moment it was observed, therefore, that the leading man hesitated, one of the drivers gave him a slash across his naked back with a heavy whip which at once drew blood. Poor wretch; he could ill bear further loss of the precious stream of life, for it had already been deeply drained from him by the slave-stick. The chafing of that instrument of torture had not only worn the skin off his shoulders, but had cut into the quivering flesh, so that blood constantly dropped in small quant.i.ties from it.

No cry burst from the man's lips on receiving the cruel blow, but he turned his eyes on his captors with a look that seemed to implore for mercy. As well might he have looked for mercy at the hands of Satan.

The lash again fell on him with stinging force. He made a feeble effort to advance, staggered, and fell to the ground, dragging down the man to whom he was coupled with such violence as almost to break his neck. The lash was again about to be applied to make him rise, but Disco and Harold rose simultaneously and rushed at the driver, with what intent they scarcely knew; but four armed half-castes stepped between them and the slave.

"You had better not interfere," said Marizano, who stood close by.

"Out of the way!" cried Harold fiercely, in the strength of his pa.s.sion hurling aside the man who opposed him.

"You shan't give him another cut," said Dis...o...b..tween his teeth, as he seized the driver by the throat.

"We don't intend to do so," said Marizano coolly, while the driver released himself from poor Disco's weakened grasp, "he won't need any more."

The Englishmen required no explanation of these words. A glance told them that the man was dying.

"Cut him out," said Marizano.

One of his men immediately brought a saw and cut the fork of the stick which still held the living to the dying man, and which, being riveted on them, could not otherwise be removed.

Harold and Disco lifted him up as soon as he was free, and carrying him a short distance aside to a soft part of the bank, laid him gently down.

The dying slave looked as if he were surprised at such unwonted tenderness. There was even a slight smile on his lips for a few moments, but it quickly pa.s.sed away with the fast ebbing tide of life.

"Go fetch some water," said Harold. "His lips are dry."

Disco rose and ran to fill a small cocoa-nut-sh.e.l.l which he carried at his girdle as a drinking-cup. Returning with it he moistened the man's lips and poured a little of the cool water on the raw sores on each side of his neck.

They were so much engrossed with their occupation that neither of them observed that the slave-gang had commenced to pa.s.s through the swamp, until the sharp cry of a child drew their attention to it for a moment; but, knowing that they could do no good, they endeavoured to shut their eyes and ears to everything save the duty they had in hand.

By degrees the greater part of the long line had got into the swamp and were slowly toiling through it under the stimulus of the lash. Some, like the poor fellow who first fell, had sunk under their acc.u.mulated trials, and after a fruitless effort on the part of the slavers to drive them forward, had been kicked aside into the jungle, there to die, or to be torn in pieces by that ever-watchful scavenger of the wilderness, the hyena. These were chiefly women, who having become mothers not long before were unable to carry their infants and keep up with the gang.

Others, under the intense dread of flagellation, made the attempt, and staggered on a short distance, only to fall and be left behind in the pestilential swamp, where rank reeds and gra.s.s closed over them and formed a ready grave.

The difficulties of the swamp were, however, felt most severely by the children, who, from little creatures of not much more than five years of age to well-grown boys and girls, were mingled with and chained to the adults along the line. Their comparatively short legs were not well adapted for such ground, and not a few of them perished there; but although the losses here were terribly numerous in one sense, they after all bore but a small proportion to those whose native vigour carried them through in safety.

Among the men there were some whose strength of frame and fierce expression indicated untameable spirits--men who might have been, probably were, heroes among their fellows. It was for men of this stamp that the _goree_, or slave-stick, had been invented, and most effectually did that instrument serve its purpose. Samson himself would have been a mere child in it.

There were men in the gang quite as bold, if not as strong, as Samson.

One of these, a very tall and powerful negro, on drawing near to the place where Marizano stood superintending the pa.s.sage, turned suddenly aside, and, although coupled by the neck to a fellow-slave, and securely bound at the wrists with a cord, which was evidently cutting into his swelled flesh, made a desperate kick at the half-caste leader.