Dick Sands, the Boy Captain Part 34

"Well, my young friend, how are you? I am glad to see you again."

He turned round quickly. Harris stood before him.

"Where is Mrs. Weldon?" asked d.i.c.k impetuously.

"Ah, poor thing!" answered Harris, with an air of deep commiseration.

"What! is she dead?" d.i.c.k almost shrieked; "where is her child?"

"Poor little fellow!" said Harris, in the same mournful tone.

These insinuations, that those in whose welfare he was so deeply interested had succ.u.mbed to the hardships of the journey, awoke in d.i.c.k's mind a sudden and irresistible desire for vengeance. Darting forwards he seized the cutla.s.s that Harris wore in his belt, and plunged it into his heart.

With a yell and a curse, the American fell dead at his feet.

CHAPTER X.

MARKET-DAY.

So sudden was d.i.c.k's action that it had been impossible to parry his blow. Several of the natives rushed on him, and in all likelihood would have struck him down upon the spot had not Negoro arrived at that very moment. At a sign from him the natives drew back, and proceeded to raise and carry away Harris's corpse.

Alvez and Combra were urgent in their demand that d.i.c.k should forthwith be punished by death, but Negoro whispered to them that they would a.s.suredly be the gainers by delay, and they accordingly contented themselves with ordering the youth to be placed under strict supervision.

This was the first time that d.i.c.k had set eyes upon Negoro since he had left the coast; nevertheless, so heartbroken was he at the intelligence he had just received, that he did not deign to address a word to the man whom he knew to be the real author of all his misery. He cared not now what became of him.

Loaded with chains, he was placed in the dungeon where Alvez was accustomed to confine slaves who had been condemned to death for mutiny or violence. That he had no communication with the outer world gave him no concern; he had avenged the death of those for whose safety he had felt himself responsible, and could now calmly await the fate which he could not doubt was in store for him; he did not dare to suppose that he had been temporarily spared otherwise than that he might

[Ill.u.s.tration: Accompanied by Combra, Alvez himself was one of the first arrivals.]

suffer the cruellest tortures that native ingenuity could devise. That the "Pilgrim's" cook now held in his power the boy captain he so thoroughly hated was warrant enough that the sternest possible measure of vengeance would be exacted.

Two days later, the great market, the lakoni, commenced. Although many of the princ.i.p.al traders were there from the interior, it was by no means exclusively a slave-mart; a considerable proportion of the natives from the neighbouring provinces a.s.sembled to dispose of the various products of the country.

Quite early the great chitoka of Kazonnde was all alive with a bustling concourse of little under five thousand people, including the slaves of old Alvez, amongst whom were Tom and his three partners in adversity-an item by no means inconsiderable in the dealer's stock.

Accompanied by Combra, Alvez himself was one of the first arrivals. He was going to sell his slaves in lots to be conveyed in caravans into the interior. The dealers for the most part consisted of half-breeds from Ujiji, the princ.i.p.al market on Lake Tanganyika, whilst some of a superior cla.s.s were manifestly Arabs.

The natives that were a.s.sembled were of both s.e.xes, and of every variety of age, the women in particular displaying an apt.i.tude in making bargains that is shared by their sisters elsewhere of a lighter hue; and it may be said that no market of the most civilized region could be characterized by greater excitement or animation, for amongst the savages of Africa the customer makes his offer in equally noisy terms as the vendor.

The lakoni was always considered a kind of fete-day; consequently the natives of both s.e.xes, though their clothing was scanty in extent, made a point of appearing in a most lavish display of ornaments. Their head-gear was most remarkable. The men had their hair arranged in every variety of eccentric device; some had it divided into four parts, rolled over cushions and fastened into a chignon, or mounted in front into a bunch of tails adorned with red feathers; others plastered it thickly with a mixture of red mud and oil similar to that used for greasing machinery, and formed it into cones or lumps, into which they inserted a medley of iron pins and ivory skewers; whilst the greatest dandies had a gla.s.s bead threaded upon every single hair, the whole being fastened together by a tattooing-knife driven through the glittering ma.s.s.

As a general rule, the women preferred dressing their hair in little tufts about the size of a cherry, arranging it into the shape of a cap, with corkscrew ringlets on each side of the face. Some wore it simply hanging down their backs, others in French fashion, with a fringe across the forehead; but every coiffure, without exception, was daubed and caked either with the mixture of mud and grease, or with a bright red extract of sandal-wood called nkola.

But it was not only on their heads that they made this extraordinary display of ornaments; the lobes of their ears were loaded till they reached their shoulders with a profusion of wooden pegs, open-work copper rings, grains of maize, or little gourds, which served the purpose of snuff-boxes; their necks, arms, wrists, legs, and ankles were a perfect ma.s.s of bra.s.s and copper rings, or sometimes were covered with a lot of bright b.u.t.tons. Rows of red beads, called sames-sames, or talakas, seemed also very popular. As they had no pockets, they attached their knives, pipes and other articles to various parts of their body; so that altogether, in their holiday attire, the rich men of the district might not inappropriately be compared to walking shrines.

With their teeth they had all played the strangest of vagaries; the upper and lower incisors had generally been extracted, and the others had been filed to points or carved into hooks, like the fangs of a rattle-snake. Their fingernails were allowed to grow to such an immoderate length as to render the hands well-nigh useless, and their swarthy skins were tattooed with figures of trees, birds, crescents and discs, or, not unfrequently, with those zigzag lines which Livingstone thinks he recognizes as resembling those observed in ancient Egyptian drawings. The tattooing is effected by means of a blue substance inserted into incisions previously made in the skin. Every child is tattooed in precisely the same pattern as his father before him, and thus it may always be ascertained to what family he belongs. Instead of carrying his armorial bearings upon his plate or upon the panels of his carriage, the African magnate wears them emblazoned on his own bosom!

The garments that were usually worn were simply ap.r.o.ns of antelope-skins descending to the knees, but occasionally a short petticoat might be seen made of woven gra.s.s and dyed with bright colours. The ladies not unfrequently wore girdles of beads attached to green skirts embroidered with silk and ornamented with bits of gla.s.s or cowries, or sometimes the skirts were made of the gra.s.s cloth called lambda, which, in blue, yellow, or black, is so much valued by the people of Zanzibar.

Garments of these pretensions, however, always indicated that the wearers belonged to the upper cla.s.ses; the lower orders, such as the smaller dealers, as well as the slaves, had hardly any clothes at all.

The women commonly acted as porters, and arrived at the market with huge baskets on their backs, which they secured by means of straps pa.s.sed across the forehead. Having deposited their loads upon the chitoka, they turned out their goods, and then seated themselves inside the empty baskets.

As the result of the extreme fertility of the country all the articles offered for sale were of a first-rate quality. There were large stores of rice, which had been grown at a profit a hundred times as great as the cost, and maize which, producing three crops in eight months, yielded a profit as large again as the rice. There were also sesame, Urua pepper stronger than Cayenne, manioc, nutmegs, salt, and palm-oil. In the market, too, were hundreds of goats, pigs and sheep, evidently of a Tartar breed, with hair instead of wool; and there was a good supply of fish and poultry. Besides all these there was an attractive display of bright-coloured pottery, the designs of which were very symmetrical.

In shrill, squeaky voices, children were crying several varieties of native drinks; banana-wine, pombe, which, whatever it was, seemed to be in great demand; malofoo, a kind of beer compounded of bananas, and mead, a mixture of honey and water, fermented with malt.

But the most prominent feature in the whole market was the traffic in stuffs and ivory. The pieces could be counted by thousands of the unbleached mcrikani from Salem in Ma.s.sachusetts, of the blue cotton, kaniki, thirty-four inches wide, and of the checked sohari, blue and black with its scarlet border. More expensive than these were lots of silk diulis, with red, green, or yellow grounds, which are sold in lengths of three yards, at prices varying from seven dollars to eighty, when they are interwoven with gold.

The ivory had come from well-nigh every part of Central Africa, and was destined for Khartoom, Zanzibar, and Natal, many of the merchants dealing in this commodity exclusively.

How vast a number of elephants must be slaughtered to supply this ivory may be imagined when it is remembered that over 200 tons, that is, 1,125,000 lbs., are exported annually to Europe. Of this, much the larger share goes to England, where the Sheffield cutlery consumes about 382,500 lbs. From the West Coast of Africa alone the produce is nearly 140 tons.

The average weight of a pair of tusks is 28 lbs., and the ordinary value of these in 1874 would be about 60l.; but here in Kazonnde were some weighing no less than 165 lbs., of that soft, translucent quality which retains its whiteness far better than the ivory from other sources.

As already mentioned, slaves are not unfrequently used as current money amongst the African traders, but the natives themselves usually pay for their goods with Venetian gla.s.s beads, of which the chalk-white are called catchokolos, the black bubulus, and the red sikunderetches. Strung in ten rows, or khetes, these beads are twisted twice round the neck, forming what is called a foondo, which is always reckoned of considerable value.

The usual measure by which they are sold is the frasilah, containing a weight of about 70 lbs. Livingstone, Cameron and Stanley always took care to be well provided with this kind of currency. In default of beads, the pice, a Zanzibar coin worth something more than a farthing, and vioon-gooas, sh.e.l.ls peculiar to the East Coast, are recognized as a medium of exchange in the market. Amongst the cannibal tribes a certain value is attached to human teeth, and at the lakoni some natives might be seen wearing strings of teeth, the owners of which they had probably, at some previous time, devoured. This species of currency, however, was falling rapidly into disuse.

Towards the middle of the day the excitement of the market reached its highest pitch, and the uproar became perfectly deafening. The voices of the eager sellers mingled with those of indignant and overcharged customers; fights were numerous, and as there was an utter absence of any kind of police, no effort was made to restore peace or order amongst the unruly crowd.

It was just noon when Alvez gave orders that the slaves he wished to dispose of should be placed on view. Thereupon nearly two thousand unfortunates were brought forward, many of whom had been confined in the dealer's barracks for several months. Most of the stock, however, had been so carefully attended to that they were in good condition, and it was only the last batch that looked as if they would be improved by another month's rest; but as the demand upon the East Coast was now very large, Alvez hoped to get a good price for all, and determined to part with even the last arrivals for whatever sum he could obtain.

Amongst these latter, whom the havildars drove like a herd of cattle into the middle of the chitoka, were Tom and his three friends. They were closely chained, and rage and shame were depicted in their countenances.

Bat pa.s.sed a quick and scrutinizing gaze around him, and said to the others,-

"I do not see Mr. d.i.c.k."

Tom answered mournfully,-

"Mr. d.i.c.k will be killed, if he is not dead already. Our only hope is that we may now all be bought in one lot; it will be a consolation to us if we can be all together."

Tears rose to Bat's eyes as he thought of how his poor old father was likely to be sold, and carried away to wear out his days as a common slave.

The sale now commenced. The agents of Alvez proceeded to divide the slaves, men, women and children, into lots, treating them in no respect better than beasts in a cattle-market. Tom and the others were paraded about from customer to customer, an agent accompanying them to proclaim the price demanded. Strong, intelligent-looking Americans, quite different to the miserable creatures brought from the banks of the Zambesi and Lualaba, they at once attracted the observation of the Arab and half-breed dealers. Just as though they were examining a horse, the buyers felt their limbs, turned them round and round, looked at their teeth, and finally tested their paces by throwing a stick to a distance and making them run to fetch it.

All the slaves were subjected to similar humiliations; and ail alike, except the very young children, seemed deeply sensible of their degradation. The cruelty exhibited towards them was very vile. Combra, who was half drunk, treated them with the utmost brutality; not that they had any reason to expect any gentler dealings at the hands of the new masters who might purchase them for ivory or any other commodity. Children were torn away from their parents, husbands from their wives, brothers from sisters, and without even the indulgence of a parting word, were separated never to meet again.

The scenes that occur at such markets as this at Kazonnde are too heartrending to be described in detail.

It is one of the peculiar requirements of the slave-trade that the two s.e.xes should have an entirely different destination. In fact, the dealers who purchase men never purchase women. The women, who are required to supply the Mussulman harems, are sent princ.i.p.ally to Arab districts to be exchanged for ivory; whilst the men, who are to be put to hard labour, are despatched to the coast, East and West, whence they are exported to the Spanish colonies, or to the markets of Muscat or Madagascar.

To Tom and his friends the prospect of being transported to a slave colony was far better than that of being retained in some Central African province, where they could have no chance of regaining their liberty; and the moment, to them, was accordingly one of great suspense.

Altogether, things turned out for them better than they dared antic.i.p.ate. They had at least the satisfaction of finding that as yet they were not to be separated. Alvez, of course, had taken good care to conceal the origin of this exceptional lot, and their own ignorance of the language thoroughly prevented them from communicating it; but the anxiety to secure so valuable a property rendered the compet.i.tion for it very keen; the bidding rose higher and higher, until at length the four men were knocked down to a rich Arab dealer, who purposed in the course of a few days to take them to Lake Tanganyika, and thence to one of the deptos of Zanzibar.

This journey, it is true, would be for 1500 miles across the most unhealthy parts of Central Africa, through districts hara.s.sed by internal wars; and it seemed improbable that Tom could survive the hardships he must meet; like poor old Nan, he would succ.u.mb to fatigue; but the brave fellows did not suffer themselves to fear the future, they were only too happy to be still together; and the chain that bound them one to another was felt to be easier and lighter to bear.

Their new master knew that it was for his own interest that his purchase should be well taken care of; he looked to make a substantial profit at Zanzibar, and sent them off at once to his own private barracks; consequently they saw no more of what transpired at Kazonnde.

CHAPTER XI.