Dick Sands, the Boy Captain Part 38

"I refuse."

She had all the natural cravings of a woman and a wife, but so thoroughly was she aware of the treachery of the man she had to deal with, that she dreaded lest, as soon as he had touched the ransom, he would dispose of her husband altogether.

There was a short silence.

"You will write that letter," said Negoro.

"Never!" repeated Mrs. Weldon.

"Remember your child!"

Mrs. Weldon's heart beat violently, but she did not answer a word.

"I will give you a week to think over this," hissed out Negoro.

Mrs. Weldon was still silent.

"A week! I will come again in a week; you will do as I wish, or it will be the worse for you."

He gnashed his teeth, turned on his heel, and left the hut.

CHAPTER XIV.

A RAY OF HOPE.

Mrs. Weldon's first feeling on being left alone was a sense of relief at having a week's respite. She had no trust in Negoro's honesty, but she knew well enough that their "marketable value" would secure them from any personal danger, and she had time to consider whether some compromise might be effected by which her husband might be spared the necessity of coming to Kazonnde. Upon the receipt of a letter from herself, he would not hesitate for a moment in undertaking the journey, but she entertained no little fear that after all perhaps her own departure might not be permitted; the slightest caprice on the part of Queen Moena would detain her as a captive, whilst as to Negoro, if once he should get the ransom he wanted, he would take no further pains in the matter.

Accordingly, she resolved to make the proposition that she should be conveyed to some point upon the coast, where the bargain could be concluded without Mr. Weldon's coming up the country.

She had to weigh all the consequences that would follow any refusal on her part to fall in with Negoro's demands. Of course, he would spend the interval in preparing for his start to America, and when he should come back and find her still hesitating, was it not likely that he would find scope for his revenge in suggesting that she must be separated from her child.

The very thought sent a pang through her heart, and she clasped her little boy tenderly to her side.

"What makes you so sad, mamma?" asked Jack.

"I was thinking of your father, my child," she answered; "would you not like to see him?"

"Yes, yes; is he coming here?"

"No, my boy, he must not come here."

"Then let us take d.i.c.k, and Tom, and Hercules, and go to him."

Mrs. Weldon tried to conceal her tears.

"Have you heard from papa?"

"No."

"Then why do you not write to him?"

"Write to him?" repeated his mother, "that is the very thing I was thinking about."

The child little knew the agitation that was troubling her mind.

Meanwhile Mrs. Weldon had another inducement which she hardly ventured to own to herself for postponing her final decision. Was it absolutely impossible that her liberation should be effected by some different means altogether?

A few days previously she had overheard a conversation outside her hut, and over this she had found herself continually pondering.

Alvez and one of the Ujiji dealers, discussing the future prospects of their business, mutually agreed in denouncing the efforts that were being made for the suppression of the slave-traffic, not only by the cruisers on the coast, but by the intrusion of travellers and missionaries into the interior.

Alvez averred that all these troublesome visitors ought to be exterminated forthwith.

"But kill one, and another crops up," replied the dealer.

"Yes, their exaggerated reports bring up a swarm of them," said Alvez.

It seemed a subject of bitter complaint that the markets of Nyangwe, Zanzibar, and the lake-district had been invaded by Speke and Grant and others, and although they congratulated each other that the western provinces had not yet been much persecuted, they confessed that now that the travelling epidemic had begun to rage, there was no telling how soon a lot of European and American busy-bodies might be among them. Thedepots at Ca.s.sange and Bihe had both been visited, and although Kazonnde had hitherto been left quiet, there were rumours enough that the continent was to be tramped over from east to west. [Footnote: This extraordinary feat was, it is universally known, subsequently accomplished by Cameron.]

"And it may be," continued Alvez, "that that missionary fellow, Livingstone, is already on his way to us; if he comes there can be but one result; there must be freedom for all the slaves in Kazonnde."

"Freedom for the slaves in Kazonnde!" These were the words which in connexion with Dr. Livingstone's name had arrested Mrs. Weldon's attention, and who can wonder that she pondered them over and over again, and ventured to a.s.sociate them with her own prospects?

Here was a ray of hope!

The mere mention of Livingstone's name in a.s.sociation with this story seems to demand a brief survey of his career.

Born on the 19th of March, 1813, David Livingstone was the second of six children of a tradesman in the village of Blantyre, in Lanarkshire. After two years' training in medicine and theology, he was sent out by the London Missionary Society, and landed at the Cape of Good Hope in 1840, with the intention of joining Moffat in South Africa. After exploring the country of the Bechuanas, he returned to Kuruman, and, having married Moffat's daughter, proceeded in 1843 to found a mission in the Mabotsa valley.

After four years he removed to Kolobeng in the Bechuana district, 225 miles north of Kuruman, whence, in 1849, starting off with his wife, three children, and two friends, Mr. Oswell and Mr. Murray, he discovered Lake Ngami, and returned by descending the course of the Zouga.

The opposition of the natives had prevented his proceeding beyond Lake Ngami at his first visit, and he made

[Ill.u.s.tration: Dr. Livingstone. Page 408.]

a second with no better success. In a third attempt, however, he wended his way northwards with his family and Mr. Oswell along the Chobe, an affluent of the Zambesi, and after a difficult journey at length reached the district of the Makalolos, of whom the chief, named Sebituane, joined him at Linyante. The Zambesi itself was discovered at the end of June, 1851, and the doctor returned to the Cape for the purpose of sending his family to England.

His next project was to cross the continent obliquely from south to west, but in this expedition he had resolved that he would risk no life but his own. Accompanied, therefore, by only a few natives, he started in the following June, and skirting the Kalahari desert entered Litoubarouba on the last day of the year; here he found the Bechuana district much ravaged by the Boers, the original Dutch colonists, who had formed the population of the Cape before it came into the possession of the English. After a fortnight's stay, he proceeded into the heart of the district of the Bamangonatos, and travelled continuously until the 23rd of May, when he arrived at Linyante, and was received with much honour by Sekeletoo, who had recently become sovereign of the Makalolos. A severe attack of fever detained the traveller here for a period, but he made good use of the enforced rest by studying the manners of the country, and became for the first time sensible of its terrible sufferings in consequence of the slave-trade.

Descending the course of the Chobe to the Zambesi, he next entered Naniele, and after visiting Katonga and Libonta, advanced to the point of confluence of the Leeba with the Zambesi, where he determined upon ascending the former as far as the Portuguese possessions in the west; it was an undertaking, however, that required considerable preparation, so that it was necessary for him to return to Linyante.

On the 11th of November he again started. He was accompanied by twenty-seven Makalolos, and ascended the Leeba till, in the territory of the Balonda, he reached a spot where it received the waters of its tributary the Makondo.

It was the first time a white man had ever penetrated so far.

Proceeding on their way, they arrived at the residence of Shinte, the most powerful of the chieftains of the Balonda, by whom they were well received, and having met with equal kindness from Kateema, a ruler on the other side of the Leeba, they encamped, on the 20th of February, 1853, on the banks of Lake Dilolo.

Here it was that the real difficulty commenced; the arduous travelling, the attacks of the natives, and their exorbitant demands, the conspiracies of his own attendants and their desertions, would soon have caused any one of less energy to abandon his enterprise; but David Livingstone was not a man to be daunted; resolutely he persevered, and on the 4th of April reached the banks of the Coango, the stream that forms the frontier of the Portuguese possessions, and joins the Zaire on the north.

Six days later he pa.s.sed through Ca.s.sange. Here it was that Alvez had seen him. On the 31st of May he arrived at St. Paul de Loanda, having traversed the continent in about two years.