Harry Milvaine Part 51

Where is the Eye? Look. Whither shall we look? Look far away towards the western horizon yonder. Are those the crimson clouds that herald the sunset? No, they are too low down on the plain, and a rolling canopy of blue is rising up and meeting the sun.

The southern woods are all on fire. The battlefield itself is soon--

"Wreathed in sable smoke."

And out from the fire, it would seem, there now rushes an enemy that King Kara-Kara has but little reckoned on meeting.

No wonder he withdraws his men from the sadly weakened phalanxes of the island king, and tries to make his way southwards.

Here he is opposed by the stern fierce amazons, and their ranks are soon strengthened by a cloud of savages, spear-armed, who rush up behind them and fall upon the enemy in their front.

"Scarcely can they see their foes, Until at weapon's point they close, They close in clouds of dust and smoke, With sword-sway and with lance's thrust; And such a yell is there Of sudden and portentous birth, As if men fought upon the earth, And fiends in upper air; Oh! life and death are in the shout, Recoil and rally, charge and rout, And triumph and despair."

Neither King Googagoo nor Harry could tell what the meaning of this sudden attack on the ranks of Kara-Kara meant. It seemed like an interposition of Providence. So, indeed, they both considered it, and doubtless they were right.

Meanwhile Kara's army, now sadly thinned, fought like veritable fiends.

Escape there seemed none.

The hills to the east were guarded by the island men, there was the lake behind them, the new foe in front, and the woods in the west were all ablaze.

The route was soon complete and the carnage dreadful to contemplate.

So terrible are these fights between African kings that it is no exaggeration to say, that out of all the thousands that Kara-Kara had brought into the field hardly one thousand escaped alive, and they had to force their way through the burning forest, many falling by fire who had come scathless from the field.

King Kara-Kara was among the killed.

He was found, next day, in the midst of a heap of the bodies of those who had rallied round him to the last--

"His back to the field, and his feet to the foe."

In his hand he still clasped the spear he would never use again.

"Reckless of life, he'd desperate fought, And fallen on the plain; And well in death his trusty brand, Firm clenched within his manly hand, Beseemed the monarch slain."

Book 4--CHAPTER SIX.

THE MYSTERY EXPLAINED--AFTER THE BATTLE--DEATH OF SOMALI JACK.

Before we can understand the seeming mystery that clings to the end of the last chapter of this tale, we must go a little way back, both as regards time and s.p.a.ce.

All the men Harry had with him in the unfortunate scuttled dhow at the time she was beached were taken, along with little Raggy, by the so-called brother of Mahmoud into the far interior of Africa, and there sold or bartered away as slaves, and, as we already know, Suliemon made what dealers term "a pretty penny" out of the nefarious transaction.

Escape for the poor fellows so banished seemed impossible, for, although they had had an idea, from the appearance of the sun and stars, that they had been all the time journeying steadily west, with either a little angle of south or of north in it, so cruelly long had the route been, so terrible had been their hardships, and so great their dangers, that the idea of returning was considered by them as entirely out of the question. Hope did not quite forsake them, however, but they had no means of communicating with the outer world--that is, the world beyond this dark continent. Occasionally they cut letters in the hides of the wild beasts that had been slain, as these skins often found their way to the markets of Zanzibar and Lamoo.

Who knows, they told each other, but some one may see these letters, and come to our a.s.sistance!

But alas! though the letters were seen, and marvelled at and talked about, no government, either English or French, deemed it worth while to send a search and relief expedition.

Yet those ten poor fellows had wives and little ones, had sisters and brothers, and fathers and mothers at home, who were, like Harry's parents, mourning for them as dead.

The lives of cruelty and indignity which they had led, during all these long dark dreary months and years, it is not my intention to describe.

Suffice it to say that these men were the abject slaves of a brutal king, compelled to eat of the most loathsome garbage and to live in a state of almost nudity. No wonder that already four of their number had pa.s.sed away. Their bodies, shocking to relate, were not even buried, but thrown into the jungle for the wild dogs to gnaw and the ants to eat.

The others lived, including Nicholls the bo's'n.

Ah! often and often had they wished to die.

The only pleasure of their lives, if pleasure it could be called, was that at night they were not separated, but kept in one common prison, strictly guarded by armed sentinels.

Then in the dark they used to talk of the dear old days at sea, and of their homes far away in peaceful England.

More than once during the time of their captivity King Kara-Kara had been on the war-path against the drunken old 'Ngaloo, and the former had been the victor, although he had not followed up his triumph, as he used to threaten he would do, and annihilate 'Ngaloo and his people.

The two kings hated each other with a true and everlasting hatred, and the same may be said of their followers or people.

A day of rejoicing came at last, though, to the poor white slaves, and that was when the island scout had bravely forced his way into camp, and given them news of their officer Harry.

Then the king their master got word, somehow or other, of all the prosperity of honest Googagoo, and determined at once that he would make war upon him and utterly spoil and harry him.

So he called his men of war together, and made all preparations for the campaign which we have seen to end so disastrously for this ambitious monarch. He reckoned without his host in a manner of speaking--at all events he did not take King 'Ngaloo into account. He kept the sentinels on the hills and slipped away northwards at the dead of night.

Now 'Ngaloo had recently had a visit from a band of Somalis under the guidance of an Arab, who had brought him gifts of rum and beads.

'Ngaloo gave the beads to his wives to hang around their fat necks, their wrists, arms, and ankles, and his wives were happy in consequence, and even submitted with patience and smiles to be pulled around the palace tent by the king's horrid tongs. But 'Ngaloo stuck to the rum.

He never knew quite clearly what he was about as long as his him lasted, but he was not a fool for all that; and when one day a sentinel reported that the towns and camp of Kara-Kara were very still and almost deserted--

"Oh!" said the king, "old Kara's away after something. Ha! ha! ha! now is the chance for me! But I wonder where he has gone to."

These rival kings had one thing in common, a certain superst.i.tion not unusual among some African potentates; they thought it unlucky to make war the one upon the other without some cause. These causes, however, were easily found; if they could not be found, then they could be manufactured for the occasion.

'Ngaloo determined to manufacture one now. So he went to bed, not to sleep, for he ordered his prime minister to squat on the floor close to his dais and hand him rum as he wanted it.

'Ngaloo preferred drinking like this, it saved him the trouble of tumbling about.

He lay awake nearly all night thinking and laughing and giggling to himself. Once he caught his prime minister napping, and gave him a back-hander with his tongs, which effectually kept him awake for some time to come.

In the morning 'Ngaloo called three of his people to him, and sent them away across the hills with a message for King Kara-Kara. It was to the following effect, though I cannot give the exact words:

"Will King Kara-Kara be good enough to cross the mountains with his army, and visit his dear brother King 'Ngaloo, the mighty monarch of the whole universal earth, who will have the greatest pleasure in pulling King Kara-Kara's nose with his gilded tongs, and the nose of every man in his army."

Off went the three men, and delivered their message, and off went their heads just three minutes afterwards. For though King Kara-Kara was far away, he had left a lord-lieutenant behind him.

It did not matter about the messengers having their heads off, they were first on the list, at all events, for the next human sacrifice, and a day or two back or fore could not hurt. But as they did not return, the fact formed a _casus belli_, and gave 'Ngaloo just the opportunity he wished for.

So he put on his war clothes, hung his tongs in his girdle beside his dagger, took his spear in his hand, summoned all his army, and marched over the borders, five thousand strong, with tom-toms beating and chanters braying, and in two days' time had entered the Kara-Kara territory.

He captured every one he could, only those that were not worth capturing he made short work of. Then he burned all his enemy's towns and villages, and having left a thousand men to lay siege to an inaccessible mountain, on the top of which, with the white prisoners, the lord-lieutenant had made his camp, 'Ngaloo with the rest of his savage army followed his foe up to the lake side, and it was fortunate he had arrived in time, as we have seen in the last chapter.