Samba Part 9

"No, sah; me forgot dat, dat am de troof."

"Well, go back; tell the chief that I'm a friend and want to see him. Say that I'll come into the village alone, or with Mr. Jack, and we'll leave our guns behind us.

Tell him the white man he saw two years ago said he was a very fine fellow, and I'll trust myself unarmed among his people, bows and arrows and spears and all."

Nando went away, and after another hour returned and said that Imbono, after much persuasion, had agreed to receive the white man because he was a friend of his blood brother. Leaving their rifles and revolvers in Barney's charge, Mr. Martindale and Jack accompanied Nando to the village. The single entrance to the stockade was guarded by a throng of tall warriors with curiously painted skins, and armed with the weapons Nando had described, carrying in addition knives with long leaf-shaped blades.

"They ain't the daisiest of beauties," said Mr. Martindale as he pa.s.sed them.

"Ugly fellows in a scrimmage," said Jack.

They went on, past the first huts, stared at by knots of the villagers, until they came to the chief's dwelling in the centre of the settlement. Imbono was a tall, well set up, handsome negro, standing half a head taller than the men about him. He received the strangers with grave courtesy, offered them a cup of palm wine, and motioned them to two low carved stools, seating himself on a third.

Through Nando Mr. Martindale explained his business, dwelling on the friendly relations which had existed between the chief and the white man, and a.s.suring him of his peaceable intentions and of his absolute independence of the servants of the Great White Chief. Imbono listened in silence, and made a long reply, repeating what he had already said through Nando. Suddenly he turned to the young man at his side, whom he called Faraji, and bade him tell the white man what he had seen.

"Ongoko! Ongoko!"[4] exclaimed the other men. Faraji stepped forward and told his story, with a volubility that outran Nando's powers as an interpreter, and at the same time with a seriousness that impressed his hearers.

"I come from Mpatu," he said. "It is not my village: my village is Ilola. I pa.s.sed through Mpatu on my way home. It is no longer a village. Why? The servants of the Great White Chief had come up the river. They told the people that the lords of the world, the sons of heaven, had given all the land to the Great White Chief. Mpatu belonged no more to the chief Lualu: it belonged to the Great White Chief. But the Great White Chief was a good chief; he would be a father to his people. Would he take their huts, their gardens, their fowls, their children? No, he was a good chief. Everything that was theirs should be left to them; and the Great White Chief would keep peace in the land, and men should live together as brothers.

Only one thing the Great White Chief required of them.

In the forest grew a vine that yielded a milky sap.

This stuff when hardened with acid from another plant would be of use to the Great White Chief, and he wished them to collect it for him, and bring to his servants every fourteenth day so many baskets full. Every man of Mpatu must bring his share. And they said too that the Great White Chief was just: for all this rubber they collected he would pay, in bra.s.s rods, or cloth, or salt; and seeing the Great White Chief was so kind and good, only a bad man would fail in the task set him, and such bad men must be punished. And two servants of the Great White Chief would be left in Mpatu to instruct the people as to the furnishing of the rubber; and these kind teachers the men of Mpatu would surely provide with food and shelter.

"The men of Mpatu laughed at first. Well they knew the vine! Was there not enough of it and to spare in the forest? How easily they could collect what was demanded!

How soon would they become rich! And they set the women and children to weave new baskets for the rubber, and made ready new and well-built huts for the men who were to teach them their duty to the Great White Chief.

"But as time went on, woe came to Mpatu. The two servants of the Great White Chief were bad men, selfish, cruel. They stalked about the village, treating the people as their slaves; they seized the plumpest fowls and the choicest fruits; if any man resisted, they whipped him with a long whip of hippopotamus hide.

"But the servants of the Great White Chief demanded still more. It was not only rubber the men of Mpatu were bade to bring them, but so many goats, so many fowls, so many fish and ca.s.sava and bananas. How could they do it? The rubber vines near by were soon exhausted. Every week the men must go farther into the forest. They had not enough time now to hunt and fish for their own families. How supply the strangers too?

"Grief came to Mpatu! For long days there was no man in the village save the chief Lualu and the forest guards. The women cowered and crouched in their huts.

No longer did they take pride in tidy homes and well-tended hair; no longer sing merrily at the stream, or croon lullabies to their babes; all joy was gone from them.

"Some of the men fled, and with their wives and children lived in the forest, eating roots and leaves. But even flight was vain, for the forest guards tracked them, hunted them down. Some they killed as soon as they found them; others they flogged, chained by the neck, and hauled to prison. There they are given heavy tasks, carrying logs and firewood, clearing the bush, cutting up rubber; and there is a guard over them with a whip which at a single blow can cut a strip from the body. Many have died; they are glad to die.

"And now Mpatu is a waste. One day the rubber was again short; the soldiers came--they burned the huts; they killed men, women, and children; yea, among the soldiers were man-eaters, and many of Mpatu's children were devoured. Only a few escaped--they wander in the forest, who knows where? I tell what I have seen and heard."

When Faraji had finished his story, there was silence for a time. The chief seemed disposed to let the facts sink into the minds of the white men, and Mr. Martindale was at a loss for words. Faraji's story, so significantly similar to what he had himself discovered at Banonga, had deeply impressed him. Were these atrocities going on throughout the Congo Free State? Were they indeed a part of the system of government? It seemed only too probable--the rubber tax was indeed a tax of blood.

And what could he say to convince Imbono that he was no friend of the white men who authorized or permitted such things? How could the negro distinguish?

"'Pon my soul," said the American in an aside to Jack, "I am ashamed of the colour of my skin."

Then the chief began to speak.

"The white man understands why I will have nothing to do with him--why I will not allow my people to trade with him. It may be true that you, O white man, are not as these others; you may be a friend to the black man, and believe that the black man can feel pain and grief; but did not the servants of the Great White Chief say that they were friends of the black man? Did they not say the Great White Chief loved us and wished to do us good?

We have seen the love of the Great White Chief; it is the love of the crocodile for the antelope: we would have none of it. Therefore I say, O white man, though I bear you no ill-will, you must go."

Courteously as the chief spoke, there was no mistaking his firmness.

"We must go and take stock of this," said Mr. Martindale.

"It licks me at present, Jack, and that's a hard thing for an American to say. Come right away."

They took ceremonious leave of the chief, and were escorted to their camp at the edge of the stream.

"What's to be done, my boy?" said Mr. Martindale.

"We can't find the gold without the chief's help, unless we go prospecting at large: we might do that for months without success, and make Imbono an open enemy into the bargain. We can't fight him, and I don't want to fight him. After what we've seen and heard I won't be responsible for shedding blood; seems to me the white man has done enough of that already on the Congo. This is a facer, Jack."

"Never say die, uncle. It's getting late: I vote we sleep on it. We may see a way out of the difficulty in the morning."

[1] The native word for any food or meal.

[2] Arab slave raiders.

[3] Leopold II, sovereign of the Congo Free State and king of the Belgians.

[4] Yes, do so.

CHAPTER VII

Blood Brothers

But in the morning the situation appeared only more grave. Provisions were threatening to run short. Hitherto there had been no difficulty in procuring food from the natives met _en route_, and Mr. Martindale's party had carried with them only a few days' provisions, and the "extras" necessary for the white men's comfort. But now they were come to a less populous part of the country: Imbono's villages were the only settlements for many miles around; and unless Imbono relaxed the rigour of his boycott Mr. Martindale's party would soon be in want.

Mr. Martindale was talking over matters with Jack when, from the slight eminence on which the camp was pitched, they saw a canoe, manned by six paddlers, pa.s.s up stream. Jack took a look at the craft through his field gla.s.s.

"It's Imbono, uncle," he said; "I wonder what he is up to."

He followed the progress of the canoe for some distance through the gla.s.s; then, looking ahead, his eye was caught by a herd of eight or nine hippopotami disporting themselves on a reedy flat by the river bank.

"What do you say, uncle? Shall we go and get some hippo meat? It will relieve the drain on our stores, and Nando told me the men are rather fond of it."

"We'll go right away, Jack. We must keep the larder full at any rate.

I suppose we shall have to stalk the beasts."

"I don't think so, uncle. Those we saw as we came up seemed pretty bold; they've such tough hides that they've no reason to be much afraid of the native weapons."

"Well, we'll paddle up to them and see how we get on."

A canoe was launched, and Mr. Martindale set off with Jack, Barney, and the terrier, Nando and six of the men paddling. By the time they arrived opposite the feeding ground several hippos had come out from the reeds for a bath in the shallows of the river, only their heads and backs showing above the water. The rest had moved off into the thicker reeds and were hidden from sight.

"One will be enough for the present," said Mr. Martindale. "Our fellows are great gluttons, but there's enough meat in one of those beasts to last even them a couple of days; and we don't want it to go high!"

"Let us both aim at the nearest," suggested Jack. "Fire together, uncle: bet you I bag him."

"I guess I won't take you, and betting's a fool's trick anyway. We'll aim at the nearest, as you say; are you ready?"