As he spoke these dread words the dark-skinned Arab seized a lighted
torch from an Indian, and was about to apply it to the pyre, when his
arm was struck upwards, and the torch alighted harmlessly on the soft
sand.
It was Mahmoud who had struck the blow.
For a moment the two men stood confronting each other. Even Mahmoud now
had a drawn sword in his hand.
"For his worthless life," cried the latter, "I care not, but for your
eternal welfare, brother, I do. I have saved you from a deadly sin.
Take not thus rashly away the life you cannot give."
"Back!" he shouted to the Somali Indians, and they shrank cowering and
silent before the wrath of this strange being whom they called a
prophet.
With a sharp knife he now severed Harry's cords, and bade him stand up.
"You are my prisoner," said Mahmoud in good English; "you are _my
slave_. If you make no attempt to escape, you shall be comparatively
free; attempt to fly, and--"
He tapped the hilt of his sword as he spoke, and Harry knew only too
well what was meant.
He passed a sleepless night until within an hour or two of morning, when
he dozed off into a pained and dreamful slumber, from which he was
roused at daybreak by Mahmoud himself. To his great surprise and grief,
the beach was almost deserted. Some armed Indians still lay near the
white ashes of the dead fires, but his men, the other Arab, and all the
rest of the Somalis were gone.
"Eat," said Mahmoud, "you have far to go." He placed a dish of fragrant
curry before him as he spoke, and Harry partook of it mechanically.
"Where am I to be taken to?" he inquired of this warlike priest.
"Ask nothing," was the reply. "I have saved your life, be thankful to
Allah. Prepare to march."
Surrounded by armed, grinning Somalis, many bearing parcels on their
heads, with Mahmoud trudging on in front, the journey was commenced,
straight away across the sandy hills, where only here and there some
little tuft of grass or some pale green weed was growing.
At the top of the ridge Harry, in spite of his guard, paused for a
moment to look back. Never, he thought, had the sea looked more lovely.
Save where in whitish yellow patches the coral shoals were showing, the
whole surface, unrippled by a wavelet, was of a deep cerulean blue.
Here and there a shark's fin made the water tremble, and here and there
a white bird floated.
"Oh," he thought, "could he only be as free as one of those happy
sea-birds! But never again," he sighed; "no, never again!"
Even in the morning the sun was fiercely hot, but towards noon it became
almost insupportable, and Harry was glad indeed when green things
appeared at last, and the halt was made in the shade of a little forest
land--a kind of oasis in a barren desert. Here was a cool spring and a
few cocoanut trees.
Some of the Somalis climbed these as one climbs a ladder, holding on
like monkeys to little stirrup-like steps that ran all up one side of
the trees. They then cut and threw down some of the greenest, and
Harry, in grief though he was, was glad enough to regale himself on the
proffered fruit. They were filled principally with "milk," for the nut
itself was hardly yet formed, otherwise than as a transparent jelly.
It may interest some of my young readers to know how the water or milk
of the cocoanut is got at, after the great nut has been thrown to the
ground by the monkey-like boy in the tree.
Cocoanut trees grow all over the tropical world, and their appearance
must be familiar to every one--immensely tall stems with feathery-like
tops formed of great palmate leaves. The stems are hardly as thick as
an ordinary larch, and they are seldom altogether straight. Close to
the tree-top, and in under the leaves, as if to hide from the blazing
sun, grow the nuts. When large enough for use one or two are culled.
The nut itself is covered by the thick, green husk--that which Sally
scrubs the kitchen floor with at home here in England; it is young now,
however, but tough enough. The "nigger" at the tree-foot, who has been
very careful to look after his own nut while the fruit came tumbling
down, now thrusts a stake pointed at both ends into the ground; against
the protruding point he strikes the top of the cocoanut with all his
force again and again till he has forced open a portion of husk. Then
his knife comes into play, and presently he has quite cut away the top
of the husk and nut as well, for the shell is still soft. Then he hands
you the cool green cup, and before drinking you look inside and see only
water with just a little clear jelly adhering to the inside of the
shell. You drink and drink and drink again--there is probably about a
pint and a quarter of it. Oh, how sweet, how cold--yes, _cold_--how
delicious it is! Probably after you have drunk all the water, you may
care to eat some of the jelly, which you scoop out with your knife the
best way you can. Well, you will confess when you try it that you never
really tasted cocoanut before. Neither Christmas pudding, nor custard,
nor anything ever you ate in life is anything to be compared to it.
Yes, the cocoanut tree is well suited to the climate in which it grows;
it is a God-gift to the native and to travellers from foreign lands. I
may add that it is chiefly near the sea you find the cocoanut tree, for
it is a thirsty soul. And no wonder. Look at those broad, green leaves
expanded to the sun, from which the sap must be constantly evaporating.
When cruising on the shores of Africa in open boats, towards evening we
used to look out for a part of the coast, where we saw cocoanut trees
rearing their nodding heads high in air. There we used to land, certain
that we would find native huts and human beings at the foot of them,
from whom we could buy fowls to make our cock-a-leekie soup and stew,
previously to pulling off from the shore and lying at anchor to wait the
coming morn.
All this is a digression, still I have no doubt it will be found
interesting to some, and the others are welcome to skip it.
After a few hours of grateful rest, on went the caravan, Mahmoud himself
at its head, trudging steadily, sturdily along, his eyes for the most
part cast on the ground, and leaning on his spear. He never deigned to
address a word to Harry--not that Harry cared much for that, for his
back was turned to the sea, he was leaving all he cared for in the
world, and going into exile, going he knew not whither. His prospects
were as dreary as the scenery around him, and what is more heartless to
behold than a barren plain stretching away apparently to the
illimitable, without hill and with hardly rising ground, stunted bushes
here and there, and beneath one's feet the everlasting scrubby, "benty,"
half-scorched grass? He thought this day would never end, that the sun
would never decline towards the hazy horizon. But it did at last. It
went round and stared them in the face; then it seemed to sink more
rapidly, and finally--all a blaze of purple red--it went down.
The short twilight was occupied by Mahmoud and his yellow-skinned
minions in preparing for the night's bivouac.
Wood was collected, a clearing was found on which to build a fire, and
by and by supper was cooked.
Then Mahmoud retired to prayers!
He took a little carpet, and, going to a distance away, knelt down, then
threw himself on his face in a devotion which I doubt not was sincere
enough. We ought not to despise the Mahometan religion, nor any
religion, for _any_ religion is better than none. Oh! woe is me for the
boy or girl who retires to bed without having first felt grateful for
the past, and commended his or her soul to Him for the night!
Harry Milvaine did not forget to pray.
No, he did not; and, like a Scotch boy, he always concluded his
devotions with our Lord's Prayer; but ah! how hard he thought it
to-night to breathe those words, "Thy will be done"! It seemed that
Heaven itself had deserted him.
For Harry was very low in spirits.
Whither did his thoughts revert? Home, of course. It was a pleasure to
think of the dear ones far away, even although something seemed to
whisper to him that he would never see them more.
Presently he fell into a kind of stupor. He had collected the withered
grass in his immediate neighbourhood and formed it into a sort of
pillow, and on this his head lay.
When he awoke--if he really had been asleep--the moon was shining very
bright and clearly, the camp-fire had died to red shining embers, around
it in various positions lay the Somali Indians, not far off was Mahmoud
himself, while beside Harry's grass pillow, leaning on his rifle, stood
the sentinel. This rifle had belonged to one of Harry's own men, so had
the belt and well-filled pouch.
Harry raised himself on his elbow.
The sentinel never moved. There was a deep, death-like stillness over
all the place, broken only now and then by the eldritch laugh of some
prowling hyaena.
For a moment thoughts of escape came into Harry's mind. He was
unfettered; he was, indeed, on a kind of parole. In so far only as
this: the Arab Mahmoud had told him he should be free from fetters
unless he attempted to escape; if he did so, he would either be shot
down at once, or, if captured alive, manacled as a slave. Harry's
answer had been bold enough.
"I accept parole," he had said, "on those conditions, and if I attempt
to escape you may shoot me."
He sat up now and looked about him. The sentinel moved a few paces off
and stood ready. But hearing his prisoner cough, and observing his
perfect nonchalance, he stood at ease once more. Harry threw himself
back. He shuddered a little, for dew was falling, and the night air was
chill. Instead of sleeping it was his purpose now to think, but his
thoughts soon resolved themselves into confused and ugly dreams, in
which scenes on board ship were strangely mixed up and jumbled with
those of his life at home and at school.
When he awoke again it was broad daylight, and all the camp was astir.
He ate his breakfast of boiled rice and dates in silence, and shortly
after this a start was made.
Another long weary day.
Another weary night.
What the caravan suffered most from was the want of water. It was small
in quantity and of such wretched quality, being thick, dark, and
smelling, that Harry turned from his short allowance in loathing and
disgust.
The route was ever inland, day after day. Knowing what he did of the
country, Harry thought it strange they were following no direct road or
caravan path. Sometimes they bore a little south, at other times almost
directly north.
It was evident enough, however, that Mahmoud, their bold and stern
leader, knew what he was about, and knew the country he was traversing,
for he never failed to find water, without which a journey in this
strange land is an impossibility.
The thought of escaping--the wish to escape--grew and grew in Harry's
mind till it formed itself into a fixed resolve.
He would have carried it out at the earliest moment had he deemed it
prudent, but there was the want of water to be considered. What good
escaping, only to perish miserably in the wilderness? He would wait
till the country became less barren.
The caravan in its route inland forded more than one broad stream. By
the banks of these they sometimes journeyed for many miles, rested by
day or camped at night.
Where, Harry often wondered, were his poor men? What fate was theirs,
and what would his own fate be?
That he was to be sold into slavery, he had little, if any, doubt; and
the truth was rendered more patent to him one evening by overhearing a
conversation in Swahili between two of the Somalis. It referred to him,
and mention was repeatedly made of the name of a great chief called
'Ngaloo, a name he had never heard before.
"Perhaps," thought Harry, "my men, too, are being driven to this king's
country, though by a different route."
But this was improbable. Had he believed it at all likely he would have
gone on patiently with his captors, and have shared the fortune of the
poor fellows, whether that might be death or slavery.
No, he determined to escape.
His chance came sooner than he had anticipated.
The caravan was encamped one night by the banks of a stream--a deep and
ugly stream it was, its banks bordered by gigantic euphorbia trees or
shrubs, so shapeless and ugly, that betwixt Harry and the moonlight they
looked living uncanny things, and it needed but little imagination on
his part to make them wave their arms and make motions that were both
fantastic and fiend-like.
Harry was lying with his eyes half-shut looking at them when suddenly
the sentinel bent down and gazed for a moment earnestly into his face.
Suspecting something, but not knowing what, he pretended to sleep,
breathing heavily, with an occasional sob or sigh, but ready to spring
in a moment if foul play were meant.
The sentinel now left his side and strode away on tiptoe--though with
many a stealthy backward glance--around the sleeping caravan. He went
so far as to touch several of the Somali Indians with his foot. But
when a Somali does sleep it takes a deal to rouse him. Seemingly
satisfied, he came back and had one other look at Harry, then walked
straight away to the river's brink.
He was only going to quench his thirst after all, but well he knew that
to have been found but five yards from his post would have cost him his
life. No wonder he was careful. Harry's mind was made up in a moment,
and more quickly than lightning's flash. How fast one must think on
occasions like the present! He sprang lightly but silently to his feet
the very moment he saw the Somali deposit his rifle and shot-belt on the
bank and bend down towards a pool.
Next minute Harry, exerting all his young strength, had seized and flung
him far into the stream.
A plash by night in an African river is but little likely to awake any
one encamped by its banks. So far Harry was safe, but would the Indian
give the alarm?
He did not wait to think, he only snatched up the weapons and the
shot-belt and darted away like a red deer swiftly along the riverside.
He wondered to hear no shout.
The truth is, the Somali sentinel feared to give it; to him it would
have meant death, whatever it might be to Harry.
But looking round shortly, he was hardly surprised to find he was hotly
pursued by the sentinel. He ran on for about two hundred yards farther,
and, on looking round again, he noticed that the Somali was fast gaining
on him. So Harry stopped.
His Highland blood was up.
"I won't run from one man," he said, "neither will I kill him; I'll give
him a throw, though, if he likes, after the manner of Donald Dinnie."
So he stood and waited.
He had not long to wait. The Indian had divested himself of the linen
jacket he wore, and next moment confronted him, panting, but with
gleaming eyes and on murder intent. That is, murder if he could manage
it quietly.
"Halt!" cried Harry, in Swahili, as he came to the charge. "No farther,
or you die!"
The rest of his speech to the Somali he continued, partly in Swahili,
partly in English, the former language being rather meagre in
phraseology. But this is the gist of what he did say:
"I could kill you if I liked. It would be mean, however. Now take your
time and get your breath, then if you like I'll give it to you English
fashion."
He paused, and the Somali stood there glaring and foaming with fury.