RETAKEN.
Released from the tree, but still benumbed and sore after being so
long bound to it, I was now stretched upon the grass, under the
shadow of its great fan-like branches. Many persons were moving
about me, and the hum of their voices filled my ear.
Raising myself slowly and heavily upon my hands, I saw around me
hundreds of negroes, and close to mine was the ugly visage of--Amoo.
"Oh," thought I, bitterly; "this is too much! A prisoner again, and
after all the dangers I have dared--the friends I have seen
perish--the miseries I have undergone! Will fate never weary of
persecuting me?"
But Amoo was not such a wicked fellow after all.
Producing his gourd bottle of palm wine, he mixed it with cool water
from a shaded spring, and forced me to imbibe a long draught, after
which I sat up and looked about me more collectedly.
I was in the midst of a species of negro bivouac, consisting of many
hundreds of men and women, with camels and dromedaries laden with
various stuffs and rudely fashioned weapons and utensils, made up in
bales with grass matting and cordage.
They were cooking at several fires, and in various modes, the flesh
of an elephant which they had snared, as Amoo informed me, in a pit
on the other side of the forest on the preceding day, and the meat of
which is esteemed in these latitudes as a veritable dainty--a right
royal luxury. He pressed me to eat a slice or so, but in my weak
state, and the fever of my spirit, the odour and the aspect of it
were more than enough for me, so a mouthful or two of boiled yam and
palm wine sufficed.
The negroes were all well armed with asseguys, swords, bows, muskets,
and targets, as if proceeding on a hostile expedition. Among them
were many who were better clad and more civilized in aspect than the
painted savages who dwell by the Snake River, and these, Amoo
informed me, were subjects of the King of Benin.
After relating how his companions had found me bound to the tree,
senseless or asleep, he inquired how it came to pass I was there.
"I fled to escape your wife," said I, looking round fearfully.
"Yah, yah," said he, laughing; "I was sorry for the loss of my white
slave, but am glad you escaped her knife; for she wished much to
ornament her big canoe, so she got the head of another white man."
"Another--who--which?"
"Amoo does not know; he tried to steal a canoe and escape to the
Pongo Islands, but was retaken, and so my wife got his head for her
canoe. She boiled it in a stone pipkin, with gums and herbs, stuck
fish-bones in its nose and ears, and now it will last for many, many
suns and moons, without decay."
(Who was this _other_ unfortunate that had perished so miserably? He
might be my friend Hartly--if indeed it was not he who was so cruelly
destroyed in the basket of thorns.)
"Never mind who it was," said Amoo, divining my thoughts, "since you
are found again."
"To be your prisoner?" I sighed.
Amoo grinned, leered cunningly, and shook his woolly head.
"What then?"
"To be reserved for something better than being my slave."
"_Better!_" I reiterated, with perplexity; "how--where?"
"Yah, yah--you will learn in good time."
"When?" I exclaimed, with impatience.
"On our reaching the capital of Benin."
"You are going there with all these people?"
"Yah."
"For what purpose--to fight?"
"No."
"What then?"
"To bury Zabadie, the king, who is dead."
I was somewhat comforted by this, as everything added to the chances
of escape; for I knew that European vessels frequently anchored in
the Bight of Benin, and I associated ideas of greater civilization
with that quarter of Africa, though it bordered on Dahomey--that
barbarous land of blood and terror.
It was evident that Amoo knew nothing about my encounter in the wood
with the King, his brother, or the manner in which I had borrowed the
royal dromedary; for he informed me, in the course of our obscure and
somewhat pantomimic conversation, that on his return he would
probably find himself King of the Snake River, as his brother was not
expected to live.
I inquired why.
"As he was asleep under a tree, a great baboon let a big stone fall
upon his head, and nearly killed him," replied Amoo, with perfect
unconcern, and I cannot plead guilty to feeling the smallest
compunction in the matter.
This species of caravan was proceeding from the territory of Gabon,
whose king is a vassal of the monarch of Benin, with a tribute of
female slaves, baskets, gourd vessels, panther skins, elephants'
teeth, and gold dust, to assist at the funeral of the late royal
defunct, or to lay at the feet of his successor; and I was pleased to
find that we were to proceed as nearly as possible along the coast.
I resolved to take the first opportunity of securing arms--a musket
and knife if possible--of leaving the cavalcade, and concealing
myself in a wood near the sea-shore, there to await a ship; but the
hope was formed in vain, for Amoo, who frequently spoke of the "great
future in store for me at Benin," never lost sight of me for an
instant, either by night or by day, when we halted.
When we did so, we warily lighted a circle of large fires to scare
wild animals from our bivouac. and thus could sleep in security.