THE FEMALE GUARDS.
Yams, bananas, plantains, even boiled potatoes, and pipkins of pure
spring water were liberally provided for us by our black female
guardians, six of whom appeared once daily with our food and then
retired, securing us with great bars of wood fastened outside in some
fashion known only to themselves.
These Amazons were all well armed, and some were richly clad in
braided vests and petticoats of Dutch scarlet cloth. Among them were
several veteran female warriors, whose skins, by the process of time
under a tropical sun, had become spotted yellow and brown, like the
hides of the leopard and panther.
Light was admitted to our prison by a small square hole cut through
one of the trees which formed the wall, and from thence, when each
supported the other on his shoulders, we could see by turns the
progress of the diggers of the royal grave in the courtyard, and to
judge by the quantity of earth and stones thrown up, the depth must
have been immense; and it seemed as if King Zabadie was going to the
other world accompanied by all his wives, slaves, dromedaries, and
diabolical courtiers to boot.
We knew not _when_ this dreadful interment and immolation were to
take place. When day dawned on us, we knew not if we should be
permitted to see it close; when it closed, we knew not if we should
ever behold another dawn.
So the wretched hours passed slowly, wearily on; and the close of the
third day found us still captives, and still unresolved on any
expedient to dree ourselves.
Sailor-like, Hartly was fertile in schemes and resources; but the
former were no sooner proposed than they were abandoned as
impracticable.
One time he suggested that we should endeavour to procure a light by
friction, set fire to the old wooden den in which we were confined,
and then seek an escape amid the consequent confusion; at another, he
proposed that we should close with our guards, wrest away a musket,
kill one or two of them, and fight our way off; but how could we
attack women?
"If once free of the palace, the town, and its suburbs----" resumed
he.
"Free! how can we remain free, Hartly, in a land where our colour,
which there is _no_ disguising, renders us constantly liable to
recognition, to attack, and recapture?"
"True; but if we could only reach the coast, after having so dearly
learned circumspection, we might lurk in the woods."
"Without arms?"
"We have done so before. Then we might steal a canoe, or fashion
one, and put to sea."
"But the tools and the skins?"
"We could steal both, as these fellows won't lend."
"Escape from this is necessary first: and in the pilfering visits you
suggest, we should certainly be retaken, together or singly; and then
how miserable would be the reflections of the survivor."
"Tut, Jack! unless we venture we shall never win."
"Ah, Hartly," said I, "at last I have lost all hope!"
"Do not say so; we are both too young to despair," was the sturdy
response of the English sailor.
We thought of the old stereotyped modes of escape--by ropes or
ladders manufactured from shirts and trowsers, and by ample
melodramatic mantles; but such were impossible to us, who were nearly
as nude as when we came into the world; by drugging our guards or
sentinels; by bribing, coaxing, or assassinating them; but these, and
all the thousand other modes by which heroic and romantic gentlemen,
when in trouble or durance, effect escapes in novels and plays, were
useless or impracticable there.
Hartly, indeed, proposed to make love to one or two ladies of the
royal guard, and by gaining their confidence, to effect the
appropriation of their muskets and ammunition. But those dingy
Amazons seemed of a very unapproachable nature; and moreover, were so
thickly smeared with war-paint and vegetable oils, as to be too
hideous in aspect and repulsive in odour to render the attempt at all
pleasant.
So the darkness of the third night closed upon us, and undecided as
to any mode of escape, we sat gazing with longing eyes on the little
bit of blue sky that was visible through the hole, which by day
afforded light and air into our den.
A single star of uncommon brilliance shone through it now, and so
brightly as to cast the form of the loophole upon the floor like a
little white patch.
"If once we were out of this place," said Hartly, for the twentieth
time, "I would certainly trust to my two hands and pair of heels for
doing the rest."
"The town walls seem a high palisade."
"Yes. I had a good view of them for an hour and more on the unlucky
day I first arrived in Benin. And yet, Jack," he added, kindly, "I
am glad those devils brought me here, after all--we should never have
met again else. The town walls are a double palisade, sparred over
on the outside and in--double sheathed a sailor would call it--and
then the whole is plastered over with red clay."
"Their height----"
"Is not less than twelve feet; and at those parts of the town which
are without a rampart, there is a ditch of great depth, full of slime
and poisonous serpents, and bordered by an impassable hedge of
brambles, through which fire alone could make its way."
If I attempted to sleep, I was haunted by visions of being buried
alive in that enormous tomb, from which there could be no
escape--buried amid a hecatomb of hideous and sweltering negro
corpses and the dead royalty of a savage race. The pictures my
imagination drew of the future nearly distracted me; and I began to
consider whether it was not better, by rushing barehanded and unarmed
upon our captors, to provoke a more speedy and merciful death under
their knives, asseguys, or muskets; and failing an escape, Hartly
agreed with me that it was a wiser alternative; but Heaven lent us
its helping hand ere the third night was passed.