ATTEMPT TO ESCAPE AGAIN.
On this night, for more than an hour, there was an unusual beating of
tum-tums, and the chorus of some barbaric songs stole upon the wind
at times from that quarter of the royal dwelling in which the wives
of the late King Zabadie were enclosed.
During the past day the digging in the courtyard had ceased; and this
circumstance, together with the sounds we heard (the adoration of
some great fetish, or idol), made us tremble in our hearts lest the
following day might see us placed in that more horrible prison, from
whence there could be no release but by death.
We mutually expressed our fears of this; and so absorbed were we in
this terrible surmise, that some time elapsed before we perceived
that the blue of the sky and the light of the stars had disappeared;
that a thick vapour had overspread both--that rain was pattering
heavily on the flat roofs of the wooden city; and that thunder, the
deep, hoarse thunder of the tropics, which sounds as if it would rend
the earth in twain, was roaring athwart the darkened firmament.
The rain now poured down in such mighty torrents, that we listened to
the din of its fall in silent wonder; for it seemed as if once again
that "all the fountains of the great deep had broken up, and the
windows of heaven were opened."
Ere long we felt the drops descending upon us, tepid and sulphureous,
as the clay coating that covered the split canes, or lathing, which,
formed the roof of our prison, soon became a puddle; while the straw
and leaves on which we usually sat or reclined, were reduced to a
mass of wetted mire.
For nearly an hour this continued, till our den became so thoroughly
wet, that when the rain was over not a single dry spot could we find;
and (as Hartly said) King Zabadie's trench in the courtyard would
have the water some fathoms deep in it by this time.
On the rain ceasing, and the clouds dispersing, which they did as
suddenly as the storm had come on, we saw the stars shining through a
breach which the moisture had made in the roof, and something like a
branch that was waving to and fro fell on my upturned face.
I grasped it.
It was the strong sinewy tendril of a climbing convolvulus, which had
fallen through the aperture. I drew it down, so far as it would
come, and then _another_ branch fell in. On this I called joyously
to Hartly, that "here were the first means of escape!"
Without a moment's hesitation he grasped them, twisted them together,
and with sailor-like agility swung himself up, hand over hand, till
he reached the crevice through which they had fallen.
Supporting the whole weight of his body by the left hand, with the
right he tore down a mass of the fragile roof, and swinging himself
up, passed through and at length stood upon the outside.
"Now, Jack," said he, "come up in the same fashion, hand over
hand--it is just like going through the lubber's hole, instead of
over the futtock shrouds. Bravo! we'll weather this dead devil of a
king and his armed wenches to boot."
I dragged myself up by the twisted tendrils, but when near the hole
should have fallen to the ground, had not Hartly's strong and
friendly hands grasped and dragged me on to the roof, where for a
little time we lay flat on our faces, panting alike with exertion and
excitement, and listening anxiously to hear if any guards or watchers
were near us.
By the starlight we could see the long rows of flat wooden huts which
composed the palace divided into various courts. At the distance of
three hundred yards from us, on our right, a ruddy glow that deepened
into crimson, then wavered, sunk, and flashed up again, revealed the
outline of a monstrous fetish, or wooden idol, of hideous aspect,
which the young King, his fiadoors, guards, and people were
worshipping; and we could see the woolly heads bowed before it packed
thick and close as cannon balls in Woolwich arsenal.
The long vista of the great street of huts, which stretches the
entire length of the town, and is alleged to be three miles long, lay
upon our left.
We had no guide to the ramparts or outskirts; but as the long extent
of this street seemed empty and silent, our best chance of ultimate
escape lay through it.
Again grasping the tendrils of the convolvulus, we slid down from the
roof and reached the ground. Robert Hartly dropped first. When I
was following, the tendrils gave way, and I fell heavily, making thus
a noise which roused a large dog in an adjacent shed, where it barked
furiously; but as we lay close and still, it gradually ceased, and
growled itself off to sleep again.
We were in a garden attached to the King's residence; and being (by
our white skins) liable to immediate pursuit, capture, or
destruction, the moment we were seen--a contingency that would become
a certainty when day broke--we hurried through it, getting our legs
and feet severely cut and torn by the flowers and prickly plants; but
of this minor evil we had no heed at that time.
A paling of split canes was soon surmounted, and once more we found
ourselves in the long street of Benin.