In the Toils
With the Raiders--The Hakim--Mustapha--A Trap--In a Slave Camp--Man’s
Inhumanity--De Castro Again--De Castro Eloquent
A few minutes after Mbutu had left his master to go on his painful quest
for help, four big Manyema warriors came bounding through the forest.
They carried spears, the iron heads of which were as yet clear of blood.
When they caught sight of the six prostrate bodies in the narrow glade
they halted, and with one consent bent down to rifle the dead. They had
stripped two of the Arabs of what small articles of value they
possessed, when the negro who had stooped over Tom’s body uttered a
sharp exclamation, at which his companions left their gruesome
occupation and came hastily to his side. As he was tearing a button
from Tom’s coat, the eyes of the apparent corpse had opened for an
instant, and the body had moved uneasily. The four men stooped, peering
at it, talking excitedly, and waxing hotter and hotter in argument.
Three of them were for spearing the body at once, declaring that, from
the nature of the wound, death was inevitable, and that they might as
well hasten matters and share the spoil. But the man who had come first
upon the scene obstinately opposed this course. It was the body of an
Englishman, he said; there was still life in him; and it would tend very
much to their advantage to keep him alive and carry him to the Arab
chief, who would no doubt reward them handsomely for so valuable a
prize. As a final argument, he reminded his friends that they had been
among the first to bolt from the field, and as they were aware of the
punishment that awaited them, it was well to propitiate the chief and
save their skins. This argument had its effect, and without wasting
more time on the fallen Arabs, they prepared to carry Tom away.
The leader tore a strip from the burnous of one of the Arabs, and deftly
wound it about Tom’s head, to prevent further loss of blood from the
deep gash at the base of his skull. The rest as quickly fashioned a
litter out of two spears and another burnous; and before Mbutu had
walked halfway to the British camp, his master was being borne by the
four Manyema swiftly in the opposite direction.
He was still unconscious when the men placed him on the litter. The
terrific blow inflicted on him by the Arab, followed by his heavy fall,
had been very near causing concussion of the brain, and the loss of
blood he had suffered would of itself have deprived him of
consciousness. Indeed, but for the opportune arrival of his captors,
and the interested thoughtfulness of the man who had bandaged his head,
there can be no doubt that Tom Burnaby would in a short time have done
with mortality and become a prey to jackals and vultures.
As the Manyema hurried on with elastic stride, the gentle swinging
motion of the litter appeared to revive him partially. The moon had
just risen, and Tom, opening his eyes, fancied that he was being borne
along by the Soudanese who had carried him into camp the day before.
His lips moved, and the bearers started when they heard their helpless
prisoner muttering light-headedly until he dozed again into quietude.
After the negroes had tramped for about an hour, following a narrow
track by the light of moon and stars, they were stopped by an Arab who
came suddenly out of the forest, and demanded of them who they were. He
looked with interest at the pale face of the sleeping stripling in the
litter, and informed the carriers that he himself was one of a number of
scouts left at various points along the track of the Arab chief, to
direct stragglers to head-quarters. After the second repulse, and his
single-handed fight with Tom, the chief had made no further attempt to
rally his men, but struck due north, picking up several parties of
fugitives on the way. At the distance of some few miles from the scene
of his disaster he knew of a ford over the river, at which he crossed,
continuing thence his march in a westerly direction until he reached the
right bank of the River Ntungwe, not far from its entrance into Lake
Albert Edward. There he encamped for the night, leaving word of his
whereabouts, as has been shown, and appointing a general rendezvous at a
village on the farther bank of the Rutchuru.
All this the four Manyema learnt from the Arab scout, who, while
speaking, had helped himself to Tom’s watch and chain, roughly telling
the negroes that he would shoot them if they breathed a word of that
little performance to the chief. He then allowed them to proceed. They
soon afterwards struck into a path leading to the ford, crossed the
river under a ghostly moonlight, and reached the encampment an hour
before dawn.
Their arrival was not the important event they had anticipated. Shortly
before, the Wanyabinga chief against whose village the British
expedition was directed, and who had brought a contingent to the Arab
force, had come into camp to plead with the Arab for one more attempt to
destroy Major Burnaby’s little army. He had himself done all he could,
he said; he had "eaten up" all his rivals in the neighbouring villages
for a score of miles round, in order to starve the British force; his
knowledge of the country had proved invaluable to the Arabs in their
raids for ivory; and it was due to information given by him that the
ambush from which he had expected so much had been planned. It was
unfortunate, a calamity only to be ascribed to some ju-ju or
medicine-man, that the ambush had failed; but for all that, he
contended, his services still merited some reward. If his lord Mustapha
was not prepared to make a direct assault on the expeditionary force, he
might at least help in the defence of the speaker’s village, which was
encircled by a triple stockade, and impregnable, he thought, if strongly
held.
Now the poor Wanyabinga chief had all along been the dupe of his astute
Arab ally. Mustapha had used him entirely for his own ends. He had
instigated the acts of insubordination and treachery which Major Burnaby
was proceeding to punish, persuading the credulous negro that the white
man would before long be altogether expelled from the lake country, and
promising, when that happy day came, to establish him, the native chief,
as King of Uganda. But the Arab was furious at the failure of his
cherished scheme. He was beside himself with rage, ready to vent it on
whatever person or thing came first in his way. His answer to the black
chief’s plea was a brutal laugh, a curse, a jibe. The Wanyabinga
attempted to bring him to reason. "When I am king of Uganda," he said,
"I will repay your kindness with hundreds upon hundreds of slaves, and
untold wealth of ivory." "You king of Uganda!" retorted Mustapha
derisively; "you will one day carry my wash-pot and tie the latchets of
my shoe!" The man protested, whereupon the Arab flew into a passion,
and, drawing his sword, declared flatly that he would slice the
importunate wretch into little pieces if he did not immediately withdraw
from his presence. The negro hastily departed, nursing wild purposes of
vengeance in his heart.
It was just after this scene that the four tired Manyema brought Tom
into the camp. They sought an interview with the chief. He declined to
see them. They sent word to him that they had with them a wounded
officer of the British force. His answer was that they might kill him
and eat him if they pleased. Astonished and crestfallen, they were
considering with one another what to do with their captive when the
chief’s hakim appeared on the scene. Put in possession of the facts, he
advised the men to attempt nothing further with Mustapha in his present
temper; in the meantime he himself would be answerable for the prisoner.
The negroes were loth to let him go without some tangible recompense for
their labour; but when the Arab glared at them, and threatened them with
the mysteries of his art, with superstitious fear they left their
unconscious burden and went moodily away.
Tom owed his life to the skilful tendance of the Arab physician. With
such rough appliances and medicaments as he had at hand, the hakim
dressed Tom’s wounds; he then placed him in a comfortable position by
his own watch-fire, and sat by him until daylight.
Tom awoke with the dawn, conscious of a terrible pain at the back of his
head, and a feeling all over him of emptiness and collapse. He was too
feeble even to be surprised when he saw the grave face of the Arab a few
feet from his own.
"Where am I?" he whispered, and wondered at the scarcely audible sound
of his own voice. The Arab shook his head. He knew no English. He went
away, and returned presently with a cup of some warm liquid, which he
administered in drops on a horn spoon. Tom was grateful for the
attention; the Arab fed him thus for ten minutes, and the food revived
him, bringing a touch of colour into his pale cheeks.
Almost immediately afterwards the order was given to strike camp. By
eight o’clock the crowd was in motion. During the night some four
hundred Arabs had rallied to the chief, as well as a number of their
black allies. But the majority of the Manyema had had their confidence
in the Arabs dismally shattered by the event of the previous day, and
had dispersed to their homes.
The chief, knowing that he was new in the territory of the Congo Free
State, felt pretty secure from pursuit by the British, and had decided
to continue his march westward towards the Rutchuru at a moderate pace.
He stalked along with downbent head before his troops, reminding Tom,
when he saw him presently, of Napoleon in Meissonier’s picture of the
retreat from Moscow. The hakim had seen him early in the morning, and
spoken to him of the English prisoner; and the chief had curtly bidden
the physician tend him carefully, as he might be valuable as a hostage.
As for him, he had other matters to attend to. Tom learnt later what
these other matters were.
The hakim sought out the four Manyema who had brought Tom to the camp,
and ordered them to resume their task. The Arab walked by the head of
the litter, and when the sun rose higher, he arranged a linen screen
above Tom’s head, which served to defend him from the burning rays and
in some measure from insects.
At mid-day the chief halted to dispose of the business that weighed on
him. He first called up the Wanyabinga chief, who had clung to the band
in the hope of the Arab’s relenting. But Mustapha told him bluntly that
if he accompanied the caravan farther it would be as a slave. The man
stood trembling for a moment as though paralysed; then muttering awful
imprecations, he collected his few tribesmen, brandished his spear
thrice, and bolted amid his men across the swamp. Having reached a safe
distance he halted, led a chorus of execration, and hurling his spear in
a last desperate defiance at his late ally, he turned and disappeared
into the bush.
Then the Arab formed a court of six of his leading men, and summoned
before him two miserable wretches whom Tom had noticed marching
painfully, with shackled feet and wrists, under a close guard. They
were charged with cowardice during the first terrible fight on the
previous afternoon. In due form they were condemned to death and led
away, and shortly afterwards Tom heard two shots. In affairs of this
kind the Arabs waste no ammunition.
The march was resumed, and now that he had attended to his other
matters, the chief had time to take some notice of Tom, He came up to
the litter, and started when he saw that the prisoner was none other
than the stripling who had held him in such desperate fight. He
grunted, as though in displeasure at discovering his doughty opponent
still alive; then a faint smile wreathed his lips, and the cloud that
had darkened his face all day cleared away. He spoke rapidly to the
hakim, who nodded his head and replied gravely. Tom of course understood
nothing of what they said, but he inferred that the physician had
declared him out of danger, and that the Arab was calculating on turning
the capture to some profit. Giving Tom another glance, in which there
was a tinge of admiration for a warrior worthy of his steel, Mustapha
returned to his place at the head of the caravan.
Late that night they reached the right bank of the Rutchuru. The chief
and his men had slept for but one hour during the past twenty-four, and
were too tired to attempt a crossing. They formed a zariba on a stretch
of dry ground about half a mile from the river, intending to continue
the march next day towards their stronghold beyond the hills. Tom was
again carefully tended by Mahmoud the hakim, and, thanks to his fine
constitution, was steadily gaining strength.
Next morning, just as the Arabs were breaking up camp, one of the scouts
who had already been sent across the river returned with the news that,
some distance beyond the farther bank, he had descried from an eminence
a body of about a hundred men in uniform preparing to march. They were
commanded by a white officer. The question naturally flashed into
Mustapha’s mind: "Could they be a part of the British force sent out in
search of the missing officer?" He had already heard, from one or two
late stragglers from the force which had engaged Captain Lister, of the
rockets sent up and the bugles sounded when darkness had fallen after
the fight, and he had no stomach for encountering a vengeful
search-party. The force just discovered, it was true, was in a quarter
where the British were little to be expected, but it was well to be on
the safe side. Hoping that his troops had not yet been seen, and that
if they had been seen they would be mistaken in the distance for a
peaceful caravan, the Arab determined on a strategic move. Instead of
crossing the river, and thus coming upon the other force at an acute
angle, he moved off in a north-easterly direction, as though making for
the south-eastern corner of Lake Albert Edward, leaving a few trusty
scouts to watch the movements of the unknown troops. But this was only
a feint. After marching for a few miles he swung round suddenly to the
south-east, cut across the track of his previous day’s march, pressed on
rapidly over the swampy ground, and struck the Rutchuru some ten miles
from his first position, the river bending there almost due east. There
he crossed, and, finding a stretch of comparatively clear and level
ground between the forest and the hills, he halted his men, to rest them
after their forced march.
Not many minutes afterwards a scout came up at full speed to say that
the unknown force was following hot-foot at their heels, and taking a
more direct line, having evidently divined the object of the trick. The
news was hardly out of his mouth when another scout followed and
informed the chief that the pursuing force was composed of Bangala, and
was unmistakeably Belgian, and not British. Mustapha smiled grimly.
His four hundred Arabs were a match, he thought, for a body of Bangala
of one fourth that number, and rather than run the risk of being dogged
and harassed, he determined to chance a fight. Sending his transport on
in advance, under an escort of fifty Arabs and a crowd of negroes, he
proceeded to prepare a hot welcome for his pursuers.
He knew every inch of the ground. Between his halting-place and the
foot of the hills intervened a swamp some two miles long and half a mile
broad. It was crossed by two paths, one leading straight to the hills,
the other intersecting the first at right angles about a quarter of a
mile from the outer edge of the swamp. The whole region was mere mud
and water, except along the paths, with elephant-grass at least twelve
feet high standing up in all directions.
Mustapha made his dispositions rapidly. He posted a hundred of his men
on the second and shorter path, about two hundred yards to the left of
the main path, at a spot where they were absolutely concealed by tall
grass. At the farther end of the main path he placed another hundred,
with orders to offer a feeble resistance to the Belgian troops, and to
retire before them into a dense copse at the base of the hills. A third
hundred were stationed some three hundred yards north, at the edge of
the swamp, on a line curving to the east, so that they commanded the
right flank of the advancing force. These positions had hardly been
taken up when the Belgian scouts, having crossed the river, advanced
cautiously to the edge of the swamp and began to move forward along the
main path. Just as they came to the crossways they caught sight of a
few Arabs retiring in their immediate front, these having been
instructed so to do in order to lure them on. The plan worked
perfectly. Not troubling to examine the crosspaths, they returned with
the information that the Arabs were retreating to the hills, obviously
desirous of avoiding an engagement. The Belgian commandant, who had
arrived but recently from Europe and was burning to distinguish himself
in the pursuit of raiders, ordered his men to press forward rapidly. The
Bangala advanced in single file, their commandant at their head, between
hedges of grass, sometimes in their haste slipping knee-deep into the
swamp.
They came in sight of the end of the path, and were met by a few shots
from the Arabs there assembled, who then retired in apparent
trepidation. At the same time the Arabs stationed to the north opened a
brisk fire on the Bangala’s right flank, to which they replied
vigorously, but ineffectively, for the grass was too high to allow them
to see the enemy or take careful aim. The commandant, at the head of
the column, ordered a halt, and was amazed now to hear shots in his
rear. The Arabs posted on the crosspath had begun to fire on the rear of
the slender column. Fearing for his transport, which he had left under
a small guard at the edge of the swamp, the commandant made the fatal
mistake of ordering a retreat. His men turned about and began to run
back. Meanwhile the Arabs behind them had come from their place of
concealment and taken up their position at the crossways on both sides
of the path, and those at the other end, who had pretended to retire,
returned in brisk pursuit. Caught between two fires, the Bangala were
thrown into a panic. The commandant was hit, and speared as he lay; his
men, paralysed with fright, either stood until they were shot down, or
plunged into the swamp and met their death in the ooze.
Mustapha, with grim exultation in his face, then swept down upon the
feebly-defended transport. The Bangala, after firing one shot, threw
down their arms and begged for mercy. They were given a choice between
instant death and slavery; and in the upshot, when the Arab chief
continued his journey westward, he was richer by the whole of the
Belgian baggage and a slave-gang of twenty Bangala, with as many more
negro carriers.
Tom in his litter had been sent forward with Mahmoud the physician and
the Arab baggage. At the sound of firing his heart leapt with the
thought that it was perhaps his uncle who had overtaken the Arabs. The
watchful hakim observed his excitement, and dashed his hopes with a
shake of the head. At that moment a slug, shot from who knows where,
dropped within a yard of Tom’s litter. The Arab started and let fall an
exclamation in German.
"Do you know German?" asked Tom eagerly in the same language. He felt
quite friendly towards the grave hakim with the high narrow forehead and
the long straggling beard.
"Yes, a little," said the Arab in surprise. "I lived a long time in
Bagamoyo, when the Germans first came, and I have learned to speak a
little in their infidel tongue."
"I can’t tell you how glad I am. I’ve been longing to have someone to
talk to now that I am getting better. Who is firing away over there?"
"Belgians."
"Oh!" Tom looked glum, and the Arab’s lips wore a queer little smile.
"You may give up hope of rescue," continued the Arab. "We are miles and
miles away from your friends, and they would never find you."
"What am I to expect, then? Better shoot me at once--if they think of
keeping me as a prisoner."
"You have rich friends, no doubt; they will pay."
"Ransom! Much I’m worth! What are you taking me right away from my
friends for, then?"
The Arab shrugged.
"You can judge," he said.
And indeed, when Tom thought of it, he saw that the chief was wise in
seeking his remote and inaccessible stronghold before opening
communications with the British authorities.
It took two days to reach the village appointed by the chief as the
rendezvous for his scattered force. Tom was carried all the way in the
litter, the hakim refusing to allow him yet to try to walk. They talked
together in German, but though the Arab spoke freely enough about things
in general, giving the captive many bits of curious and interesting
information, he was very reserved on all matters relating to the chief’s
aims and plans and movements.
On reaching the village the chief announced his intention of remaining
there for three days, to give his friends and allies ample time for
rejoining him. From the hut in which the hakim had fixed his quarters
Tom had a clear view through the village. He saw a scene which haunted
his memory and imagination for many a long day. Within a fence of
banana stalks stood a series of low sheds, many lines deep. Between
them, and around, were packed rows upon rows of naked negroes, standing,
lying stretched upon the ground, or moving about in utter listlessness.
Young men, women, children, all, save the very youngest, were chained
and fettered; their necks were encircled with iron rings, through which
a chain passed, binding the wretched creatures together in gangs of
twenty. Tom saw one man raise his hand to his neck to ease it of the
galling band; another, worn to a skeleton, lay panting his life out by a
heap of filth; two tiny black boys were innocently playing with the
links of the chain that bound their mother to other women. The look of
agony and despair upon the faces of the grown slaves, still more the
happy unconsciousness of the little children, touched Tom to the heart,
and there and then he vowed, if in God’s providence he ever escaped from
that place of horror, to do all in his power to help stamp out the cruel
trade. He poured out his indignation in fierce words to the Arab, who
smiled and shrugged, remarking simply, "Allah is good." Tom tried to
reason with him, but found him absolutely incapable even of
understanding what the pother was about. "There always had been slaves,
there always would be slaves; Allah is good."
Tom turned away, impatient and sick at heart. His eye fell on an
adjacent enclosure, in which the relics of innumerable raids lay
scattered or heaped up in profusion. Drums, spears, swords, assegais,
bows and arrows, knives, ivory horns, ivory pestles, wooden idols, the
wardrobes and paraphernalia of sorcerers, baskets, pots,
hammers--thousands of things, useful and useless, bore witness to the
Arabs’ depredations. As he looked, a picture seemed to form itself in
his mind. Through the darkness of night he sees stealthy, long-robed
forms creep towards a sleeping village; no sound issuing from the gloom
save the drowsy hum of cicadas or the croak of distant frogs; when
suddenly the glare of torches gleams upon the huts, the thatch bursts
into flame, and the scared sleepers wake amid the rattle of musketry,
some to meet swift death with momentary pain, others--alas! the
youngest, the strongest--to wear out their lives in the lingering death
of slavery. Tom brushed his hands over his eyes, and begged the
impassive Arab to take him away.
On the third morning of his stay in the village Tom observed that the
chief was in a towering rage. He asked the physician, as the caravan
again moved out westward, what was the cause of his master’s
disturbance. Mahmoud refused to explain. The truth was that one of the
scouts despatched by the chief to the scene of his fight with Major
Burnaby had returned with the news that he had discovered, on the bluff,
the corpses of eight of the nine men placed there to hurl down the logs.
Up to that moment the chief had been entirely at a loss to account for
the failure of the ambush so carefully arranged, and had only nursed
vague suspicions. But the fact that the ambush had failed, as now
reported, in the very first detail, coupled with the nonappearance of De
Castro, whom he had expected to join him immediately after the battle,
convinced the chief that he had been betrayed, and by his supposed
friend, the Portuguese. Chewing the bitter cud of his wrath, Mustapha
ordered his men to set off early in the morning, including in the
caravan six hundred of the slaves.
Tom was no longer borne in a litter. The hakim had declared him well
enough to walk. He was provided with a linen turban to protect his
head, and with a gourd and wallet to hold water and food for the day.
That he was a prisoner was left in no doubt by the guard of six men,
armed with loaded rifles, who marched with him, three in front and three
behind. The six were changed every three hours, a precaution against
any attempt on Tom’s part to become too friendly with his guards,
unnecessary in the circumstances, for when, from sheer tedium, he
ventured to address a few words to them, they shook their heads in
unfeigned ignorance of his meaning.
Indignant as he had been at the sight of the herded slaves in the
village, his blood boiled at the scenes which met his gaze during the
march, and his fingers itched to get to grips with the slave-traders.
"If I were only Hercules, or Samson, or any of the fabled giants of
old!" he sighed, chafing at his impotence. The slaves were driven on
without remorse or ruth, the heavy whip descending upon their shoulders
or curling about their loins at any sign of lagging. Mothers carried
their babies till they collapsed from exhaustion, strong youths fell,
utterly spent, by the path-side. Some of the weaklings were butchered
as they lay, the rest were left to die of famine, or perchance to be
enslaved again if haply some Good Samaritan found them and nursed them
back to strength.
Besides these actual evidences of present cruelty, the path itself bore
witness to savageries in the past. Leading, like all native paths, up
hill and down dale, crossing rocky uplands or traversing dense forests,
it had been trodden with no attempt to find the easiest way, sometimes
winding like a snake where a straight course would have saved miles,
sometimes making a straight line up a precipitous ascent where a
circular route would have been more expeditious. If a tree had fallen
across it the obstruction was not removed, but a new path was trodden
round it, joining the original path again at a point beyond. At more
than one spot Tom saw a skeleton across the track, and there the path
made a little divergence of two or three yards, returning to its course
at the same distance on the other side. In answer to Tom’s question the
hakim told him that if a man died on the road he was never buried, but
left to the beasts of the field and the fowl of the air. The loop
formed by the path about the body remained for ever, though the obstacle
in course of time disappeared. Several of the grisly skeletons there
encountered had the iron rings still about their necks; and with each,
fuel was added to Tom’s wrath, and strength to his resolve.
Towards noon, on the second day after leaving the slave-village, Tom,
marching among his guards, felt more than usually dejected in spirit.
He held his head high, and preserved an undaunted mien before the Arabs,
but in reality he was beginning to despair of ever beholding England and
his friends again. For one thing, he was physically out of sorts; the
villages in which the long caravan encamped at night were not models of
cleanliness, and he was sometimes too sick to swallow the unsavoury
foods provided for him. Moreover, he had been terribly plagued with the
jiggers, the scourge of African travel,--insects which pierced the skin
and laid their eggs beneath it, these in their turn becoming worms that
caused intolerable pain and irritation.
Towards noon, then, when he was feeling particularly unhappy, he
observed signs of commotion in the column ahead. The chief, posted upon
an ant-hill, was looking eagerly into the distance at a group of men
whom he had descried upon the sky-line a mile away. He ordered the
caravan to halt, and, suspecting from the smallness of the group that it
might be the advance scouts of another force led by Europeans, he
despatched fifty of his men to reconnoitre. They divided into two equal
bands, and went off through the bush on either side of the path so as to
surround the little party, and, if it proved hostile, to cut off its
retreat.
Mustapha, in the meantime, collected the best of his fighting-men around
him, and waited intently for his scouts to reach the strangers, who had
halted upon an eminence and seemed to be hesitating whether to advance
or to retire. But after a short period of indecision the group moved
slowly towards the halted caravan. It proved, as it came more
distinctly into view, to consist of ten men, all fully armed. They were
soon met by the Arab scouts, with whom they exchanged, not shots, but
friendly greetings, and who turned and escorted them towards the
caravan. As they approached, something in the bearing of the leader
seemed familiar to Tom, and it was with a thrill almost of dismay that
he recognized him, a hundred yards away, as indubitably his old enemy,
De Castro.
It was a different De Castro, however, from the brisk and alert pursuer
whose clutches he had so narrowly escaped. The Portuguese was haggard
and worn; his self-confidence had vanished; his clothes were in tatters;
even his green coat was sober and subdued, for constant exposure to the
sun had bleached it to a dirty gray. His hunt for the Arab had
evidently been particularly arduous, and there was no eagerness in his
tone as he greeted his friend Mustapha.
Tom had been watching the chief, and wondering at the ominous scowl that
darkened his face, growing ever blacker as the Portuguese drew nearer.
To De Castro’s greeting the Arab replied with a curse; then turning, he
gave a sharp word of command. Twenty of his men sprang forward, and the
wayworn new-comers were disarmed in a twinkling, standing helpless with
dull amazement. A change instantly came over the attitude of the
surrounding Arabs, the ready smile of welcome gave place to a dark
scowl, and many a forefinger moved suggestively to the trigger. The
Portuguese, after the first shock of surprise, gave vent to a torrent of
indignant remonstrance, to which the chief turned a deaf ear; whereupon
De Castro, with a shrug that seemed to say: "He’s in one of his
tempers", held his peace, and accepted the situation with stoical
indifference.
Tom, in the meantime, had watched the scene with curious eyes, careful
to keep out of the man’s sight. "Strange," he thought, "that both of
us, after our former tussle, should be prisoners in the same hands!"
When the march was resumed, the Portuguese was sent forward under
surveillance to the head of the column, Tom being nearer the centre,
puzzled beyond measure at the incivility with which the chief had
received one supposed to be bound to him by special ties.
Camp was pitched that night at the verge of the forest, in a deserted
and half-ruined village, the stockade of which was broken down at many
points of its circumference. Tom, in charge of the hakim, was located
in a hut near the centre of the village, some distance from that
appropriated by the chief. The chief’s hut was the principal habitation,
but it was little less ruinous than the rest. The thatch was broken in
places, and there were two apertures in the walls wide enough to admit a
full-grown man. It was overshadowed by a large and bushy tree, one of
whose branches, springing from the trunk some fourteen feet from the
ground, and bending down under its weight of foliage, overhung the roof,
actually grazing it as the freshening breeze swayed the bough.
Tom, reclining on the grass before the hakim’s hut, to eat his evening
meal in the cool air before turning in, saw the Portuguese led under
guard into the presence of the chief. In a few moments the sun went
down, but Tom still sat, wondering what was going on at the interview.
Once he thought he heard the sound of angry voices raised in
altercation, but in the absence of the moon he saw nothing more, and by
and by re-entered the hut, and sought the rough blanket that formed his
only bed. At first he could not sleep for thinking over the, to him,
unexpected arrival of the Portuguese. "It bodes no good to me," he
thought. "Things are bad enough, but may easily be made worse. That
villain will tell how I treated him; how he saw me afterwards with his
runaway boy on the track of the expedition; that it must have been
through our information the ambush came to grief. Heavens! what’s to be
the end of it all?" More than once during the march he had had thoughts
of attempting to escape, but he had barely recovered his full vigour,
and not the shadow of an opportunity had as yet presented itself. He
pondered and pondered until his anxieties were drowned in quiet sleep.
It seemed but a minute later, it was in reality an hour, when he was
awakened by the glare of a torch held close to his face. The smell of
the pitch-soaked tow clung to him for months afterwards. Dazed at
first, he soon made out the swarthy features of the Portuguese behind
the torch, and met his keen eyes peering closely at his own. The
Portuguese clicked his tongue, and uttered an exclamation of gleeful and
vindictive satisfaction. Turning to the Arab chief, who stood behind,
just within the doorway, he cried in Arabic:
"It is the very man!"
Tom lay watching. Now that a crisis was manifestly at hand, his tremors
had ceased; his very life depended on his coolness and nerve. De Castro
had begun an impassioned speech to the grave Arab. If Tom could have
understood it, he would have heard him say:
"You charge me, forsooth, with being a traitor, with betraying you to
the English--me, De Castro, the best hater of the English in all Africa!
There you have the man who spoilt your game--our game. Man, I call
him--that cub yonder, who tricked my boy away from me, and paid him, no
doubt, to spy on me!"
("Wonder if he’s telling the chief how I punched him!" thought Tom,
noting the gleam and gesture of anger in his direction.)
"And you talk of accepting a ransom for him! Bah! ’tis the idea of a
white-livered fool! Ransom! Mustapha, you were not always like this.
Once upon a time you would have been hot for revenge--your wrath would
have been satisfied ere the sun went down. Now you will sit supine
after a shameful defeat, and take its price in gold!"
The Arab winced under the sting, and Tom saw him scowl as he laid his
hand on his scimitar. He was beginning to speak, but the Portuguese
gave him no time.
"Threats! I care not a straw for your threats. Come, Mustapha, do not
let us quarrel. Think! Who was it started this parrot-cry, ’Down with
the slave-trade’? Who was it stopped the raids for ivory, and hounded
your people out of their ancient haunts till they have no rest now for
the soles of their feet? Who was it strewed the sands of Egypt with
thousands of your kin who were struggling in Allah’s name to rescue the
country from the Ottoman tyrant? You know who. We have had enough of
these accursed English in Africa. But for them the Arabs would have
been masters of the continent from Zanzibar to the Atlantic, from
Tanganyika to the Great Sea. Bad enough, the swines of Belgians; but
they can be bought. You can’t buy these insolent dogs of English! Will
you be deafened by their barking, and lacerated by their bites? Do you,
like a poltroon, throw up the game? If not, let there be no talk of
ransom, no faltering; let it be blood for blood, till Africa is our own
again."
The Portuguese had waxed more and more vehement, but Tom was cool enough
to look on critically as at an oratorical performance, and he even
smiled the usual British smile at the fervid, unrestrained eloquence of
the Southern races. De Castro went on in calmer accents:
"Come, Mustapha, your men will think you afraid to touch a white man if
you allow this bear’s whelp to be bought off. They will say: ’Give
Mustapha so many gold pieces, and you may draw his teeth!’ My friend,
hand the cub over to me. I will make an example of him for his
countrymen to shiver at!"
The taunts, even more than the arguments, of the Portuguese had roused
the cruelty in the Arab’s nature.
"Do as you like with him," he said impulsively. "It will teach them a
lesson. I can trust you, no doubt, señor," he went on with a
half-sneer, "not to let him off too easily. As for me, I have no taste
for butchering curs; I prefer to employ others."
The Portuguese glared for an instant, but, too glad to get the
long-coveted prey into his own hands, he pocketed the affront.
"So be it. To-morrow’s sun will see what shall be done with him.
Meanwhile, haul the dog from his kennel. Why give him a comfortable
hut? Treat him like the rest."
The chief nodded. The Portuguese went to the door and called in three
of the usual guard of six.
"Here, men," he said, "the chief orders you to remove this prisoner.
Take him and tie him to yonder tree, and see to it that he does not
escape."
As the men approached, Tom sprang to his feet and prepared to resist any
handling by the Arabs. At this moment the hakim, who had stood in a
corner of the hut, came forward and spoke a few words in the chief’s
ear. But they seemed only to strengthen the Arab’s resolve. He bluntly
told the physician to mind his own business,--that his intervention was
vain. By this time Tom saw that resistance was hopeless; a struggle
would probably end in his being butchered; and while there was life
there was hope. He suffered himself to be led out. The Portuguese
himself superintended the tying-up, the tree being the stout acacia
shading the chief’s hut. Eight men were set to watch the prisoner during
the rest of the night, and with a look of malignant satisfaction in his
evil face, the Portuguese, no longer suspected or distrusted, repaired,
a free man, to his own quarters.