The Siege of Barega’s
The Arab Camp--A Balista--A Vain Appeal--Eureka--Cutting a Channel--The
Eleventh Hour--Barega’s Last Fight--After the Battle
Tom’s premonitions were well founded; on awaking next morning he saw
that the whole accessible part of the village was blockaded by a chain
of posts extending from the north gate to the south-east corner. The
banana plantations on the south side appeared to be occupied in force,
and the object of the enemy was clearly to prevent any going in or
coming out, and so to starve the villagers into submission. Naturally
Tom congratulated himself on his foresight in stocking the village with
food, and expressed to the chief his confident hope that the besiegers
would tire.
That their intentions were serious was soon evident. Early in the
morning a large gang of Manyema were observed, nearly half a mile up the
hill, engaged in damming up the stream, and diverting its course from
the village away to the left Tom turned to the katikiro, who happened to
be by his side, and smilingly pointed out what the enemy were doing. The
katikiro was never loth to laugh, and he fairly bubbled over, slapping
his thighs and chuckling with infinite enjoyment.
"How mad they will be," thought Tom, "when they find that we can manage
without water! The man who planted this village round a constant spring
was a genius. Besides, they must know there’s plenty of water in the
ditch at present, not very palatable, perhaps, but enough to keep us
alive."
He wondered where the enemy had fixed their main camp. Those of them who
came within sight were for the most part Manyema, and it occurred to Tom
that perhaps the Arabs had departed for a time, to return with
reinforcements of their own race. However, on the third night of the
siege a Muhima managed to creep out without attracting the attention of
the besiegers, and returned after being absent about three hours, with
information that relieved Tom’s mind on that point. He discovered that
the Arabs had formed an entrenched camp in a green hollow at the foot of
the precipice at the north-east corner of the village. They had
evidently noticed that by moving in close to the base of the cliffs they
were protected by the overhanging spur from the weapons of the Bahima,
as well as from any other missiles, such as rocks or fireballs, that
might be hurled from above. They had placed their camp so that any
projectiles thus cast at them would fall outside their eastern boundary,
and their rampart and trench were sufficiently formidable to secure them
against assault. The position had the further advantage that the cliff
protected them from the prevailing wind, while they had a good supply of
water from a stream that joined the village stream a few hundred yards
below the precipice. Some little distance to the south, where the ground
rose steeply, a large body of their slave carriers had been penned like
cattle, under a strong guard. The Muhima said that the chief camp
contained some fifteen hundred Arabs, a number which Tom thought might
safely be divided by three.
Several days passed away, most wearisomely for the two thousand people
shut up within the stockade. While in time of peace, with men
constantly away on hunting expeditions and women working in the fields,
the village was never offensively over-populated, yet now that all the
people were necessarily at home, with more than the usual number of
cattle, Tom feared that it would before long be a hot-bed of fever. The
people, he had found, were always accustomed to allow calves and other
young animals to sleep in their own huts along with their families, but
it was quite unusual, even for them, to be cooped up constantly with
full-grown beasts. He did what he could to make the conditions as
little unfavourable to health as possible; but not much was in his
power, and he fretted at his impotence.
The besiegers had clearly abandoned all ideas of an assault in force,
but every now and then a bullet or a slug would whistle over the
stockade, and more than one man was killed. Tom got the chief at length
to forbid any of the people to show themselves, and, accustomed as they
were to a free and open life, they were greatly irritated by the
restriction. Seeing that something must be done to keep them in
good-humour, Tom took advantage of their love of novelty and their
amazing fondness for drill to instruct them for an hour or two every day
in simple movements and formations, finding that they were quite content
to continue drilling on their own account for hours at a stretch.
As time went on, the besiegers were amazed at the unconcern with which
the stoppage of the water-supply had been received in the village, and
came to the conclusion that the people must have been drawing on the
stagnant and dirty water in the ditch. One morning, then, Tom, who
never relaxed his vigilance, saw a body of men approaching under cover
of a light palisade lined with skins of Hima oxen, which effectually
protected them from the spears and arrows of the villagers. He was not
long left in doubt about the object they had in view. They came right
up to the ditch, and began to cut a channel where the ground sloped down
to the east, so as to drain off the water.
Tom was in no anxiety about the loss of water, but he objected to being
"done", as he put it to himself, and yet, in default of firearms, saw no
means of preventing the enemy from effecting their purpose. Fortunately
a tremendous downpour of rain, forerunner of the approaching rainy
season, drove the Arabs away for that time, and Tom at once set his wits
to work to defeat their scheme should they return. Thinking of one thing
after another, all at once he remembered, in an old illustrated edition
of Caesar he had used in a lower form at school, some engravings of the
torments used by the Romans in their siege operations. There was the
catapult--ah! and the balista; that was the very thing. Could he manage
to rig up a balista before the ditch was effectually drained? It was
worth trying.
"Good heavens! what it is to be without pencil and paper!" he groaned.
But he managed with a spear-head to scratch on a stone a rough diagram
of the machine, as nearly as he remembered it, and then immediately set
to work to construct a model.
There was plenty of wood in the village, and it took very little time to
hammer together the square framework, and to chisel out the grooved beam
on which the missile was to run. While this was being done he set some
of the Bairo to twist two many-stranded ropes, and the native smiths to
forge an iron handle for his winch. When this was fixed in its place at
the bottom of the grooved plank, and the ropes securely fastened at each
side of the frame, he placed one of the fireballs in front of the cross
rope on the plank, sloped this downwards at an angle of forty-five
degrees, and drew the rope back by means of the winch until it was
stretched to its utmost tension and almost as tight as a steel spring.
Then he released his hold of the handle, it flew round, the spring was
suddenly relaxed, and the ball shot along the groove and over the
stockade, falling some ten yards beyond.
"I’ll have a welcome ready for the Arabs if they return," he thought,
delighted at the success of his experiment.
Some three hours after the downpour had ceased, the Arabs came back in
stronger force, again bearing their palisades. Tom allowed them to
arrive within five yards of the trench, and then let fly a piece of rock
from his balista. A tremendous cheer arose from the crowd of wondering
negroes as the missile sped with sure aim to the very middle of the
palisade, with such force that it tore a hole through skin and
wicker-work, and struck a man behind.
The Arabs were startled, as they might well be, and halted. Before they
had made up their minds what to do, another missile struck the palisade,
and ricochetted across it, inflicting a blow on one of the Arabs that
would have killed him if its force had not been partly broken. Another
stone, and another, and then the enemy hesitated no longer; they dropped
their palisade, flung down their tools, and bolted for their lives.
Mocking jeers and exultant laughter followed them, and then a shower of
arrows, and four or five of them dropped. Tom ordered his men to cease
shooting, and allowed the wounded to be carried off by their friends.
That was the last attempt the enemy made to take the offensive. They
had clearly recognized by this time that they had a more formidable
antagonist to deal with than the average native of Central Africa. Tom,
indeed, had freely exposed himself to their marksmen throughout the
operations, and had had more than one narrow escape, as well as the one
slight wound in the arm, which gave him no concern. They could scarcely
have failed to perceive that they had to reckon with a European of
determination and resource, and from that time on they contented
themselves with a strict investment. They rounded-up what cattle they
could lay their hands on, and, having the banana and other plantations
of the villagers to draw upon, they lived luxuriously without consuming
the provisions they had themselves brought. They could thus afford to
play a waiting game.
Within the village, however, things were becoming unpleasant, nay,
dangerous. The sanitary arrangements, at any time crude and imperfect,
were unequal to the necessities of the case, and one or two cases of
sickness had already occurred. The strain upon the fortitude of the
people was proving more than it could bear. After three weeks the
food-supply began to run short, and the daily rations were diminished,
amid murmurings from the Bairo. A week later it was found necessary by
the chief to order the slaughter of several of the much-prized cattle.
Now that it had come to this pass, the Bairo were bound to suffer most,
for, living as they did for the most part on fruits and grain, the stock
of which was well-nigh exhausted, they were without the resources of the
Bahima, and were earlier in straits for food.
Early in the fifth week of the siege Tom begged the chief to call a
palaver. Barega had displayed qualities of patience and endurance which
won Tom’s unbounded admiration. From the beginning of the siege he
seemed to have recognized that his only chance of successful resistance
was to trust in the ingenuity and prudence of his blood-brother, and he
had sunk his own pre-eminence without a shade of jealousy. No doubt
this was in great measure due to Tom’s own tactfulness. He took no
steps without consulting the chief, and he had that invaluable faculty
which enables a man to get his own way without the other party
suspecting it. Barega, therefore, willingly called a council, and
showed his readiness to listen to anything his brother had to say.
"Barega and my brothers," Tom began, "we have held out so long, and we
are not going to give in." (Grunts of applause.) "But we cannot shut
our eyes to the fact that we are in sore straits. Our food will last
but a few days more, and then, without help, we must starve. Now, if
our enemies had no firearms, Barega and I together would lead you out of
the village and attack them. But we cannot cope with their weapons, and
if we made the attempt it would surely fail. Is it impossible to obtain
help from outside? Are there no villages within reach whose people have
suffered at the hands of the Arabs, and would aid us against the common
enemy? Brothers, it is for you to speak."
The katikiro at once replied that there were three villages within a
radius of thirty miles which certainly had suffered by the Arabs’
depredations and might possibly be able to lend assistance. One of
them, however, Barega reminded the assembly, was ruled by a chief who
was extremely jealous of his power, and would not be much inclined to
put himself out on any such matter. Still, it could be tried. Barega
then selected three of his fleetest runners, and two hours before dawn,
under a moonless sky, they were sent out singly from the north gate.
When morning broke, Tom was called from his hut by furious cries in the
village. Hastening out, he soon understood the cause of the uproar.
Outside the stockade, just beyond arrow-range, a big Manyema was
parading before the eyes of the villagers, holding a spear aloft, and on
the end of it was the bleeding head of one of the three runners. Behind
him marched a crowd of mocking negroes, pointing derisively to the
impaled head, and shouting threats at the enraged villagers. Tom
mentally registered that as one more atrocity for which the Arabs would
some day have to pay, and then did his best to pacify the people.
The other two runners, as it turned out, had been lucky enough to get
through the enemy’s lines undetected. They both returned on the
following night. One of them announced that Barega’s rival had received
him with scorn and insult, and that he had barely escaped with his life.
The other brought news that a raiding-party of Arabs, evidently
despatched by the surrounding force, had surprised and burned the
neighbouring village a few days before, and that the few inhabitants who
had escaped were hiding in the forest.
With this intelligence, it was impossible to disguise the fact that the
outlook was gloomy in the extreme. It was hopeless to look for help
from outside, and from the inside it appeared that nothing could be
done. The rainy season had set in, and sickness had declared itself
unmistakeably, especially among the Bairo, who had all along been less
well nourished than the Bahima. They were reduced now to a few handfuls
of grain daily, and as they roamed about, the ribs showing through their
skin, they cast ravenous eyes at the few remaining cattle. Murmurs of
"Give us food! give us food!" met the ears of Barega and his officers as
they went about, and some of the more violent of the poor people had
begun again to listen to the half-lunatic ravings of the medicine-man,
who, since his defeat, had sulked almost unnoticed in his hut. Even
some of the Bahima, talking among themselves, said that it would be
better to submit to the enemy than to die of slow starvation. The
katikiro, who through all the incidents of the siege had never lost his
faith in Tom, informed him of these murmurs, and Tom impressed on Barega
that he must still them at once. The chief immediately summoned a
mass-meeting, and addressed his people in an impassioned speech. What
would their fate be, he asked, if they yielded? Nine-tenths of the men
would be butchered on the spot, along with all the older women and all
who were too infirm to stand the strain of marching in a slave-caravan.
What would become of their younger women and children? Barega pictured
the line of miserable slaves, marching in chains at the mercy of their
brutal captors, dropping and left to rot on the path; if they survived
the march, to suffer tortures compared with which the fate of their
murdered kinsfolk would be happy indeed. Let them choose, he cried, let
them choose freely; as for him, he would die in his village, fighting
his foe if so it might be; if not, still he would die a free man!
His burning words provoked a shout of approval from the throng, and then
Tom stepped forward. A deep hush fell upon the assembly; every man
there felt a strange magnetic power in the young white man who had stood
by them and done them such good service.
"O Bahima and Bairo!" he cried, "brothers, all of you, do not give up
hope. You have heard your brave chief; his words are the words of a
lion-heart. I tell you now that I believe we shall yet win. There is a
town, in a far land belonging to the Great White King, which was
besieged like this village for many long days, and where the people
waited and waited, hoping that at last their friends would come to their
aid and drive away the hordes besieging them. Their food was gone; they
were sick, aye, sick unto death; but did they give in? Know that the
children of the Great White King never give in! No; they waited and
fought, and some of them died, and then at last, far over the fields,
they saw the spears of their friends advancing to help them, and the
enemy melted away like mist in the sun, and they were saved! Let us wait
also, a little longer, my brothers!"
For a moment after he had ceased the silence was unbroken. Then the
katikiro sprang into the ring; his feelings could be played on like the
notes of an instrument; raising his spear aloft he cried "Muzungu will
save us! Kuboko will save us!" The crowd took up his cry, and Tom was
touched to the quick to see their haggard faces lit up once more with
the light of hope, and their wild eyes fixed on him as their expected
deliverer.
That night he lay awake, thinking, thinking, racking his brains for some
means of compelling the enemy to raise the siege and justifying the
confidence of the villagers. All the expedients that he had ever read
of were passed in turn before his mind, only to be dismissed as
impracticable; the want of firearms and gunpowder was against them all.
Then suddenly, by an inspiration seemingly quite unconnected with his
train of thought, a light flashed upon his mind. There was no need to
weigh probabilities; the idea carried conviction with it. Crying "I have
it!" he sprang from his couch, waking Mbutu with a start.
"Come, Mbutu," he said, "a night’s work and a day’s waiting and then we
shall be free. Come with me."
In pitch darkness, for the sky was heavy with threatening rain, they
made their way across the courtyard into the village, past the silent
reservoir and the swollen stream, up to the stockade above the
precipice. There they clambered over with infinite caution, lest the
slightest sound should arouse the attention of the Arabs below. Feeling
over the ground, they searched for the small aperture through which Tom
had thrust his stick when exploring the cavern. Tom was half afraid
lest some shifting of the soil had covered it up; but after ten minutes’
careful search Mbutu whispered that he had put his hand into it.
Thrusting a stick into the hole to mark the spot, they hurried to the
chief’s hut. When Barega came out, rubbing his eyes, Tom asked him for
the services of twenty men, with baskets, spades, and bars of iron. He
asked him also to pretend to lead a sortie out of the south gate, and to
order his men to make as much noise as possible.
"Beat all your drums," he said; "clash all your pots and pans together;
let the men yell their hardest, and keep up the din until I send you
word."
Barega naturally asked what purpose was to be served by all this to-do,
and what his brother would be about in the meantime. But Tom begged him
to wait a little; he had a plan, he said. He would rather keep it to
himself until he was sure of its success, lest his brother should be
disappointed. The chief agreed to follow his instructions, and Tom left
him.
Getting twenty of the strongest men together, he led them across the
stockade, impressing on them that they must exercise the greatest
caution and hold their tongues. Arriving the hole, he selected four of
the longest and strongest bars of iron and ordered the men to push them
quietly for some distance into the narrow cleft. Then, when he gave the
word, one man on the one side was to push and two men on the other to
pull at each bar, his aim being to widen the cleft into a practicable
passage. The bars had barely been inserted when the noise of drums
rolled over the stockade. A moment afterwards a great clashing and
clanking startled the air, and wild cries from some hundreds of lusty
throats woke echoes from rock and plantation. The sounds of hurried
movement rose from the depths of the precipice; the Arab camp was
evidently alarmed; and then Tom gave the signal. The men pushed and
pulled as he had directed, but in vain; the heavy rock refused to budge.
Another man was told off to each bar, and again they put forth their
strength; but still there was no sign of movement. The uproar from the
village was greater than ever; there was little risk, after all, Tom
thought, of his movements being heard; so he now ordered the men to
exert all the force of which they were capable, regardless of noise. The
result was startling. The whole of the ground; near the rock suddenly
gave way and fell with a swish and thud into the cavern. Two of the men
stumbled forward after it into the darkness, and knocked their shins
violently against the rock. But they clambered up again, and Tom found
that all the damage they had suffered was a few contusions.
[Illustration: BAREGA’S VILLAGE DURING THE SIEGE]
Tom now went, cautiously feeling his way, to the extreme verge of the
precipice, and, bidding his men keep silence, strained his ears to catch
any sounds from below. There was not a murmur. He judged that the
Arabs had hastily left their camp and made their way up to the south
gate to meet the anticipated attack. It appeared safe.
"Dig, men, dig!" he said.
The twenty Bahima began to dig a passage through the debris. Not a word
was spoken. The din in the village was beginning to lull. Tom
despatched Mbutu with the request that the noise should be kept up. The
baskets of earth, as they were filled, were carried to the stockade and
emptied on the inside. The work went on as rapidly as possible in the
darkness, the men toiling with unabated zeal, sure that Kuboko, the man
of big medicine, must have some excellent plan in view. Meanwhile the
chief, finding the Arabs pressing close, and their rifle fire, erratic
as it was, becoming dangerous, had withdrawn his sortie-party into the
village; but the drums still maintained a tremendous din that must have
been heard in the still night air for many miles.
Rather more than two hours had gone, and only the first part of the task
Tom had in his mind was completed. A clear passage ten feet wide had
been cut from the summit of the cliff into the cavern. Ordering the
panting negroes to sit down and rest, Tom walked back the twelve feet to
the stockade, took a string of bush-rope from his pocket, and tying it
to one of the palings, returned to his men. The straight line made by
the string lay in the direction of the tank. Then he set the men to dig
a trench along the line towards the stockade, making it ten feet wide
and three deep. He ordered them to stop within a foot of the fencing,
lest that should be loosened by the movement of the earth. This took
another two hours, as nearly as Tom could judge. It was approaching
three o’clock in the morning, and there was still much to be done before
his arrangements were complete. Thinking it wise to defer the rest of
his operations, for which light was absolutely necessary, he dismissed
the men, returned to the village, and sent word to the chief that the
weary drummers might now take their well-earned rest.
Then he unfolded his scheme to the wondering chief. The Arab camp at
the foot of the precipice was, it was true, secure from missiles hurled
over the spur; but it was immediately below the cavern. Tom’s plan was
to let the water from the full reservoir suddenly into the cavern, and
he calculated that the force it gained as it plunged thence over the
precipice would be sufficient to work havoc below. The reservoir was
eighty yards long and sixty wide; its depth was more than six feet; the
weight of the water it contained was thus some seven thousand tons. By
the time this immense quantity, gathering impetus as it fell, reached
the camp two hundred feet beneath its outlet, the dynamic energy it
would have acquired would be tremendous. The plan threw Barega into
wild excitement, and he was eager to see it carried out at once; but Tom
smilingly informed him that there was work still to be done, and,
thanking him for so admirably making a noise, advised him to retire to
his hut and finish his broken sleep.
Next day the whole village knew that Kuboko had some terrifically big
medicine in preparation, though none but the chief as yet knew what it
was. Tom had many times to drive away the crowd of little half-starved
children who came about him, looking up into his face with admiration
and awe. There was still a trench to be dug from the reservoir to the
stockade, but as the village was exposed to the Arabs on the upper
ground to the south, no digging could be done during the day. Rain fell
heavily, and Tom hoped almost against hope that it would cease before
night, and that some glimmer of moonlight would enable him then to
complete his preparations. During the day, however, he was not idle. He
employed the same men who had so intelligently constructed his balista
in making the rough semblance of the two doors of a river lock, each
five feet wide and six feet deep. When finished, the edge of each was
pierced with a red-hot bar of iron in three places at equal distances
apart. Then the two doors were stitched together with bush rope through
the holes, and the seam was covered with cloth well plastered with
kaolin, the cloth being made to adhere to the wood with glue extracted
from the bones of oxen. Wood was getting short in the village, but Tom,
after some search, found four stout balks which he laid aside for future
use.
Well pleased with his morning’s work, he slept all the afternoon, and
then, as soon as it was dark, set eight hundred men and women digging
the trench to connect the tank with the trench outside the stockade. He
placed them at various points along the line of twenty yards, so that
the work might be quickly carried out, and nearest the tank left a bank
three feet thick untouched. When the trench was so far complete, he let
down at the end three feet from the tank the twin hatchway he had
constructed, so that it completely blocked the channel, and shored it up
with the four balks of timber, two to each panel. Round the lower end
of these he got his men to fasten strong ropes, the other ends of which
he tied to posts driven into the ground above.
It was now, he judged, about eleven o’clock. The rain had ceased, and
in three hours the new moon would rise. Dismissing the great body of the
workers, with orders that a small gang of them should remain within
call, he took the chief aside to make final arrangements. As the edge
of the moon appeared over the horizon, Barega was to muster four hundred
men at the south gate, and the katikiro two hundred at the north gate.
Tom surmised that when the avalanche of water descended upon their camp,
the Arabs would in their flight rush for safety to the higher ground on
either side. They would probably be unarmed, and should fall an easy
prey to the Bahima. Those who were encamped round the village and in
the banana plantation would naturally run to the assistance of their
friends, and would take the paths around the south end of the village.
Three hundred of the four hundred Bahima there placed would take them in
flank, the remaining hundred were to attack the fugitives from the camp,
who would be assailed at the same time by the party from the north.
Thinking out all these details carefully, Tom saw the possibility of a
hitch should the Arabs become alarmed before he was ready; but he
impressed upon Barega and the katikiro that they must entirely reverse
the procedure of the previous night, and, instead of making as much din
as possible, enjoin the strictest silence on their men.
It only remained to scoop out the earth left between the tank and the
trench, and between the end of the outer trench and the stockade. Some
ten feet of the fencing was quietly removed to facilitate operations;
then the reserve gang was called up, and in about an hour the work was
done. The scooping at the tank end was a delicate task, for Tom did not
wish to lose any lives by drowning. The last thin wall of earth between
the boards and the reservoir was pushed down with long poles, and the
water, flowing into the trench, was checked by the hatchway. Beyond
that there was a clear course through a channel five feet wide and six
deep to the arch of the cavern, and that was perpendicularly above the
camp. Tom sent Mbutu to see that the sortie-parties were ready, loosed
the ends of the ropes about the posts, and placed four strong men at
each. His arrangements were complete.
Now that the critical moment was so near at hand Tom’s heart in spite of
himself beat with almost audible thuds. There was the huge reservoir,
the surface of the water just discernible, only a gentle ripple on its
surface indicating its recent disturbance. In a few short moments that
placid pond was to become an impetuous torrent, rushing downward with
all the force of its seven thousand tons, nothing to check it, nothing
to prevent it from dealing death to the men below. As his vivid
imagination conjured up the scene at the base of the precipice, and
contrasted it with the peaceful scene above, Tom felt a pang, a touch of
pity and remorse, a shuddering reluctance to launch so many miserable
wretches into eternity. But that inward vision dissolved, and another
took its place. He saw once more the long caravan of slaves, the gaunt,
chained figures, with the wild, hunted look, the terrible lash of their
masters provoking shrieks answered by redoubled blows, the horrible
mutilations inflicted on weak women and children. There rang in his
ears once more the piteous cry of a poor slave woman who for some
trivial offence was led away to be slaughtered: "Oh, my lord, oh, my
master! Oh, my lord, oh, my master!" He felt a rush of hot blood to
his face, a flush of shame that such things should be. He remembered
that such treatment would be measured out to Barega’s people if the
Arabs captured the village, and thought with a solemn sense of awe of
the strange chain of events which had made him so potent a factor in the
life and safety of these black people. It was life against life--the
Arabs were a pest--and he set his lips and hardened his heart.
Then, looking towards the horizon, he saw the ruddy horn of the moon
emerging. Ten minutes passed; he could see dimly the outlines of the
trees.
"Now!" he whispered, with an outward calm that gave no clue to his
intense emotion. The sixteen men heaved at the ropes; the balks of
timber fell; the weight of water falling on the unsupported hatchway
drove it inwards; and in ten seconds more the torrent swept with a dull
roar into the cavern. Then, with a crash that seemed to shake the cliff
to its foundations, the enormous mass of loose rock hiding the mouth of
the cavern was driven over the edge. Even above the roar and splash
rose the cries of the hapless men beneath, and then from each end of the
camp came, as though in mocking answer, the exultant shouts of the
warriors hastening to assail their foe. A few rifle shots rang out, but
the rush of the Bahima was irresistible. They were famished, they were
fighting for their lives and liberty, and, dashing down the slopes to
north and south, they fell without mercy or respite upon their shaken
foes.
Demoralized, leaderless, unarmed, the Arabs and Manyema below were
rushing hither and thither like scared sheep, unable to act, unable to
think. The force in the plantations above, catching the panic,
scattered at the first onslaught of the Bahima, who, with spears and
knives and every kind of weapon, were strewing the ground with dead.
One little group, holding close together under their leader, came
rushing across the path of the Bahima chief at the head of his men.
Barega lifted his spear to strike, but the Arab leader, at four paces’
distance, fired his pistol at him point-blank, and he fell. The next
instant the Arab was transfixed with a dozen spears, but the gallant
chief, shot through the breast, had fought his last fight. His men
rushed on, pursuing the enemy with savage cries, and the chief, lifting
himself painfully upon his elbow, saw that he was alone. A few seconds
later, Tom, his task on the bluff finished, came hasting with Mbutu and
his sixteen men to assist in the fight. Many bodies lay scattered prone
on the ground, but among them he saw one man in a half-sitting posture.
"Kuboko! Kuboko, my brother!"
Tom heard the faint cry, started, and turned aside. He had but just
time to grip the outstretched hand; then Barega heaved a sigh and died.
Tom stood looking down at his dead friend, for, during the months they
had been so strangely thrown together, he had come to look upon the
simple, heathen African as a true friend. Thoughts of what he owed to
the negro passed through his mind; he felt deeply sorry that Barega was
never to enjoy the fruits of the victory for which they had worked
together. "Poor fellow!" he murmured; then, gulping down the lump in
his throat, he went on.
The tide of battle, if battle it could be called, had meanwhile rolled
onwards. All unconscious of the death of their chief, the Bahima sped
down into the plain, hunting the fugitives like wild beasts, tracking
them in the moonlight like sleuth-hounds to places where they attempted
to hide. There were no prisoners, none merely wounded; the Bahima did
their fell work thoroughly. Right into the outskirts of the forest they
kept up the chase till, tired of the work of slaughter, they began to
straggle back to the village. All night long they continued to come in
by twos and threes, some small parties even not arriving until after
dawn.
The scene when daylight broke was gruesome beyond belief. The tent of
the Arab chief lay half-buried beneath a mass of broken rock in the
centre of a shallow pond. Many of the Arabs and Manyeina had perished
by the avalanche of earth and water, and scores had fallen to the spears
of the Bahima. The camp was half under water, and all kinds of articles
were floating about or showing above the surface, among them several
barrels which Tom guessed to be filled with gunpowder. Rifles, pistols,
spears, a medley of weapons and implements, were scattered all around,
and outside the immediate circle of devastation many boxes and bags of
provisions lay uninjured.
Walking down to the scene, sick at heart, and yet convinced that he had
only done his duty, Tom came, within about five hundred yards of the
chief’s tent, upon an enclosure in which some four hundred slaves were
herded. It seemed that only by the merest chance could they have
escaped the massacre. They had in reality been saved by their position.
Their enclosure had been placed where it was so that the free movements
of their masters round the village should not be impeded. Thus, while
exposed to the wind and weather, they had been out of the direct line of
the Bahima’s onslaught. Being chained and fenced in, they had been
unable to escape, and, indeed, their Manyema guards had stuck to their
posts till the last, and only fled when dawn showed them the fate of
their friends. Tom at once gave orders that the fetters on these men
and women should be knocked off, and that they should be taken under a
guard into the village. They could there be fed, and it might be
decided subsequently what was to be done with them.
Tom then set a party of Bairo to recover from the water as many of the
Arabs’ effects as possible, and another to search the surrounding
country for any traces of Hima cattle which had escaped the Arabs. He
was about to order another gang to bury the dead, but remembered that
the people who had died in the village before the arrival of the Arabs
had not been buried, but taken out into the open to be eaten by the
beasts of the field. Only the chief’s body was usually buried, and all
that was left of Barega had already been carried into the village to
await solemn interment in the ground below his hut. Ordering the
villagers to remove the dead to a distance, and to leave them exposed on
the plain, Tom returned dead-beat to his hut, and threw himself down
upon his couch.