We were an ignorant people. Out of a gloom we came
Hungering, striving, feasting--vanishing into the same.
Came to us your foreloopers, told us the gloom was bad,
Spoke of the Light that might be--simply it could be had--
Knowledge and wealth and freedom, plenty and peace and play,
And at all the price of obedience. "Listen and learn and obey,"
We were told, "and the gloom shall be lifted. Ignorance surely
is shame."
We listened to your foreloopersy till presently Cadis* came.
We were an ignorant people. Our law was "an eye for an eye,"
And he who wronged should right the wrong, and he who stole should die--
Bad law the Cadis told us, based on the fall of man;
And they set us to building law-courts on the Pangermanic plan--
Courts where the gloom of ages should be pierced, said they, with Light
And scientific theory displace wrong views of Right.
The Cadis' law was writ in books that only they could read,
But what should we know of the strings to that? 'Twas gloom when
we agreed.
We were an ignorant people. The Offizieren came
To lend to law eye, tooth, and claw and so enforce the same.
Now nought are the tribal customs; free speech is under ban;
Displaced are misconceptions that were based on fallen man,
And our gloom has gone in darkness of the risen German's night,
Nor is there salt of mercy lest it sap the hold of Might.
They strike--we may not answer, nor dare we ask them why.
We sold ourselves to supermen. If we rebel, we die.
-----------------
* Cadi--judge.
-----------------
I sat down once more on the hospital steps, and listened while Fred and
Will relieved themselves of their opinions about German manners.
Nothing seemed likely to relieve me. I had marched a hundred miles,
endured the sickening pain, and waited an extra night at the end of it
all simply on the strength of anticipation. Now that the surgeon would
not see me, hope seemed gone. I could think of nothing but to go and
hide somewhere, like a wounded animal.
But there were two more swift shocks in store, and no hiding-place.
The path to the water-front led past us directly along the southern
boma wall. Before Fred and Will had come to an end of swearing they
saw something that struck them silent so suddenly that I looked up and
saw, too. Not that I cared very much. To me it seemed merely one last
super-added piece of evidence that life was not worth while.
Plainly the launch had come from British East, of which Schubert had
spoken. Hand in hand from the water-front, followed by the obsequious
Schubert, all smiles and long black whip (for the chain-gang trailed
after with the luggage, and needed to be overawed), walked Professor
Schillingschen and Lady Isobel Saffren Waldon. They seemed in love--or
at any rate the professor did, for he ogled and smirked like a bearded
gargoyle; and she made such play of being charmed by his grimaces that
the Syrian maid fell behind to hide her face.
None of us spoke. We watched them. Personally I did not mind the
feeling that the worst had happened at last. I was incapable of
sounding further depths of gloom--too full of pain bodily to suffer
mentally from threats of what might yet be. But the other two looked
miserable--more so because Fred's bearded chin perked up so bravely,
and Will set his jaw like a rock.
Not one of us had said a word when the biggest askari we had seen yet
strode up to us--saluted--and gave Fred a sealed envelope. It was
written in English, addressed to us three by name (although our names
were wrongly spelled). We were required to present ourselves at the
court-house at once, reason not given. The letter was signed
"Liebenkrantz,--Lieutenant."
The askari waited for us. I suppose it would not be correct to say we
were under arrest, but the enormous black man made it sufficiently
obvious that he did not intend returning to the court without us. The
court-house was not more than two hundred yards away. As we turned
toward it we saw Lady Saffren Waldon being helped into the commandant's
litter, borne by four men, the commandant himself superintending the
ceremony with a vast deal of bowing and chatter, and Professor
Schillingschen looking on with an air of owning litter, porters,
township, boma, and all. As we turned our backs on them they started
off toward the neat white dwelling on the hill.
The court was a round, grass-roofed affair, with white-washed walls of
sun-dried brick. For about four-fifths of the circumference the wall
was barely breast-high, the roof being supported on wooden pillars
bricked into the wall, as well as by the huge pole that propped it up
umbrella-wise in the center.
The remaining fifth of the wall continued up as high as the roof,
forming a back to the platform. Facing the platform was the entrance,
and on either side benches arranged in rows followed the curve of the
wall. There was a long table on the platform, at which sat the
lieutenant who had summoned us, with a sergeant seated on either hand.
The sergeants were acting as court clerks, scribbling busily on sheets
of blue paper, and in books.
Behind the lieutenant, in a great gilt frame on the white-washed wall,
was a full-length portrait of the Kaiser in general's uniform. The
Kaiser was depicted scowling, his gloved hands resting on a saber
almost as ferocious-looking as the one the lieutenant kept winding his
leg around.
All the benches were crowded with spectators, prisoners, witnesses, and
litigants. Outside, at least two hundred Arabs, Indians, and natives
leaned with elbows on the wall and gazed at the scene within. The
lieutenant glared, but otherwise took no notice of our entry; he gave
no order, but one of the two sergeants came down from the platform and
kicked half a dozen natives off the front bench to make room for us.
We were mistaken in supposing our case would be called first, or even
among the first. The floor in the midst of the court was clear except
for a long single line of natives and six askari corporals, each with a
whip in his hand. It was evident at once that these natives were all
ahead of us, even if those on the benches were not to be heard and
dealt with before our turn came.
"Look at the far end of the line!" whispered Fred.
Lo and behold Kazimoto, looking rather drawn and gray, but standing
bravely, looking neither to the right nor left. I judged he knew we
were in court--he could hardly have failed to notice our coming in--but
he sturdily refused to turn his head and see us.
"What has he done?" I wondered.
"Nothing more than told some Heinie to go to hell--you can bet your
boots!" said Will.
The lieutenant was in no hurry to enlighten us. Our boy stood at the
wrong end of the line to be taken first. The lieutenant called a name,
and two great askaris pounced on the trembling native at the other end
and dragged him forward, leaving him standing alone before the desk.
"Silence!" the lieutenant shouted, and the court became still as death.
He had a voice as mean as a hyena's--a voice that matched his face.
The insolent, upturned twist of his fair mustache showed both corners
of a thin-lipped mouth. He had the Prussian head, shaped square
whichever way you viewed it. There was strength in the
jaw-bones--strength in the deep-set bright eyes--strength in the
shoulders that were square as box-corners without any padding--strength
in the lean lithe figure; but it was always brute strength. There was
no moral strength whatever in the restless fidgeting--the savage
winding and unwinding of his left foot around the saber scabbard, or
the attitude, leaning forward over the table, of petulant pugnacity.
And the cruel voice was as weak as the hand was strong with which he
rapped on the table.
He questioned the boy in front of him sharply--told him he stood
charged with theft--and demanded an answer.
"With theft of what thing, and whose thing?"
The answer was bold. The trembling had ceased. Now that he faced
nemesis the strength of native fatalism came to his rescue, bolstering
up the pride that every uncontaminated Nyamwezi owns. He was not more
than seventeen years old, but he stood there at last like a veteran at
bay.
"Put him down and beat him!" ordered the lieutenant.
"Impudent answers to this court shall always be soundly punished! Call
the next case while that one is being taught good manners."
A woman was stood in front of the line, fidgety with fear, in doubt
whether to lay her suckling baby on the bench before she faced military
justice. She laid it on the floor at her feet, hesitated, and then
picked it up again and wrapped it in a corner of the red blanket that
constituted her only dress.
"Take that brat away from her!" the lieutenant ordered. "She must pay
attention to me. With that in her arms she will only think of
mothering!"
An askari seized the baby by the arm and leg and gave it with a laugh
to another woman to hold, its mother whimpering with fright until she
saw it safely nestled.
"Quick, now! What about this one?"
It seemed there was no charge against her. The two sergeants searched
through the piles of blue sheets in vain.
"Then what the devil is she here for? What do you want, you?"
The trembling woman pointed to her baby, but was dumb. It needed
courage to answer that lieutenant, and the crack--crack--crack of a
thick kiboko descending at measured intervals on the naked back of the
boy who had answered boldly was no help toward reassurance.
"Speak!" the lieutenant ordered, "or I shall have you compelled to
speak!"
She burst into sudden volubility. The dam once down, she poured forth
a catalogue of wrongs that seemed endless, switching off from one
dialect to another and at intervals inserting, apropos apparently of
nothing, the few words of German she had picked up. The lieutenant
yelled for an interpreter, and a Nyamwezi who knew German rose from the
front bench and came and stood beside her.
"That baby is a white man's," he explained.
"What does she want?"
"She says the white man is the bwana dakitari (the doctor!)."
"Oh! Then I am glad she came here. It is time these loose women were
taught a lesson! They tell the same tale. They say a white man passed
through the village, gave their father a present, and carried them off.
Is that her tale, too?"
"Yes."
"Well--what of it? The father agreed at the time when he accepted the
present, didn't he? The consequence is a baby--not for the first time!
Instead of going back to her village, she comes here and tries to
blackmail the officer! She is young. It's the first time she has been
in this court. This time I will be lenient. One hundred lashes!"
The interpreter translated, and the woman screamed. An askari seized
her by the shoulders. She clung to him, but he threw her to the
ground, and another one tore off the blanket that would have deadened
the blows to some extent. She begged, and clung to their feet, but the
blows began to rain on her, and presently she lay still, her breasts
flattened against the earth floor, her mouth full of dust, and her
naked body paralyzed by fear of the descending lash.
"Now bring up number one again!" the lieutenant ordered.
The askaris ceased from flogging him. One of them kicked him to his
feet, and he resumed his stand in front of the lieutenant, looking up
at him as proudly as ever, for all that his back was bruised and bloody.
"Did you steal or did you not?" asked the lieutenant.
"Steal what from whom?"
"Oh, go on beating him! Next case!"
The next man escaped the whip, but his witnesses were less
fortunate. He brought two men and a woman with him to prove an alibi
on a charge of attempted theft, and the glibness of their answers
convinced the lieutenant they were lying. In the absence of all
evidence for the prosecution except the unsupported word of a police
askari who admitted a personal grudge against the defendant, the
lieutenant resorted to the whip to change the witnesses' convictions,
but without avail.
The woman yelled under the lash like a demented thing, but, far from
withdrawing her statements, tried to spit in the lieutenant's face when
jerked to her feet and stood again before him--an impossible feat
because the platform on which he sat at the table was too high. He had
her beaten a second time for spitting.
The next man was a fat Baganda from British territory, charged with
trading without a license. He pleaded ignorance of the law, and denied
having traded. He was flogged for telling lies in court, and changed
his testimony under the lash, whereat he was promptly sentenced to a
hundred and fifty lashes and a month on the chain-gang. Under the lash
a second time, he recanted--swore that his first statements had been
true and that he had done no trading--a mistake in tactics that only
caused the tale of lashes to be increased by fifty and the term on the
chain-gang to be doubled.
"You must learn that the methods taught you on British territory are of
no use here!" remarked the lieutenant.
By the time Kazimoto was called and stood out alone in front of him the
lieutenant was in a boiling rage, and the floor of the court was
actually crowded by prone natives being beaten. Extra askaris had been
sent for in order that proceedings might not be delayed, and the
audience could scarcely hear the evidence and sentences because of the
crack of whips and the moans of victims. (Not that they all moaned by
any means. By far the most of them submitted to the torture in grim
proud silence: but the few who did make a noise--especially the
women--made lots of it.)
As Kazimoto faced the lieutenant he turned once and looked at us. His
eyes sought Fred's.
"Oh, bwana!" he said--and now for the first time we learned why he had
chosen Fred to be his particular master. "I have been faithful!
Stroke, then, that beard of yours as Bwana Courtney, my former master,
used to stroke his. Then we shall both know what to do!"
Fred stroked his beard promptly, for the man needed comfort, not
ridicule: but the concession to his superstition did none of us any
good.
"Face this way!" the lieutenant shouted at him. "You are charged with
being a deserter from German service. Also with giving information to
foreigners. Also with serving foreigners in their effort to exploit
the country, and with refusing to give proper answers when questioned
by those in authority. Do you understand?"
"No," said Kazimoto in the most melancholy tone I ever heard from him.
"Are you a Nyamwezi? Now don't dare to lie to me!"
"Yes."
"You were born in this country?"
"Yes."
"Then you belong in this country!"
"I belong where my master takes me. My spirit is good. I am a true
man," Kazimoto answered.
"Your spirit is rotten! You are a traitor! What do you mean by
talking to me of your master, you reptile! Your master is the German
government, of which His Majesty the Kaiser is supreme overlord! There
is a picture of your master!" He pointed with a thumb over his
shoulder to the full-length atrocity in oils behind him. "Salute it!"
The boy obeyed.
"Answer now! Who is your master?"
Kazimoto hesitated.
"Answer, I order you!"
He turned and pointed a finger at Fred, who nodded.
"That English bwana is my master," he said stoutly. It was a forlorn
hope, though. He did not seem to believe that the statement of fact
would do him any good.
Fred jumped to his feet.
"That is perfectly correct," he said in English. "The boy is my
servant, engaged on British territory, under a contract for wages to be
paid in English money. He is to be paid off in British East at the end
of my journey."
"Who asked you to speak?" demanded the lieutenant angrily, sitting up
like a startled scorpion. "Do you not know this is a court?"
"It looks like a shambles!" Fred answered, glancing to right and left
and indicating the victims of the whip writhing in the name of German
justice.
"Shut up, you fool!" counseled Will in a stage whisper, but either Fred
did not hear him, or was too worked up to care.
"Silence! Sit down!"
"I warn you!" Fred answered. "That boy has claimed British protection.
I shall see he has it!"
Then he sat down. The lieutenant glared at Kazimoto, the glare
changing to a cold grin as he realized how fully we were all at his
mercy for the moment.
"You are sentenced," he said, "to two hundred lashes for making
impudent answers to the court, and to six months on the chain-gang for
deserting from this country and entering foreign service. Further
evidence against you will be assembled in the meanwhile, and other
charges against you will be tried on completion of the chain-gang
sentence!"
"I protest!" shouted Fred, jumping up again. "I give notice of appeal
to whatever higher court there is. I am ready to give bonds!"
"What does this delay mean?" snapped the lieutenant. "Put him down at
once and lay the lashes on!"
The unfortunate Kazimoto was pounced on by two askaris and thrown
face-downward on the floor. One of them tore off his clothes, ripping
up his good English jacket.
"Did you hear my protest?" shouted Fred. "Did you hear my notice of
appeal?"
"I did," said the lieutenant. "Appeals are heard at the coast. You
must give notice by mail, and receive an acknowledgment from the higher
military court before I grant stay of execution. Lay on the lashes!"
"I will hold you personally liable for this outrage," Fred told him,
"if it costs me all my money and all the rest of my years! I defy you
to continue!"
"You have yourself to blame!" the lieutenant grinned. "But for your
uninvited interruption the Nyamwezi would have had a better hearing!
Lay those lashes on harder and more slowly!"
Kazimoto was taking his gruel like a man. Two askaris were beating
him. The blows fell at random anywhere below the neck and above the
heels, raising a great welt where they did not actually cut the skin.
He had buried his face in his forearms, and Will had gone to stand near
him, stooping down to encourage him with any words at all that might
seem to serve.
"Stick it out, Kazi! We'll stand by! We won't leave you down here!
Remember you've got friends who won't desert you!"
Probably in his agony Kazimoto did not understand a word of it, but the
lieutenant did,--and swiftly took steps to interfere.
"Call the Europeans' cases next!" he shouted, and promptly the German
sergeants stepped down from the platform to marshal us in line. The
lieutenant went through the form of studying the blue papers, and
called out our names. That of Brown was included, but Brown was not in
court and we were kept standing there until he had been fetched from
his tent. He had retired immediately after the hanging to sleep off
the effects of his debauch, and being now deprived of that luxury
arrived between two askaris in a volcanic temper. He insulted the
lieutenant to begin with.
"A diet o' beer an' sausage don't seem to have filled you full o' good
manners, do it?"
The lieutenant scowled, but for the moment chose to ignore the
pleasantry.
"You people are charged," he said, "with entering German territory
otherwise than by a regular road and without reporting at a customs
station. Further, with intending to defraud the customs--with carrying
and possessing arms without a license--with being in possession of
ammunition without a permit--with shooting game without a license--with
filibustering--with intentional homicide, in that you shot and killed
certain men of the Masai tribe within German territory--with wandering
at large without permits and with felonious intent; and last, and this
is the most serious charge, with being spies within the military
meaning of that term. Do you plead guilty or not guilty?"
We were dumb. Even the crack of the heavy whips on poor Kazimoto's
skin ceased to make impression on us. Suffering already from my wound
to the point of nausea, I actually reeled before this new deluge of
trouble, and had to hold on to Fred and Will. They each put an arm
under mine. It was Brown who spoke and stole from our sails what
little wind there might have been.
"Decline to plead!" he shouted boisterously. "You're no judge, you're
a pirate! You're not fit to try natives, let alone white men! You're
a disgrace, that's what you are! All you're fit for is to make a
decent fellow glad he needn't know you!"
"Silence!" roared the lieutenant, banging on the table with his open
palm--then with his fist--then with a mallet.
"Silence yourself!" retorted Brown as soon as the hammering ceased.
"You ought to be ashamed o' yourself! Your court's a bally disgrace,
an' you're the worst thing in it! You and your Kaiser can go to hell,
and be damned to both of you!"
"One month in jail for contempt of court and Majestaets-beleidigung!"
snapped the lieutenant. "Take him away!"
Quite clearly that was not the first time that a white man had been
imprisoned in Muanza. There was no hesitation about the way in which
an askari seized Brown's wrists or a sergeant snapped the handcuffs.
He was hustled out expostulating, kicked on the shins by the sergeant
when he faced about to argue, and shoved into a run by both sergeant
and askari.
"You others would better be careful what you say!" said the lieutenant.
"I've a mind to share Brown's cell!" said Will, but the lieutenant
affected not to hear that.
"Since you refuse to plead in this court, you shall be held until the
arrival of Major Schunck from the coast. Your arms and ammunition are
to be handed over to the askaris, who will be sent to the rest-camp to
receive them. The askaris will search your belongings thoroughly to
make sure they have all your weapons. You are ordered confined within
the limits of this township, and if you are detected making any attempt
to trespass outside township limits you will be confined as the Greeks
are within the rest-camp under observation. The porters you brought
into the country are all to be paid their full wages by you until Major
Schunck shall have dealt with you; the porters are refused permission
to leave Muanza, being needed as witnesses. Next case!"
He scrawled his signature at the foot of each sheet of blue paper, and
made a motion with his arm that we should leave court. But we sat down
and waited until the two Nubian giants had finished flogging Kazimoto,
and when they dragged him to his feet Will and Fred walked over to give
him a few words of comfort. That act of ordinary kindness threw the
lieutenant into another fury.
"Bring the Nyamwezi here!" he ordered, and the askaris hustled him up
in front of the table.
"What do you do? Have you no manners? Return proper thanks for the
lesson you have received!"
Kazimoto stood silent.
"For God's sake--" Will began.
"Say 'Thank you' to him, Kazimoto!" Fred whispered.
There is no native word for "Thank you"--only a bastard thing
introduced by tyrants from Europe who never understood the African
contention that the giver rewards himself if his gift is worth anything
at all.
"Asente," said Kazimoto meekly.
"Why don't you salute? Don't you know where you are?"
"For the love of God salute him!" Will almost shouted.
Kazimoto obeyed.
"Take him and put him on the chain-gang!" ordered the lieutenant. "You
Europeans leave the court!"
"I'm no European!" Will shouted back. "Thank the Lord I was born in a
country you'll never set foot in!"
"Take them away before I have to make an example of them!" the
lieutenant ordered.
Obediently the askaris gathered about us and hustled us out into the
open, poking at my bandaged wound to get swifter action, and going as
far as to threaten us with their hippo-hide whips. I trod on the naked
toe of one of them with sufficient suddenness and weight to deprive him
of the use of it for all time, and luckily for me he did not see who
did it. The askari next to him had boots on, and got the blame.
The black men who were to search our belongings tried to induce us to
hurry, but we insisted on seeing the iron ring riveted to Kazimoto's
neck. The ring had a shackle on it, and through that they passed the
long chain that held him prisoner in the midst of a gang of forty men.
Nobody washed the wounds on his back. We bought water from a woman who
was passing with a great jar on her head, and did that much for him.
He was naked. His clothes that the askaris had torn from him had been
thrown outside the court, and some one had stolen them. Later they
gave him a piece of cheap calico to bind round his waist, but during
all that hot afternoon he had nothing to keep the sun from his tortured
back; nor would they permit us to give him anything.
The mortification of having one's private belongings gone through by
black men in uniform was made more exasperating still by the fact that
Coutlass and the other Greek and the Goanese were spectators, amusing
themselves with comments that came nearer to causing murder than they
guessed.
The real motive of the search was evident within two minutes from the
commencement. The askaris could not read, but they showed a most
remarkable affinity for paper that had been written on. They took the
guns and ammunition first, but after that they emptied everything from
our bags and boxes on to the sand, and confiscated every scrap of
paper, shaking our books to make sure nothing was left between the
leaves.
They even took away our writing material in their zeal to find
information likely to prove useful to their masters. But they forgot
to search our pockets, so that they overlooked the letter we had
written in code to Monty and had not yet sent away by messenger.
That letter became our most besetting problem. How to find a runner
who would take it to British East and mail it for us up there without
betraying us first to the Germans was something we could not guess.
Even Fred grew gloomy when we realized there was probably not a native
on the whole countryside with sufficient manhood left in him to dare
make the attempt. The first overture we might make would almost
certainly be reported to the commandant at once.
"What fools we were not to send Kazimoto with it when he begged us to!"
"What worse than fools!"
"What brutes! Think what we might have saved him!"
We were unanimous as to that, but unanimity brought no comfort, until
we all together hit on a notion that did ease our feelings a trifle.
Coutlass and his two friends were sitting on camp-stools in the open
where they could have a full view of our doings. Assuming the
camping-ground to be equally divided between their party and ours, they
were well within our portion. We decided their curiosity was insolent,
declared inexorable war, and there and then felt better.
Fred went out with a tent-peg and scored in the sand a deep line to
denote our boundary, the Greeks watching, all eyes and guesswork.
"Over the other side with you!" Fred ordered when he had finished.
They refused. He charged at them, and they ran.
"Whichever of you, man or servant, sets foot on our side of that line
shall be a dead-sure hospital case!" Fred announced. "We'll
reciprocate by leaving your side of the camp to you!"
"Who made you men rulers of this rest-camp?" Coutlass demanded.
"We did," Fred answered. "We've lost our rifles just as you have.
We'll fight you with bare hands and skin you alive if you trespass!"
"Gassharamminy!" shouted Coutlass. "By hell and Waterloo, you mistake
me for a weakling! Wait and see!"
We had to wait a very long and weary time, but we did see. In the days
that followed, when my wound festered and I grew too ill to drag myself
about, Fred and Will were able to leave me alone in the camp without
any fear of a visit from the Greeks. It was not that there was much
left worth stealing, but a mere visit from them might have had
consequences we could never have offset. Alone, unable to rise, I
could not have forced them to leave, and their lingering would surely
have been interpreted by the guard, who always watched them from the
corner of the road, as evidence of collusion of some sort between them
and us.
Just at that time Coutlass, as it happened, would have liked nothing
better in the world than the chance to persuade the Germans that he was
in our councils. Fred's mere irritable determination to divide the
camp in halves saved us in all human probability from a trap out of
which there would have been no escape.