"But what avails this wondrous waste of wealth,
This gay profusion of luxurious bliss?
Ill-fated race! the softening arts of peace,
Kind equal rule, the government of laws,
These are not theirs."
Thomson.
I became the king's head-counsellor, his prime-minister, so to speak,
his chief medicine man. There was not much honour in this, certainly,
but nevertheless it procured me some amelioration of my sufferings.
There was less of the dungeon after this, and fewer threats of
decapitation.
I think the king still hankered after rum, and it was an anxious day for
me when some Arab chiefs appeared in camp. Otakooma assembled not only,
all his forces but most of his people. Something was going to happen, I
knew, but till now I had had no idea of the utter depravity of this
wretch.
He was positively going to barter his people for rum. The Arabs would
buy them as slaves.
It was terrible to see these same Arabs walking round among the sable
mob, as calmly as a farmer does among a herd of cattle, and picking one
out here and there. But, oh! the grief, and the agony, and the anxiety
displayed in voice and in action by these poor doomed creatures--the
scene defies description. Here was the child torn shrieking from its
mother's side, there a wife separated from her husband, or a husband
from a weeping wife.
Some indulged their grief quietly, others gave vent to loud howls and
lamentations; while others lay moaning and groaning on the ground, ever
and anon taking up great handfuls of dust, and throwing it up over their
poor heads!
I could not help turning away and shedding tears. But had they been
tears of blood they could not have saved these people. They were
relentlessly marched away, and I was really glad when night fell, and
sleep sealed the eyes of even those who mourned.
It was bright clear moonlight. I rose from my couch, and stole out into
the open air. I wanted to think. The close warm atmosphere of the tent
seemed to stifle me, and I could not sleep.
I passed slowly up the beaten footpath towards the king's tent. There
was not a single soul astir, it had been a busy exciting day with
everyone, and the king had been liberal enough in his offers of rum to
his chief favourites; and although some of them ought to have been doing
duty as sentinels near to his sacred person, they had preferred
retirement and slumber.
I stole away from the camp, and ascended an eminence some distance from
it, and sat me down on a rock. It was cool and pleasant here, away from
that blood-stained camp. The moonlight flooded all the beautiful
country, bathing plain and rock and tree in its mellow rays. The only
sounds that broke the stillness were the yapping howl of the cowardly
jackal, and farther off in the woods the mournful roar of lions.
It was a lovely scene, but terrible in its loveliness. I buried my face
in my hands. I was boldly struggling against my sorrow. How long, I
thought, would this life last? Should I live and die among these
terrible savages? Escape there seemed none. To attempt it, I knew,
would end in failure, and probably in death by torture. I was many
hundreds of miles from the sea. I did not even know in what direction
Zanzibar lay. No, I must wait for a time, at all events. What mattered
a year or two more to one so young as I!
I suppose this last reflection had some kind of a drowsy influence on
me, for I lay down with my head on a piece of rock, and with face
upturned to the sky, fell fast asleep.
How long I had slept I know not. I awoke with a start: something cold
had touched my face, and I had heard a creature breathing close at--
almost into--my ear. I started, as well I might. The thing that had
waked me was a jackal; but there, not thirty yards away, standing boldly
out against the moonlit sky, was a gigantic lioness!
There was astonishment depicted in every line of her great face.
Strange to say, at that moment I could not help thinking that she looked
far from cruel, and I could not help admiring the splendid animal. I
never moved, but gazed as if spell-bound. Probably it was my fixity of
look that saved me, for after staring steadily, but wonderingly, at me
for fully a minute, she turned round and stalked solemnly off, giving
many a look behind, as if expecting I should follow her.
I waited till she was well away. I felt very happy at that moment, and
very bold. I went straight back to camp, and approached the tent of the
king, and softly entered. He was fast asleep and snoring. In the
matter of rum he had been even more liberal to himself than to his
followers. There lay the skins of spirits in a corner, not far from the
couch of the drunken king. I hesitated not a moment, but seizing the
king's own dagger, I stabbed--not the king, but the skins of rum.
Then I hastened away with my heart in my mouth. Remember, I was very
young.
There were terrible doings next day in camp, and, I'm sorry to say, more
than one human sacrifice. I, as medicine man and chief sorcerer, went
through a great many mummeries, which I managed to make last all the
forenoon. I was endeavouring to find out the wretch who had dared to
spill the great king's rum; that is, I was pretending to. There was
more than one chief on whose shoulders I permitted my magician's wand to
rest for a while, just by way of a mild revenge, but the lot finally
fell once again on an aged billy-goat. I had saved the king, and saved
many of his subjects, for when the king was intoxicated, human
sacrifices were of everyday occurrence. At ordinary times they were no
more numerous than Bank Holidays in our own country.
When it was all over I stole away to the shady banks of a stream to
bathe, and lie and watch the kingfishers. It was a favourite resort of
mine, whenever I dared be alone.
The warriors of this tribe spent most of their time either on the
hunting grounds--forest and plain--or in making raids on their
neighbours. I was allowed to join the hunting expeditions, but not the
forays. I became an expert horseman. I could ride bare-backed as well
as any circus-man I have ever seen since. The king was too fat to ride
much, but he used to follow to the chase of the koodoo.
This is a kind of beautiful antelope, and excellent eating, its
principal recommendation in the eyes of Otakooma. We often caught the
young, and they became as tame as our goats.
Now once having taken it into my head that escape from this country of
savages was impossible, strange to say I began to settle down, in
everything else except human bloodthirstiness, and soon became a very
expert savage, taking a wild kind of pride in my exploits.
Mine was now a life of peril and hardship; adventures to me were of
everyday occurrence; I carried my life in my hand; I grew as wily as a
jackal, and I hope as bold as a lion. I take no credit to myself for
being bold; I had to be so.
The king and I continued friends. At the end of the sixth year of my
captivity, Jooma died. He died from wounds received at the horns of a
wild buffalo in the forest.
This buffalo-hunting had for me a very great charm, and it certainly was
not unattended with danger, for there were times when, headed by an old
bull or two, a whole herd of these animals would charge down upon us.
This was nothing to me. I could climb trees as well as most monkeys, so
I got out of harm's way, but it was hard upon the savages, who were not
always so nimble.
Jooma was terribly tossed and wounded by a bull, and he died at the tree
foot. He called me to him before his eyes were for ever closed, and
asked me to forgive him for all the ill he had done me, and tried to do
me.
"I have been to you one ver bad fellow," said poor Jooma; "I have want
to kill you plenty time. Now I die. You forgive Jooma?"
"I do, Jooma," I said, and pressed his cold hard hand.
"Ver well," said the lad, faintly and slowly. "Now I die. Now, I go
home--go home--home."
We buried him just where he lay, between the gnarled roots of a great
forest tree, and piled wood over the grave to keep the sneaking jackals
at bay.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
One morning about two years after this, I was awakened early--indeed it
was hardly dawn--by hearing a tremendous uproar and commotion in the
camp, with much warlike shouting and beating of those everlasting
tom-toms [Note 1].
The king was running about wildly--too wildly, indeed, for his weight--
and was summoning his warriors to arms.
White men were coming to attack the camp!
This was glorious news for me.
But who, or what could they be, or what could they want?
All that day, from far and near, the warriors of Otakooma came trooping
into camp. To do them justice they were fond of fighting, and eager for
the fray; they loved fighting for its own sake, but a battle with white
men was a thing that did not happen every day.
The old men, the women and children, and the cattle were separated from
the main or soldier portion of the tribe, and taken westwards towards
the distant hills. So it was evident that Otakooma and his people meant
business.
What part should I take in the coming fray? I might have fled, and
remained away until the victory was secured by the white men, but this
would have been both unkind and cowardly. On the other hand, I would
not lift a spear or poise a lance against my own people.
That same evening, after all was hushed in the camp, I sought out the
king. He looked at me very suspiciously before I spoke.
I sat quietly in front of him on the ground, and explained to him my
situation.
He was wise enough to see exactly how I stood, but he told me there was
an easy way out of the difficulty. Early in the morning he would chop
off my head. He bore me no grudge, he explained, _it was a mere matter
of policy_.
"Quite right," I replied, "and, if he chose, he might take my head off
then and there. I didn't at all mind; and would just as soon be without
a head as with one."
The king smiled, and seemed pleased.
"But," I continued, "you may look at the possession of a head in a
different light, so far as your own particular head is concerned. If
your people are beaten, you will assuredly lose that head, unless a
white man is near to take your part. I will be your friend," I said,
"in this matter, and during the battle I will stand by your person and
never leave you."
Otakooma was delighted at the proposal, and so we arranged matters to
our mutual satisfaction, and I felt glad I had come; I had certainly
lost nothing by my candour. No one ever does.
Firing began early in the morning. The battle raged till nearly noon,
with dreadful slaughter on the side of the savages, who were finally
borne backwards a disorganised mob.
I stuck by the king. He did not fly. He felt safe and said so, but he
wept to see his children, as he called them, slain before his very eyes.
Oh! the glad sight it was to me, after all these years, to behold the
bold bluejackets, and brave marines, dashing after the foe, gun and
bayonet in hand!
But a more joyful surprise awaited me when the battle was over; for the
very first man to rush up to me and shake me by the two hands was my
dear friend Ben Roberts.
"Nie, old boy!" he cried, "I wouldn't have known you. You've grown a
man, and what a savage you do look! And do you know, Nie, what all this
fighting has been about?"
"No," I said innocently.
"Why, about _you_!" He almost shouted the last word, and I could see in
his honest eyes the tears which he could hardly keep from failing.
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Note 1. A tom-tom is a kind of kettle-drum. It is simply a log of wood
hollowed out at one end, and a dried skin stretched over it.