TELLS OF MISFORTUNES THAT BEFELL OUR WANDERERS; OF FAMILIAR TOYS UNDER
NEW ASPECTS, ETCETERA.
When Harold Seadrift and Disco Lillihammer were stopped in their
journey, as related in a former chapter, by the sudden illness of the
bold seaman, an event was impending over them which effectually
overturned their plans. This was the sudden descent of a band of armed
natives who had been recently driven from their homes by a slaving
party. The slavers had taken them by surprise during the night, set
their huts on fire, captured their women and children, and slaughtered
all the men, excepting those who sought and found safety in flight. It
was those who had thus escaped that chanced to come upon the camp of our
travellers one evening about sunset.
Disco was recovering from his attack of fever at the time, though still
weak. Harold was sitting by his couch of leaves in the hut which had
been erected for him on the first day of the illness. Jumbo was cutting
up a piece of flesh for supper, and Antonio was putting the kettle on
the fire. The rest of the party were away in the woods hunting.
No guard was kept; consequently the savages came down on them like a
thunderbolt, and found them quite unprepared to resist even if
resistance had been of any use.
At first their captors, bitterly infuriated by their recent losses,
proposed to kill their prisoners, without delay, by means of the most
excruciating tortures that they could invent, but from some unknown
cause, changed their minds; coupled Harold and Disco together by means
of two slave-sticks; tied Antonio and Jumbo with ropes, and drove them
away.
So suddenly was the thing done, and so effectually, that Disco was far
from the camp before he could realise that what had occurred was a fact,
and not one of the wild feverish dreams that had beset him during his
illness.
The natives would not listen to the earnest explanation of Antonio that
Harold and Disco were Englishmen, and haters of slavery. They scowled
as they replied that the same had been said by the slavers who had
attacked their village; from which remark it would seem that Yoosoof was
not quite the originator of that device to throw the natives off their
guard. The Portuguese of Tette on the Zambesi had also thought of and
acted on it!
Fortunately it was, as we have said, near sunset when the capture was
made, and before it became quite dark the band encamped, else must poor
Disco have succumbed to weakness and fatigue. The very desperation of
his circumstances, however, seemed to revive his strength, for next
morning he resumed his journey with some hope of being able to hold out.
The continued protestations and assurances of Antonio, also, had the
effect of inducing their captors to remove the heavy slave-sticks from
the necks of Harold and Disco, though they did not unbind their wrists.
Thus were they led further into the country, they knew not whither, for
several days and nights, and at last reached a large village where they
were all thrust into a hut, and left to their meditations, while their
captors went to palaver with the chief man of the place.
This chief proved to be a further-sighted man than the men of the tribe
who had captured the Englishmen. His name was Yambo. He had heard of
Dr Livingstone, and had met with men of other tribes who had seen and
conversed with the great traveller. Thus, being of a thoughtful and
inquiring disposition, he had come to understand enough of the good
white man's sentiments to guard him from being imposed on by pretended
Christians.
Yambo's name signified "how are you?" and was probably bestowed on him
because of a strongly benevolent tendency to greet friend and stranger
alike with a hearty "how d'ee do?" sort of expression of face and tone
of voice.
He was a tall grave man, with a commanding firm look, and, withal, a
dash of child-like humour and simplicity. On hearing his visitors'
remarks about their captives, he at once paid them a visit and a few
leading questions put to Harold through Antonio convinced him that the
prisoners were true men. He therefore returned to his black visitors,
told them that he had perfect confidence in the good faith of the white
men, and said that he meant to take charge of them. He then entertained
his black brothers hospitably, gave them a few presents, and sent them
on their way. This done he returned to his guests and told them that
they were free, that their captors were gone, and that they might go
where they pleased, but that it would gratify him much if they would
consent to spend some time hunting with him in the neighbourhood of his
village.
"Now," said Disco, after Yambo left them, "this is wot I call the most
uncommon fix that ever wos got into by man since Adam an' Eve began
housekeepin' in the garden of Eden."
"I'm not quite sure," replied Harold, with a rueful look, "that it is
absolutely the _worst_ fix, but it is bad enough. The worst of it is
that this Yambo has let these rascals off with all our fire-arms and
camp-equipage, so that we are absolutely helpless--might as well be
prisoners, for we can't quit this village in such circumstances."
"Wot's wuss than that to my mind, sir, is, that here we are at sea, in
the heart of Afriky, without chart, quadrant, compass, or rudder, an' no
more idea of our whereabouts than one o' them spider monkeys that grins
among the trees. Hows'ever, we're in luck to fall into the hands of a
friendly chief, so, like these same monkeys, we must grin an' bear it;
only I can't help feelin' a bit cast down at the loss of our messmates.
I fear there's no chance of their findin' us."
"Not the least chance in the world, I should say," returned Harold.
"They could not guess in which direction we had gone, and unless they
had hit on the right road at first, every step they took afterwards
would only widen the distance between us."
"It's lucky I was beginnin' to mend before we was catched," said Disco,
feeling the muscles of his legs; "true, I ain't much to boast of yet but
I'm improvin'."
"That is more than I can say for myself," returned Harold, with a sigh,
as he passed his hand across his forehead; "I feel as if this last push
through the woods in the hot sun, and the weight of that terrible
slave-stick had been almost too much for me."
Disco looked earnestly and anxiously into the face of his friend.
"Wot," asked he, "does you feel?"
"I can scarcely tell," replied Harold, with a faint smile. "Oh, I
suppose I'm a little knocked up, that's all. A night's rest will put me
all right."
"So I thought myself, but I wos wrong," said Disco. "Let's hear wot
your feelin's is, sir; I'm as good as any doctor now, I am, in regard to
symptoms."
"Well, I feel a sort of all-overishness, a kind of lassitude and
sleepiness, with a slight headache, and a dull pain which appears to be
creeping up my spine."
"You're in for it sir," said Disco. "It's lucky you have always carried
the physic in your pockets, 'cause you'll need it, an' it's lucky, too,
that I am here and well enough to return tit for tat and nurse you,
'cause you'll have that 'ere pain in your spine creep up your back and
round your ribs till it lays hold of yer shoulders, where it'll stick as
if it had made up its mind to stay there for ever an' a day. Arter that
you'll get cold an' shivering like ice--oh! doesn't I know it well--an'
then hot as fire, with heavy head, an' swimming eyes, an' twisted sight,
an' confusion of--"
"Hold! hold!" cried Harold, laughing, "if you go on in that way I shall
have more than my fair share of it! Pray stop, and leave me a little to
find out for myself."
"Well, sir, take a purge, and turn in at once, that's my advice. I'll
dose you with quinine to-morrow mornin', first thing," said Disco,
rising and proceeding forthwith to arrange a couch in a corner of the
hut, which Yambo had assigned them.
Harold knew well enough that his follower was right. He took his advice
without delay, and next morning found himself little better than a
child, both physically and mentally, for the disease not only prostrated
his great strength--as it had that of his equally robust companion--but,
at a certain stage, induced delirium, during which he talked the most
ineffable nonsense that his tongue could pronounce, or his brain
conceive.
Poor Disco, who, of course, had been unable to appreciate the extent of
his own delirious condition, began to fear that his leader's mind was
gone for ever, and Jumbo was so depressed by the unutterably solemn
expression of the mariner's once jovial countenance, that he did not
once show his teeth for a whole week, save when engaged with meals.
As for Antonio, his nature not being very sympathetic, and his health
being good, he rather enjoyed the quiet life and good living which
characterised the native village, and secretly hoped that Harold might
remain on the sick-list for a considerable time to come.
How long this state of affairs lasted we cannot tell, for both Harold
and Disco lost the correct record of time during their respective
illnesses.
Up to that period they had remembered the days of the week, in
consequence of their habit of refraining from going out to hunt on
Sundays, except when a dearth of meat in the larder rendered hunting a
necessity. Upon these Sundays Harold's conscience sometimes reproached
him for having set out on his journey into Africa without a Bible. He
whispered, to himself at first, and afterwards suggested to Disco, the
excuse that his Bible had been lost in the wreck of his father's vessel,
and that, perhaps, there were no Bibles to be purchased in Zanzibar, but
his conscience was a troublesome one, and refused to tolerate such bad
reasoning, reminding him, reproachfully, that he had made no effort
whatever to obtain a Bible at Zanzibar.
As time had passed, and some of the horrors of the slave-trade had been
brought under his notice, many of the words of Scripture leaped to his
remembrance, and the regret that he had not carried a copy with him
increased. That touch of thoughtlessness, so natural to the young and
healthy--to whom life has so far been only a garden of roses--was
utterly routed by the stern and dreadful realities which had been
recently enacted around him, and just in proportion as he was impressed
with the lies, tyranny, cruelty, and falsehood of man, so did his
thoughtful regard for the truth and the love of God increase, especially
those truths that were most directly opposed to the traffic in human
flesh, such as--"love your enemies," "seek peace with all men," "be
kindly affectioned one to another," "whatsoever ye would that men should
do unto you, do ye even so to them." An absolute infidel, he thought,
could not fail to perceive that a most blessed change would come over
the face of Africa if such principles prevailed among its inhabitants,
even in an extremely moderate degree.
But to return, the unfortunate travellers were now "at sea" altogether
in regard to the Sabbath as well as the day of the month. Indeed their
minds were not very clear as to the month itself!
"Hows'ever," said Disco, when this subject afterwards came to be
discussed, "it don't matter much. Wot is it that the Scriptur'
says,--`Six days shalt thou labour an' do all that thou hast to do, but
the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. In it thou shalt do
no work.' I wos used always to stick at that pint w'en my poor mother
was a-teachin' of me. Never got past it. But it's enough for present
use anyhow, for the orders is, work six days an' don't work the seventh.
Werry good, we'll begin to-day an' call it Monday; we'll work for six
days, an' w'en the seventh day comes we'll call it Sunday. If it ain't
the right day, _we_ can't help it; moreover, wot's the odds? It's the
_seventh_ day, so that to us it'll be the Sabbath."
But we anticipate. Harold was still--at the beginning of this
digression--in the delirium of fever, though there were symptoms of
improvement about him.
One afternoon one of these symptoms was strongly manifested in a long,
profound slumber. While he slept Disco sat on a low stool beside him,
busily engaged with a clasp-knife on some species of manufacture, the
nature of which was not apparent at a glance.
His admirer, Jumbo, was seated on a stool opposite, gazing at him
open-mouthed, with a countenance that reflected every passing feeling of
his dusky bosom.
Both men were so deeply absorbed in their occupation--Disco in his
manufacture, and Jumbo in staring at Disco--that they failed for a
considerable time to observe that Harold had wakened suddenly, though
quietly, and was gazing at them with a look of lazy, easy-going
surprise.
The mariner kept up a running commentary on his work, addressed to Jumbo
indeed, but in a quiet interjectional manner that seemed to imply that
he was merely soliloquising, and did not want or expect a reply.
"It's the most 'stror'nary notion, Jumbo, between you and me and the
post, that I ever did see. Now, then, this here bullet-head wants a
pair o' eyes an' a nose on it; the mouth'll do, but it's the mouth as is
most troublesome, for you niggers have got such wappin' muzzles--it's
quite a caution, as the Yankees say,"--(a pause)--"on the whole,
however, the nose is very difficult to manage on a flat surface, 'cause
w'y?--if I leaves it quite flat, it don't look like a nose, an' if I
carves it out ever so little, it's too prominent for a nigger nose.
There, ain't that a good head, Jumbo?"
Thus directly appealed to, Jumbo nodded his own head violently, and
showed his magnificent teeth from ear to ear, gums included.
Disco laid down the flat piece of board which he had carved into the
form of a human head, and took up another piece, which was rudely
blocked out into the form of a human leg--both leg and head being as
large as life.
"Now this limb, Jumbo," continued Disco, slowly, as he whittled away
with the clasp-knife vigorously, "is much more troublesome than I would
have expected; for you niggers have got such abominably ill-shaped legs
below the knee. There's such an unnat'ral bend for'ard o' the
shin-bone, an' such a rediklous sticking out o' the heel astarn, d'ee
see, that a feller with white man notions has to make a study of it, if
he sets up for a artist; in course, if he _don't_ set up for a artist
any sort o' shape'll do, for it don't affect the jumpin'. Ha! there
they go," he exclaimed, with a humorous smile at a hearty shout of
laughter which was heard just outside the hut, "enjoyin' the old 'un;
but it's nothin' to wot the noo 'un'll be w'en it's finished."
At this exhibition of amusement on the countenance of his friend, Jumbo
threw back his head and again showed not only his teeth and gums but the
entire inside of his mouth, and chuckled softly from the region of his
breast-bone.
"I'm dreaming, of course," thought Harold, and shut his eyes.
Poor fellow! he was very weak, and the mere act of shutting his eyes
induced a half-slumber. He awoke again in a few minutes, and re-opening
his eyes, beheld the two men still sitting, and occupied as before.
"It is a wonderfully pertinacious dream," thought Harold. "I'll try to
dissipate it."