We will now leap over a short period of time--about two or three weeks--
during which the sable procession had been winding its weary way over
hill and dale, plain and swamp.
During that comparatively brief period, Harold and Disco had seen so
much cruelty and suffering that they both felt a strange tendency to
believe that the whole must be the wild imaginings of a horrible dream.
Perhaps weakness, resulting from illness, might have had something to do
with this peculiar feeling of unbelief, for both had been subject to a
second, though slight, attack of fever. Nevertheless, coupled with
their scepticism was a contradictory and dreadful certainty that they
were not dreaming, but that what they witnessed was absolute verity.
It is probable that if they had been in their ordinary health and vigour
they would have made a violent attempt to rescue the slaves, even at the
cost of their own lives. But severe and prolonged illness often
unhinges the mind as well as the body, and renders the spirit all but
impotent.
One sultry evening the sad procession came to a long stretch of swamp,
and prepared to cross it. Although already thinned by death, the
slave-gang was large. It numbered several hundreds, and was led by
Marizano; Yoosoof having started some days in advance in charge of a
similar gang.
Harold and Disco were by that time in the habit of walking together in
front of the gang, chiefly for the purpose of avoiding the sight of
cruelties and woes which they were powerless to prevent or assuage. On
reaching the edge of the swamp, however, they felt so utterly wearied
and dis-spirited that they sat down on a bank to rest, intending to let
the slave-gang go into the swamp before them and then follow in rear.
Antonio and Jumbo also remained with them.
"You should go on in front," said Marizano significantly, on observing
their intention.
"Tell him we'll remain where we are," said Disco sternly to Antonio.
Marizano shrugged his shoulders and left them.
The leading men of the slave-gang were ordered to advance, as soon as
the armed guard had commenced the toilsome march over ground into which
they sank knee-deep at every step.
The first man of the gang hesitated and heaved a deep sigh as though his
heart failed him at the prospect--and well it might, for, although
young, he was not robust, and over-driving, coupled with the weight and
the chafing of the goree, had worn him to a skeleton.
It was not the policy of the slave-traders to take much care of their
Black Ivory. They procured it so cheaply that it was easier and more
profitable to lose or cast away some of it, than to put off time in
resting and recruiting the weak.
The moment it was observed, therefore, that the leading man hesitated,
one of the drivers gave him a slash across his naked back with a heavy
whip which at once drew blood. Poor wretch; he could ill bear further
loss of the precious stream of life, for it had already been deeply
drained from him by the slave-stick. The chafing of that instrument of
torture had not only worn the skin off his shoulders, but had cut into
the quivering flesh, so that blood constantly dropped in small
quantities from it.
No cry burst from the man's lips on receiving the cruel blow, but he
turned his eyes on his captors with a look that seemed to implore for
mercy. As well might he have looked for mercy at the hands of Satan.
The lash again fell on him with stinging force. He made a feeble effort
to advance, staggered, and fell to the ground, dragging down the man to
whom he was coupled with such violence as almost to break his neck. The
lash was again about to be applied to make him rise, but Disco and
Harold rose simultaneously and rushed at the driver, with what intent
they scarcely knew; but four armed half-castes stepped between them and
the slave.
"You had better not interfere," said Marizano, who stood close by.
"Out of the way!" cried Harold fiercely, in the strength of his passion
hurling aside the man who opposed him.
"You shan't give him another cut," said Disco between his teeth, as he
seized the driver by the throat.
"We don't intend to do so," said Marizano coolly, while the driver
released himself from poor Disco's weakened grasp, "he won't need any
more."
The Englishmen required no explanation of these words. A glance told
them that the man was dying.
"Cut him out," said Marizano.
One of his men immediately brought a saw and cut the fork of the stick
which still held the living to the dying man, and which, being riveted
on them, could not otherwise be removed.
Harold and Disco lifted him up as soon as he was free, and carrying him
a short distance aside to a soft part of the bank, laid him gently down.
The dying slave looked as if he were surprised at such unwonted
tenderness. There was even a slight smile on his lips for a few
moments, but it quickly passed away with the fast ebbing tide of life.
"Go fetch some water," said Harold. "His lips are dry."
Disco rose and ran to fill a small cocoa-nut-shell which he carried at
his girdle as a drinking-cup. Returning with it he moistened the man's
lips and poured a little of the cool water on the raw sores on each side
of his neck.
They were so much engrossed with their occupation that neither of them
observed that the slave-gang had commenced to pass through the swamp,
until the sharp cry of a child drew their attention to it for a moment;
but, knowing that they could do no good, they endeavoured to shut their
eyes and ears to everything save the duty they had in hand.
By degrees the greater part of the long line had got into the swamp and
were slowly toiling through it under the stimulus of the lash. Some,
like the poor fellow who first fell, had sunk under their accumulated
trials, and after a fruitless effort on the part of the slavers to drive
them forward, had been kicked aside into the jungle, there to die, or to
be torn in pieces by that ever-watchful scavenger of the wilderness, the
hyena. These were chiefly women, who having become mothers not long
before were unable to carry their infants and keep up with the gang.
Others, under the intense dread of flagellation, made the attempt, and
staggered on a short distance, only to fall and be left behind in the
pestilential swamp, where rank reeds and grass closed over them and
formed a ready grave.
The difficulties of the swamp were, however, felt most severely by the
children, who, from little creatures of not much more than five years of
age to well-grown boys and girls, were mingled with and chained to the
adults along the line. Their comparatively short legs were not well
adapted for such ground, and not a few of them perished there; but
although the losses here were terribly numerous in one sense, they after
all bore but a small proportion to those whose native vigour carried
them through in safety.
Among the men there were some whose strength of frame and fierce
expression indicated untameable spirits--men who might have been,
probably were, heroes among their fellows. It was for men of this stamp
that the _goree_, or slave-stick, had been invented, and most
effectually did that instrument serve its purpose. Samson himself would
have been a mere child in it.
There were men in the gang quite as bold, if not as strong, as Samson.
One of these, a very tall and powerful negro, on drawing near to the
place where Marizano stood superintending the passage, turned suddenly
aside, and, although coupled by the neck to a fellow-slave, and securely
bound at the wrists with a cord, which was evidently cutting into his
swelled flesh, made a desperate kick at the half-caste leader.
Although the slave failed to reach him, Marizano was so enraged that he
drew a hatchet from his belt and instantly dashed out the man's brains.
He fell dead without even a groan. Terrified by this, the rest passed
on more rapidly, and there was no further check till a woman in the
line, with an infant on her back, stumbled, and, falling down, appeared
unable to rise.
"Get up!" shouted Marizano, whose rage had rather been increased than
abated by the murder he had just committed.
The woman rose and attempted to advance, but seemed ready to fall again.
Seeing this, Marizano plucked the infant from her back, dashed it
against a tree, and flung its quivering body into the jungle, while a
terrible application of the lash sent the mother shrieking into the
swamp. [See Livingstone's _Zambesi and its Tributaries_, page 857; and
for a record of cruelties too horrible to be set down in a book like
this, we refer the reader to McLeod's _Travels in Eastern Africa_,
volume two page 26. Also to the Appendix of Captain Sulivan's
_Dhow-Chasing in Zanzibar Waters_, which contains copious and
interesting extracts from evidence taken before the Select Committee of
the House of Commons.]
Harold and Disco did not witness this, though they heard the shriek of
despair, for at the moment the negro they were tending was breathing his
last. When his eyes had closed and the spirit had been set free, they
rose, and, purposely refraining from looking back, hurried away from the
dreadful scene, intending to plunge into the swamp at some distance from
the place, and push on until they should regain the head of the column.
"Better if we'd never fallen behind, sir," said Disco, in a deep,
tremulous voice.
"True," replied Harold. "We should have been spared these sights, and
the pain of knowing that we cannot prevent this appalling misery and
cruelty."
"But surely it is to be prevented _somehow_," cried Disco, almost
fiercely. "Many a war that has cost mints o' money has been carried on
for causes that ain't worth mentionin' in the same breath with _this_!"
As Harold knew not what to say, and was toiling knee-deep in the swamp
at the moment he made no reply.
After marching about half an hour he stopped abruptly and said, with a
heavy sigh,--"I hope we haven't missed our way?"
"Hope not sir, but it looks like as if we had."
"I've bin so took up thinkin' o' that accursed traffic in human bein's
that I've lost my reckonin'. Howsever, we can't be far out, an', with
the sun to guide us, we'll--"
He was stopped by a loud halloo in the woods, on the belt of the swamp.
It was repeated in a few seconds, and Antonio, who, with Jumbo, had
followed his master, cried in an excited tone--
"Me knows dat sound!"
"Wot may it be, Tony?" asked Disco.
There was neither time nor need for an answer, for at that moment a
ringing cry, something like a bad imitation of a British cheer, was
heard, and a band of men sprang out of the woods and ran at full speed
towards our Englishmen.
"Why, Zombo!" exclaimed Disco, wildly.
"Oliveira!" cried Harold.
"Masiko! Songolo!" shouted Antonio and Jumbo.
"An' Jose, Nakoda, Chimbolo, Mabruki!--the whole bun' of 'em," cried
Disco, as one after another these worthies emerged from the wood and
rushed in a state of frantic excitement towards their friends--"Hooray!"
"Hooroo-hay!" replied the runners.
In another minute our adventurous party of travellers was re-united, and
for some time nothing but wild excitement, congratulations, queries that
got no replies, and replies that ran tilt at irrelevant queries, with
confusion worse confounded by explosions of unbounded and irrepressible
laughter not unmingled with tears, was the order of the hour.
"But wat! yoos ill?" cried Zombo suddenly, looking into Disco's face
with an anxious expression.
"Well, I ain't 'xac'ly ill, nor I ain't 'xac'ly well neither, but I'm
hearty all the same, and werry glad to see your black face, Zombo."
"Ho! hooroo-hay! so's me for see you," cried the excitable Zombo; "but
come, not good for talkee in de knees to watter. Fall in boy, ho!
sholler 'ums--queek mash!"
That Zombo had assumed command of his party was made evident by the pat
way in which he trolled off the words of command formerly taught to him
by Harold, as well as by the prompt obedience that was accorded to his
orders. He led the party out of the swamp, and, on reaching a dry spot,
halted, in order to make further inquiries and answer questions.
"How did you find us, Zombo?" asked Harold, throwing himself wearily on
the ground.
"_Yoos_ ill," said Zombo, holding up a finger by way of rebuke.
"So I am, though not so ill as I look. But come, answer me. How came
you to discover us? You could not have found us by mere chance in this
wilderness?"
"Chanz; wat am chanz?" asked the Makololo.
There was some difficulty in getting Antonio to explain the word, from
the circumstance of himself being ignorant of it, therefore Harold put
the question in a more direct form.
"Oh! ve comes here look for yoo, 'cause peepils d'reck 'ums--show de
way. Ve's been veeks, monts, oh! _days_ look for yoo. Travil far--
g'rong road--turin bak--try agin--fin' yoo now--hooroo-hay!"
"You may say that, indeed. I'd have it in my heart," said Disco, "to
give three good rousin' British cheers if it warn't for the thoughts o'
that black-hearted villain, Marizano, an' his poor, miserable slaves."
"Marizano!" shouted Chimbolo, glaring at Harold.
"Marizano!" echoed Zombo, glaring at Disco.
Harold now explained to his friends that the slave-hunter was close at
hand--a piece of news which visibly excited them,--and described the
cruelties of which he had recently been a witness. Zombo showed his
teeth like a savage mastiff, and grasped his musket as though he longed
to use it, but he uttered no word until the narrative reached that point
in which the death of the poor captive was described. Then he suddenly
started forward and said something to his followers in the native
tongue, which caused each to fling down the small bundle that was
strapped to his shoulders.
"Yoo stop here," he cried, earnestly, as he turned to Harold and Disco.
"Ve's com bak soon. Ho! boys, sholler 'ums! queek mash!"
No trained band of Britons ever obeyed with more ready alacrity. No
attention was paid to Harold's questions. The "queek mash" carried them
out of sight in a few minutes, and when the Englishmen, who had run
after them a few paces, halted, under the conviction that in their weak
condition they might as well endeavour to keep up with race-horses as
with their old friends, they found that Antonio alone remained to keep
them company.
"Where's Jumbo?" inquired Harold.
"Gon' 'way wid oders," replied the interpreter.
Examining the bundles of their friends, they found that their contents
were powder, ball, and food. It was therefore resolved that a fire
should be kindled, and food prepared, to be ready for their friends on
their return.
"I'm not so sure about their return," said Harold gravely. "They will
have to fight against fearful odds if they find the slavers. Foolish
fellows; I wish they had not rushed away so madly without consulting
us."
The day passed; night came and passed also, and another day dawned, but
there was no appearance of Zombo and his men, until the sun had been up
for some hours. Then they came back, wending their way slowly--very
slowly--through the woods, with the whole of the slave-gang, men, women,
and children, at their heels!
"Where is Marizano?" inquired Harold, almost breathless with surprise.
"Dead!" said Zombo.
"Dead?"
"Ay, dead, couldn't be deader."
"And his armed followers?"
"Dead, too--some ob ums. Ve got at um in de night. Shotted Marizano
all to hatoms. Shotted mos' ob um follerers too. De res' all scatter
like leaves in de wind. Me giv' up now," added Zombo, handing his
musket to Harold. "Boys! orrer ums! mees Capitin not no more. Now,
Capitin Harol', yoos once more look afer us, an' take care ob all ums
peepil."
Having thus demitted his charge, the faithful Zombo stepped back and
left our hero in the unenviable position of a half broken-down man with
the responsibility of conducting an expedition, and disposing of a large
gang of slaves in some unknown part of equatorial Africa!
Leaving him there, we will proceed at once to the coast and follow, for
a time, the fortunes of that archvillain, Yoosoof.