Alarm quickly gave way to amazement. What did this mean? Approaching
in a half-circle came a great crowd of natives--miserable, woe
begone-looking objects, and entirely unarmed. There were women and
children among them too, and as they drew nearer, they uttered the most
doleful lamentations, in several different dialects, beseeching pity
both by word and gesture.
"What on earth's the meaning of this?" cried Haviland, fairly puzzled.
"Somala, tell them to go away. Tell them we don't want them. We've no
use for them."
Somala's tone was quick and fierce as he ordered them to halt. But
without avail. On they came, howling piteously. Immediately the Arab
raised his rifle, and shot down one of the foremost, wounding another.
"Stop that, Somala," commanded the doctor, who, with the other two white
men, was under the brief impression that for some reason or another
Mushad had abandoned his slaves and retired. "The poor devils are not
fighting."
In no wise deterred by what had happened, the miserable crowd ran
forward, yelling more piteously than ever. They were within a hundred
yards of the defences, then seventy.
"But Mushad is," retorted Somala in a growl. "Stand back all of you, or
we will kill you all," he roared, again firing into the densely packed
mass of wretched humanity.
The shouts and screams which followed upon the discharge were appalling,
but what happened next was more so. Like mown grass the whole crowd of
the imaginary refugees fell prone on their faces--thus revealing the
bulk and flower of the enemy's fighting line. With one mighty roar of
savage triumph the ferocious Arabs, hitherto concealed behind the
advancing slaves, surged over the prostrate heaps, and were up to the
breastwork in a moment. The stratagem of Mushad had been a complete
success. The defenders, thus surprised, were simply allowed no time.
Several of the Arabs fell before their hurried fire, but not for a
second did it delay the fierce, rapid, overwhelming rush. With whirling
scimitars the savage Arabs were upon them, hacking, hewing, yelling.
The native bearers, in wild panic, threw down their arms and fled out at
the other side of the defences, only to be met by the spears of the
black auxiliaries waiting there for just such a move, and cut to pieces
to a man. The improvised fort was choked with corpses, the frenzied
slayers hewing still at the quivering frames, and screaming aloud in a
very transport of blood-intoxication.
Back to back in a ring, the three white men and Somala, with his two
remaining clansmen, stood. But where was Kumbelwa? Not with them, but
yet not far away. And around him, like hounds around a buffalo bull at
bay, his swarming enemies, leaping, snarling, yet not able to reach him
for the terrific sweeps with that dread weapon, shearing a clear space
on every hand.
"Yield thee, thou great fighter!" cried Mushad, in a dialect very much
akin to his own. "Yield thee. Thou at any rate shalt taste our mercy,
and shalt fight with us."
"_Au_! I yield not. Come, fight with me, O chief! we two alone. Thou
wilt not? See, I come to seek thee--_Usutu 'Sutu_!"
And in lightning-like charge, the splendid warrior dashed through the
swarming crowd, straight for Mushad, clearing his way with his broad
blade and resistless rush, his great shield throwing off the blows aimed
at him, like the cutwater of a mighty ship ploughing through the waves.
The crowd closed behind him, and that was the last of him his white
leaders beheld.
As for these, their doom was inevitable. Their enemies could shoot them
down with ease at any moment, but refrained. It was clearly their
intention to take them alive.
"The last shot for ourselves, remember," said Haviland, in his voice the
hard, set tone of a brave man who has done with hope. "Remember that
brute's promise if we are captured. And he'll keep it too."
"I've got three left, and here goes one," said Oakley, discharging his
revolver at a prominent Arab. The latter spun round and fell. With a
roar of rage, several of his comrades, unable to contain themselves,
fired a volley, but with discrimination. The remainder of Somala's
clansmen fell dead, leaving himself and the three white men alone.
"My last shot!" exclaimed the doctor, calmly. "God forgive us if
there's sin in what we do!" And placing the muzzle of his revolver
against his heart, he pressed the trigger. His body, instantaneously
lifeless, sank heavily, but in doing so fell against Haviland's legs.
He, losing his balance, stumbled heavily against Oakley--upsetting him.
A wild stagger, then a fall. Before they could rise, a dozen of their
enemies had flung themselves upon them with lightning-like swiftness,
pinning them to the earth.
Somala, who had expended his last shot, not on himself, was laying about
him vigorously with his ataghan. But, wounded in several places,
weakened with loss of blood and exhaustion, he too was at last
overpowered. The victory was complete.
And the scene of it had now become one or indescribable horror--a very
nightmare of blood, and hacked corpses in every conceivable attitude of
agony and repulsion. And with it all came the convulsive shrieks and
groans of a few of the miserable bearers, who had been taken alive, and
whom the black contingent was amusing itself roasting to death in the
open ground outside the tree belt. Within, the more civilised section
of the slave-hunters was looting the stores and property of the
expedition. They tore open bales, and battered in boxes and cases. But
the authority of Mushad was absolute, and his commands speedily infused
an element of method into the looting process.
Helpless, swathed in coils of thongs wound round them from head to foot,
to the accompaniment of many blows and kicks, the unhappy prisoners lay.
"Behold, ye dogs!" jeered one of those who guarded them. "Behold! Is
it not good to look upon the face of a friend once more? Behold!"
He pointed to the head of the unfortunate doctor, which, ghastly and
dripping, was being borne about on the point of a spear. Raising eyes
dull with despair and horror, they saw it and envied him. He was at
peace now, or, at worst, was in more merciful hands than those of these
fiends; while they themselves--the horrible tortures which had been
decreed for them by the slaver chief, and to which end alone they had
been spared--why, the bare thought was enough to turn the brain.
"Is there no way, Oakley," said Haviland, "I don't mean of escape, but
of escape from what that devil intends to do with us?"
Oakley was silent for a moment.
"There is a way," he said at length. "We might turn Mohammedan."
"What?"
"It has been done before to-day," went on Oakley. "Men have saved their
lives that way, and ultimately have escaped."
It was Haviland's turn to be silent.
"No, hang it," he said at last. "I'm not a religious chap, Oakley, I'm
sorry to say, but--I kick at that."
"Naturally one does, under ordinary circumstances; but under these it's
different. And it needn't mean anything, you know."
"No; somehow I can't. It seems cowardly," said Haviland. "Perhaps,
too, I have an inspiration that it wouldn't help our case much if we
were to do such a thing. But, Oakley, it doesn't follow that you're to
be bound by my opinion. You're an older chap than me, and if you--"
"If I want to take the chance, I'd better, independently of you. That's
what you were going to say, isn't it? No--no, Haviland. We are in this
together, and we get out of it together--or not, probably not--even
apart from the fact of your having saved my life--"
"Pooh! There was no life-saving about it. Only a chance finding of
another fellow in a bit of a difficulty. In any case, there's not much
to be grateful for, but just the reverse."
"These dogs have long tongues," said one of the savage guards, striking
Haviland with the butt of his spear. "Long tongues, but we will cut
them out soon. So chatter, jackals, while ye may, for it will not be
long."
Not there, however, was their cruel martyrdom to take place, for the
word went forth to prepare at once to march. The loot was gathered up
and disposed among its respective bearers, and soon the two captives
found themselves loaded up like bales of goods, and borne forth by those
very abjects who had crowded in, beseeching their pity--the miserable
slaves who had been used to bring them to this pass.
For some hours this cramped and painful locomotion continued, the
barbarous horde carrying severed heads on their spear-points, and taking
a delight in impressing upon their prisoners what lay in store for them.
At length, towards sundown, they halted, and the prisoners were flung
brutally to the ground in such heavy fashion as to knock all the breath
out of their bodies. The pity was that this did not happen altogether,
they had bitter reason to think, for now they saw a fire being kindled
and blown up into a red, roaring flame. The while, thongs had been
thrown over the limb of a tree. Their time had come.
Mushad, with two or three others, now approached them.
"What was my promise to you, ye swine?" he began. "Was it not that ye
should hang by the heels, that your eyes should be scooped out, and live
coals placed in the sockets? Behold. The preparations are even now
being made. How like ye them?"
"We like them not at all, O chief," answered Haviland, desperate. "See,
now, you are a brave man, and we have fought you fair and you have
conquered. We expect death, but we English are not accustomed to
torture. Put us therefore to a swift death."
"Ha! Now ye cry for mercy, but before you laughed! It is well,"
answered Mushad. "Yet ye shall not obtain it. What of all my fighting
men ye have slain, also many of my slaves?" And, turning, he beckoned
to four savage-looking negroes. "Him first," pointing to Haviland.
He was as powerless to move as a log. They seized him by the neck and
dragged him towards one of the trees whereon a noose dangled. Their
knives were drawn, and as they dragged him along he could see another
ruffian kneeling by the fire, extracting a great glowing ember with a
pair of rude tongs. Utterly powerless to struggle in his bonds, he felt
the noose tightened round his ankles; then he was hauled up, swinging
head downwards from the bough. His head was bursting with the rush of
blood to it, and yet with his starting eyes he could see the fiend-like
forms of his black torturers standing by him with the knife, and the red
glowing embers.