A powerful native chief was stirring up trouble against the
white man, and the order went forth that he was to be arrested
and brought in for trial. The author was in charge of the
expedition, and here relates the thrilling happenings that
befell his little band ere the "wanted" rebel was safely caged
at head-quarters.
It was the month of July, in the year 1898, and we were kicking our
heels in idleness about Asaba, waiting for the return of the Chief
Justice to decide an important local matter, when the senior executive
officer of the district requested me to take political charge of a
mission into the Hinterland, to bring in the paramount chief of a
great secret organization, which was the cause of grave unrest in the
territory behind Benin, its members having vowed to drive the white
man out of the country. Overjoyed at the news, I ran across to the
bungalow of Lieutenant Townsend, the officer commanding the local
detachment of the Royal Niger Constabulary, and handed him the order
to accompany me with an escort of fifty men. After luncheon we mounted
the Maxim gun belonging to the station on Townsend's veranda, and
practised, in turn, on logs floating down the great sluggish Niger,
which passes in a wide sweep by the foot of the slope on which Asaba
nestles.
Our target-practice over, we set to work to review the light column
that had, meanwhile, been getting ready to accompany us on the morrow
on our adventure into the unknown. The fifty Hausa soldiers looked
wonderfully smart and keen in their light khaki marching-kit.
At daylight next day we set out, our transport consisting of sixty
coolie carriers. The dreary pattering of the rain on the myriad
leaves of the forest trees, and the splash, splash of many feet on
the flooded pathway, provided a melancholy accompaniment to the hushed
whispers of the men and our own serious thoughts.
We passed round the native town to the right and plunged up to our
waists in muddy water, through which the pathway led right into the
darkness of the forest. For several hours it rained incessantly; the
whole land was dank and sodden, and reeked of wet, rotting vegetation.
Later on the rain ceased, and on one occasion, when we emerged from
the depths of the forest into open farm lands, we were bathed in a
blaze of sunshine, only to plunge into the cool of the forest glades
again. We pitched camp at Openam, where far into the night I lay
awake, listening to the many strange noises of that strange land.
The beating of the corn for next day's meal sounded like the possible
building of stockades by some malignant enemy preparing to entrap us,
and the cries of the night-birds and prowling beasts seemed like so
many uncanny voices of woodland spirits, warning us of some impending
doom.
We were early astir, and after a quick light breakfast set out towards
our goal--the town of Issèlé. At Issèlé M'patimo we were stopped by a
stockade, and it was only after much persuasion and many assurances of
friendship that we were allowed to pass through--not, however, before
every soul in the place had disappeared. Not a house was to be seen.
We entered a great clearing completely fenced in by impenetrable
barriers of living trees, whose leafy branches interlaced in
inextricable folds. Somewhere behind these barriers were the houses.
We could see no trace of the hundreds of eyes that we felt--we
_knew_--were staring at us from all sides; no inkling of the countless
black muzzles of the Long Dane guns that were covering us. Nobody
appeared, however, and we marched through this silent clearing without
mishap. But we had hardly got beyond the confines of this curious city
of the woods before heavy firing broke out in our immediate rear. We
felt certain that we were in for it, but our guide reassured us,
saying that the townspeople were only giving vent to their feelings of
relief at our not having molested them.
That night we camped in a village outside Issèlé, and on interviewing
the chief found that he had with him a daughter of the man we wished
to capture, and persuaded her to come with us next morning into
Issèlé.
On reaching that town we drew the men up in square before the King's
house--a lofty building of enormous circumference, painted or washed a
pink colour--and demanded to see His Majesty. After a lot of parleying
I entered the building, leaving Townsend outside, but taking my
interpreter and four soldiers with me as a body guard. I was shown
into a large courtyard, surrounded on all sides by a veranda, whilst
in the centre stood a kind of idol on a rude column. Overhanging the
palace outside, an enormous cotton-tree rose some two hundred feet
into the air. Not a leaf or a vestige of bark adorned its mournful,
lonely majesty. From every branch, however, hung some ghastly offering
to the ruling fetish of the place--here a dead fowl, there a skull
dangling by a matted bunch of hair, and many another gruesome thing.
It cast a shadow and a hush of Death over everything; the people
seemed to live in continual fear of some unknown terror. As I
waited in this strange courtyard with my five companions, I took the
opportunity to get my bearings. The doorway by which I had entered led
out into the square by some steps, and was about six feet above the
level of the ground outside. Its heavy, iron-studded wooden door stood
ajar. The only other entrance to the courtyard was opposite this one,
and led into the private apartments of the palace. The middle of
the courtyard was some two feet below the level of the surrounding
veranda.
Suddenly the private door flew open, and a swarm of men entered, armed
with guns, spears, swords, and bows and arrows. At a sign from me my
men quietly fixed bayonets. Then the King came in, gorgeously robed in
red velvet, and sat down on a chair near me, after shaking hands and
indicating another chair that had been brought for me. I then, through
my interpreter, explained my mission. As the King proved to be on bad
terms with Ozuma Munyi, the man I sought, he was quite willing to give
me a free hand, but did not dare to take any open action himself, as
Ozuma was head of a very powerful party and might prove nasty later
on. He, however, agreed to send a messenger to call him. We waited for
fully half an hour, not knowing whether the rebel chieftain would come
or not. Needless to say, that half-hour was one of poignant anxiety,
as on that message depended the success or failure of our expedition.
The messenger was told to say that Ozuma's daughter was with us, and
that if he himself would not come we should return to Asaba with her.
Meanwhile I called Townsend in, and we arranged that, as Ozuma's party
entered, Townsend and twelve men should manage to intermingle with
them, and thus, unnoticed, get into the courtyard. We felt that to
fill the place with soldiers beforehand might frighten our man.
Soon the messenger returned with the good news that Ozuma Munyi was
coming, and shortly afterwards a body of men, armed to the teeth,
entered from the square outside, accompanied by Townsend and some of
his men. When Ozuma and I had shaken hands the tug-of-war began. He
was an enormous, powerfully-built man, and nothing that I could say
would move him to accompany us. At last, seeing that persuasion was
useless, I glanced across at Townsend and nodded. He uttered one word
that had the result of an explosion. A flash of bayonets and a rush
of khaki-uniformed men from behind the veranda columns, and the
whole place was in an uproar. The King and his followers promptly
disappeared through the inner doorway, and Ozuma's men were kept at
bay by the bayonets of my four Hausa guards, whilst our rebel himself,
and the twelve men told off to capture him, rolled and tumbled and
fought all over the courtyard--one man against twelve--amid Ozuma's
frenzied shouts of "The King has sold me! The King has sold me!" Then,
crash! out through the doorway he hurtled, with five men on top of
him. By the time Townsend and I reached the bottom of the steps,
however, the struggle was over, and half the column was sitting on the
prostrate body of our prisoner.
[Illustration: "OUT THROUGH THE DOORWAY HE HURTLED, WITH FIVE MEN ON
TOP OF HIM."]
Having called the men off and pinioned his arms securely, we lost no
time in forming up into marching order and setting out for home, as
our surroundings began to take on a threatening aspect. Hundreds
of armed blacks were gathering from all sides, wondering at
the happenings which were being enacted in the shadow of their
mystery-tree.
We decided to give the Ozuma party the slip by getting out of the
place by a different route to that by which we had come, and, once
clear of the town, set off at the double. That was the hardest and
most desperate race I have ever run. At every few yards great trees
had been thrown across the track, and we had to scramble over these,
or, wherever practicable, dive underneath. We ran for some miles along
this tangled forest path, and then called a halt at the foot of
a short hill, crowned by a town called Nburu-Kitti. Forming up we
marched to the summit, and halting in the marketplace sent for the
King. His Majesty refused to come, so we informed him that, on a
second refusal, we would fire into his house. Then he came quickly
enough. We told him that all we wished him to do was to promise that
we should not be molested by his people, and this promise he readily
gave. I then took the head of the column, followed by five or six
men; then came the Maxim gun and our prisoner and his escort, followed
immediately by Townsend and the rest of the force. As we were passing
the last row of huts the crack of a musket rang out. I turned,
thinking that some soldier had let off his rifle by mistake, but
before I could ask what it was that had happened the whole column was
blazing away right and left. Going back to the Maxim, I had it fixed
up and trained on the town, whence a heavy fire had been opened on
us through the doors and windows and from behind the walls of the
compounds. It was obvious that the local King meant to do his best to
rescue his friend, Ozuma Munyi.
[Illustration: "WE RUSHED IN AMONGST A FRIGHTENED CROWD OF SAVAGES."]
I had barely taken my seat behind the gun when my helmet was shot away
by a slug that tore a slight flesh wound over my right temple. I had
the satisfaction, however, of seeing a whole section of wall crumble
away under my first sweeping fire with the Maxim, and five dark forms
fall across the ruins. Then a blinding rush of blood poured down my
face, and almost simultaneously the gun jammed. Wiping the blood from
my eyes, and getting a Hausa to tie a handkerchief round my head,
I turned to call Townsend to have a look at the weapon, when, to my
consternation, I saw him lying on the ground, with two men bending
over him. Several others had also fallen. The fire from the houses was
getting heavier each second, and I realized that unless we mastered it
speedily we might find ourselves in a serious position. So, snatching
up Townsend's sword and brandishing my revolver in my left hand, I
called on some of the men to follow me and help clear the compounds.
Twenty at once volunteered, and with a yell we dashed straight for the
wall that had crumbled under the Maxim fire. Leaping over the foot
or two remaining, we rushed in amongst a frightened crowd of savages,
who, astonished at the sudden onslaught, tried to retreat through
a narrow inner doorway. With bayonets and rifle-butts, bullets and
sword-thrusts, we hacked and hammered at the seething mass of yelling
blacks. Out of twenty-five that made for the exit, only seven got
through, three of whom fell to my revolver before getting any farther.
Shouting to the men to follow me, I next ran back into the roadway,
ordering the native sergeant-major to form square, with the prisoner
in the middle, and await further instructions. Then, with my
volunteers, I made for the King's house, where we battered down the
door and rushed in. As we appeared the folk inside, dropping their
weapons, ran away through various huts and doorways. Some we shot
down, others were bayoneted. I and a native N.C.O. went after the
chief. Through some huts, and around others, dodging in and out
between mud walls and partitions of matting, we followed him until at
last we cornered him, as we thought, in a house that seemed to close
all exit from the compound in that direction. The King dashed in, I
after him, and the N.C.O. at my heels.
The house was divided into three rooms, cutting it into three equal
parts. When we reached the third room, the farthest from the entrance,
we came to a standstill, for it was pitch dark, and there seemed to be
no windows. The heavy wooden door that led into the place stood ajar,
and the N.C.O. pushed past me and rushed into the darkness. Fearing
treachery, I tried to stop him, but did not succeed in doing so. Just
then there was a noise behind me like the banging of a door. I turned,
but some instinct seemed to hold me where I stood. A dead silence had
fallen on the place, and I must confess to a feeling that something
uncanny was in the air. I could hear through the silence, as though from
miles and miles away, faint shouts, and now and then a distant shot, but
in the rooms around me absolute stillness prevailed. What had become of
the fugitive King and my too eager N.C.O.?
At last, overcoming the strange feeling of apathy that like a spell
had come over me, I called to my companion, inquiring where on earth
he had got to. The sound of my voice rang hollow and strange in that
gloomy place, and seemed to echo faintly, but there was no reply.
Feeling certain now that some kind of treachery was at work, I felt in
my tunic for a match, but found that I had either dropped my only box
or my orderly had relieved me of it that morning, for some reason best
known to himself. The solitary window in the middle room, where I had
come to a full stop, was shuttered--actually nailed up. The only light
that came in filtered through the chinks. I tried to burst the shutter
open, but it resisted all my efforts. Then, bethinking me of my
revolver, I went to the entrance of the innermost room once more, and,
aiming at the floor, fired. The flash revealed the interior to me for
an instant. It seemed absolutely empty! Where were the two men who
had entered? Had they gone out, by any chance, through the roof, I
wondered? Yet there was no sign of daylight anywhere to indicate an
exit under the palm-thatch, and there was no doorway visible in the
farther walls. There was nothing in the room, with the exception of a
few mats lying in the middle of the floor. With the intention of going
round outside the house and trying to discover for myself what the
solution of the mystery could be I turned on my heel and retraced
my steps, crossed the middle room once more, and passed through the
doorway into the first of the three rooms.
Then I started back, nearly suffocated. A great rolling cloud of
thick yellow smoke met me and completely enveloped me. In an instant I
realized what it meant--the house was on fire! Making a wild dart for
the shuttered window of the middle room, I banged and hammered at it
with all my might and main, using both the hilt of Townsend's sword,
which I carried, and the handle of my revolver, but all to no purpose.
There was no doubt about it: I was completely trapped. But, meantime,
what had become of all my men--the twenty enthusiastic volunteers
who had smashed in the door of the compound and rushed in along with
me--where had they got to? A smell of hot smoke filled the room,
and from outside the roaring as of a mighty wind, accompanied by the
crackling of musketry, was all the sound that I could hear. Then it
suddenly dawned upon me that the crackling was not that of musketry,
the roaring not that of wind--but of the town and compound on fire
and fiercely blazing like the house I was entrapped in. There was
no mistaking those ominous red gleams that now began to be reflected
through the imperfectly-fitted shutter. Suddenly the roar became
deafening, and a great lurid tongue of flame shot across the room,
accompanied by a blast of heat that nearly choked me. I had barely
time to make a dash for the third chamber before the fire took
complete possession of the middle one. The heat and the smoke were
terrible. I made a spring for the farther wall in order to try to
force my way through the roof, which at this, the extreme, end of the
house had not yet caught alight. Three times did I make the attempt,
but each time fell back, unable to get a hand-hold on the top of the
wall. At the third attempt, on staggering back, my foot got entangled
in one of the mats that were lying on the floor and I tripped and
fell, half fainting from the terrible smoke and heat. As I went down
the mats seemed to give way, and with great force the lower half of
my body--my left hip and leg--struck against the side of some kind of
cavity, into which I found I had half fallen, for, whilst I had come
on the floor with my hands, the rest of me swung into space. In that
moment I understood, to some extent, why that house held such strange
echoes.
The roaring flames overhead and the dense, stifling smoke, that,
but for the excitement of my fall, would already have rendered me
unconscious, now precluded any possible thought of making my escape
through any of the rooms of the house, and so I turned my attention
to my latest discovery, hoping against hope that it would enable me
to save my life. The sides of the well seemed to be made of smooth,
hardened earth, and were damp and covered with slime. Using all my
strength, I let myself down to the full length of my arms until I hung
well below the level of the floor. Here I managed to draw one of the
mats over my head, and clung to the walls of that gloomy pit like a
beetle. Kicking against the sides with the toes of my boots, I managed
to make holes in the hard clay, large enough to allow of my resting my
feet sufficiently to take off some of the strain from my fingers and
arms. What my thoughts were at that time I do not pretend to know; I
do not think I had any. For the time being I was no better than any
other beetle, clinging desperately to the side of the pit, of the
depth of which I had no idea. A cold, damp draught of foul air seemed
to blow up from below me, and a mouldy stench sickened my nostrils.
Suddenly my dulled senses were awakened by a tremendous crash,
accompanied by much hissing and spluttering, and the red light above
the mat covering my head went out. As I looked up, wondering what this
could mean, something fell upon the mats, forcing the one directly
over me inwards and sending it floating down past me into the darkness
beneath. The falling object also crushed my right hand at the same
time, and the sudden pain caused me to loose my hold, so that for one
awful moment I dangled helplessly, suspended only by my left hand,
over that reeking pit.
Having secured another hand-hold, I stared anxiously up through the
smoke. The cause of all the commotion, I discovered, was a burning
rafter, all blackened and charred, which had toppled down when the
roof collapsed. The fall of the thatch appeared to have temporarily
quenched the fire, and it seemed as good an opportunity of escape as I
was likely to get, so, drawing myself up by my left hand, I managed to
get my right arm round the still smouldering beam and, with a supreme
effort, dragged myself out of the mouth of the well once more, getting
astride of the charred and smoking beam, and thence on to the floor.
Bruised and scorched, with my clothes burning and my helmet gone, I
managed to clamber up the wall of the room by means of the many pieces
of blackened and half-burnt bamboo that had come down with the roof,
and flung myself recklessly over the farther side. I fell on my back,
and by rights ought to have had some bones broken, but somehow I
escaped with a few severe contusions. Picking myself up, I rushed
through the flaming compound, with red-hot ashes swirling about my
face, acrid smoke filling my lungs, and my eyes streaming water from
the fearful heat. Escaping by a miracle more than once, as a roof
collapsed or a wall fell out with a crash across my path, and leaping
over the bodies of natives at every turn, I eventually emerged into
the market-place more dead than alive.
The troops were formed in square as I had left them. Men were issuing
from the burning compounds, singly and in twos and threes. All firing
had ceased, and not a native of the place was to be seen anywhere.
As I approached the square at a staggering trot I ran a great risk of
being shot, for--as I learnt subsequently--the men were so startled
at my appearance that they were seriously thinking of putting a bullet
through me. They told me afterwards that I looked more like a devil
than anything they had ever seen, and they took me for the fire-spirit
that lived in the flames. Some of the coolies even started to bolt,
until reassured by their companions and by the sound of my voice.
I ordered the "Fall in" to be sounded, so as to collect my scattered
volunteers, and then set about seeing what I could do to ease the
horrible pains of my burns. This I accomplished, to some extent, with
various ointments that I found in the medicine-chest we had brought
with us. I then turned my attention to Townsend. On examining him
I found that he had been hit in the shoulder. He had swooned at the
time, but was now quite conscious again. We concluded that it was
nothing very serious, did what we thought best at the moment, and
bandaged the wound up well. Then, with Townsend in a hammock, and
carrying our wounded coolies along with us--no soldiers had been
hit--we set out for Asaba once more with our prisoner.
[Illustration: A LETTER FROM THE ROYAL NIGER COMPANY TO THE AUTHOR
THANKING HIM FOR HIS CONDUCT OF THE EXPEDITION.]
After half an hour's marching we met a friendly native, who told us
that we were to be ambushed some quarter of a mile farther on. On
receipt of this cheerful piece of information we retraced our steps;
we had had our fill of fighting for that day, especially as our
instructions were to avoid bloodshed if we could possibly do so.
The alternative route we determined to take added five miles to our
journey, and I shall never forget the weariness and uncertainty of
that long _détour_. The knowledge that, at any moment, a stealthy and
wary enemy might suddenly start blazing away at us from five yards on
either side of the path, which was shut in with dense undergrowth to
right and left, surmounted with towering trees, made the journey seem
endless, and the strain on our nerves was terrible. We marched for
hour after hour in a gloomy twilight; not a single ray of sunlight
filtered through the thick leafy canopy overhead. Then, all at
once, the path opened out, and to our unutterable joy we entered the
principal avenue of Openam. We were in friendly country once more--or
as nearly friendly as anything in the Hinterland of Asaba could be.
Here we rested for half an hour, while I attended to Townsend and our
other wounded. We then set out on our final march, and without further
incident reached Asaba at 8.30 p.m., all utterly tired out, but happy
in the consciousness that we had accomplished our mission.
The N.C.O. who had so mysteriously disappeared at Nburu-Kitti, and
whom I had given up for lost, arrived at Asaba a few hours after the
column. He came to my bedside and woke me from my well-earned sleep,
whereupon I stared at him in utter amazement. On asking him to prove
that he was not a ghost, he explained that, when he rushed into that
end room in pursuit of the flying chief, he pitched headlong down the
well and nearly broke his neck. The bottom, however, consisted of oozy
mud, which considerably softened his fall. After lying stunned for how
long he could not tell, he began to explore the pit, and discovered
a tunnel about five feet from the bottom of the well. Crawling into
this, he followed it without difficulty until he emerged into another
compound beyond that of the chief's. It is to be supposed that the
fugitive King must have made his escape in the same manner, but, as
the N.C.O. naively said, he did not wait to inquire.