"I'se all of a shake, Massa Kennie," said the poor boy; "de spirits, dey
am all about here now, I knows. Dey not can touch poor Keebo? Tell me
dat for true?"
Essequibo got more used to the flute before long, and at last he quite
loved it.
Here is the story of Essequibo's conversion. I give it briefly. It was
one day when Kenneth and he were alone, all the rest being away in the
bush in search of food and dry fuel.
Keebo squatted near Kenneth's knees, leaning his hands thereon with
child-like confidence, and gazing up into the young Scot's face as he
played low sweet Scottish airs. These plaintive airs took Kenneth away
back in fancy to grand Glen Alva, and the tears rose to his eyes as he
thought of his childhood's days, of his simple happiness while herding
sheep, of his dear mother, of Kooran and the fairy knoll.
And last but not least of the sweet child Jessie, and of that day among
the Highland heather, when she gave him the flowers. He took the Bible
from his bosom and opened it.
And there they were side by side. And they were near a chapter his
mother used often to read to him. His mother? Heigho! he would never
see her again in this world, but faith pointed upwards.
He took his flute more cheerfully now, and began to play that sweet
melody "New London." His whole soul was breathed into the instrument.
When he looked again at Keebo, why, there were tears rolling down the
boy's cheeks.
"You remember _your_ mother, Keebo?"
"Ess, Massa Kennie, I 'member she. De cruel Arab men kill she wid one
spear. Sometimes Keebo tink she speak to her boy yet in his dreams."
"So she does, Keebo. So she does, dear child. She lives, Keebo."
"She lib, sah! My moder lib?"
Then Kenneth told Essequibo the Bible tale and all the sweet story of
Jesu's love; and every word sank deep into Keebo's heart, and was never,
never forgotten.
When returning that day from the bush in Indian file, Archie, who was
first, checked the others with uplifted hands, and pointed through the
plantain bushes to the clearing where Kenneth knelt in prayer beside the
boy Keebo.
Both Archie and Harvey doffed their caps, and stood reverently there,
not daring to reveal their presence till Kenneth had arisen. The very
sky above them seemed at that moment a holy sky.
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Essequibo was a strange name to give this nigger boy. [The name of a
river in South America.] It came by chance, and suited him well. He
was clever, this lad; and proved a treasure to the little expedition in
many a trial. His English was not of the purest, he had learnt it in
Zanzibar; but he could talk the languages of the interior tribes and
Arabic as well. It is truly wonderful how soon boys of this caste learn
languages.
Zona was guide and chief of the party; he knew the land well, and he
knew the river. He knew which way to go to avoid unfriendly Indians,
and he knew also the shortest tracks. So you may fancy them going on
and on day after day in their search for the land of gold, sometimes
gliding along the silent and unknown river, sometimes plunging into
deep, dark forests; at other times toiling over arid plains, round the
spurs of lofty mountains, or wading deep through miry marsh lands, the
home, _par excellence_, of the most loathsome of Saurian monsters; but
journeying ever with light hearts, for hope still pointed onwards.
At night, by the camp fire, Archie and Kenneth used to build aerial
castles, and plan out the kind of future that they should spend in
Scotland when they had wealth. But never a night passed without a
chapter being read, a psalm sung, and a prayer said. Zona used to
retire to the bush, and it is but fair to say that, according to his
lights, he was as good at heart as any of the others.
They had hired over a dozen sturdy Indians to carry boats and
ammunition, but these men needed watching, both by night and by day.
They were necessary evils, that is all. Not that negroes of this kind
are not often faithful enough, but they need a master eye to guide them,
else they soon lose heart and faint and fail--then fly.
More than once Keebo prevented these men from stampeding, for Keebo was
ever watchful.
For many weeks our heroes kept on in the same slow course, defying every
obstacle. They were now little more than fifty miles from the goal of
their desires.
"If gold or diamonds," said Kenneth to Archie, "be but half as plentiful
as represented, we have only to collect and retire. We have overcome
every danger, and avoided the greatest danger of all--the Logobo
country. We will go more swiftly down stream than we came up."
Archie was quite as hopeful as Kenneth.
Harvey hardly so much so.
"`There is many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip,'" the latter would
say.
Perhaps this was one of the happiest periods of the lives of either of
our heroes. Indeed, their existence at present resembled nothing so
much as one long picnic. They were like the wild creatures around them;
they lived on the good things they found, and were contented and happy.
Kenneth, true lover of nature, could never have dreamt of scenery like
that which he now gazed on daily. Oh the luxuriance of an African
tropical woodland! what pen could describe, what pencil or brush portray
it!
Yes, there were deadly things to be avoided, but one gets careless of
even them, or, at least, used to them, so that in time not even a great
snake dangling from a branch in front of him makes him shudder; nor is
he greatly alarmed if he comes suddenly on the African "tiger," as the
leopard is called, enjoying a siesta at noon-tide under a tree.
The tribes they had hitherto encountered were non-warlike and quiet.
One day, however, Essequibo, who had been scouting on ahead, came
rushing back in a state of great alarm.
"Dey come, dey come!" he shouted; "plenty bad men. Plenty spear and
shield. Dey kill and eat us all for true!"
The carrier negroes threw down their boat and packages and would have
bolted _en masse_, had not our heroes stood by them with pistol and
whip. The whip was, I believe, more dreaded than even the revolver.
In less time than it takes me to tell it, the little expedition, which
was quickly formed into a solid square, was surrounded by a cloud of
armed blacks.
To fight such a mob was out of the question; they used better tactics:
they pretended to be overjoyed at meeting them. They were friends,
Kenneth told the chief of these negroes, not foes, and wanted to see the
king, and brought him presents from the far-off white man's land.
Shouts of joy from those simple natives now rent the air, and rattling
their spears against their shields they led the way towards the camp of
the king, a village of adobe and grass huts, built round cocoa-nut
palms, in the midst of a great and fertile plain. In the centre of the
town, inside a compound, was the square bungalow of King 'Ntango.
'Ntango was in, but did not appear for hours. It would not be royal
etiquette to show much curiosity. Meanwhile the native women brought
milk and honey and baked plantains, and everything went as merry as a
marriage bell.
The king, into whose presence they were ushered at last, was round and
squat, very yellow and very fat.
He showered his questions on Kenneth through Essequibo as interpreter.
Where did they come from? What did they want? Were they Arab or
foreign? Did they come to steal his wives and little ones? How long
did they want to stop? For ever, of course. Where were the gifts?
Guns? Yes. Beads? Good. Pistols? Good again. But was this all?
Where was the rum? Arab men had been here before, they brought much
good rum. What, _no_ rum? Never a skin of _rum_? Ugh!
With this last ejaculation, which was almost a shriek, the king sprang
from the mat on which he had squatted.
"They must die?" he shouted; "die every one of them. The Arab must
first die, then the black men. Then the white men. Essequibo he would
fatten and kill and eat. Bring chains; away with them! _away_! away!
AWAY!"
The king's eyes shot fire as he waved his arms aloft, and shouted,
"_Away_, away!" and his lips were flecked with blood and foam.
He was a fearful being to behold, this irate African savage.
Almost at the same moment our heroes were seized rudely from behind,
disarmed, and dragged off. They soon found themselves huddled together
in one room, with stone walls, slimy, damp, and over-run with creeping
things that made them shudder, albeit they were under the very shadow of
death.
Towards evening the king sent to "comfort" them; it was very
condescending of him. The "comfort" lay in the information that at
sunrise next day they would be led out to die, by spear or by knife, as
they might choose.
Meanwhile, poor Essequibo's chains were knocked off, and he was led away
to his fattening pen.
Such is life in Central Africa. But stranger things still befell our
heroes.