A BOWL OF PUNCH.
The afternoon was passing away, and it was now past four o'clock, when
the sound of drums, cymbals, and a variety of native instruments was
heard at the end of the main thoroughfare. The market was still going
on with the same animation as before; half a day's screeching and
fighting seemed neither to have wearied the voices nor broken the limbs
of the demoniacal traffickers; there was a considerable number of
slaves still to be disposed of, and the dealers were haggling over the
remaining lots with an excitement of which a sudden panic on the London
Stock Exchange could give a very inadequate conception.
But the discordant concert which suddenly broke upon the ear was the
signal for business to be at once suspended. The crowd might cease its
uproar, and recover its breath. The King of Kazonndé, Moené Loonga, was
about to honour the _lakoni_ with a visit.
Attended by a large retinue of wives, officers, soldiers, and slaves,
the monarch was conveyed to the middle of the market-place in an old
palanquin, from which he was obliged to have five or six people to help
him to descend. Alvez and the other traders advanced to meet him with
the most exaggerated gestures of reverence, all of which he received as
his rightful homage.
He was a man of fifty years of age, but might easily have passed for
eighty. He looked like an old, decrepit monkey. On his head was a kind
of tiara, adorned with leopards' claws dyed red, and tufts of
greyish-white hair; this was the usual crown of the sovereigns of
Kazonndé. From his waist hung two skirts of coodoo-hide, stiff as
blacksmiths' aprons, and embroidered with pearls. The tattooings on his
breast were so numerous that his pedigree, which they declared, might
seem to reach back to time immemorial. His wrists and arms were encased
in copper bracelets, thickly encrusted with beads; he wore a pair of
top-boots, a present from Alvez some twenty years ago; in his left hand
he carried a great stick surmounted by a silver knob; in his right a
fly-flapper with a handle studded with pearls; over his head was
carried an old umbrella with as many patches as a Harlequin's coat,
whilst from his neck hung Cousin Benedict's magnifying-glass, and on
his nose were the spectacles which had been stolen from Bat's pocket.
[Illustration: The potentate beneath whose sway the country trembled
for a hundred miles round]
Such was the appearance of the potentate beneath whose sway the country
trembled for a hundred miles round.
By virtue of his sovereignty Moené Loonga claimed to be of celestial
origin; and any subject who should have the audacity to raise a
question on this point would have been despatched forthwith to another
world. All his actions, his eating and drinking, were supposed to be
performed by divine impulse. He certainly drank like no other mortal;
his officers and ministers, confirmed tipplers as they were, appeared
sober men in comparison with himself, and he seemed never to be doing
anything but imbibing strong pombé, and over-proof spirit with which
Alvez kept him liberally supplied.
In his harem Moené Loonga had wives of all ages from forty to fourteen,
most of whom accompanied him on his visit to the _lakoni_. Moena, the
chief wife, who was called the queen, was the eldest of them all, and,
like the rest, was of royal blood. She was a vixenish-looking woman,
very gaily attired; she wore a kind of bright tartan over a skirt of
woven grass, embroidered with pearls; round her throat was a profusion
of necklaces, and her hair was mounted up in tiers that toppled high
above her head, making her resemble some hideous monster. The younger
wives, all of them sisters or cousins of the king, were less
elaborately dressed. They walked behind her, ready at the slightest
sign to perform the most menial services. Did his Majesty wish to sit
down, two of them would immediately stoop to the ground and form a seat
with their bodies, whilst others would have to lie down and support his
feet upon their backs: a throne and footstool of living ebony.
Amidst the staggering, half-tipsy crowd of ministers, officers, and
magicians that composed Moené Loonga's suite, there was hardly a man to
be seen who had not lost either an eye, an ear, or hand, or nose. Death
and mutilation were the only two punishments practised in Kazonndé, and
the slightest offence involved the instant amputation of some member of
the body. The loss of the ear was considered the severest penalty, as
it prevented the possibility of wearing earrings!
The governors of districts, or _kilolos_, whether hereditary or
appointed for four years, were distinguished by red waistcoats and
zebra-skin caps; in their hands they brandished long rattans, coated at
one extremity with a varnish of magic drugs.
The weapons carried by the soldiers consisted of wooden bows adorned
with fringes and provided with a spare bowstring, knives filed into the
shape of serpents' tongues, long, broad lances, and shields of palm
wood, ornamented with arabesques. In the matter of uniform, the royal
army had no demands to make upon the royal treasury.
Amongst the attendants of the king there was a considerable number of
sorcerers and musicians. The sorcerers, or _mganga_, were practically
the physicians of the court, the savages having the most implicit faith
in divinations and incantations of every kind, and employing fetishes,
clay or wooden figures, representing sometimes ordinary human beings
and sometimes fantastic animals. Like the rest of the retinue, these
magicians were, for the most part, more or less mutilated, an
indication that some of their prescriptions on behalf of the king had
failed of success.
The musicians were of both sexes, some performing on shrill rattles,
some on huge drums, whilst others played on instruments called
_marimbas_, a kind of dulcimer made of two rows of different-sized
gourds fastened in a frame, and struck by sticks with india-rubber
balls at the end. To any but native ears the music was perfectly
deafening.
[Illustration: Alvez advanced and presented the king with some fresh
tobacco.]
Several flags and banners were carried in the procession, and amongst
these was mixed up a number of long pikes, upon which were stuck the
skulls of the various chiefs that Moené Loonga had conquered in battle.
As the king as helped out of his palanquin, the acclamations rose
higher and higher from every quarter of the market place The soldiers
attached to the caravans fired off their old guns, though the reports
were almost too feeble to be heard above the noisy vociferations of the
crowd; and the havildars rubbed their black noses with cinnabar powder,
which they carried in bags, and prostrated themselves. Alvez advanced
and presented the king with some fresh tobacco, "the appeasing herb,"
as it is called in the native dialect; and certainly Moené Loonga
seemed to require some appeasing, as, for some unknown reason, he was
in a thoroughly bad temper.
Coïmbra, Ibn Hamish and the dealers all came forward to pay their court
to the monarch, the Arabs greeting him with the cry of _marhaba_, or
welcome; others clapped their hands and bowed to the very ground; while
some even smeared themselves with mud, in token of their most servile
subjection.
But Moené Loonga scarcely took notice of any of them; he went
staggering along, rolling like a ship upon a stormy sea, and made his
way past the crowds of slaves, each of whom, no less than their
masters, trembled lest he should think fit to claim them for his own.
Negoro, who kept close at Alvez' side, did not fail to render his
homage along with the rest. Alvez and the king were carrying on a
conversation in the native language, if that could be called a
conversation in which Moené Loonga merely jerked out a few
monosyllables from his inflamed and swollen lips. He was asking Alvez
to replenish his stock of brandy.
"We are proud to welcome your majesty at the market of Kazonndé," Alvez
was saying.
"Get me brandy," was all the drunken king's reply.
"Will it please your majesty to take part in the business of the
_lakoni_?" Alvez tried to ask.
"Drink!" blurted out the king impatiently.
Alvez continued,--
"My friend Negoro here is anxious to greet your majesty after his long
absence."
"Drink!" roared the monarch again.
"Will the king take pombé or mead?" asked Alvez, at last obliged to
take notice of the demand.
"Brandy! give me fire-water!" yelled the king, in a fury. "For every
drop you shall have ..."
"A drop of a white man's blood!" suggested Negoro, glancing at Alvez.
"Yes, yes; kill a white man," assented Moené Loonga, his ferocious
instincts all aroused by the proposition.
"There is a white man here," said Alvez, "who has killed my agent. He
must be punished for his act."
"Send him to King Masongo!" cried the king; "Masongo and the Assuas
will cut him up and eat him alive."
Only too true it is that cannibalism is still openly practised in
certain provinces of Central Africa. Livingstone records that the
Manyuemas not only eat men killed in war, but even buy slaves for that
purpose; it is said to be the avowal of these Manyuemas that "human
flesh is slightly salt, and requires no seasoning." Cameron relates how
in the dominions of Moené Booga dead bodies were soaked for a few days
in running water as a preparation for their being devoured; and Stanley
found traces of a widely-spread cannibalism amongst the inhabitants of
Ukusu.
But however horrible might be the manner of death proposed by Moené
Loonga, it did not at all suit Negoro's purpose to let Dick Sands out
of his clutches.
"The white man is here," he said to the king; "it is here he has
committed his offence, and here he should be punished."
"If you will," replied Moené Loonga; "only I must have fire-water; a
drop of fire-water for every drop of the white man's blood."
"Yes, you shall have the fire-water," assented Alvez, "and what is
more, you shall have it all alight. We will give your majesty a bowl of
blazing punch."
The thought had struck Alvez, and he was himself delighted with the
idea, that he would set the spirit in flames. Moené Loonga had
complained that the "fire-water" did not justify its name as it ought,
and Alvez hoped that perhaps, administered in this new form, it might
revivify the deadened membranes of the palate of the king.
Moené Loonga did not conceal his satisfaction. Wives and courtiers
alike were full of anticipation. They had all drunk brandy, but they
had not drunk brandy alight. And not only was their thirst for alcohol
to be satisfied; their thirst for blood was likewise to be indulged;
and when it is remembered how, even amongst the civilized, drunkenness
reduces a man below the level of a brute, it may be imagined to what
barbarous cruelties Dick Sands was likely to be exposed. The idea of
torturing a white man was not altogether repugnant to the coloured
blood of either Alvez or Coïmbra, while with Negoro the spirit of
vengeance had completely overpowered all feeling of compunction.
Night, without any intervening twilight, was soon drawing on, and the
contemplated display could hardly fail to be effective. The programme
for the evening consisted of two parts; first, the blazing punch-bowl;
then the torture, culminating in an execution.
The destined victim was still closely confined in his dark and dreary
dungeon; all the slaves, whether sold or not, had been driven back to
the barracks, and the chitoka was cleared of every one except the
slave-dealers, the havildars, and the soldiers, who hoped, by favour of
the king, to have a share of the flaming punch.
Alvez did not long delay the proceedings. He ordered a huge caldron,
capable of containing more than twenty gallons, to be placed in the
centre of the market-place. Into this were emptied several casks of
highly-rectified spirit, of a very inferior quality, to which was added
a supply of cinnamon and other spices, no ingredient being omitted
which was likely to give a pungency to suit the savage palate.
The whole royal retinue formed a circle round the king. Fascinated by
the sight of the spirit, Moené Loonga came reeling up to the edge of
the punch-bowl, and seemed ready to plunge himself head foremost into
it. Alvez held him back, at the same time placing a lucifer in his hand.
"Set it alight!" cried the slave-dealer, grinning slily as he spoke.
The king applied the match to the surface of the spirit. The effect was
instantaneous. High above the edge of the bowl the blue flame rose and
curled. To give intensity to the process Alvez had added a sprinkling
of salt to the mixture, and this caused the fire to cast upon the faces
of all around that lurid glare which is generally associated with
apparitions of ghosts and phantoms. Half intoxicated already, the
negroes yelled and gesticulated; and joining hands, they performed a
fiendish dance around their monarch. Alvez stood and stirred the spirit
with an enormous metal ladle, attached to a pole, and as the flames
rose yet higher and higher they seemed to throw a more and more
unearthly glamour over the ape-like forms that circled in their wild
career.
Moené Loonga, in his eagerness, soon seized the ladle from the
slave-dealer's hands, plunged it deep into the bowl, and bringing it up
again full of the blazing punch, raised it to his lips.
A horrible shriek brought the dancers to a sudden standstill. By a kind
of spontaneous combustion, the king had taken fire internally; though
it was a fire that emitted little heat, it was none the less intense
and consuming. In an instant one of the ministers in attendance ran to
the king's assistance, but he, almost as much alcoholized as his
master, caught fire as well, and soon both monarch and minister lay
writhing on the ground in unutterable agony. Not a soul was able to
lend a helping hand. Alvez and Negoro were at a loss what to do; the
courtiers dared not expose themselves to so terrible a fate; the women
had all fled in alarm, and Coïmbra, awakened to the conviction of the
inflammability of his own condition, had rapidly decamped.
[Illustration: The king had taken fire internally.]
To say the truth, it was impossible to do anything; water would have
proved unavailing to quench the pale blue flame that hovered over the
prostrate forms, every tissue of which was so thoroughly impregnated
with spirit, that combustion, though outwardly extinguished, would
continue its work internally.
In a few minutes life was extinct, but the bodies continued long
afterwards to burn; until, upon the spot where they had fallen, a few
light ashes, some fragments of the spinal column, some fingers and some
toes, covered with a thin layer of stinking soot, were all that
remained of the King of Kazonndé and his ill fated minister.