In a few moments the little European flotilla was rounding the
Ras-el-Khartoum, the junction of the White and Blue Niles, and very soon
it passed the three large mimosas, called usually the "tree," the
rendezvous for all boats leaving for the voyage up the White Nile or
its affluents. The banks of the river here and for some miles farther
on present a most monotonous appearance—low, flat banks as far as the
eye can see, often flooded and resembling a sea rather than a river,
with here and there a clump of acacias. In the distance can be
discerned the desert with its sandy undulations. From the bed of the
river snags and dead stumps of trees raise their withered heads,
whilst aquatic plants glide slowly down the stream and look like
floating islets of verdure. Clouds of mosquitoes swarm on this moving
vegetation and appear so thoroughly satisfied with their habitation
that they forget to attack the European traveller.
The captain of the steamer which towed the flotilla was a young
Egyptian officer, educated in Paris, a very gentlemanly and clever
man. At starting he had begged Madame de Guéran and her companions to
come on board his ship. "In a few days," he said, "you will leave me,
for you will go up the Gazelle River whilst I shall have to proceed
alone on my journey up the White Nile as far as Gondokoro. Give me,
then, as long as you can, the pleasure of your society."
The whole party acceded to this invitation, and joined the "Khedive,"
that being the name of the steamer. Most of their time was passed on
the poop, and the conversation frequently turned on the slave-trade,
which the young officer had for two years, under the command of Sir
Samuel Baker, endeavoured to put down.
"Alas!" he said, "our efforts have been well nigh futile. For one
cargo of slaves released by us ten have escaped, and General Baker
was worn out, during his four years' of command, in the struggle
against the natives of the country, whom the slave-merchants, Aboo-Saoud,
the most powerful of all amongst them, incited to oppose him."
One evening, as the Europeans and their host were chatting in some
such fashion as we have described, an acrid, fetid stench, more like
the smell of a charnel-house or a wild beasts' den than, anything
else, was wafted by the wind towards the "Khedive," and unexpectedly
saluted the nostrils of her passengers.
"This is awful," said Delange, "these banks are enough to breed a
pestilence."
"No," said the Captain, "this foul stench comes from that large boat
you see coming down the river towards us. If I am not mistaken I
shall find on board her some living arguments in support of what I
have just been telling you about the slave trade and our
powerlessness to put an end to it."
The officer, whilst saying this, got up and directed the engines to
be stopped. A boat was at the same time lowered and pulled towards
the stranger with an order for her to heave to.
No notice was taken of the command, and the boat, borne onwards by
the strength of the rapid current and the favourable wind, continued
on her course, the "Khedive" being unable to bar her passage. On the
contrary, the Captain prudently got out of the way with his flotilla,
but as soon as the sailing boat had passed he fired a gun as a second
notice to stop, and this was at once answered by the lowering of her
huge sail, those on board recognizing the fact that they were not
strong enough to make any show of continued resistance.
"The sky is beautifully clear, and the moon will soon rise from
behind that leafy screen of mimosas," said the Captain to his guests.
"Would you like to come on board that boat with me? I have every
reason to believe that we shall find something in her which will
repay us for our trouble."
The offer was accepted, and, a few moments afterwards, a couple of
boats were pulled alongside the starboard gangway of the steamer. Ten
well-armed sailors took their place in the first, and in the other
the Captain, Madame de Guéran, Miss Poles, and their three companions
seated themselves.
Five minutes sufficed to reach the stranger. Contrary to expectation
there was no attempt at a parley, nor was any opposition offered to
this nocturnal visit. So far, indeed, was this from being the case
that a line was thrown out to the boats to make them fast to the
vessel's side.
The Egyptian officer, followed by his sailors and the European
travellers, had scarcely climbed up the side, when the Captain, or
reis, a man of about forty, in Mussulman costume, advanced towards
them. He spoke in Turkish, and addressed himself to the Commander of
the "Khedive," whose uniform bespoke his rank.
"As soon as I understood your orders," said he, in a low voice and
with a smile on his thin parched lips, "I hastened to obey them. You
have, no doubt, some despatches to give me for Khartoum, which I
shall reach in two days if the wind continues favourably."
"You are not going to Khartoum, where you would get into trouble,"
replied the Commander of the "Khedive." "You reckon upon heaving to
at some point along the banks where you can discharge your cargo of
slaves, whom you will afterwards forward by land, westwards by
Kordofan, or eastwards by Sennaar, to some market or other, either in
the interior or on the coast."
"My cargo of slaves, sir? What are you talking about?" exclaimed the
Mussulman, raising his eyes to heaven as if to summon it to bear
witness to his veracity, "I am a straightforward trader, and I am on
my way back from the Grazelle River with a cargo of ivory from the
Southern provinces."
"Where is your cargo?" asked the officer.
"Here are a few samples?" replied the Turk, pointing to a number of
elephants' tusks which were strung up along the mast.
"You have made a dangerous trip solely for ivory, have you?" was the
Egyptian's reply. "I know you and your kindred spirits too well to be
taken in by any such tale as that. Where have you hidden your human
merchandize? Answer."
"Nowhere, I assure you, sir. You may search the ship if you like."
"That is exactly what I am going to do."
"When you please."
The Egyptian officer was beginning to feel non-plussed. In vain he
looked around him, he could only discover about eight or ten men,
rather a villainous-looking lot truly, doing odd jobs about the ship.
In the meantime, the stench, which had first become noticeable about
half an hour previously, appeared now to increase in intensity every
moment, and whiffs of hot, one might almost say putrified, air surged
up without intermission from somewhere or other. Whence could
possibly come these foul exhalations, this suffocating heat, which
seemed to emanate from some cribb'd, cabined, and confined human
herd? If the vessel had been a slaver in the Indian Ocean or the Red
Sea, there would not have been any need for hesitation. The removal
of the hatches would have at once exposed to view two or three
hundred blacks, chained along the side of the hold, or stowed away in
the centre like bales of cotton or hogsheads of sugar. But the large
boat, on board which they were, drew but little water, and she had
not depth enough for either a hold or a lower deck.
Fortunately, the sailors of the "Khedive," were whiling away the time
by making a tour of inspection on their own behalf, and some of them,
who had made their way forwards, took it into their heads to remove
some very suspicious looking sacks of grain, thereby uncovering a
trap-door which they set to work to raise.
As soon as the men on board, who had up to this time remained
remarkably indifferent and impassive, saw what their Egyptian
colleagues were about, they came forward and endeavoured to prevent
them from satisfying their curiosity. A hot argument ensued, and the
attention of the European party was attracted by the wordy tumult.
They at once hastened to join the sailors, and, summoning the reis,
ordered him to have the trap raised. But the fellow, though
previously obsequious and pliant enough, suddenly put on an arrogant
air and refused to give the required orders, his crew, at the same
time, taking up a menacing attitude.
"All right," said the Commander of the "Khedive," "I expected this,
and have provided for the emergency."
So saying, he put his silver whistle to his lips, and at the shrill,
prolonged call, the Egyptian steamer, which had been awaiting the
signal, was set in motion and came near. The warning was enough, and
the Captain, followed by his crew, withdrew aft.
The trap was then raised, and a glimpse was caught of a huge black,
seething, writhing, swarming hole. It was but a glimpse, for those
who looked in were glad to draw back, half stifled by the heat and
stench which escaped from the pit.
At once hands, arms, shoulders, heads appeared through the various
openings, and laboured gasps were heard from surcharged breasts,
eagerly drinking in the pure air. Sighs and stifled cries from the
belly of the ship added to the general discordance.
"Come along!" exclaimed M. de Morin, "let us rescue these poor
creatures."
He, his companions, and the Egyptians approached the trap and set to
work to haul up all the arms, shoulders, and heads within their
reach, seizing hold of them, and dragging them out with such good-will
that in a few minutes a score of slaves, more or less
suffocated, were lying on the deck, able at last to breathe. But the
newly-opened den contained other victims, who must be saved if,
indeed, help had not arrived too late. A sailor handed a torch to MM.
de Morin and Périères, and the two friends were courageous enough to
descend into the abyss.
There, in a space about fifteen metres long, the whole length of the
boat, and five wide, in a sort of gallery, where a man even sitting
down had to lower his head, in a kind of double-bottomed box, were a
hundred human creatures, boys, girls, and women, crammed together,
huddled, heaped up pell-mell, welded, as it were, into one another.
"Now, then!" called out M. de. Morin, who was anxious to get on deck
again. "Stir yourselves, and get out of this!"
But the poor wretches did not stir. They were not quite so numerous
as they had been a moment before, a breath of air had reached them—
they did not ask for more—and they called to mind the threat that was
held over them when they were shut up in that den—their persecutors
had sworn that they would never open the living tomb if their victims
uttered a single cry, or drew attention to the boat.
It is owing to the dread instilled into these poor people, ground
down by misery and want, and, above all, is it owing to this hideous
hiding-place on board their vessels, that the slave dealers continue
to carry on, in spite of Baker, their nefarious trade, and sail,
unsuspected, past the very stations organized for their discovery. As
a rule, their slaves remain on deck night and day, but as soon as a
station is neared, or a man-of-war is signalled in the distance, the
wretches are made to go below at once into the confined space we have
described. There they are hermetically enclosed, there they are
immured, not to be released until all danger has disappeared. An
opening here and there in the vessel's side, just above the water-mark
and too small to be seen, enables the inmates to struggle
against suffocation for, perhaps, an hour. That limit passed, the
deaths are about twenty a minute, the strongest, those who need a
larger quantum of air for their spacious lungs, being the first to
succumb. The weak and ailing alone exist for any length of time, and
so, at the end of a couple of hours, there is no longer any hurry to
open the trap, for out of it would only come worthless, valueless
slaves.
But if the openings, of which we have spoken, are not large enough to
prevent suffocation, they still allow the escape of the miasma
produced by this compressed, over-heated human mass. The wind had
borne this stench towards the Egyptian vessel, and thus, by a mere
accident, one of the countless devices of these dealers in human
flesh was found out.
It was necessary to employ force to get the slaves to emerge from
their den, for they were under the impression that if they went on
deck they would be massacred. In fact, they were running a great
risk, the Mussulman Captain and his ten men having taken advantage of
the attention of the Europeans being devoted to the rescue of the
slaves, to construct a barricade aft.
They had rolled together three barrels of powder, and they declared
positively that if they were to be ruined, if their slaves were taken
away, they would blow up the boat and everybody on board.