"I am very much obliged to you for coming aboard, Senor Lobo, for you
are the very man that I most desired to see. I require some assistance
of a rather peculiar kind, and I believe that you, above all others, are
the one who can best help me to it."
Lobo bowed and smiled, sipped his wine, and assured us that he was in
all things our very obedient, humble servant, and that nothing pleased
him so much as to be of assistance to the man-o'-war gentlemen, who
honoured the river by paying it an occasional visit. At the same time--
he pointed out--his friendly relations with those same man-o'-war
gentlemen, and the services that he had been so glad to render them from
time to time were, if not well known, at least very strongly suspected
by the slavers and slave-dealing fraternity generally who used the Congo
for their nefarious purposes; and in incurring this suspicion he also
incurred a very serious risk, both to property and life, for which he
considered that he was justly entitled to be remunerated on a generous
scale.
"Most assuredly," I agreed. "And I may tell you at once, Senor Lobo,
that I am prepared to reward you very munificently for the efficient and
faithful performance of the service that I require of you; I am
prepared, in fact, to offer you no less a reward than _your life_. Ah,
you turn pale, I see; and well you may when I inform you that your true
character is by this time known to probably every British commander on
the coast; you are known as a bare-faced traitor to the cause that you
have pretended so zealously to serve, and I don't mind mentioning to
you, in confidence, that, if this ship had happened to be the
_Barracouta_ instead of the _Felicidad_ you would now in all probability
have been dangling from one of that ship's yard-arms, as a wholesome
warning and example to all betrayers--Nay, keep your seat, man; there is
a sentry outside the door, and you are a prisoner beyond all possibility
of escape. But you have no cause for fear on that account, provided
that you can prevail upon yourself to act honestly for once. I require
a certain service from you, and I promise you that if you render that
service faithfully I will set you free at the termination of the
adventure, with full liberty to seek safety by flight elsewhere. But
until the adventure of which I speak is brought to a favourable
conclusion, you are my prisoner; and I give you my word of honour that
upon the first attempt to escape which you may be ill-advised enough to
make, I will put you in irons and chain you to the deck. If, therefore,
you are wise, you will submit to your present predicament with a good
grace, rather than tempt a worse one. And now, tell me everything you
know with regard to the fate of the crews of the _Sapphire's_ boats."
"The _Sapphire's_ boats?" ejaculated the now thoroughly terrified
wretch. "I swear to Gad, sar, dat I had not'ing to do vid dat! I know
not'ing about dem; not'ing whatever! But I can tell you de name of de
man who had; ay, and I can put him into your power, if you like; he is a
villain, and it would be only doing a good action to betray him to
justice. I vill do it, too, if you vill release me at vonce; I vill
tell you all about him, vhere he is to be found vhen he visits de river,
de name of his cheep, and--and--all dat is necessairey for you to know."
"Yes; no doubt," I answered. "But you will have to purchase your
release in some other way, senor; unfortunately for you we know all
about Don Fernando de Mendouca, captain of the brigantine _Francesca_
and have every confidence in our ability to get hold of him without your
assistance. And I may tell you that, _up to the present_, no charge has
been made against you in connection with the disappearance of the
_Sapphire's_ boats; you have therefore nothing to fear from us just now
on that score. _Now_, will you tell us what you know about those
unfortunate missing men?"
"Yes; yes, I vill, gentlemen; I vill tell you all dat I know; but it is
not much," answered Lobo, with evident relief. "I only know dat de
scoundrel Mendouca managed to trap de two boats in some vay--how, I know
not--and dat he gave dem de choice of being massacred, dere and den, or
of surrendering and having dheir lives spared. And vhen dhey had
surrendered he exchanged dhem to Matadi for slaves--t'ree slaves for
every white man--so dat Matadi might have plenty of victims--white
victims dhey consider _very_ good--for de annual--de annual--what you
call it, eh? festa."
"Festival, I suppose you mean," said I, with an involuntary shudder.
"And, pray, Senor Lobo, do you happen to know the date of this
festival?"
"No, I cannot say dat I do; but I t'ink about one week from now," was
the answer.
"Then, thank God, we are still in time!" I ejaculated. "Now, Senor
Lobo, I presume you are acquainted with this chief, Matadi, are you not?
You have probably had dealings with him, eh? Do not be afraid to give
a truthful answer, because by so doing you cannot betray anything about
yourself that we do not know already. We are fully aware, for instance,
that you are a slave-dealer--among other things--and I have very little
doubt that, if I chose to land a party, we should find a choice lot of
negroes in that barracoon of yours in the bush, yonder--you look
surprised, but, you see, I know all about you; so your best plan will be
to answer my questions truthfully and unreservedly. Now, as to this
Matadi, who is he, and what is he?"
"Sair," said Lobo, in great perturbation, "I see dat you know all about
me, so I will be perfectly open and frank wid you. I _do_ know Matadi.
He is a very powerful chief, de head of a tribe numbering quite t'ree
t'ousand warriors; and his chief town is far up de river--four, five
days' journey in a canoe. It lies on de sout' bank of de river 'bout
eight miles below de first--what you call?--where de water runs very
furious over de rocks, boiling like--like de water in a pot."
"Ah, rapids, you mean, I suppose?" suggested I.
"Yes, yes; rapids; dat is de word," agreed Lobo. "His town is near de
first rapids; and he is very powerful, very dangerous, very fierce.
What do you want wid him, senor?"
"I want those white men that he holds in captivity; and I mean to have
them, by fair means or foul!" said I. "I will buy them of him, if he is
willing to part with them in that way; and if not, I intend to take them
from him by force, for have them I _must_ and _will_ And I require your
assistance in this matter, senor, as an interpreter, through whom I can
treat with the fellow and carry on the necessary negotiations; and if
those negotiations are successful, you will be released on our return
here, and allowed thirty days to complete your arrangements for removal
elsewhere. But if we fail you will be retained as a prisoner, and taken
to Sierra Leone, to be dealt with as your past treacheries deserve.
Now, do you quite understand the position?"
"Yes, senor, I understand," answered Lobo, in great distress. "But, oh,
gentlemen, I beg, I pray you, do not take me away from my business; it
will all go wrong widout me, and I shall lose hundreds, t'ousands of
dollars, _all_ my property will be gone before I can get back! I shall
be ruin'!"
"I am sorry to hear that," I remarked; "but even supposing that matters
go as badly with you as you seem to fear, that will be better than
_hanging_, will it not? And, you see, I _must_ have somebody with me,
as interpreter, whose interest it will be that I shall be successful in
my mission; and I know of no one whose interests can be made more
completely identical with my own than yourself, senor. Therefore I
shall take you with me, regardless of consequences. But if you have any
assistants ashore to whom you would like to send a very brief message to
the effect that you are taking a little business-trip up the river with
me for a few days, and that they must do the best they can for you
during your absence, I have no objection to your sending it. Otherwise,
I will dismiss your boat; for we must not miss this fine sea-breeze,
which ought to take us a good many miles up-stream before it dies away."
"Well, gentlemen, if you are quite determined, I must submit," answered
Lobo, with a very disconsolate air. "But I protest against being thus
carried off against my will; I protest against it as a--an--a--what do
you call him?--yes, an outrage--an outrage, gentlemen; and the
Portuguese Government will inquire into the matter."
"All right," said I cheerfully; "there can be no objection to that, so
far as _we_ are concerned. And now that we have arranged this little
matter, shall I dismiss your boat?"
"No, no; not yet, not yet," hastily answered Lobo. "Give me one littl'
piece of paper, if you please, and I will write a few words to Diego, my
manager, telling him what to do in my absence."
"No," said I determinedly, "I can permit no written messages; a _verbal_
one, if you like, but nothing more."
"Ver' well," answered Lobo resignedly. "Then I will go up and speak to
my boatmen."
"No need for that," said I. "Tell us which of your men you wish to see,
and I will send for him to come here."
Poor Lobo made a gesture of impatience, but saw that I had quite
determined to afford him no shadow of an opportunity to make any secret
communication whatever; so he submitted to the inevitable, and sent for
one of his men, to whom he delivered such a message as I suggested,
adding a request that a small supply of clothing might be sent off to
him at once. This ended the matter, so far as the obtaining of an
efficient interpreter was concerned; the clothes were brought off; and
shortly after noon we weighed and, with a brisk breeze, stood out of the
creek on our way up the river.
For the first twelve miles or so our course was the same as that which
we had followed in our memorable expedition to attack Chango Creek; the
river being, up to that point, about three miles wide, with a fine deep
channel averaging perhaps a quarter of that width up as far as abreast
the southern extremity of Monpanga island, where this deep channel
terminates, and the average depth of the entire stream dwindles to about
six fathoms for the next fourteen miles, the channel at the same time
narrowing down to a width varying from about two miles to less than
half-a-mile in some parts, notably at the spot where it begins to thread
its devious way among the islands that cumber the stream for a length of
fully thirty miles, at a distance of about twenty-eight miles from Shark
Point.
By carrying a press of sail, and hugging the northern bank, keeping as
close to the shore as our little draught of water would permit, thus to
a great extent cheating the current, we contrived to get as far as the
spot where the above-mentioned chain of islands commences; and there,
the wind failing us toward sunset, we came to an anchor close to the
southern shore, on a sand-bank, in three fathoms, under the lee of a
large island that sheltered us from the rush of the main current; and
there we remained all night, a strict anchor-watch of course being kept
not only to see that the schooner did not drive from her berth, but also
to guard against possible attack on the part of the natives. In this
spot, to my inexpressible chagrin, we were compelled to spend the
following two days, the wind blowing down the river, when it blew at
all, a little variety being infused into the weather by the outburst of
a most terrific thunderstorm which brought with it a perfect hurricane
of wind and a deluge of rain; after which we again got a fair wind and
were able to pursue our way for a time, getting ashore occasionally upon
unsuspected sand-banks, but always contriving to heave off again,
undamaged, thanks to the fact that we were proceeding up-stream against
the current instead of down-stream with it. And--not to dwell unduly
upon incidents that were exciting enough to us, although the recital of
them would prove of but little interest to the reader--in this way we
contrived to creep up the river the hundred and twelve miles or so that
were necessary to bring us to Matadi's town--having passed, and with
some difficulty avoided, two whirlpools on the way, reaching our
destination about two bells in the afternoon watch on the fifth day
after leaving Banana Creek.