RETREAT FROM MOUAOU-KOMBO.--THE ATTACK.--PAUL IS WOUNDED.--A
PANIC.--THE FIGHT RENEWED.--THE ENEMY RE-ENFORCED.--LYING IN
AMBUSH.--THE ENEMY REPULSED.--A POISONED ARROW.--MOUITCHI SAFE.--DEATH
OF THE DOGS.
WE enter the great forest; we are going to leave the village of
Mouaou-Kombo forever. We are on the path which we took on our way
eastward. We are going back. The forest near the village is filled with
savages waiting for us behind the trees.
We can only go single file. I give command. Igala is to take the lead;
then follow Rebouka, Rapelina, Ngoma, Macondai, and Igalo, the cause
of our trouble. I guard the rear; the post of danger, of honor, must
belong to me, their chieftain, for I have sworn to them, and their
people when I left the sea-shore, to protect them.
All at once I remember Mouitchi. I do not see him. He is not with us.
"Mouitchi, where are you?" I cry. "He is dead," replied the Ashangos.
"He will never come to you. We have killed him. You will never see him
again."
Before plunging into the forest we turn back and shout, "Ashangos,
we do not want war. We did not come to your country to kill people.
Beware! We leave your village; do not follow us, for if you do there
will be war." They answer by a fierce war-cry, and hundreds of spears
from afar are thrown at us as in defiance.
"Now," said I, "boys, no more mercy! blood for blood! Fight valiantly,
but kill no women, no old men, no children; for remember, you are with
a white man, and we never make war on these. I would not dare to raise
my head in my country if I had killed women and children."
Three dogs are left. Poor Rover and Fierce have just been killed.
More than fifty spears had been thrown at them. They fell bravely in
our defense. The forest was filled with armed Ashangos. When we got
into the path a large spear was thrown at me from behind a big tree;
Macondai saw the man. "Do not kill him," said I; "he is an old man,
and he is disarmed." He had no other spear with him. At this moment a
poisoned arrow struck into me--a long, slender, bearded arrow, which
first pierced the leather belt that held my revolvers. I had no time
to take the arrow out; the fighting was too terrific. Six savages all
at once rushed upon Macondai from behind a tree. Macondai fired at
them, and I came to the rescue. Bang, bang, bang from my revolvers, and
the miscreants troubled us no more. Igalo now received a wound from a
poisoned arrow, and we were almost surrounded.
My men quickened their speed. "Don't go so fast," I shouted from the
rear; but they went on faster and faster. The shouts of the savages
became more violent, and they were shooting at us from behind every
tree. My Commi ran as fast as they could. Igalo and I remained behind.
"Olome (men)," shouted I, "what are you doing?" A panic seized them;
they ran faster and faster along the path, and I shouted in vain for
them to stop. Wild shouts, and the tramp of scores of infuriated men
thirsting for blood, were heard close behind us, and the Ashangos got
bolder and bolder as they saw that we quickened our steps. They began
to realize that my men were demoralized.
Just as I was raising my gun, an arrow cut the flesh of my middle
finger to the bone, severing the small artery, and causing the blood to
flow copiously on the path. A little after I heard the Ashangos shout,
"Ah! ah! we see your blood on the track; you lose blood. Not one of you
shall see the sun set to-day. We are coming; all the villages in front
of you will fight you. You shall lie dead like the man you killed. We
will cut you to pieces."
I rushed ahead, shouting to my Commi men to stop. Suddenly, as I
advanced to overtake them, I see their loads strewn on the ground along
the path. They had thrown down their baggage. It was now my turn to
be infuriated. I rushed ahead, revolver in hand, and shouted, "I will
shoot the first man of you that dares to move a step." They stopped for
sheer want of breath. My breath was also almost taken away. I said,
"Boys, what have you done? You have run away from the Ashangos. You
have left me behind all alone to fight for you. You are to be called
by those savages cowards; they will say that you do not know how to
fight," and I looked Igala and the other men boldly in the face, and
shook my head sorrowfully. "What have you done?" I added. "Where are my
photographs? where my note-books? where my route maps? where are those
mementos of friends at home? where are my scientific instruments? Gone,
thrown away; the toils of years irrecoverably lost. My boys, what have
you done?"
[Illustration: THE FIGHT WITH THE ASHANGOS.]
The panic had lasted about ten minutes. Their flight had been so
hurried that we had left all the savages somewhat in the rear. "Boys,"
said I, "think a little while, and don't run away any more. Don't you
see that the Ashangos have the disadvantage? They are obliged to stop
every time they want to adjust an arrow and take aim, and as for their
spears they can not manage them in the thick jungle, for they have
not space enough. Besides, we are often out of sight before they can
deliver their shot, and the only people we have to fear are those who
are waiting in ambush for us. Their bravest men will think twice before
they come to us at close quarters, and if they do, have we not guns and
revolvers? have we not guns whose bullets will go through four or five
men, one after another? So be not afraid."
By the time I had finished this little speech, and had just taken
breath, the infuriated savages were again upon us. Their hatred seemed
to be now against Igala, whom they called _malanga_, cursing him. They
dodged about, taking short cuts through the jungle, and surrounding us.
"You have tasted blood," they cried; "you are all dead men. It is no
use for you to try to fight."
My men by this time had recovered from their panic, and sent back the
Commi war-cry, and shouted, "Yogo gou-nou (come here)! We are ready;
come here; we will make you taste death. Many of you will never go
back by the path you came;" and we stood still. "Well done, boys!" I
shouted. "Show the people what you can do," and many Ashangos fell on
the ground never to rise again.
In a little while we came to a village from which the people had fled.
There I discovered the plan of the Ashangos. They wanted to flank us,
while some of them were going forward to rouse the other villages ahead
to fight us. If they could succeed in flanking us, they would soon
finish us; if not, they could make all the population ahead hostile to
us on our way back. There lay our great danger. If they succeeded in
rousing the population against us, it would be impossible for us to
escape. We could not keep fighting forever. I was already beginning
to feel very weak. We had had no food since the day before, for the
trouble came before our breakfast. The poisonous arrows began to show
the effect of the poison in the blood, and I felt a raging thirst. My
men were very much frightened at this. The Commi knew nothing of the
poisoned missiles, but had heard of the dreadful effects of poisonous
wounds from the slaves coming from the interior.
Poor Igala complained of great pain and great thirst. "I shall die,
Chally," said he; "I shall never see my daughter again!"
"If God wills it, you shall not die, Igala," I said.
Let us get ready. The Ashangos are coming silently this time; we
hear their footsteps; they are in sight. We hid at the extremity
of the village, and I shouldered my long-range rifle. The Ashango
leader advanced, and as he was adjusting his bow I fired. His right
arm dropped down broken and powerless by his side, and the next man
behind fell with a crash in the bush in the midst of fallen leaves and
branches. Rebouka fired, and down came another man, and one by one my
men kept up the fire. The Ashangos had now received a momentary check.
The bravest among them had fallen in the dust, and my men shouted to
the Ashangos that fell, "You will never return by the path you came."
The panic was over; my Commi men were ashamed to have acted as they had
done.
We jogged on now leisurely till we came to a rivulet. I could not
stand; I lay flat, and drank, and drank as much as I could. How
fervently I wished Mouitchi was with us! Poor Mouitchi! where was
he killed? His body must have been hacked to pieces. Another dog
was missing; two only were left. They had been killed for being our
friends, and finding out our enemies behind the trees.
The Ashangos began to learn how to fight us. We had not gone far
when suddenly they came again in great numbers without uttering a
war-cry. The path was most difficult when we became aware of their
appearance; steep hill lay beyond steep hill; stream after stream had
to be crossed, and we increased our speed, for we were to be under a
disadvantage; but it was fortunate that we knew the ground by having
been over it before. Suddenly a paralyzing thud, accompanied by a sharp
pain, told me that I had been struck from behind my back or in flank
by an unknown enemy. This time it was in my side that I was wounded.
We were just going up a steep hill, and I turned to see my assailant.
Igalo, the poor good fellow, the unfortunate cause of our woe, was by
my side, and turned round also to see who had launched the missile.
Lo, what do we descry lying flat on the ground among the dry leaves,
still as death? An Ashango, crouched as still as a snake in its coil,
his bright eyes flashing vindictively at me. Igalo, in the twinkling
of an eye, discharged his gun at him, and the too-skillful bowman
lay low, never to rise again. I could not help it--I felt sorry; I
deplored that fight with my whole heart from the beginning. This time
I was wounded badly. The arrow was bearded, small, and slender, and
had gone deeply into my stomach, and if the leather belt which held my
revolvers, and through which it passed, had not weakened its force. I
should have been mortally wounded; but a kind Providence watched over
me, and, though another wound disabled that poor, tired, worn-out body
of mine, I did not grumble. I had reached that state in which I did not
care. The trouble was that I had to go with that arrow in my body, for
there was no time to disengage it.
My men came around me, for they saw that the pain had turned me deadly
pale, and, though not a cry of anguish was uttered by me (for I, their
chief, must teach them how to suffer), they saw that my strength was
gradually giving away.
How painful that little bit of bearded arrow was as part of it lay
inside, and the other part in the leather!
We were now near Mobana, and the Mouaou warriors, and those that had
been added to them, were still pursuing us. Happily, we knew every hill
and every stream. We crossed the Bembo, a stream with which you were
made acquainted on our way east, and the ascent of the steep hill on
the other side was terrible. The Mouaou warriors were shouting all the
time, "Men of Mobana, do not let the Oguizi pass! They have killed our
people!"
Approaching Mobana, we could hear the war-drums beating in the village,
but fortunately the path led us by the end of the street, and as we
passed we saw the Mobanians in battle array, and heard them sending
fierce war-cries at us.
The Mobanians made common cause with the Mouaou people, and they were
like a body of fresh troops coming to the rescue--they were not tired.
The situation was becoming grave, especially if the people ahead of us
were also in sympathy with the Mouaou people.
We recognized the leading Mobana warrior, armed with his bow and
several quivers of arrows. Happily they were at some distance from us,
and I ordered my men not to fire at them, thinking that perhaps when
they saw that we did not desire to make war they might remain quiet in
their village, and not pursue us.
We had no time to lose, for I knew that Mobana was situated on the
top of a very steep and high hill, and of course I did not want to be
taken in the rear by those savages, and subjected to a plunging fire of
spears and arrows from their high elevation, from which they could look
down on us.
"Boys," said I, "let us go down this hill quickly, so that we may reach
the bottom and ascend the other before they come; then we shall have a
great advantage over our enemies. We descended the hill, the multitude
of savages following us, shouting, "Ah! ah! you run away! You do not
know this forest; you shall never leave it; we will kill you all; we
will cut your bodies to pieces!"
My blood was getting up. At last we reached the bottom of the hill,
and began to ascend the other by the path. "Boys," said I, "don't you
remember that there is a big fallen tree near the path up this hill
where the jungle is very thick? We are getting weak; let us lay in
ambush there, and be as silent as if we were all dead, and wait for the
Ashangos."
After a while we came to the place I had spoken of, and in the thick
bushes just by the side of the path, not far from the big fallen tree,
I ordered Igala, Rapelina, and Ngoma to lie down together. On the other
side, in a position which I thought would be a good one, I put Igalo,
Macondai, and Rebouka. I myself kept the centre, facing the path, and
could see tolerably well what was going on around.
We lay almost flat on the ground, nearly hidden by the underbrush,
with our bags of bullets hanging in front, our flasks of powder handy,
and our cartridges ready. We kept as silent as the grave, moving not
a muscle, and hardly daring to breathe, and waited for the slightest
rustling of the leaves as a warning that the Ashangos were coming.
Hark! hark! we hear a very slight distant noise, which seems as if
an antelope or gazelle was passing through the forest. We look at
each other as if to say, "They are coming." As by instinct we look
at our guns and our ammunition, and see that every thing is ready
for the fray. We were indeed desperate, for now we knew it was a
death-struggle--that we must either vanquish the Ashangos or be killed
by them.
The rustling in the midst of the leaves becomes more distinct, and we
glance rapidly in front of us, on the right of us, on the left of us,
and behind us.
We see the sharp-shooters forming the Ashango vanguard advancing
carefully, with their bows and arrows in readiness. They came in almost
a sitting posture. Now and then the leaders would stop to wait for the
men behind, their fierce, savage faces looking all around at the same
time, and their ears erect to catch the slightest sound. Suddenly they
stop, perhaps to listen and know where we are. They look at each other
as if to say, "We don't hear any thing," or perhaps they mistrust the
bush ahead. Then I get a glimpse of the great Mobana warrior, and also
of one of the leading Mouaou warriors. All at once they gave a cluck,
the meaning of which I could not tell. Perhaps it meant danger.
I had been looking intently for a minute at these savages, when I
cast a glance in the direction where Igala, Rapelina, and Ngoma were.
Igala was aiming with an unerring and steady hand at the great Mobana
warrior, and Rapelina was aiming at the Mouaou warrior; whether Ngoma
was aiming at any one I could not see. It took only one glance for me
to see what was going on in that direction. Then, turning in the other
direction, I saw that Macondai, Rebouka, and Igalo were getting ready;
they had also caught sight of some sly and silent enemy. I shouldered
my rifle also. Not twenty seconds had passed after I had looked at
Igala when I heard in his direction, bang! bang! The great Mobana
warrior was shot through the abdomen, and uttered a cry of anguish,
while Rapelina had sent a bullet through the lower jaw of the Mouaou
warrior, smashing it completely. Ngoma fired, but I could not see the
man he fired at. All at once, bang! bang! bang! I hear from Igalo,
Macondai, and Rebouka's side. Bang! bang! bang! three guns from the
other side. Bang! from my own gun.
"Well done, boys!" I cried. "Forward, and charge, and let us show the
Ashangos we are men." We rush through the jungle in the direction from
which the warriors had come. They are surprised; their leading chiefs
are killed. Bang! bang! bang! from revolvers and guns; we are fighting
like lions at bay. We are victorious; our enemies fly in abject terror.
We shouted to the fleeing Ashangos cries of defiance: "Come here! Come
again; not one of you shall go back to your villages. We are coming; we
will kill you all before night. You made war; we did not make it. Come
and look at your dead in the forest. Come and fetch them if you dare!
Tonight we are coming to your villages, and will destroy them!"
The voices of the Ashangos became fainter and fainter, and there were
no more answers to our cries of defiance.
Some of us had been wounded again. As we came to a little stream, my
exhaustion was such that every thing became dim before me; the trees of
the forest seemed to be moving, and finally I fell almost unconscious
to the ground. After a while I drank copiously of the refreshing water
of the stream, for the poisoned arrows had given me an unquenchable
thirst. The men drank also; none of us seemed ever to be satisfied. A
few minutes after, and we drank again. Now we breathed more freely,
and rested a little while, keeping a sharp lookout, however, at the
same time. I examined the wounds of Igala and the others, and said,
"Igala, don't be afraid; you are not going to die from the effects of
the poisoned arrow. I am going to put in your wound something that will
burn you, but do you good." It was ammonia. I applied it, and he gave a
piercing shriek.
The slender, small, sharp-pointed, bearded arrow had remained in my
body the whole of the day; two or three times I tried in vain to pull
it out, but it seemed to stick fast in the flesh; so I took off the
belt of my revolver, and said to Igala, "Pull that arrow out for me."
He tried gently, but it would not come. I said, "Pull it with all your
strength."
Oh how it pained! It was like a little fish-hook--a little bit of
a thing, but it so tore the flesh that I felt like giving a cry of
anguish. I became deadly pale, but did not utter a word; I wanted to
set an example of fortitude to my men. Then I put ammonia in all my
wounds and those of my men, for I always carried a little bottle of
it to use in case of snake-bites. The blood had flowed freely from my
finger, and I was sorry to see that my clothes were quite saturated,
but the effusion of blood had carried off the poison.
I found that the effect of the poison was to bring on mortification
of the flesh, and was not so dangerous as I had been led to believe,
though I was very sick a few days after the fight.
After resting a while, and after equalizing our munitions of war,
we shouldered our empty otaitais. Just as we were ready to start we
heard again a rustling of leaves. Are the Ashangos coming back? We
are silent, and look in the direction of the noise. We see a man--our
guns are directed toward him. I make a sign not to fire, I do not know
why--God directs me. Now and then he hides himself--stops--watches--he
is advancing, not in the path, but a little way from it. The man comes
nearer; we see a gun in his hand--it is Mouitchi! I am the first to
recognize him. "Mouitchi!" I shouted. "I am Mouitchi," the answer was.
He rushes toward us; he is safe; he is not even wounded, and with
tremulous voice I said, "Boys, God is with us; I thank thee, Father." I
could say no more, but this came from the inmost depths of my heart.
Mouitchi's story was this: He had mistaken the path in the panic, and
finally had gone through the jungle and followed us by the halloing of
the fierce Ashangos, but kept at a good distance from them. He heard
them crying out that the great warriors of Mobana and of Mouaou were
killed. They had fled in the utmost terror.
Poor Commi-Nagoumba was the only dog left; all the others had been
killed. If I could have collected their bodies I would have dug a grave
for them at the foot of a big tree, and written on it the words,
HERE ARE BURIED
THE DOGS
ANDÈKO, ROVER, FIERCE, TURK, and NDJÈGO.
_They were faithful unto death._
[Illustration]
[Illustration]