Un capitaine de quinze ans. English

  CHAPTER XIII.

  IN CAPTIVITY.

  So far from Mrs. Weldon and Jack having succumbed to the hardships towhich they had been exposed, they were both alive, and together withCousin Benedict were now in Kazonnde. After the assault upon theant-hill they had all three been conveyed beyond the encampment to aspot where a rude palanquin was in readiness for Mrs. Weldon and herson. The journey hence to Kazonnde was consequently accomplishedwithout much difficulty; Cousin Benedict, who performed it on foot, wasallowed to entomologize as much as he pleased upon the road, so that tohim the distance was a matter of no concern. The party reached theirdestination a week sooner than Ibn Hamish's caravan, and the prisonerswere lodged in Alvez' quarters.

  Jack was much better. After leaving the marshy districts he had noreturn of fever, and as a certain amount of indulgence had been allowedthem on their journey, both he and his mother, as far as their healthwas concerned, might be said to be in a satisfactory condition.

  Of the rest of her former companions Mrs. Weldon could hear nothing.She had herself been a witness of the escape of Hercules, but of courseknew nothing further of his fate; as for Dick Sands, she entertained asanguine hope that his white skin would protect him from any severetreatment; but for Nan and the other poor negroes, here upon Africansoil, she feared the very worst.

  Being entirely shut off from communication with the outer world, shewas quite unaware of the arrival of the caravan; even if she had heardthe noisy commotion of the market she would not have known what itmeant, and she was in ignorance alike of the death of Harris, of thesale of Tom and his companions, of the dreadful end of the king, and ofthe royal obsequies in which poor Dick had been assigned so melancholya share. During the journey from the Coanza to Kazonnde, Harris andNegoro had held no conversation with her, and since her arrival she hadnot been allowed to pass the inclosure of the establishment, so that,as far as she knew, she was quite alone, and being in Negoro's power,was in a position from which it seemed only too likely nothing butdeath could release her.

  From Cousin Benedict, it is needless to repeat, she could expect noassistance; his own personal pursuits engrossed him, and he had no carenor leisure to bestow upon external circumstances. His first feeling,on being made to understand that he was not in America, was one of deepdisappointment that the wonderful things he had seen were nodiscoveries at all; they were simply African insects common on Africansoil. This vexation, however, soon passed away, and he began to believethat "the land of the Pharaohs" might possess as much entomologicalwealth as "the land of the Incas."

  "Ah," he would exclaim to Mrs. Weldon, heedless that she gave himlittle or no attention, "this is the country of the manticorae, andwonderful coleoptera they are, with their long hairy legs, their sharpelytra and their big mandibles; the most remarkable of them all is thetuberous manticora. And isn't this, too, the land of the golden-tippedcalosomi? and of the prickly-legged goliaths of Guinea and Gabon? Here,too, we ought to find the spotted anthidia, which lay their eggs inempty snail-shells; and the sacred atenchus, which the old Egyptiansused to venerate as divine."

  "Yes, yes;" he would say at another time, "this is the proper habitatof those death's-head sphinxes which are now so common everywhere; andthis is the place for those 'Idias Bigoti,' so formidable to thenatives of Senegal. There must be wonderful discoveries to be made hereif only those good people will let me."

  The "good people" referred to were Negoro and Harris, who had restoredhim much of the liberty of which Dick Sands had found it necessary todeprive him. With freedom to roam and in possession of his tin box,Benedict would have been amongst the most contented of men, had it notbeen for the loss of his spectacles and magnifying-glass, now buriedwith the King of Kazonnde. Reduced to the necessity of poking everyinsect almost into his eyes before he could discover itscharacteristics, he would have sacrificed much to recover or replacehis glasses, but as such articles were not to be procured at any price,he contented himself with the permission to go where he pleased withinthe limits of the palisade. His keepers knew him well enough to besatisfied that he would make no attempt to escape, and as the enclosurewas nearly a mile in circumference, containing many shrubs and treesand huts with thatched roofs, besides being intersected by a runningstream, it afforded him a very fair scope for his researches, and whoshould say that he would not discover some novel specimen to which, inthe records of entomological science, his own name might be assigned?

  If thus the domain of Antonio Alvez was sufficient to satisfy Benedict,to little Jack it might well seem immense. But though allowed to rambleover the whole place as he liked, the child rarely cared to leave hismother; he would be continually inquiring about his father, whom he hadnow so long been expecting to see: he would ask why Nan and Herculesand Dingo had gone away and left him; and perpetually he would beexpressing his wonder where Dick could be, and wishing he would comeback again. Mrs. Weldon could only hide her tears and answer him bycaresses.

  Nothing, however, transpired to give the least intimation that any ofthe prisoners were to be treated otherwise than they had been upon thejourney from the Coanza. Excepting such as were retained for old Alvez'personal service, all the slaves had been sold, and the storehouseswere now full of stuffs and ivory, the stuffs destined to be sent intothe central provinces and the ivory to be exported. The establishmentwas thus no longer crowded as it had been, and Mrs. Weldon and Jackwere lodged in a different hut to Cousin Benedict. All three, however,took their meals together and were allowed a sufficient diet of muttonor goats'-flesh, vegetables, manioc, sorghum and native fruits. Withthe traders' servants they held no communication, but Halima, a youngslave who had been told off to attend to Mrs. Weldon, evinced for hernew mistress an attachment which, though rough, was evidently sincere.

  He contented himself with the permission to go where hepleased within the limits of the palisade.]

  Old Alvez, who occupied the principal house in thedepot, was rarelyseen; whilst the non-appearance of either Harris or Negoro caused Mrs.Weldon much surprise and perplexity. In the midst of all her troubles,too, she was haunted by the thought of the anxiety her husband must besuffering on her account. Unaware of her having embarked on board the"Pilgrim," at first he would have wondered at steamer after steamerarriving at San Francisco without her. After a while the "Pilgrim"would have been registered amongst the number of missing ships; and itwas certain the intelligence would be forwarded to him by hiscorrespondents, that the vessel had sailed from Auckland with his wifeand child on board. What was he to imagine? he might refuse to believethat they had perished at sea, but he would never dream of their havingbeen carried to Africa, and would certainly institute a search in noother direction than on the coast of America, or amongst the isles ofthe Pacific. She had not the faintest hope of her whereabouts beingdiscovered, and involuntarily her thoughts turned to the possibility ofmaking an escape. She might well feel her heart sink within her at thebare idea; even if she should succeed in eluding the vigilance of thewatch, there were two hundred miles of dense forest to be traversedbefore the coast could be reached; nevertheless, it revealed itself toher as her last chance, and failing all else, she resolved to hazard it.

  But, first of all, she determined, if it were possible, to discover theultimate design of Negoro. She was not kept long in suspense. On the6th of June, just a week after the royal funeral, the Portugueseentered the depot, in which he had not set foot since his return, andmade his way straight to the hut in which he knew he should find theprisoner. Benedict was out insect-hunting; Jack, under Halima's charge,was being taken for a walk. Mrs. Weldon was alone.

  Negoro pushed open the door, and said abruptly,--

  "Mrs. Weldon, I have come to tell you, that Tom and his lot have beensold for the Ujiji market; Nan died on her way here; and Dick Sands isdead too."

  Mrs. Weldon uttered a cry of horror.

  "Yes, Mrs. Weldon," he continued; "he has got what he deserved; he shotHarris, and has been executed for the murder. And here you are al
one!mark this! alone and in my power!"

  What Negoro said was true; Tom, Bat, Actaeon, and Austin had all beensent off that morning on their way to Ujiji.

  Mrs. Weldon groaned bitterly.

  Negoro went on.

  "If I chose, I could still further avenge upon you the ill-treatment Igot on board that ship; but it does not suit my purpose to kill you.You and that boy of yours, and that idiot of a fly-catcher, all have acertain value in the market. I mean to sell you."

  "You dare not!" said Mrs. Weldon firmly; "you know you are making anidle threat; who do you suppose would purchase people of white blood?"

  "I know a customer who will give me the price I mean to ask," repliedNegoro with a brutal grin.

  She bent down her head; only too well she knew that such things werepossible in this horrid land.

  "Tell me who he is!" she said; "tell the name of the man who ..."

  "James Weldon," he answered slowly.

  "My husband!" she cried; "what do you mean?"

  "I mean what I say. I mean to make your husband buy you back at myprice; and if he likes to pay for them, he shall have his son and hiscousin too."

  "I suppose Weldon will not mind coming to fetch you?"]

  "And when, and how, may I ask, do you propose to manage this?" repliedMrs. Weldon, forcing herself to be calm.

  "Here, and soon too. I suppose Weldon will not mind coming to fetchyou."

  "He would not hesitate to come; but how could he know we are here?"

  "I will go to him. I have money that will take me to San Francisco."

  "What you stole from the 'Pilgrim'?" said Mrs. Weldon.

  "Just so," replied Negoro; "and I have plenty more I suppose whenWeldon hears that you are a prisoner in Central Africa, he will notthink much of a hundred thousand dollars."

  "But how is he to know the truth of your statement?"

  "I shall take him a letter from you. You shall represent me as yourfaithful servant, just escaped from the hands of savages."

  "A letter such as that I will never write; never," said Mrs. Weldondecisively.

  "What? what? you refuse?"

  "I refuse."

  She had all the natural cravings of a woman and a wife, but sothoroughly was she aware of the treachery of the man she had to dealwith, that she dreaded lest, as soon as he had touched the ransom, hewould dispose of her husband altogether.

  There was a short silence.

  "You will write that letter," said Negoro.

  "Never!" repeated Mrs. Weldon.

  "Remember your child!"

  Mrs. Weldon's heart beat violently, but she did not answer a word.

  "I will give you a week to think over this," hissed out Negoro.

  Mrs. Weldon was still silent.

  "A week! I will come again in a week; you will do as I wish, or it willbe the worse for you."

  He gnashed his teeth, turned on his heel, and left the hut.