CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.
PROGRESS OF THE SLAVE-RUN--THE DEADLY SWAMP, AND THE UNEXPECTED RESCUE.
We will now leap over a short period of time--about two or three weeks--during which the sable procession had been winding its weary way overhill and dale, plain and swamp.
During that comparatively brief period, Harold and Disco had seen somuch cruelty and suffering that they both felt a strange tendency tobelieve that the whole must be the wild imaginings of a horrible dream.Perhaps weakness, resulting from illness, might have had something to dowith this peculiar feeling of unbelief, for both had been subject to asecond, though slight, attack of fever. Nevertheless, coupled withtheir scepticism was a contradictory and dreadful certainty that theywere not dreaming, but that what they witnessed was absolute verity.
It is probable that if they had been in their ordinary health and vigourthey would have made a violent attempt to rescue the slaves, even at thecost of their own lives. But severe and prolonged illness oftenunhinges the mind as well as the body, and renders the spirit all butimpotent.
One sultry evening the sad procession came to a long stretch of swamp,and prepared to cross it. Although already thinned by death, theslave-gang was large. It numbered several hundreds, and was led byMarizano; Yoosoof having started some days in advance in charge of asimilar gang.
Harold and Disco were by that time in the habit of walking together infront of the gang, chiefly for the purpose of avoiding the sight ofcruelties and woes which they were powerless to prevent or assuage. Onreaching the edge of the swamp, however, they felt so utterly weariedand dis-spirited that they sat down on a bank to rest, intending to letthe slave-gang go into the swamp before them and then follow in rear.Antonio and Jumbo also remained with them.
"You should go on in front," said Marizano significantly, on observingtheir intention.
"Tell him we'll remain where we are," said Disco sternly to Antonio.
Marizano shrugged his shoulders and left them.
The leading men of the slave-gang were ordered to advance, as soon asthe armed guard had commenced the toilsome march over ground into whichthey sank knee-deep at every step.
The first man of the gang hesitated and heaved a deep sigh as though hisheart failed him at the prospect--and well it might, for, althoughyoung, he was not robust, and over-driving, coupled with the weight andthe chafing of the goree, had worn him to a skeleton.
It was not the policy of the slave-traders to take much care of theirBlack Ivory. They procured it so cheaply that it was easier and moreprofitable to lose or cast away some of it, than to put off time inresting and recruiting the weak.
The moment it was observed, therefore, that the leading man hesitated,one of the drivers gave him a slash across his naked back with a heavywhip which at once drew blood. Poor wretch; he could ill bear furtherloss of the precious stream of life, for it had already been deeplydrained from him by the slave-stick. The chafing of that instrument oftorture had not only worn the skin off his shoulders, but had cut intothe quivering flesh, so that blood constantly dropped in smallquantities from it.
No cry burst from the man's lips on receiving the cruel blow, but heturned his eyes on his captors with a look that seemed to implore formercy. As well might he have looked for mercy at the hands of Satan.The lash again fell on him with stinging force. He made a feeble effortto advance, staggered, and fell to the ground, dragging down the man towhom he was coupled with such violence as almost to break his neck. Thelash was again about to be applied to make him rise, but Disco andHarold rose simultaneously and rushed at the driver, with what intentthey scarcely knew; but four armed half-castes stepped between them andthe slave.
"You had better not interfere," said Marizano, who stood close by.
"Out of the way!" cried Harold fiercely, in the strength of his passionhurling aside the man who opposed him.
"You shan't give him another cut," said Disco between his teeth, as heseized the driver by the throat.
"We don't intend to do so," said Marizano coolly, while the driverreleased himself from poor Disco's weakened grasp, "he won't need anymore."
The Englishmen required no explanation of these words. A glance toldthem that the man was dying.
"Cut him out," said Marizano.
One of his men immediately brought a saw and cut the fork of the stickwhich still held the living to the dying man, and which, being rivetedon them, could not otherwise be removed.
Harold and Disco lifted him up as soon as he was free, and carrying hima short distance aside to a soft part of the bank, laid him gently down.
The dying slave looked as if he were surprised at such unwontedtenderness. There was even a slight smile on his lips for a fewmoments, but it quickly passed away with the fast ebbing tide of life.
"Go fetch some water," said Harold. "His lips are dry."
Disco rose and ran to fill a small cocoa-nut-shell which he carried athis girdle as a drinking-cup. Returning with it he moistened the man'slips and poured a little of the cool water on the raw sores on each sideof his neck.
They were so much engrossed with their occupation that neither of themobserved that the slave-gang had commenced to pass through the swamp,until the sharp cry of a child drew their attention to it for a moment;but, knowing that they could do no good, they endeavoured to shut theireyes and ears to everything save the duty they had in hand.
By degrees the greater part of the long line had got into the swamp andwere slowly toiling through it under the stimulus of the lash. Some,like the poor fellow who first fell, had sunk under their accumulatedtrials, and after a fruitless effort on the part of the slavers to drivethem forward, had been kicked aside into the jungle, there to die, or tobe torn in pieces by that ever-watchful scavenger of the wilderness, thehyena. These were chiefly women, who having become mothers not longbefore were unable to carry their infants and keep up with the gang.Others, under the intense dread of flagellation, made the attempt, andstaggered on a short distance, only to fall and be left behind in thepestilential swamp, where rank reeds and grass closed over them andformed a ready grave.
The difficulties of the swamp were, however, felt most severely by thechildren, who, from little creatures of not much more than five years ofage to well-grown boys and girls, were mingled with and chained to theadults along the line. Their comparatively short legs were not welladapted for such ground, and not a few of them perished there; butalthough the losses here were terribly numerous in one sense, they afterall bore but a small proportion to those whose native vigour carriedthem through in safety.
Among the men there were some whose strength of frame and fierceexpression indicated untameable spirits--men who might have been,probably were, heroes among their fellows. It was for men of this stampthat the _goree_, or slave-stick, had been invented, and mosteffectually did that instrument serve its purpose. Samson himself wouldhave been a mere child in it.
There were men in the gang quite as bold, if not as strong, as Samson.One of these, a very tall and powerful negro, on drawing near to theplace where Marizano stood superintending the passage, turned suddenlyaside, and, although coupled by the neck to a fellow-slave, and securelybound at the wrists with a cord, which was evidently cutting into hisswelled flesh, made a desperate kick at the half-caste leader.
Although the slave failed to reach him, Marizano was so enraged that hedrew a hatchet from his belt and instantly dashed out the man's brains.He fell dead without even a groan. Terrified by this, the rest passedon more rapidly, and there was no further check till a woman in theline, with an infant on her back, stumbled, and, falling down, appearedunable to rise.
"Get up!" shouted Marizano, whose rage had rather been increased thanabated by the murder he had just committed.
The woman rose and attempted to advance, but seemed ready to fall again.Seeing this, Marizano plucked the infant from her back, dashed itagainst a tree, and flung its quivering body into the jungle, while aterrible application of the l
ash sent the mother shrieking into theswamp. [See Livingstone's _Zambesi and its Tributaries_, page 857; andfor a record of cruelties too horrible to be set down in a book likethis, we refer the reader to McLeod's _Travels in Eastern Africa_,volume two page 26. Also to the Appendix of Captain Sulivan's_Dhow-Chasing in Zanzibar Waters_, which contains copious andinteresting extracts from evidence taken before the Select Committee ofthe House of Commons.]
Harold and Disco did not witness this, though they heard the shriek ofdespair, for at the moment the negro they were tending was breathing hislast. When his eyes had closed and the spirit had been set free, theyrose, and, purposely refraining from looking back, hurried away from thedreadful scene, intending to plunge into the swamp at some distance fromthe place, and push on until they should regain the head of the column.
"Better if we'd never fallen behind, sir," said Disco, in a deep,tremulous voice.
"True," replied Harold. "We should have been spared these sights, andthe pain of knowing that we cannot prevent this appalling misery andcruelty."
"But surely it is to be prevented _somehow_," cried Disco, almostfiercely. "Many a war that has cost mints o' money has been carried onfor causes that ain't worth mentionin' in the same breath with _this_!"
As Harold knew not what to say, and was toiling knee-deep in the swampat the moment he made no reply.
After marching about half an hour he stopped abruptly and said, with aheavy sigh,--"I hope we haven't missed our way?"
"Hope not sir, but it looks like as if we had."
"I've bin so took up thinkin' o' that accursed traffic in human bein'sthat I've lost my reckonin'. Howsever, we can't be far out, an', withthe sun to guide us, we'll--"
He was stopped by a loud halloo in the woods, on the belt of the swamp.
It was repeated in a few seconds, and Antonio, who, with Jumbo, hadfollowed his master, cried in an excited tone--
"Me knows dat sound!"
"Wot may it be, Tony?" asked Disco.
There was neither time nor need for an answer, for at that moment aringing cry, something like a bad imitation of a British cheer, washeard, and a band of men sprang out of the woods and ran at full speedtowards our Englishmen.
"Why, Zombo!" exclaimed Disco, wildly.
"Oliveira!" cried Harold.
"Masiko! Songolo!" shouted Antonio and Jumbo.
"An' Jose, Nakoda, Chimbolo, Mabruki!--the whole bun' of 'em," criedDisco, as one after another these worthies emerged from the wood andrushed in a state of frantic excitement towards their friends--"Hooray!"
"Hooroo-hay!" replied the runners.
In another minute our adventurous party of travellers was re-united, andfor some time nothing but wild excitement, congratulations, queries thatgot no replies, and replies that ran tilt at irrelevant queries, withconfusion worse confounded by explosions of unbounded and irrepressiblelaughter not unmingled with tears, was the order of the hour.
"But wat! yoos ill?" cried Zombo suddenly, looking into Disco's facewith an anxious expression.
"Well, I ain't 'xac'ly ill, nor I ain't 'xac'ly well neither, but I'mhearty all the same, and werry glad to see your black face, Zombo."
"Ho! hooroo-hay! so's me for see you," cried the excitable Zombo; "butcome, not good for talkee in de knees to watter. Fall in boy, ho!sholler 'ums--queek mash!"
That Zombo had assumed command of his party was made evident by the patway in which he trolled off the words of command formerly taught to himby Harold, as well as by the prompt obedience that was accorded to hisorders. He led the party out of the swamp, and, on reaching a dry spot,halted, in order to make further inquiries and answer questions.
"How did you find us, Zombo?" asked Harold, throwing himself wearily onthe ground.
"_Yoos_ ill," said Zombo, holding up a finger by way of rebuke.
"So I am, though not so ill as I look. But come, answer me. How cameyou to discover us? You could not have found us by mere chance in thiswilderness?"
"Chanz; wat am chanz?" asked the Makololo.
There was some difficulty in getting Antonio to explain the word, fromthe circumstance of himself being ignorant of it, therefore Harold putthe question in a more direct form.
"Oh! ve comes here look for yoo, 'cause peepils d'reck 'ums--show deway. Ve's been veeks, monts, oh! _days_ look for yoo. Travil far--g'rong road--turin bak--try agin--fin' yoo now--hooroo-hay!"
"You may say that, indeed. I'd have it in my heart," said Disco, "togive three good rousin' British cheers if it warn't for the thoughts o'that black-hearted villain, Marizano, an' his poor, miserable slaves."
"Marizano!" shouted Chimbolo, glaring at Harold.
"Marizano!" echoed Zombo, glaring at Disco.
Harold now explained to his friends that the slave-hunter was close athand--a piece of news which visibly excited them,--and described thecruelties of which he had recently been a witness. Zombo showed histeeth like a savage mastiff, and grasped his musket as though he longedto use it, but he uttered no word until the narrative reached that pointin which the death of the poor captive was described. Then he suddenlystarted forward and said something to his followers in the nativetongue, which caused each to fling down the small bundle that wasstrapped to his shoulders.
"Yoo stop here," he cried, earnestly, as he turned to Harold and Disco."Ve's com bak soon. Ho! boys, sholler 'ums! queek mash!"
No trained band of Britons ever obeyed with more ready alacrity. Noattention was paid to Harold's questions. The "queek mash" carried themout of sight in a few minutes, and when the Englishmen, who had runafter them a few paces, halted, under the conviction that in their weakcondition they might as well endeavour to keep up with race-horses aswith their old friends, they found that Antonio alone remained to keepthem company.
"Where's Jumbo?" inquired Harold.
"Gon' 'way wid oders," replied the interpreter.
Examining the bundles of their friends, they found that their contentswere powder, ball, and food. It was therefore resolved that a fireshould be kindled, and food prepared, to be ready for their friends ontheir return.
"I'm not so sure about their return," said Harold gravely. "They willhave to fight against fearful odds if they find the slavers. Foolishfellows; I wish they had not rushed away so madly without consultingus."
The day passed; night came and passed also, and another day dawned, butthere was no appearance of Zombo and his men, until the sun had been upfor some hours. Then they came back, wending their way slowly--veryslowly--through the woods, with the whole of the slave-gang, men, women,and children, at their heels!
"Where is Marizano?" inquired Harold, almost breathless with surprise.
"Dead!" said Zombo.
"Dead?"
"Ay, dead, couldn't be deader."
"And his armed followers?"
"Dead, too--some ob ums. Ve got at um in de night. Shotted Marizanoall to hatoms. Shotted mos' ob um follerers too. De res' all scatterlike leaves in de wind. Me giv' up now," added Zombo, handing hismusket to Harold. "Boys! orrer ums! mees Capitin not no more. Now,Capitin Harol', yoos once more look afer us, an' take care ob all umspeepil."
Having thus demitted his charge, the faithful Zombo stepped back andleft our hero in the unenviable position of a half broken-down man withthe responsibility of conducting an expedition, and disposing of a largegang of slaves in some unknown part of equatorial Africa!
Leaving him there, we will proceed at once to the coast and follow, fora time, the fortunes of that archvillain, Yoosoof.