uponwhich a cocoa-nut half full and the dagger were again placed before me.
I drank the rum, and I learned a lesson; and whenever afterwards theking asked me to do anything that I had scruples at performing, Ipretended to be exceedingly eager to do it--and thus got off.
Our adventures on our journey inland were many and varied. Under othercircumstances I should have enjoyed them, but every mile west was takingme away from all I held dear in the world, so no wonder my heart sankwithin me and that I loathed the savages, loathed the fat old king, andeven the boy interpreter, although he was the only one with whom I couldconverse.
Jooma was his name, and he turned out no friend to me. He entertainedme from the first with terrible stories about the cruelties of the tribeI was going amongst, tales that made me long for death and my very bloodrun cold.
Then I thought of the poison berry, and was strangely tempted to eat afew. Thank Heaven, I did not give way to the fearful temptation! It isan awful thing for a human soul to hurry unbidden into the presence ofits Maker.
One adventure thrilled me at first with delight, afterwards with grief.We met and attacked a caravan of English travellers. I was bound to ahorse and strictly guarded, at a distance from the scene of action. Ido not know what occurred, but from the exultant looks of the savages ontheir return, and from the blood-stained booty they brought with them, Ifeared the worst.
Another adventure I remember was a night attack on our camp by arhinoceros. The savages fled before the infuriated brute more speedilythan they would have done before a human foe.
But my experience, gained since then, is that rhinoceroses are not as arule dangerous animals, although a great many marvellous stories aretold about them, usually travellers' tales.
Sometimes the hill and the jungle gave place to wide marsh lands,through which the cattle were driven first, the horses following, andlast of all the foolish old king on his litter, with his rum bottlebeside him.
Often he used to drink till he fell asleep. Sometimes he would make mesit by him. Once he had his great hand on my shoulder, and kept feelingat my neck.
I afterwards asked Jooma what he meant.
"Nothing he mean," replied Jooma, grinning, "only feel for proper placeto cut your head away. Dat nothing!"
This was pleasant.
At last we arrived in the king's country, and a small tent was assignedto me near the royal palace.
The country all round, although unfilled, was fertile and lovely in theextreme. Giant cocoa-palms waved on high, some parts of the landscapewere wild orchards of the most delicious fruit, the hills were coveredwith purple heath, the valleys carpeted with grass and flowers of everyshape and hue; while the birds that flitted among the boughs, and themonster butterflies that floated from one bright blossom to another,were lovelier than anything you could imagine in your happiest dreams.
To King Otakooma's country bands of wandering Arabs occasionally came,and visited the king in his summer tent or his winter palace--for he hadboth. They came to solicit his assistance in the inhuman raids theymade upon surrounding tribes of less warlike negroes.
Did I hope for escape through these Arabs? As well might the linnet begthe hawk to deliver her from the talons of the owl.
CHAPTER SIX.
"Much I misdoubt this wayward boy, Will one day work me more annoy. I'll watch him closer than before."
Byron.
When I look back now to the first two, or even three, years that I spentin Otakooma's country, among Otakooma's savages, I wonder that I was notbereft of reason, or that, knowing escape by death to be in my power, Idid not have recourse to the deadly poison berry that grew in abundancein many a thicket. Our goats ate freely of this berry, by-the-bye, butit seemed to have no other effect upon them than to make them lively.
But even at this date, strange to say, there are certain sights andsounds that never fail to recall to me not merely my life among thosesavages, but the very feelings I then had. For instance, in the countyin England where I now reside, the cow-boys, or sheep-herds (I will notcall them shepherds), have a peculiar way of calling to each other; itis a kind of prolonged shrill quavering shout, and it bears some faintresemblance to the howl of Otakooma's savages, as heard by night in theforest. Again, anyone drumming on the table with his finger-nails willsometimes bring to my mind the feelings I used to have on hearing thebeating of the horrid tom-toms. The beating of tom-toms and thehowling, combined now and then with a shriek as of some poor wretch inmortal agony and dread, even when I was not present, but probably aprisoner in my hut, used to tell me as well as words could, that a humansacrifice was progressing somewhere in the vicinity of the royal palace.
The smell of weeds burning in a field only yesterday depressed me; thesavages were constantly burning fires of different kinds of dried rootsand weeds.
Just one more instance. I would not have a rockery in my grounds orgarden; it would remind me of Otakooma's terrible piles of skulls onwhich weeds grew green, and flowers bloomed, and lizards--sea-greenlizards with crimson marks on their shoulders, and lizards the colour ofa starling's breast, that is, metallic-changing colour--used to creep.
If ever at that time I spent a happy hour it was in studying andwondering at the tricks and manners of the many strange denizens of theforest. Monkeys, mongooses, and even chameleons I managed to tame.
You see, then, I could not have been very happy. How could I? For atleast two years I lived in constant dread of a violent death, and Inever knew what shape it would take. I might die by the spear of someangry savage; I might be sacrificed to please some sudden fancy of theking; I might be burned at the stake or die by the torture.
My enemy--and he ought to have been my friend--was the boy Jooma. Hewas jealous, no doubt, of my influence with the king. I tried my bestin every way to please this lad, because he could talk English, but invain. He belied me one day after I had been a whole year in thecountry, belied me to the king in my presence--he pointed his hand atme. I struck the hand.
Then, as he threatened to kill me with his knife, I squared up in goodEnglish fashion and let my enemy have one straight from the shoulder.He went down as if he had been shot.
The fat old king shouted for joy. That boy Jooma had never had a properBritish bleeding nose before in his life, I expect. And he did not likeit. He kept lying on the ground, because he saw me in the attitude togive him another blow. But the king made him stand up, and for fear ofoffending the king I had to put him down again. Then he refused torise. The king told him that a cock and a goat and two curs were goingto be carried in procession to the execution ground that afternoon, andthat if he, Jooma, did not fight "the foreign boy" he should head theprocession and finally lose his head. So Jooma had to fight as well ashe could, and although I did not punish him willingly, he was paid outfor many an ill turn that he had done me.
I was a favourite with the king for fully a month after this. Hebrought boy after boy for me to thrash. Indeed, three or four times aday I was fighting. I suppose every boy about the king's village had aset-to with me. I cannot say I blacked their eyes because they werealready black, but they must have felt my knocks, and I know they didnot love me any the better for it.
I did not know how all this would end, but my heart leaped to my mouthwhen one day the king himself, valiant through the rum he had drunk,stood up and announced his intention of trying conclusions with mehimself.
What could I do?
What would you have done, gentle reader?
I knew I could have thrashed him, for though not old I was very hardyand wonderfully strong for my years, but I did not want to figure in aprocession. So I submitted to be knocked down. Then I had to get upand be knocked down again and again. It didn't hurt very much, butthere was indignity attached to it.
The king had found a new pleasure, and every afternoon or evening I wassummoned to the palace yard or grounds, and first I had to fight theking, then a boy of my own standing. Well, I am afraid that if
Isuffered in body and mind from my encounter with the king, I took it outof the smaller savage to follow. There was some satisfaction in that.
But one day, to show his own wonderful powers of fisticuff, the kingsummoned a crowd of his warriors to his palace, and made them form agreat ring. Then I was ordered in and pitted against an Indian boybigger than myself. I never cared how big they were, they held theirarms wide and hit downwards as if thumping a piano.
After one or two boys had been disposed of, to the wild delight of thewarriors, the king took a drink of rum and handed the leather bottle tohis chief executioner; then he took off his extra garments--his one bootand his crown, an old tin kettle without a bottom to it--and stood up infront of me. I went down several times according to my own programme,and the savages shook their spears and rattled them against theirshields of buffalo hide, and shouted and shrieked to their hearts'content.
Then the king hit me rather hard, and I suppose my English pride wastouched, for the next thing I