remember is--horror of horrors!--thesacred person of his Majesty King Otakooma sprawling on the dusty groundand his nose bleeding.
A silence deep as death fell on all the crowd.
Then there was a rush for me. Spears were at my breast and I expectedonly instant death, when the king sprang to my rescue and all fell back.
If I had knelt to him and begged his pardon, even then I might have beenforgiven.
But an English youth to sue on his knees for mercy from a savage! Nay,it was not to be thought of.
The king sat down.
The king was silent for a space of time. The king took more rum.
Then he ordered ropes of skin to be brought, and I was bound hand andfoot and taken away to a loathsome dungeon.
I knew I was to die next day, and I longed for sunrise to have it past,for I suffered excruciating agony from the tightness of the cords thatbound me.
The time came. I was to form part in a procession, and did; I wascarried shoulder-high, lying on my back on a kind of bark tray, amidtom-tom beating, howling, shrieking, and a deal of capering and dancingthat at any other time I should have laughed most heartily at.
At the execution ground goats and cocks were killed, then it came to myturn.
The king came to have a last look at me. The cords were undone, and Istood up staggering because my feet were swollen. The king looked at myhands: they were swollen double the size.
The king rubbed his nose.
The king was thinking.
"Now," he must have thought, "here is a hand (meaning my swollen fist)that couldn't hurt anybody. What a chance to redeem my lost honour!"
The king took more rum.
Then he started from his throne and shouted. What he said matterslittle. At the conclusion of his speech I was again dragged up to fightthe king. If I could have hit him then I would have done so. But withsuch hands, how could I? So it ended in my being fearfully punished.
Then there was such shouting and yelling as I had never before heard inmy life. But I was free.
The king took more rum.
For a whole year after this I was kept under almost constantsurveillance, but there was no more fighting.
Sometimes the king and his savages went away on the war-path, for manyweeks together. When they did so, I was confined in a dungeon, and hadno other companions except frogs, lizards, and centipedes. All the foodthey gave me was a piece of dried cassava root [the root from whicharrowroot is made], daily, and I had very little water.
But in spite of my hardships, I grew strong and robust. Probably, if Ihad not been a friendless orphan, if I had had a mother for instance, ora father, or sisters, or brothers, in a far-off home to think about, mymisery would have been greater; as it was I had no one, for I believedthat Roberts and all the people of the _Niobe_ had been slain in thatterrible fight at Zareppa's fort.
Amelioration of my sufferings came at last, and in a strange way.
The king fell ill.
The king took more rum.
The king grew worse, and all the sorcery of his medicine men could notcure him, so I was sent for.
I had seen Jooma putting poison into the rum, and I told the king he hadbeen poisoned. Who had done so? he asked: the culprit should die. Nohuman being, I was determined, should die on account of anything I said.I told him, however, that next day I should fetch the evil creature whohad destroyed the health of the king. Meanwhile the rum was poured onthe ground, and I made him a pill of the poison berry, and a littlescraped cassava root. He saw me mix it. His medicine men assured himit would be death to take it; I took a pill myself, and when he saw Idid not die, he followed my example, and took two or three. For I hadfound out that in small doses this poison berry was medicinal. The kingslept, and awoke refreshed.
Then he called for the culprit who had dared to poison his rum.
I went and found Jooma. I told him that his guilt was discovered, andthat his life was in my hands; that a word from me would march him tothe execution ground. He knelt and prayed for mercy. I told him heneedn't trouble, that Englishmen were far too honourable to harbourrevenge. Then I made him bring a very old and savage billy-goat, andtogether we brought it to the king.
The king was greatly pleased. He said he never had liked the looks ofthe billy-goat, and he had no doubt that it had worked some deadly spellupon his rum. So the billy-goat--poor beast--was slain, and after a fewmore pills the king got better, and I was chief favourite among all thetribe.
CHAPTER SEVEN.
"But what avails this wondrous waste of wealth, This gay profusion of luxurious bliss? Ill-fated race! the softening arts of peace, Kind equal rule, the government of laws, These are not theirs."
Thomson.
I became the king's head-counsellor, his prime-minister, so to speak,his chief medicine man. There was not much honour in this, certainly,but nevertheless it procured me some amelioration of my sufferings.There was less of the dungeon after this, and fewer threats ofdecapitation.
I think the king still hankered after rum, and it was an anxious day forme when some Arab chiefs appeared in camp. Otakooma assembled not only,all his forces but most of his people. Something was going to happen, Iknew, but till now I had had no idea of the utter depravity of thiswretch.
He was positively going to barter his people for rum. The Arabs wouldbuy them as slaves.
It was terrible to see these same Arabs walking round among the sablemob, as calmly as a farmer does among a herd of cattle, and picking oneout here and there. But, oh! the grief, and the agony, and the anxietydisplayed in voice and in action by these poor doomed creatures--thescene defies description. Here was the child torn shrieking from itsmother's side, there a wife separated from her husband, or a husbandfrom a weeping wife.
Some indulged their grief quietly, others gave vent to loud howls andlamentations; while others lay moaning and groaning on the ground, everand anon taking up great handfuls of dust, and throwing it up over theirpoor heads!
I could not help turning away and shedding tears. But had they beentears of blood they could not have saved these people. They wererelentlessly marched away, and I was really glad when night fell, andsleep sealed the eyes of even those who mourned.
It was bright clear moonlight. I rose from my couch, and stole out intothe open air. I wanted to think. The close warm atmosphere of the tentseemed to stifle me, and I could not sleep.
I passed slowly up the beaten footpath towards the king's tent. Therewas not a single soul astir, it had been a busy exciting day witheveryone, and the king had been liberal enough in his offers of rum tohis chief favourites; and although some of them ought to have been doingduty as sentinels near to his sacred person, they had preferredretirement and slumber.
I stole away from the camp, and ascended an eminence some distance fromit, and sat me down on a rock. It was cool and pleasant here, away fromthat blood-stained camp. The moonlight flooded all the beautifulcountry, bathing plain and rock and tree in its mellow rays. The onlysounds that broke the stillness were the yapping howl of the cowardlyjackal, and farther off in the woods the mournful roar of lions.
It was a lovely scene, but terrible in its loveliness. I buried my facein my hands. I was boldly struggling against my sorrow. How long, Ithought, would this life last? Should I live and die among theseterrible savages? Escape there seemed none. To attempt it, I knew,would end in failure, and probably in death by torture. I was manyhundreds of miles from the sea. I did not even know in what directionZanzibar lay. No, I must wait for a time, at all events. What mattereda year or two more to one so young as I!
I suppose this last reflection had some kind of a drowsy influence onme, for I lay down with my head on a piece of rock, and with faceupturned to the sky, fell fast asleep.
How long I had slept I know not. I awoke with a start: something coldhad touched my face, and I had heard a creature breathing close at--almost into--my ear. I started, as well I might. The thing that
hadwaked me was a jackal; but there, not thirty yards away, standing boldlyout against the moonlit sky, was a gigantic lioness!
There was astonishment depicted in every line of her great face.Strange to say, at that moment I could not help thinking that she lookedfar from cruel, and I could not help admiring the splendid animal. Inever moved, but gazed as if spell-bound. Probably it was my fixity oflook that saved me, for after staring steadily, but wonderingly, at mefor fully a minute, she turned round and stalked solemnly off, givingmany a look behind, as if expecting I should follow her.
I waited till she was well away. I felt very happy at that moment, andvery bold. I went straight back to camp, and approached the tent of theking, and softly entered. He was fast asleep and snoring. In thematter of rum he had been even more liberal to himself than to hisfollowers. There lay the skins of spirits in a corner, not far from thecouch of the drunken king. I hesitated not a moment, but seizing theking's own dagger, I stabbed--not the king, but the skins of rum.
Then I hastened away with my heart in my mouth. Remember, I was