Chapter Fourteen - The Slave Hunters meditate another Attack—A
True Picture of the Slave Trade—The Inundated Plain—A Terrible Catastrophe—The
Joys of Liberty—Simba fights with a Leopard—Kalulu sympathises with wounded
Simba—Kalulu shows Abdullah the Art of making a Fire—Niani punishes the Dead
Leopard—How a Mtuta Chief fights—Kalulu victorious—Simba thinks Kalulu a
Hero—Spearing the Lepidosiren—How a True Son of the Forest acts—What Kalulu
found in the Arabs’ Camp—Kalulu is kidnapped!—A Victim of an Atrocious Deed.
The unfortunate captives were wakened rudely at
sunrise by smart taps applied to them by the warriors with the butts of their
spears. Kalulu felt very much like resenting this rough behaviour; but Moto
entreated him, as he saw him raise his flashing eyes, not to urge them to
greater violence, as, whether he liked it or not, he was compelled to bear it.
They were soon on the road, for savages and slaves
take but little time to make ready for their journey. After they had marched a
little while, Moto heard the warriors nearest him talk of an attack Casema had
determined to make upon a village some time during that night, as he had found
out that most of the fighting men had gone south on a hunting expedition,
leaving only a few able men to guard it, while there were numbers of women and
children within. The village belonged to an isolated tribe of the Northern
Wabemba, sometimes called Bobemba.
Towards the decline of day the Wazavila halted in
a thick grove; and as they would not permit the captives or their own people to
kindle fires, all were compelled to eat the grains of Indian corn doled out to
them unroasted—a task which the stoutest jaws would find excessively hard. In
the meantime it was noticed how the warriors sharpened their spears, and
critically examined the strings of their hows, and made other preparations for
war upon the defenceless village of the Wabemba, which must have been near,
else why all their preparations?
About three hours after darkness, after leaving
twenty men to guard Kalulu and his companions, the Wazavila, to the number of
one hundred and fifty, started to put their murderous purpose into effect.
Though Kalulu, Selim, and their friends listened
keenly for the sounds of the strife, they heard nothing; but at the end of a
couple of hours they saw a red blaze over the tops of the trees to the south,
and they knew that the work of the devil was being enacted, or that it had been
consummated, and that fearful glare of fire seen against the sky was only the
final completion of the craven and wicked deed. About midnight the fiends
returned with about two hundred and fifty women and children, and a few old
men, the able-bodied having perished to a man, as they afterwards found out, in
the defence of their homes. The order to march was given, and through the
pathless jungle and forest the Wazavila urged their slaves with spear, blade,
and shaft, so they might be far out of reach before the vengeful Wabemba came
on their trail.
The morning rose and found them still tramping on
in a direction considerably north of east, and showed the scene with all its
horrors to the sympathising Selim and Abdullah, though to Kalulu, Simba, and
Moto such scenes were not new.
On this and the following days, for nearly a
fortnight, the two Arab boys had this accursed evil of Africa brought vividly
before their minds, and they saw to its fullest extent the immeasurable
vastness of the sin and crime of which the Wazavila freebooters were guilty.
They had wantonly attacked an unoffending village, and reduced to servitude and
misery the poor people, whose homes had been fired, the flames of which had
made the sombre night lurid with the red glare, and had exhausted themselves
among smoking embers and the scorched bodies of the men who had lost their
lives in disputing the advance of the Wazavila assassins and midnight robbers,
who had stealthily entered this village to make the night hideous and awful
with their crimes.
Step by step, through that pathless jungle and
forest, which seemed interminable, did the poor people moisten the ground with
their bloody sweat; step by step did they vent their miseries in hot tears, in
groans, which were answered by vicious blows on their backs from their
relentless captors. Each day saw an infant, which had been until then full of
promise of lusty life, laid down by the side of the path cold and dead; for the
mother, under the load of her miseries and privation, could not sustain the
young life with her emptied breasts, and too often for detailed recital, she
herself resignedly knelt and died by her starved offspring. Too often, alas!
did the wretched mother, lacking proper sustenance, first fall dead in her
tracks, with her little baby vainly sucking at the chilled breast, while a
blank look of hopelessness stole over his little face as he wonderingly looked
after the departing caravan, and trembled with an unexplained horror at the
dread silence and loneliness of the forest. No mourner was left behind to
bewail the fate of these hapless ones; only the moaning winds sang their
monotonous requiems until the voracious hyaena and the hungry jackal came to
consume that which had become as a blight and ugly spot on nature.
Nothing was better calculated to cure Selim and
Abdullah of the desire of ever making money by buying and selling slaves than
these scenes, even if the unutterable wretchedness of their own condition had
not taught them the full meaning of the term “slave” before this.
Day by day every good feeling within them was
shocked; for day by day new victims to human lust of gain were left cold and
stretched in death along the road—old and young seemed to perish alike from the
same cause—starvation and fatigue. Neither the patriarch nor the child was
absolved from the dire fate.
About the fifteenth day they came to a populated
plain, where the Wazavila, by the sale of two slaves, obtained sufficient food
to distribute a week’s rations to each man of the caravan; and in order that
their human cattle might recuperate somewhat, they rested in the plain two
days. The Wazavila had still nearly one hundred and seventy slaves, over eighty
having perished since the night of the attack.
When they continued their march the direction
which they took was nearly due north, as they were now about a hundred and
forty miles due east of the Sea of Ujiji, the great lake in whose troubled
waters Kalulu and his companions came so near to an untimely end. During nearly
the whole march rain had fallen, and the plain through which they now traversed
added by its marshy character to increase the fatigue of marching.
In two days the plain had sensibly declined to a
lower level, and the water rushing from the higher ground had inundated the
whole of that part of it they now traversed to the depth of about six inches;
in some places it was still deeper. This portion of the plain the Wazavila told
Moto was called Bikwa; and from general conversation that he heard, he knew
that shortly they might expect to see a river called the Bungwa, which every
year during the rainy season flooded its banks. It was for the purpose of
giving their starved slaves strength to cross this terrible plain that the
Wazavila had halted two days, as it required a long day’s march to traverse the
inundated part and to cross the river, on the other side of which was higher
ground; while, had they been compelled to travel to the eastward, three days
would not have sufficed to get over the swampy plain.
Moto communicated his opinions to Simba, declaring
that he thought the time to try to make their escape had arrived. It would
probably be night, or nearly so, by the time they would reach the river, and,
in order to save their slaves from drowning, the Wazavila would be compelled to
free them. Simba coincided with Moto, and they passed the word to their friends
to hold themselves ready for any contingency that might arise.
What little strength the wearied women and
children had gained by their two days’ rest was soon exhausted in the passage
of the Bikwa swamp. The quagmiry road, trodden into tenacious paste by the long
file of human beings ahead, soon rendered travelling by those behind them a
work of unconquerable difficulty, and some unfortunate woman or child was
momentarily struggling for life in the muddy waste, never to rise again. And as
the day rapidly passed away, and no signs of the river were yet seen, the
anxiety of the Wazavila became evident. But a little after sunset, as the dying
day was being rapidly exchanged for night, the head of the caravan arrived at
the ford of the Bungwa, which river, as was expected, was emptying an immense
volume of water to spread out and inundate the plain.
Two or three warriors cautiously ventured into the
stream to ascertain its depth and force. As soon as they got in it was evident,
by the effort they made to keep their feet, and by its depth, which rose up to
the tops of their shoulders at times, that the crossing of the river would be
attended with appalling loss of human life.
Our party were close to the bank when this
experiment was made, watching it with intense interest, and as soon as the
warriors had safely crossed, Moto asked a warrior to cut the bonds which bound
his hands behind his back, that he might have a chance to save his life. As
this was but fair, the warrior complied with his request, and released his
hands, as well as those of his companions, and then generously severed the
thongs which bound the party neck to neck.
Simba led the way into the water; and, being tall
and strong, he took Selim by one hand, and Abdullah by the other, into the
raging flood. Moto took Niani, Kalulu, lightly touching his lee shoulder, was
able to avail himself of Moto as a breakwater, and at the same time assist him
with Niani. When Simba reached the middle of the river the feet of both Arab
boys were swept from under them, and the same happened to little Niani, while
Kalulu could with difficulty keep his feet—so strong was the flood.
It was a long and anxious task, even for Simba and
Moto; but they finally emerged on the bank in the darkness, and sat down,
apparently worn out.
Closely following Simba’s party were about twenty
of the warriors, each leading a woman or a child by the hand; but the first of
these warriors happened to be unfortunate, for the woman he led, feeling
herself unable to resist the flood, uttered a terrible cry of alarm, and sprang
forward, and, being swept against the almost submerged head of the warrior,
carried him down with the rapid current. The warrior dived to release himself
from the woman, and swam bravely for the shore—two of the warriors on the shore
alongside of Simba’s party running down the bank to assist their companions.
The cries and screams of the drowning woman threw
the women and children then in the stream into a panic, and so confused the men
leading and assisting them, that they staggered and allowed themselves to
recede downwards, step by step, which soon took them into deep water, and the
men themselves had to begin straggling for their lives, while the poor women
and children were carried down, far beyond aid, by the impetuous current,
uttering their drowning cries, which were heard far above all, until they
ceased to struggle, and were silenced by the watery grave they had found.
Casema’s voice was heard commanding that every two
warriors should lead a woman between them, and while the shouts and the screams
of the terrified females announced that this course had begun to be tried,
Simba nudged Moto as a sign to be ready, and to seize the bows and arrows of
the two men who had gone down the bank, while he himself would snatch the spear
of the warrior who was still standing by as a sentry over them. Moto conveyed
the intimation to Kalulu and the other three to hold themselves ready, and
hinted back to Simba to begin.
Quick as a lightning’s flash, Simba rose, and
snatching the spear on which the warrior leaned, lifted him high in the air,
and tossed him head-foremost into the river before he could utter a cry.
Meantime, Moto had collected the three bows, and three quivers full of arrows;
and each, taking hold of one another by the hand, ran from the bank before a
single alarm could be given.
Our friends were far out on the plain before a
chorus of shrill cries for help announced that another calamity had taken place
at that awful ford; and were it only for being relieved from witnessing the
many more calamities that must take place before all those living could reach
the hither bank, they conceived that they had just cause to congratulate
themselves.
Once clear out of sound of the disastrous ford,
Moto suggested that they should strike to the north-west, lest, by going too
far to the north, they might fall across more of the predatory Wazavila, a
suggestion that Simba thought prudent and thoughtful.
Kalulu breathing free again, after his escape a
second time from slavery, felt light as air, and was for the moment as happily
disposed as he could well be, while Selim and Abdullah felt in their hearts an
overflowing gratitude to Allah for his protection and deliverance from vile
bondage, and breathed prayers to him to continue in his care of them.
Long before morning dawned, they felt that the
character of the country was changed; for rounded shadows heaving upwards gave
them an idea that hills were becoming frequent, and that these they saw were
but the vanguard of some range they were approaching. The morning and its
welcome light confirmed this opinion; for before them rose a majestic ridge of
mountains, clothed from top to base with greenest verdure.
Prudence counselled them to seek the mountains by
the most unlikely way, and they accordingly adopted the precaution, and were
soon scaling a steep slope, overgrown with the feathery bamboo. From the
eminence they attained, they turned their eyes to note the plain they had left,
which was now spread out before them in one grand prospect, while it spoke or
revealed nothing of the misery and sorrow which they knew existed in some part
of it, among the human beings driven to hopeless bondage by the cruel Wazavila.
Unable to dwell upon its false and treacherous beauty, they turned towards the
mountains, which, so far, had nothing of the ominous or fatal in its features
for them.
The sun seemed a long time coming out, they
thought, as they looked towards the east; but then it was the rainy season
throughout Central Africa, which had been heralded in by that awful storm on
the sea of Ujiji, and out of which they had escaped to experience the
privations of bondage; and the lowering mist and humid fog hovering over the
crag-bound ridges above them was the result of the rains that had lately
submerged the Bikwa Plain throughout its length and breadth.
About noon, after they had lost themselves in the
deep folds of the mountains, our party rested to recover their strength, and to
aid the recovery more rapidly by grinding some of their corn rations between
their jaws. Simba thought this very dry eating, since they were free, and
expressed a decided objection to remain much longer without meat, which, in his
opinion, was the only food fit for a free man. Kalulu agreed with him in all he
said, and volunteered to accompany any man in a search for game, which, he
said, ought to be plentiful in such solitudes. Whereupon Simba agreed to
accompany him; but since he did not know much about a bow, he would take his
spear, which he could throw as well as any other man, while Kalulu could take a
bow and his quiver of arrows.
Matters being thus arranged, Moto promised to be
very good, and look after the boys, and see that they got into no mischief
during the absence of Simba and Kalulu, upon which Simba thanked him, and bade
him surely expect something within an hour.
Kalulu held three arrows in his left hand, and his
bow in his right, and descending a deep ravine which opened shortly into a
mountain valley of exquisite beauty, he was gratified to observe a solitary
eland lying under a tree, with a splendid pendulous dew-lap, moving about as it
erected its head to chew the cud and to enjoy in that solitude the sweet repast
of grass it had lately eaten. Simba stood hid behind a tall tree, while Kalulu,
master of the art he was now practising, began to move through the grass
towards it with the ease of a snake. For a moment the young chief debated
within himself when to send his arrow, but finally arrived at a conclusion; for
he drew his bow, and drove an arrow behind the fore-shoulder, which,
penetrating through, pierced the heart, and after one or two spasmodic bounds
into the air, the eland stretched himself on the ground, dying.
Kalulu turned round to beckon to his companion,
when he saw with surprise that Simba had broken his spear short, and, after
stripping himself, had rolled his loin-cloth around his left hand, and raising
his shortened spear, had put himself into an attitude of defence against
something.
He at once bounded forward to assist his friend,
when at the first step he took he saw a leopard spring upon Simba with a
terrific cry. Uttering a cry of horror—but nothing daunted by the ferocity of
the animal—he placed a barbed arrow on the string of his bow, and came up close
to the combatants just as he witnessed Simba thrusting his left hand into the
leopard’s mouth, and driving his spear repeatedly into his side. The animal’s
claws were buried in the left hip and knees of Simba, which he was viciously
tearing; but his jaws were rendered useless by thick folds of cloth which Simba
had thrust into his mouth at the first onset of the brute. It was well that
Simba was such a powerful man, else the shock of the onset would have knocked
him down, when it would have become doubtful work to save his throat from the
gleaming fangs.
Kalulu stayed only to take in these observations,
and then stepped deliberately nearer, and drove an arrow through him; and
without waiting to watch the results, drove another, and still another, while
Simba drove his spear several times deep into his heart, and exerting his
strength when he felt the claws relax, he brought his right leg forward, and
turning the animal’s back on it, pressed down his head with his left hand, and
drew the sharp spear-blade twice across the throat, almost severing the head.
Then the animal, yielding to superior strength and weapons, fell off, shivered once
or twice, and lay extended lifeless—dead.
Poor Simba was most grievously wounded; for the
claws had penetrated deep into his hip, while the knee-bone was bare.
“Ah!” sighed he, as he heard the expressions of
sympathy from his young friend, “if I had only some of that eland thou didst
shoot, Kalulu, in me yesterday, to-day I should have bent that beast double, as
easily as I would fold a piece of cloth. But grain-food! who can be strong
after feeding on grain-food for sixteen days? Give grain to asses, but meat for
men!”
“See here, Simba. Do thou rest thyself under this
tree, while I go and bring our friends here. It is far easier for them to come
here than for us to carry the eland to them. Thou mayest take my cloth to wrap
round thy wounds. I don’t need cloth while thou art thus.” So saying, the
generous, sympathising youth hastened to inform his friends of the accident
that had happened to Simba, which they received with surprise and
consternation.
Selim and Abdullah, who had been indebted so often
to the power that lay in Simba’s arm, as soon as they heard of the wounds which
their champion had received, now hastened to him to offer their services.
“Speak, Simba! Oh! the frightful beast!” said
Selim, as his eye caught sight of the mangled and gashed leopard. “Speak! art
thou much hurt?”
Simba was reclining under the tree, looked
slightly troubled with his pains; the clothe he had taken to staunch the blood
were lying on the wounded hip and knee, by no means pleasant to look at. The
two boys, seeing these things, judged immediately that Simba’s case was very
grave—that he was going to die; and, not knowing what else to do, they began to
cry, to sound the praises of their dear friend, and lament his sudden “taking
off.”
Simba, however, answered them as quickly as he
could subdue a pang of pain, and command language.
“Nay, weep not, young masters. Simba is but
slightly wounded—flesh wounds—nothing more. No, no, Simba is not going to die;
he must see his wife and children, and Selim in his home again, before he can
die. But—Master Abdullah!”
“Yes, Simba, what is it?”
“Dost thou really like big Simba?”
“Oh, Simba, how canst thou ask? Thou hast
succeeded my father Mohammed in my affections. Remember the Liemba and the
crocodile. I can never forget that awful moment, for the scars on my leg remind
me of it daily.”
“I thought thou didst like Simba a little; but
wouldst thou be very sorry if Simba died to be left in this valley to be eaten
by the hyaena and the jackal, Abdullah?”
“Don’t, don’t, Simba, for Allah’s sake, ask any
such thing. Thou hast said thou art not going to die, then why torment me?”
“Yes; but I might die if Master Abdullah did not
do me one favour, for—”
“Speak; command me, Simba—anything, everything,”
urged Abdullah.
“If Master Abdullah would only make a little fire,
and Master Selim cut a little meat from that fine eland that lies dead by that
tree yonder, Simba might eat meat and live.”
“Thou shalt have meat, Simba,” cried Abdullah,
“before thou canst count one hundred,” and he bustled about, ran here and
there; collected bunches of dry grass, leaves, twigs, sticks; brought a
good-sized log or two of dead wood, between which a fire should be built; while
Selim, after taking the spear which had probed the leopard’s heart, had run towards
the dead eland, and was slashing and carving great chunks of meat.
Abdullah had his pile of wood ready, but he now
turned with a puzzled expression towards Simba, and said “Here is the wood; but
where and how can we get fire? Our guns are in the bottom of the sea!”
Kalulu, Moto, and Niani had come up by this time,
and Moto, after examining the wounds of his friend, turned round to Abdullah
and said:
“Kalulu will help thee, Abdullah, to get fire; he
does not need a musket-pan or powder.”
Abdullah wae curious to know how, for he had
always seen a musket-pan used, though he had wondered often when a slave with
the Wazavila how the natives obtained a fire; but he had never seen the
process.
Kalulu, however, proceeded to show Abdullah how
the Watuta obtained fire by other means than a musket-pan. Selecting a piece of
stiff, dry bark, he placed it between his feet on the ground, and sprinkled it
with a little sand, which he first rubbed dry and warm between the palms of his
hands. He now chose the strongest arrow in his quiver, and, cutting off the
feathers and the notch, he pared the end until it was level. Then gathering
some dry leaves and grass straw on the sanded bark, rested the end of his arrow
in the centre, and began to twirl the arrow round with the palms of his hands
with a steady downward pressure. In a short time smoke was seen to issue, and,
continuing the operation, two or three sparks of fire shot out among the straw
and leaves, which, being blown, was soon nursed into flame.
“That is how the Watuta obtain their fire,” said
Kalulu to Abdullah, with an air of superiority, which the latter thought was
quite pardonable, since Kalulu did really produce a fire on which meat might be
cooked for the benefit of his friend Simba.
“O Selim! Selim! O Selim!” cried Kalulu, “haste
hither with the meat.”
Abdullah, in his impatience to see Simba’s jaws at
work, reiterated the cry, “O Selim! Selim! O Selim! come with the meat, come
quick.”
“Coming!” was the answer which that industrious
young Arab gave, as he turned his face toward the group with a shoulder of
eland meat on his back.
“Now, Niani, haste to get more. Think of poor
Simba, thy father, suffering for want of it; there’s a good boy, bring plenty,”
said Abdullah; while in the meantime Kalulu had chosen an arrow-blade, and with
it was preparing the slender sticks to impale the meat when it would be cut
into kabobs for broiling, and Moto had bound Simba’s wounded knee with bandages
made out of Kalulu’s loin-cloth, and had staunched the blood that had been
pouring from the wounded hips. Moto also set to work at erecting a shed, which
might shelter the whole party, and made a luxurious bed of grass and leaves on
to which his friend was assisted.
Kalulu then, while the meat was broiling, and the
most pressing duties of the camp had been performed, turned to skin the
leopard, whose hide, he thought, would make an admirable loin-covering for
himself.
Simba, after he had managed to eat as much of the
eland as any two ordinary men would have eaten, began to feel his strength
returned to him, and said:
“Ah! there is nothing like meat for medicine,
after all. It makes a man look kinder towards his fellows, and if he has his
stomach full there is nought that he cannot bear. If I had always plenty of
meat in me I would as soon fight a leopard every day as not; and if I had a
good knife I would be willing to fight a lion rather than run away from him.”
Such sentiments, noble and worthy of the great man
who spoke them, met with hearty approbation from his repleted friends, and Moto
was of the opinion that after a stomachful of good meat he might also, if hard
pressed, do damage to either a leopard or a lion. Selim, following suit,
suggested that he, being but a boy, ought to have his English gun in his hand
before he could be expected to fight a lion or a leopard; while Abdullah and
Niani gravely expressed their fears that if they met either of those beasts of
prey they would think of climbing some tall tree before doing anything else.
Kalulu, after skinning the leopard, proceeded to
spread the hide out on a piece of spongy sward for the sun to dry it, putting a
number of small pegs around to stretch it. The leopard, being denuded of his
splendid dress, was not so much an object of fear to little Niani as it had been;
it was no more fearful than a skinned dog would have been, though the canine
teeth still looked formidable. But knowing the injury it had caused Simba
during life, he could not help seizing the broken spear-shaft, and belabouring
the dead brute with it in a vicious manner, which no doubt the leopard would
have resented, could he have felt the blows showered on him. Having taken his
fill of this mild revenge, Niani seized it by the tail and dragged it far out
of sight.
The valley wherein these adventures occurred would
have been deemed by our friends exceedingly pretty at any other season, but
almost every other moment the wind drifted great dense masses of rain-cloud
across its face, which completely blurred its beauty, and added more volume to
the streams that constantly poured down the slopes from above.
Safe, however, for the time under their shed, they
could contemplate their little annoyances with liberal philosophy, and could
readily adapt themselves to the circumstances without great sacrifice of
comfort.
Simba was too sore to move for two days, but on
the third day they broke their miniature encampment, and continued their
journey through the mountains in a direction nearly north-west.
Tropical mountains are always grand, but during
the rainy season their grandeur is enhanced. Why? Because wherever you turn
your eyes you see some pinnacle, or crag, or summit buried in the angry clouds,
which are a dirty grey, and ragged at the edges, but are an impenetrable mass
behind of inky blackness, as if the night had been gathered and compressed into
an enormous black ball ready to be hurled upon the valleys and plains by some
vengeful fury. These black balls of clouds, poised upon the topmost mountain,
are a feature in Central Africa; they seem to stand a moment in their
precarious position, when a furious wind, which flurries everything in its way,
tears along with a mighty sound, reaches the monstrous ball, lifts it up a
moment above the mountains, and then hurls it upon the quiet sunlit valleys
with thunder-crash and lightning, and great floods of rain.
These were of daily, sometimes hourly, occurrence,
while our travellers journeyed slowly to where they conceived friends might be
found. Owing to Simba’s wounds, their progress was necessarily slow, and this
gave them ample opportunities to watch the phenomena we have described.
At the end of a week they were not forty miles
from the Rungwa Plain, and at the termination of that period Simba declared he
felt as strong and as well as ever, and the eighth day he led the way as
formerly, and twenty-five miles were marched.
This day’s journey brought the travellers to a
long, straight, narrow valley, which was converted through alluvial deposits
and vegetable mould of centuries into a quagmire of extraordinary profundity.
On the opposite side of the oozy valley to that on which they stood, there was
some cultivation, and in a circular jungle they descried a few huts, probably a
village. On their side the ground rose up gradually to an ancient clearing, from
which disused roads ramified in all directions, which were a sufficient
evidence that at one time the country was well populated.
They were striking up one of these roads leading
to the old clearing, called Tongoni in the language of Zanzibar, when an arrow
whistled close to Simba’s ear, followed by another and another.
Kalulu’s trained ear detected the sound at once,
and casting his eyes hastily around he saw a group of men wearing cloth round
their loins, hidden in a thick bush; how many men he could not tell, nor did he
wait to count them, but shouted to his friends:
“Up, up! Simba—Moto—up, my brother! up, Niani! run
towards that peak beyond the clearing. I will follow you. I shall stop to bring
these fellows out, and to show them how a Mtuta and a chief can fight.”
“No,” said Simba, “we will not go up without you.
Come with us, Kalulu.”
“Fear not for me, but think of the Arab boys and
yourselves. They cannot catch me. Go on to the peak. Go, Selim, Abdullah;
Kalulu begs of you.”
“Let him be, Simba,” said Moto; “Kalulu knows what
he is about;” and without waiting to see whether Simba followed him, he
snatched hold of Selim’s hand and ran with him up the hill. Simba followed with
Abdullah and Niani before him.
As soon as he saw his friends start off, Kalulu
limped most painfully towards a tall tree that stood near him, and crawled as
if he were grievously wounded behind it. But the minute he felt himself safe
behind the tree, he fixed an arrow in his bow, while he held three others in
his left hand.
Kalulu had not to wait a second before six men
came from behind the bush and rushed towards his hiding-place, until they had
come within about fifty yards from the tree, when they surrounded it, and one
of them seeing him, hurled his spear at him. The spear fell short, about a yard
from the feet of Kalulu, but the boy never made any sign of movement.
Encouraged by his silence, another spear was hurled at him, which just missed
his body, for it fell quivering at his side, not six inches from him. Then an assegai,
or a long javelin came, and grazed the bark above his head, and still no
answer, from which they surmised that he was wounded too much to make any
reply; but immediately one of them, bolder than the rest, made a forward leap
to advance towards him, Kalulu drew his bow and sent an arrow through his
chest, and before the others could seek shelter again he had shot another
through his side. Then, snatching the two spears and assegai which had been
thrown at him, the young chief uttered the Kitutu war-cry and bounded, light as
an antelope, through the thin jungle.
On seeing the lad run the others rose from their
shelter and gave chase. On reaching the top of the rising ground, Kalulu threw
himself behind a thick bush of thorn and waited, with eyes and ears on the
alert, and fingers on his bow-string, until catching sight of the foremost he
took a deliberate aim at him and pierced his throat with an arrow; and, before
a sound could have been uttered by the dying man, he had fixed his arrow again
and was aiming at a fourth, when the fellow turned about to run, but too late
to escape the arrow which, following him, buried itself up to the feathers in
his back.
Emerging from his hiding-place, he retraced his
steps, deliberately took up the arms, the bows and arrows and spears of the two
last he had slain, and seeing the two remaining in full flight, turned round,
and sought his companions, who were anxiously waiting for him on the summit of
the peak. In a few moments he had come up with them, and they listened in
wonder to his tale, how he had slain four of their enemies, to which his
trophies bore ample testimony.
Simba began accusing himself of cowardice, and
everything else that was bad, when the young chief stopped him, and said:
“Not so, Simba; thou art big and a good target for
an arrow; but I am small and thin, and if there had been twenty I could, by
being prudent, have escaped easily. None of these people like to come out to
the open to fight, and so long as there was but one to fight they would never
have chased anybody else; and by dodging through the bushes, shooting the most
forward of them, I could have so thinned them that when they reached us on this
peak they would not have been able to take us without losing many more men, and
perhaps losing all. If we all had been together those fellows might have killed
two or three of us, and whom could we have spared?—Selim? Abdullah? Niani? No,
Simba; thou seest that I could not have acted otherwise.”
“I saw that when you told us to go,” said Moto.
“Who of us knows much about arrows? Master Selim and Master Abdullah know
nothing; Niani is too small even if he did know. Simba says he don’t, and I am
sure I know but very little compared to a man who all his life has shot with
nothing else but his bow. Now, with a gun—”
“Ah, yes; if we had but three or four guns,”
sighed Simba, “thou wouldst not have been left alone, Kalulu.”
“If I had only my English gun here now,—two
barrels,—always true—not one of those men would have escaped,” remarked Selim.
“But, my brother, surely only two have escaped as
it is,” replied Kalulu, laughing; “and they are too scared to trouble us any
more, I think, though it is time for us to be off before others from the
village on the other side of the valley come after us. Here is a spear for
thee, Moto; and a spear also for thee, Simba. I will keep one spear, and Selim
and Abdullah may keep the hows and arrows. We shall have something for Niani
by-and-by, perhaps.”
“I hope not,” said Simba, “before we get amongst
friends.”
This feat of Kalulu’s in killing four men raised
him highly in Simba’s estimation, and the consequence of it was that he came to
pay great deference to him, far greater than he ever had paid to him before;
for thus far, except that he showed himself capable of bearing great fatigue,
could run well, was lithe and strong for his age, he had looked upon him as a
boy merely. Now, however, as he turned to seek the deep woods, on the ridge
leading from the peak to the low range of hills beyond, he furtively eyed him
from head to foot, and then shook his head, muttering to himself; “What is the
matter, friend Simba,” asked Kalulu, “that thou dost eye me so, and shake thy
head?”
“Thou hast a quick eye, Kalulu; and it is as true
as thy wrist and arm. I have been thinking,” he said in a low voice, “that when
thou art a few years older thou wilt be almost as strong as I am now, and that
when thou returnest to thy country, Ferodia will be sorry for what he has done,
for he will find thee a very lion in his way.”
“Thou mayst well say that, Simba,” said Moto. “The
little boy who pinned my arm to the shield I held when Kisesa attacked his
father’s village, is improved wonderfully. Wallahi! if he kills four men now
when he is but a boy, how many will he kill when he is a man. Ferodia will wish
that he had never thought of being king.”
“Wait, my friends, wait! Wait a few moons only; I
will show you what Kalulu can do. Killing four men is nothing. I have killed
chiefs and many men in our wars, as Soltali said in his song. Ferodia shall see
Kalulu’s face again; but I do not think it will be as his slave.”
“I wonder,” said Moto, “what country this is; and
what tribe did that village belong to. Hast thou any idea, Simba?”
“Not I; I never was here before.”
“Dost thou know, I think those were Wazavila too.
They are scattered everywhere about this country since they were driven from
their own by Simba, son of Mkasiwa, of Unyanyembe. Ah! that chief is such
another as thou art, Simba. A lion by name and a lion in war. He has been the
only one able to punish these thieves of Wazavila.”
“In what direction is his country? dost thou
know?” asked Simba.
“It ought to be north of where we are—two or three
days yet. He is chief of a country called Kasera; but we ought to come to the
Unyanyembe road, that goes from Usowa and Fipa, before we reach Kasera.”
That night our friends camped near the base of a
reddish range of mountains, by the side of a small stream, and in the morning
they breasted the most feasible part of the range, and made their way with
considerable difficulty through a tangle of bamboo, tiger grass, and
thorn-bush.
Emerging out of the depths of a stony ravine, they
at last stood upon the topmost height of the red mountain range, the colour of
which they perceived came from the vast quantities of haematite of iron, of
which the mountains principally consisted.
By using their observation, they were also enabled
to ascertain that this range was the watershed of the Rungwa River, for it ran
so far east and west that no springs issuing into the plain of the Bungwa could
rise further north of this range, for as far as they saw north the country
trended north and west, while south of the range on which they stood the
country trended west and south. Moto took this as a good sign of their
approaching Unyamwezi, and raised the spirits of his friends considerably by
delivering this as his opinion. He also advised that they should now bend their
steps east of north.
After a very long march that day, they camped near
a lengthy but shallow pool in a forest several leagues to the north-east of the
red range. Kalulu thought that, from the numbers of birds about—of fish-eagles,
cranes, pelicans, hornbills, kingfishers, ducks, and curious geese armed with
spurs on their wings, that there must be fish in the pool, and accordingly took
his spear and stationed himself near it. In a very short time he saw a movement
in the muddy water, and darting the spear straight for it, brought out of the
slimy depths a specimen of the Lepidosiren, or a bearded mud-fish, weighing
about ten or twelve pounds. His success was hailed with delight by his
half-famished comrades, who, though they had bagged a small antelope since the
eland, had been much stinted in their meat rations lately. Each member at once
constituted himself a harpoonist; but, excepting Simba and Moto, no luck met
the efforts of the others, as they could never throw their spears straight
downwards, the spear always swerving to one side when near the bottom, owing to
the over-firm hold with which they held their spears. But the success of
Kalulu, Simba, and Moto proved ample to furnish the entire party with
sufficient for a good supper and breakfast.
They found the meat of the mud-fish very good,
though very fat; but being half-starved, their stomachs were not over delicate.
Continuing their march next day at sunrise, they
came to a park-land, agreeably diversified with noble sycamores, and islets
formed by dense growths of aloetic plants and thorn-bush; and about noon they
came to a well-tramped road, which, after noticing its direction, Moto declared
would take them to the Unyanyembe road.
Inspired by this news, which certainly, after all
they had gone through, was well calculated to produce joyous emotions within
them, they tramped along this road at a rapid rate, and visions of home, though
still far away, came vividly to the minds of the Arab boys, and they
unconsciously pictured their mothers looking out of the lattice-windows of
their homes, ever-gazing towards the continent and ever-wondering where their
absent boys were.
A couple of hours before sunset they arrived in a
thin forest. They formed their camp, and surrounded it with brushwood to guard
against beasts of prey, and proceeded to warm what fish they had left. It was
such a very small morsel for hungry men that Kalulu proposed that he should
sally out with his bow and endeavour to pick up something more. He was strongly
dissuaded not to go by Simba and Moto; even Selim and Abdullah begged him to
remain with them, as they could well afford to be without more food until
morning; but Kalulu laughed merrily, and told them not to be alarmed, he could
take good care of himself. Seeing that he was determined, they said no more.
As Kalulu left the little camp, he threw out, for
a last remark, that they might expect him shortly back with something fit to
eat. He chose the road before him—the road that his companions would have to
take next morning. He looked keenly to the right and the left, searched every
suspicious place, and allowed nothing to escape him. The thin forest thinned
once more to a small plain sprinkled with dwarf ebony and a species of blue
gum-thorn. Numbers of ant-hills also dotted the plain, whose grey tops
presented a strong contrast to the young grass of the plain. Beyond this loomed
a forest thickening again; it was but ten or twelve minutes walking; success
might meet him there, he thought, and he proceeded towards it, arriving there
by smart walking a few minutes earlier than he anticipated.
He still marched on, hoping that something might
meet his eye which might be broiled over a comfortable fire, and enliven the
little society of wanderers with whom he found himself; and thus arguing with
himself, he proceeded still further. Suddenly he saw smoke. There is nothing
specially dangerous in smoke, he thought; but what smoke could this be in the
forest? There was no cultivation about, therefore it could not be a village.
What was it? Kalulu was a true son of the forest—a true hunter; his instincts
were on the alert. The curious phenomenon of a smoke in the forest daring the
rainy season must be explained. What could it be?
He began to glide from tree to tree, from clump to
clump; now crouching behind a wart-hog’s mound, that that beast had raised
above its burrow, then wriggling along the grass like a snake, and presently
leaping up with the activity of a leopard, until he drew nearer to the smoke,
so near that he heard voices.
“Voices!” The very fact of a human voice being
heard in the forest, except his own, had something portentous in it; for had
not all voices lately been those of enemies? He was ten times more cautious
now; and something like a half-regret for venturing hither came into his mind.
Why had he come so far at all? Why had he not listened to his brother Selim and
his friends, who begged him not to go out?
He watched from behind the tree, and saw people;
men wearing cloth round their heads, long cloth clothes leading down to their
feet, like those (he heard from Selim often) the Arabs used at Zanzibar. He
listened; and while trying to distinguish the language heard words such as
Selim, Abdullah, Simba, Moto, and Niani used. The language was not of the
interior of Africa around Ututa, nor Uzivila, nor Uwemba, surely; and these
people going about the camp in white cloths and long white clothes were not
natives. He had never heard of any natives wearing such clothes. They must be
Arabs! Did not Moto tell him that they were on the Unyanyembe road, and that
they might meet an Arab caravan going to Fipa, or catch up an Arab caravan
going to Unyanyembe from Fipa. Of course these were Arabs; people of Simba, and
people of Selim, Moto, Abdullah, and Niani! They were his friends, since he was
a brother of Selim!
What should he do? Should he go back at once and
gladden the hearts of his friends with the good news? Ah! the suggestion came
near being acted upon; but it was not, for immediately it was replaced by
another, “Why not go to them, make thyself known, and they will be good to thee
for Selim’s sake?”
Poor boy! Innocent youth! He judged all Arabs to
be good, like Selim and Abdullah, and he stepped out of his hiding-place and
walked deliberately to the camp. He was soon seen, addressed, and invited to
come up to them.
“Hi, Ndgu! njo.” (“Hello, my brother! come here.”)
This was a fair beginning, to call him “my
brother,” the English reader will think. Not at all; it is an ordinary hail to
a stranger, in the same way that “Rafiki,” my friend, is. But Kalulu advanced,
and many men—probably thirty—hurried to meet him. Three men, apparently chiefs
of the party—but they were not white, like Selim or Abdullah—were talking
together as he came up to them.
The oldest of them—marked with the small-pox, a
man with very small eyes—who had a light bamboo cane in his hand, turned
towards him, and asked him who he was, where he came from, what he was doing in
the forest all alone, to which Kalulu answered as well as he was able in broken
Kisawhili—the coast language—smiling all the time, and wishing he would testify
some pleasure at seeing him. The man turned round to his companions, and talked
with them rapidly a language he did not understand, but it was horribly
guttural. It was Arabic; and as the harsh words were heard Kalulu almost
shuddered. The man with the stick pointed to Kalulu often, the others nodded,
apparently agreeing with what the pock-marked, small-eyed chief said.
The chief Arab—he was not an Arab, but a
half-caste, half-negro, half-Arab—sat down and pointed to Kalulu to seat
himself by him. This, thought Kalulu, was friendly; and in pure guilelessness
he asked him:
“Are ye Arabs?”
“Certainly. Mashallah! What did you take us for?”
replied the chief.
“I don’t know. I thought ye were Arabs, but I was
not sure.”
Then Kalulu looked round, more at home. In one
corner of the camp he saw a large gang of slaves, chained and padlocked safe.
No chance of running for any of those, he thought. Simba could not break that
chain, nor any of the strong iron padlocks which confined each collar.
He was about to ask another question, when,
without warning, without the least suspicion having been raised in his mind, he
was pounced upon by half-a-dozen men from behind and disarmed. The slave-gang
was brought up close to him, an iron collar was handed to the chief, who
encircled the young neck of Kalulu with it, slipped an iron loop over the
folding crescents, introduced a strong padlock into a staple after it, locked
it, and then stood up to survey his captive. He nodded to the men who had hold
of him. They released him, and the boy stood up, and the captor and captive
looked at each other.
“Did ye not tell me ye were Arabs?”
“We are Arabs,” answered the chief, laughing at
his simplicity.
“Then if ye are Arabs, what does this violence
mean?”
“It means you are my slave.”
“Slave! I a slave?”
“Certainly, and worth over fifty dollars at
Zanzibar.”
“I a slave! Do you know Selim?”
“Selim? What Selim? I know plenty of Selims.”
“My Selim. Only my Selim. A white Arab boy, of my size?”
“What of him?”
“He is my brother.”
“Your brother! A white Arab boy your brother. Dog
of a pagan!”
“The blood ceremony was entered into between us. I
am the King of the Watuta.”
“You a king of the Watuta! Ha! ha! ha! We have
plenty of kings with us. Do you see that woman before you? She is a queen in
Uwemba. Kings sell well. If you were king of all the devils, and brother to all
the Arab Selims, you are my slave now, and the likeliest, best looking I ever
had. I will not part with you under one hundred dollars. Wallahi! There, go.
Men, take them away. Strike camp. He for the sofari” (journey.)
“But listen, chief, I am not your slave. Let me
go. Simba and Selim will be angry with you if you keep me. Let me go, chief.
Oh! let me go to the camp; it is right close here.”
“Silence! No words, not one word. You are my
slave. Arabs know how to keep slaves. For the bad slaves there is a yoke-tree,
besides chains. Be wise, and keep silence. You shall go to Zanzibar with that
chain around your neck; if you are bad, you shall go with the yoke-tree around
your neck. For those slaves who talk too much we have sticks. Be wise, I tell
you. Drive the gang on, men.”
Kalulu was desperate; the blood rushed to his
head; he got furious. His senses and feelings were one wild riot. He could not
describe how or why he leaped with frantic energy at the villain. He was
possessed with fury. He therefore struck at him, caught hold of him, tried to
beat his brains out with his chain, and would have done it, no doubt, or so bruised
his features that they would have become undistinguishable; but he now had to
deal with clever men, who knew what the spasmodic, despairing energy of slaves
newly captured was. Before he had given the man more than three blows he was
dragged off, kicked, pounded, cuffed, bruised, and almost strangled. Then a
systematic flogging took place; such a flogging that a villainous half-caste,
enraged, would be likely to give, while he fought with all his might, and gave
half-a-dozen of them work enough to hold him. When the punishment was over, he
was not left to meditate upon his position, but was marched off in the
direction of Unyanyembe, the last of the slave-gang!
The Arabs were about making what they call a
“tiri-kesa”—that is, an evening journey—in order to reach water before noon
next day, by which time they would probably have made a march of thirty miles.
They had camped deep in the woods, about half a mile from the road. Had it not
been for the smoke of their fires, Kalulu would never have seen them, probably.
When once their fires went out it would be difficult for anybody to know that a
slave-gang had been there, or that such a cruel deed as the kidnapping of
Kalulu had ever taken place. If the Arabs but continued their journey until
noon, and started again at night, and left no trace behind, how would it be
possible for those who would seek Kalulu to find a trace of him?
What a change of feeling came over the outraged
youth! What a sudden and complete transformation was this! He left a camp of Arabs
to enter another. In one, he was beloved, esteemed, idolised; in the other, he
was a slave, beaten like a dog, chained! In one camp the Arabs were good, kind,
brotherly; in the other, they were robbers, kidnappers, enslavers, villains. In
one camp he esteemed, he admired, he loved; in another, he brooded over his
injuries, and he hated with all the hate with which one wronged is able to
hate.
If he was treated so harshly at the beginning of
his slavery; if he was the victim of such damnable atrocity as that which he
had suffered, by what rule or system could be measured that which he would have
to suffer before he reached Zanzibar; and at Zanzibar, with that iron collar
perpetually about his neck, how could he ever advantage himself? Would there
ever be an end to the indescribable misery he suffered now? Had he parted for
ever from freedom and friendship? Would there ever be hope for him more?
These were the thoughts that filled his mind as he
was marched off to slavery with that inflexible iron collar about his neck, and
the horrid chain swinging from one side to the other, with that long file of
slaves before him, and the long file of flinty kidnappers behind him.
Ah! poor Kalulu! Thou art but one of the thousands
upon thousands of wretched men, women, and children who have trodden that road
to its present hardness and smoothness; whose wild delirious thoughts have
never found speech as thine have; whose hopeless looks have never been
portrayed in any book; whose silent prayers have never seen the light, nor have
been rehearsed in any hall where kind Christian men and women would hear them
and commiserate their sufferings; whose indescribable agonies have never been
touched upon by a kindly pen! But go thou on to slavery, as the thousands who
have gone before thee, until English readers shall meet with thee again!
