Black Ivory - Robert Michael Ballantyne (web ebook reader TXT) 📗

once appreciated the danger of the enraged mother returning to the rescue, but, resolved not to resign his advantage, he seized the vicious little creature by the proboscis and dragged it by main force to the canoe, into which he tumbled, hauled the proboscis inboard, as though it had been the bite of a cable, and held on.

"Shove off! shove off! and give way, lads! Look alive!"

The order was promptly obeyed, and in a few minutes the baby was dragged into the boat and secured.

This prize, however, was found to be more of a nuisance than an amusement and it was soon decided that it must be disposed of. Accordingly, that very night, much to the regret of the men who wanted to make a meal of it, Disco led his baby squealing into the jungle and set it free with a hearty slap on the flank, and an earnest recommendation to make all sail after its venerable mother, which it did forthwith, cocking its ears and tail, and shrieking as it went.

Two days after this event they made a brief halt at a poor village where they were hospitably received by the chief, who was much gratified by the liberal quantity of calico with which the travellers paid for their entertainment. Here they met with a Portuguese half-caste who was reputed one of the greatest monsters of cruelty in that part of the country. He was, however, not much more villainous in aspect than many other half-castes whom they saw. He was on his way to the coast in a canoe manned by slaves. If Harold and Disco had known that this was his last journey to the coast they would have regarded him with greater interest. As it was, having learned his history from the chief through their interpreter, they turned from him with loathing.

As this half-caste's career illustrates the depths to which humanity may fall in the hot-bed of slavery, as well as, to some extent, the state of things existing under Portuguese rule on the east coast of Africa, we give the particulars briefly.

Instead of the whip, this man used the gun, which he facetiously styled his "minister of justice," and, in mere wantonness, he was known to have committed murder again and again, yet no steps were taken by the authorities to restrain, much less to punish him. Men heard of his murders, but they shrugged their shoulders and did nothing. It was only a wild beast of a negro that was killed, they said, and what was that! They seemed to think less of it than if he had shot a hippopotamus. One of his murders was painfully notorious, even to its minutest particulars. Over the female slaves employed in a house and adjacent lands there is usually placed a head-woman, a slave also, chosen for such an office for her blind fidelity to her master. This man had one such woman, one who had ever been faithful to him and his interests, who had never provoked him by disobedience or ill-conduct, and against whom, therefore, he could have no cause of complaint. One day when half drunk he was lying on a couch in his house; his forewoman entered and made herself busy with some domestic work. As her master lay watching her, his savage disposition found vent in a characteristic joke: "Woman," said he, "I think I will shoot you." The woman turned round and said, "Master, I am your slave; you can do what you will with me. You can kill me if you like; I can do nothing. But don't kill me, master, for if you do, who is there to look after your other women? they will all run away from you."

She did not mean to irritate her master, but instantly the man's brutal egotism was aroused. The savage jest became a fearful reality, and he shouted with rage:--

"Say you that! say you that! fetch me my gun. I will see if my women will run away after I have killed you."

Trained to implicit obedience, the poor woman did as she was bid. She brought the gun and handed him powder and ball. At his command she knelt down before him, and the wretch fired at her breast. In his drunken rage he missed his mark--the ball went through her shoulder. She besought him to spare her. Deaf to her entreaties, he ordered her to fetch more powder and ball. Though wounded and in agony, she obeyed him. Again the gun was loaded, again levelled and fired, and the woman fell dead at his feet. [The above narrative is quoted almost _verbatim_ from _The Story of the Universities' Mission to Central Africa_, pages 78 and 79, the author of which vouches for its accuracy.]

The facts of this case were known far and wide. The Portuguese Governor was acquainted with them, as well as the ministers of justice, but no one put forth a hand to punish the monster, or to protect his slaves.

But vengeance overtook him at last. On his way down the Zambesi he shot one of his men. The others, roused to irresistible fury, sprang upon him and strangled him.

_Then_, indeed, the Governor and Magistrates were roused to administer "justice!" They had allowed this fiend to murder slaves at his will, but no sooner had the slaves turned on and killed their master than ceaseless energy and resolution were displayed in punishing those who slew him. Soldiers were sent out in all directions; some of the canoe-men were shot down like wild beasts, the rest were recaptured and publicly whipped to death!

Reader, this is "domestic slavery." This is what Portugal and Zanzibar claim the right to practise. This is what Great Britain has for many years declined to interfere with. This is the curse with which Africa is blighted at the present day in some of her fairest lands, and this is what Portugal has decreed shall not terminate in what she calls her African dominions for some years to come. In other words, it has been coolly decreed by that weakest of all the European nations, that slavery, murder, injustice, and every other conceivable and unmentionable vice and villainy shall still, for some considerable time, continue to be practised on the men, women, and children of Africa!

Higher up the Shire river, the travellers saw symptoms of recent distress among the people, which caused them much concern. Chimbolo, in particular, was rendered very anxious by the account given of the famine which prevailed still farther up the river, and the numerous deaths that had taken place in consequence.

The cause of the distress was a common one, and easily explained. Slave-dealers had induced the Ajawa, a warlike tribe, to declare war against the people of the Manganja highlands. The Ajawa had done this before, and were but too ready to do it again. They invaded the land, captured many of the young people, and slew the aged. Those who escaped to the jungle found on their return that their crops were destroyed. Little seed remained in their possession, and before that was planted and grown, famine began to reduce the ranks, already thinned by war.

Indications of this sad state of things became more numerous as the travellers advanced. Few natives appeared to greet them on the banks of the river as they went along, and these few resembled living skeletons. In many places they found dead bodies lying on the ground in various stages of decomposition, and everywhere they beheld an aspect of settled unutterable despair on the faces of the scattered remnant of the bereaved and starving people.

It was impossible, in the circumstances, for Harold Seadrift to give these wretched people more than very slight relief. He gave them as much of his stock of provisions as he could spare, and was glad when the necessity of continuing the journey on foot relieved him from such mournful scenes by taking him away from the river's bank.

Hiring a party of the strongest men that he could find among them, he at length left his canoes, made up his goods, food, and camp-equipage into bundles of a shape and size suitable to being carried on the heads of men, and started on foot for the Manganja highlands.

"Seems to me, sir," observed Disco, as they plodded along together on the first morning of the land journey--"seems to me, sir, that Chimbolo don't stand much chance of findin' his wife alive."

"Poor fellow," replied Harold, glancing back at the object of their remarks, "I fear not."

Chimbolo had by that time recovered much of his natural vigour, and although not yet able to carry a man's load, was nevertheless quite capable of following the party. He walked in silence, with his eyes on the ground, a few paces behind Antonio, who was a step or two in rear of his leader, and who, in virtue of his position as "bo's'n" to the party, was privileged to walk hampered by no greater burden than his gun.

"We must keep up his sperrits, tho', poor chap," said Disco, in the hoarse whisper with which he was wont to convey secret remarks, and which was much more fitted to attract attention than his ordinary voice. "It 'ud never do to let his sperrits down; 'cause w'y? he's weak, an' if he know'd that his wife was dead, or took off as a slave, he'd never be able to go along with us, and we couldn't leave him to starve here, you know."

"Certainly not, Disco," returned Harold. "Besides, his wife _may_ be alive, for all we know to the contrary.--How far did he say the village was from where we landed, Antonio?"

"'Bout two, t'ree days," answered the bo's'n.

That night the party encamped beside the ruins of a small hamlet where charred sticks and fragments of an African household's goods and chattels lay scattered on the ground.

Chimbolo sat down here on the ground, and, resting his chin on his knees, gazed in silence at the ruin around him.

"Come, cheer up, old fellow," cried Disco, with rather an awkward effort at heartiness, as he slapped the negro gently on the shoulder; "tell him, Antonio, not to let his heart go down. Didn't he say that what-dee-call-the-place--his village--was a strong place, and could be easily held by a few brave men?"

"True," replied Chimbolo, through the interpreter, "but the Manganja men are not very brave."

"Well, well, never mind," rejoined the sympathetic tar, repeating his pat on the back, "there's no sayin'. P'raps they got courage w'en it came to the scratch. P'raps it never came to the scratch at all up there. Mayhap you'll find 'em all right after all. Come, never say die s'long as there's a shot in the locker. That's a good motto for 'ee, Chimbolo, and ought to keep up your heart even tho' ye _are_ a nigger, 'cause it wos inwented by the great Nelson, and shouted by him, or his bo's'n, just before he got knocked over at the glorious battle of Trafalgar. Tell him that, Antonio."

Whether Antonio told him all that, is extremely doubtful, although he complied at once with the order, for Antonio never by any chance declined at least to attempt the duties of his station, but the only effect of his speech was that Chimbolo shook his head and continued to stare at