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

slavery. They scowled as they replied that the same had been said by the slavers who had attacked their village; from which remark it would seem that Yoosoof was not quite the originator of that device to throw the natives off their guard. The Portuguese of Tette on the Zambesi had also thought of and acted on it!

Fortunately it was, as we have said, near sunset when the capture was made, and before it became quite dark the band encamped, else must poor Disco have succumbed to weakness and fatigue. The very desperation of his circumstances, however, seemed to revive his strength, for next morning he resumed his journey with some hope of being able to hold out. The continued protestations and assurances of Antonio, also, had the effect of inducing their captors to remove the heavy slave-sticks from the necks of Harold and Disco, though they did not unbind their wrists. Thus were they led further into the country, they knew not whither, for several days and nights, and at last reached a large village where they were all thrust into a hut, and left to their meditations, while their captors went to palaver with the chief man of the place.

This chief proved to be a further-sighted man than the men of the tribe who had captured the Englishmen. His name was Yambo. He had heard of Dr Livingstone, and had met with men of other tribes who had seen and conversed with the great traveller. Thus, being of a thoughtful and inquiring disposition, he had come to understand enough of the good white man's sentiments to guard him from being imposed on by pretended Christians.

Yambo's name signified "how are you?" and was probably bestowed on him because of a strongly benevolent tendency to greet friend and stranger alike with a hearty "how d'ee do?" sort of expression of face and tone of voice.

He was a tall grave man, with a commanding firm look, and, withal, a dash of child-like humour and simplicity. On hearing his visitors' remarks about their captives, he at once paid them a visit and a few leading questions put to Harold through Antonio convinced him that the prisoners were true men. He therefore returned to his black visitors, told them that he had perfect confidence in the good faith of the white men, and said that he meant to take charge of them. He then entertained his black brothers hospitably, gave them a few presents, and sent them on their way. This done he returned to his guests and told them that they were free, that their captors were gone, and that they might go where they pleased, but that it would gratify him much if they would consent to spend some time hunting with him in the neighbourhood of his village.

"Now," said Disco, after Yambo left them, "this is wot I call the most uncommon fix that ever wos got into by man since Adam an' Eve began housekeepin' in the garden of Eden."

"I'm not quite sure," replied Harold, with a rueful look, "that it is absolutely the _worst_ fix, but it is bad enough. The worst of it is that this Yambo has let these rascals off with all our fire-arms and camp-equipage, so that we are absolutely helpless--might as well be prisoners, for we can't quit this village in such circumstances."

"Wot's wuss than that to my mind, sir, is, that here we are at sea, in the heart of Afriky, without chart, quadrant, compass, or rudder, an' no more idea of our whereabouts than one o' them spider monkeys that grins among the trees. Hows'ever, we're in luck to fall into the hands of a friendly chief, so, like these same monkeys, we must grin an' bear it; only I can't help feelin' a bit cast down at the loss of our messmates. I fear there's no chance of their findin' us."

"Not the least chance in the world, I should say," returned Harold. "They could not guess in which direction we had gone, and unless they had hit on the right road at first, every step they took afterwards would only widen the distance between us."

"It's lucky I was beginnin' to mend before we was catched," said Disco, feeling the muscles of his legs; "true, I ain't much to boast of yet but I'm improvin'."

"That is more than I can say for myself," returned Harold, with a sigh, as he passed his hand across his forehead; "I feel as if this last push through the woods in the hot sun, and the weight of that terrible slave-stick had been almost too much for me."

Disco looked earnestly and anxiously into the face of his friend.

"Wot," asked he, "does you feel?"

"I can scarcely tell," replied Harold, with a faint smile. "Oh, I suppose I'm a little knocked up, that's all. A night's rest will put me all right."

"So I thought myself, but I wos wrong," said Disco. "Let's hear wot your feelin's is, sir; I'm as good as any doctor now, I am, in regard to symptoms."

"Well, I feel a sort of all-overishness, a kind of lassitude and sleepiness, with a slight headache, and a dull pain which appears to be creeping up my spine."

"You're in for it sir," said Disco. "It's lucky you have always carried the physic in your pockets, 'cause you'll need it, an' it's lucky, too, that I am here and well enough to return tit for tat and nurse you, 'cause you'll have that 'ere pain in your spine creep up your back and round your ribs till it lays hold of yer shoulders, where it'll stick as if it had made up its mind to stay there for ever an' a day. Arter that you'll get cold an' shivering like ice--oh! doesn't I know it well--an' then hot as fire, with heavy head, an' swimming eyes, an' twisted sight, an' confusion of--"

"Hold! hold!" cried Harold, laughing, "if you go on in that way I shall have more than my fair share of it! Pray stop, and leave me a little to find out for myself."

"Well, sir, take a purge, and turn in at once, that's my advice. I'll dose you with quinine to-morrow mornin', first thing," said Disco, rising and proceeding forthwith to arrange a couch in a corner of the hut, which Yambo had assigned them.

Harold knew well enough that his follower was right. He took his advice without delay, and next morning found himself little better than a child, both physically and mentally, for the disease not only prostrated his great strength--as it had that of his equally robust companion--but, at a certain stage, induced delirium, during which he talked the most ineffable nonsense that his tongue could pronounce, or his brain conceive.

Poor Disco, who, of course, had been unable to appreciate the extent of his own delirious condition, began to fear that his leader's mind was gone for ever, and Jumbo was so depressed by the unutterably solemn expression of the mariner's once jovial countenance, that he did not once show his teeth for a whole week, save when engaged with meals.

As for Antonio, his nature not being very sympathetic, and his health being good, he rather enjoyed the quiet life and good living which characterised the native village, and secretly hoped that Harold might remain on the sick-list for a considerable time to come.

How long this state of affairs lasted we cannot tell, for both Harold and Disco lost the correct record of time during their respective illnesses.

Up to that period they had remembered the days of the week, in consequence of their habit of refraining from going out to hunt on Sundays, except when a dearth of meat in the larder rendered hunting a necessity. Upon these Sundays Harold's conscience sometimes reproached him for having set out on his journey into Africa without a Bible. He whispered, to himself at first, and afterwards suggested to Disco, the excuse that his Bible had been lost in the wreck of his father's vessel, and that, perhaps, there were no Bibles to be purchased in Zanzibar, but his conscience was a troublesome one, and refused to tolerate such bad reasoning, reminding him, reproachfully, that he had made no effort whatever to obtain a Bible at Zanzibar.

As time had passed, and some of the horrors of the slave-trade had been brought under his notice, many of the words of Scripture leaped to his remembrance, and the regret that he had not carried a copy with him increased. That touch of thoughtlessness, so natural to the young and healthy--to whom life has so far been only a garden of roses--was utterly routed by the stern and dreadful realities which had been recently enacted around him, and just in proportion as he was impressed with the lies, tyranny, cruelty, and falsehood of man, so did his thoughtful regard for the truth and the love of God increase, especially those truths that were most directly opposed to the traffic in human flesh, such as--"love your enemies," "seek peace with all men," "be kindly affectioned one to another," "whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so to them." An absolute infidel, he thought, could not fail to perceive that a most blessed change would come over the face of Africa if such principles prevailed among its inhabitants, even in an extremely moderate degree.

But to return, the unfortunate travellers were now "at sea" altogether in regard to the Sabbath as well as the day of the month. Indeed their minds were not very clear as to the month itself!

"Hows'ever," said Disco, when this subject afterwards came to be discussed, "it don't matter much. Wot is it that the Scriptur' says,--`Six days shalt thou labour an' do all that thou hast to do, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. In it thou shalt do no work.' I wos used always to stick at that pint w'en my poor mother was a-teachin' of me. Never got past it. But it's enough for present use anyhow, for the orders is, work six days an' don't work the seventh. Werry good, we'll begin to-day an' call it Monday; we'll work for six days, an' w'en the seventh day comes we'll call it Sunday. If it ain't the right day, _we_ can't help it; moreover, wot's the odds? It's the _seventh_ day, so that to us it'll be the Sabbath."

But we anticipate. Harold was still--at the beginning of this digression--in the delirium of fever, though there were symptoms of improvement about him.

One afternoon one of these symptoms was strongly manifested in a long, profound slumber. While he slept Disco sat on a low stool beside him, busily engaged with a clasp-knife on some species of manufacture, the nature of which was not apparent at a glance.

His admirer, Jumbo, was seated on a stool opposite, gazing at him open-mouthed, with a countenance that reflected every passing feeling of his dusky bosom.

Both men were so deeply absorbed in their occupation--Disco in his manufacture, and Jumbo in staring at Disco--that they failed for a considerable time to observe that Harold had wakened suddenly, though quietly, and was gazing at them with a look of lazy, easy-going surprise.

The mariner kept up a running commentary on his work, addressed to Jumbo indeed, but in a quiet interjectional manner that seemed to imply that he