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- Author: H. Rider Haggard
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“No, you won’t,” I interrupted, through Sammy; “at any rate, not at present. You will come with us.”
The miserable Hassan reflected, then he asked:
“Lord Quatermain” (I remember the title, because it is the nearest I ever got, or am likely to get, to the peerage), “if I furnish you with the twenty bearers and accompany you for some days on your journey inland, will you promise not to signal to your countrymen on the ship and bring them ashore?”
“What do you think?” I asked of Stephen.
“Oh!” he answered, “I think I’d agree. This scoundrel has had a pretty good dusting, and if once the Crocodile people land, there’ll be an end of our expedition. As sure as eggs are eggs they will carry us off to Zanzibar or somewhere to give evidence before a slave court. Also nothing will be gained, for by the time the sailors get here, all these rascals will have bolted, except our friend, Hassan. You see it isn’t as though we were sure he would be hung. He’d probably escape after all. International law, subject of a foreign Power, no direct proof—that kind of thing, you know.”
“Give me a minute or two,” I said, and began to reflect very deeply.
Whilst I was thus engaged several things happened. I saw twenty natives being escorted towards us, doubtless the bearers who had been promised; also I saw many others, accompanied by other natives, flying from the village into the bush. Lastly, a third messenger arrived, who announced that the Maria was sailing away, apparently in charge of a prize-crew, and that the man-of-war was putting about as though to accompany her. Evidently she had no intention of effecting a landing upon what was, nominally at any rate, Portuguese territory. Therefore, if anything was to be done, we must act at once.
Well, the end of it was that, like a fool, I accepted Stephen’s advice and did nothing, always the easiest course and generally that which leads to most trouble. Ten minutes afterwards I changed my mind, but then it was too late; the Crocodile was out of signalling distance. This was subsequent to a conversation with Hans.
“Baas,” said that worthy, in his leery fashion, “I think you have made a mistake. You forget that these yellow devils in white robes who have run away will come back again, and that when you return from up country, they may be waiting for you. Now if the English man-of-war had destroyed their town, and their slave-sheds, they might have gone somewhere else. However,” he added, as an afterthought, glancing at the disfigured Hassan, “we have their captain, and of course you mean to hang him, Baas. Or if you don’t like to, leave it to me. I can hang men very well. Once, when I was young, I helped the executioner at Cape Town.”
“Get out,” I said, but, nevertheless, I knew that Hans was right.
CHAPTER VI
THE SLAVE ROAD
The twenty bearers having arrived, in charge of five or six Arabs armed with guns, we went to inspect them, taking Hassan with us, also the hunters. They were a likely lot of men, though rather thin and scared-looking, and evidently, as I could see from their physical appearance and varying methods of dressing the hair, members of different tribes. Having delivered them, the Arabs, or rather one of them, entered into excited conversation with Hassan. As Sammy was not at hand I do not know what was said, although I gathered that they were contemplating his rescue. If so, they gave up the idea and began to run away as their companions had done. One of them, however, a bolder fellow than the rest, turned and fired at me. He missed by some yards, as I could tell from the sing of the bullet, for these Arabs are execrable shots. Still his attempt at murder irritated me so much that I determined he should not go scot-free. I was carrying the little rifle called “Intombi,” that with which, as Hans had reminded me, I shot the vultures at Dingaan’s kraal many years before. Of course, I could have killed the man, but this I did not wish to do. Or I could have shot him through the leg, but then we should have had to nurse him or leave him to die! So I selected his right arm, which was outstretched as he fled, and at about fifty paces put a bullet through it just above the elbow.
“There,” I said to the Zulus as I saw it double up, “that low fellow will never shoot at anyone again.”
“Pretty, Macumazana, very pretty!” said Mavovo, “but as you can aim so well, why not have chosen his head? That bullet is half-wasted.”
Next I set to work to get into communication with the bearers, who thought, poor devils, that they had been but sold to a new master. Here I may explain that they were slaves not meant for exportation, but men kept to cultivate Hassan’s gardens. Fortunately I found that two of them belonged to the Mazitu people, who it may be remembered are of the same blood as the Zulus, although they separated from the parent stock generations ago. These men talked a dialect that I could understand, though at first not very easily. The foundation of it was Zulu, but it had become much mixed with the languages of other tribes whose women the Mazitu had taken to wife.
Also there was a man who could speak some bastard Arabic, sufficiently well for Sammy to converse with him.
I asked the Mazitus if they knew the way back to their country. They answered yes, but it was far off, a full month’s journey. I told them that if they would guide us thither, they should receive their freedom and good pay, adding that if the other men served us well, they also should be set free when we had done with them. On receiving this information the poor wretches smiled in a sickly fashion and looked at Hassan-ben-Mohammed, who glowered at them and us from the box on which he was seated in charge of Mavovo.
How can we be free while that man lives, their look seemed to say. As though to confirm their doubts Hassan, who understood or guessed what was passing, asked by what right we were promising freedom to his slaves.
“By right of that,” I answered, pointing to the Union Jack which Stephen still had in his hand. “Also we will pay you for them when we return, according as they have served us.”
“Yes,” he muttered, “you will pay me for them when you return, or perhaps before that, Englishman.”
It was three o’clock in the afternoon before we were able to make a start. There was so much to be arranged that it might have been wiser to wait till the morrow, had we not determined that if we could help it nothing
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