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Read books online » Fiction » Blue Lights: Hot Work in the Soudan by R. M. Ballantyne (famous ebook reader .txt) 📖

Book online «Blue Lights: Hot Work in the Soudan by R. M. Ballantyne (famous ebook reader .txt) đŸ“–Â». Author R. M. Ballantyne



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men who have gone in for drink as much as you have, is total-abstinence; and I regard it as an evidence of God’s love to you that He has brought you here—”

“God’s love that brought me here!” exclaimed the soldier in surprise. “Well, that is a view o’ the case that don’t seem quite plain.”

“Plain enough if you open your eyes wide enough. See here: If you was in camp now, with your present notions, and was to determine to give up drink, you’d have to face and fight two most tremendous devils. One devil is called Craving, the other is called Temptation, and all the Arabs in the Soudan rolled into one are not so terrible or so strong as these two when a man is left to fight them by himself. Now, is it not a sign of our Father’s love that he has, by bringing you here, removed the devil Temptation entirely out of your way, for you can’t get strong drink here for love or money. So, you see, you have only got Craving to fight, and that’s encouraging, ain’t it?”

“D’ye know, I believe you are not far wrong,” said Simkin, gravely; “and it is encouraging to know that Temptation’s out o’ the way, for I feel that the other devil has got me by the throat even now, and that it’s him as has weakened me so much.”

“That’s it, friend. You’ve got the truth by the tail now, so hold on; but, at the same time, don’t be too hard on Craving. It’s not his fault that he’s here. You have poured liquor down your throat to him daily, and cultivated his acquaintance, and helped him to increase his strength regularly, for many months—it may be for years. I don’t want to be hard on you, lad, but it’s of no use shiftin’ the burden on to the wrong shoulders. It is not Craving but you who are the sinner. Now, as to advice: do you really want it?”

“Well,” replied Simkin, with a “humph!” “it will be time enough for you to shut up when I sound the ‘cease firing!’”

“My advice, then, is that you go down on your knees, plead guilty straight off, and ask for grace to help you in your time of need.”

“What! go down on my knees here before all them Arabs? If I did, they’d not only laugh at me, but they’d soon rouse me up with their spears.”

“I’m not so sure about that, Simkin. Arabs are accustomed to go on their own knees a good deal in public. It is chiefly Christians who, strange to say, are ashamed to be caught in that position at odd times. But I speak not of ceremonies, but of realities. A man may go on his knees, without bending a joint, any time and everywhere. Now, listen: there is this difference between the courts of men and the court of heaven, that in the former, when a man pleads guilty, his sentence is only modified and softened, but in the latter, the man who pleads guilty receives a free pardon and ultimate deliverance from all sin for the sake of Jesus Christ. Will you accept this deliverance, my friend?”

What the soldier replied in his heart we cannot tell, for his voice was silent. Before the conversation could be resumed a halt was called, to partake of the midday meal and rest.

That evening the party came upon a strange and animated scene. It was one of the mountain camps of Osman Digna, where men were assembling from all quarters to swell the hordes with which their chief hoped to drive the hated Europeans into the Red Sea. Camels and other beasts of burden were bringing in supplies for the vast army, and to this spot had been brought the poor fellows who had been wounded in recent battles.

Here the captives were thrust into a small dark hut and left to their meditations, while a couple of Arab sentries guarded the door.

Chapter Twenty Three. Shows that Suffering tends to draw out Sympathy.

The word captivity, even when it refers to civilised lands and peoples, conveys, we suspect, but a feeble and incorrect idea to the minds of those who have never been in a state of personal bondage. Still less do we fully appreciate its dread significance when it refers to foreign lands and barbarous people.

It was not so much the indignities to which the captive Britons were subjected that told upon them ultimately, as the hard, grinding, restless toil, and the insufficient food and rest—sometimes accompanied with absolute corporeal pain.

“A merciful man is merciful to his beast.” There is not much of mercy to his beast in an Arab. We have seen an Arab, in Algiers, who made use of a sore on his donkey’s back as a sort of convenient spur! It is exhausting to belabour a thick-skinned and obstinate animal with a stick. It is much easier, and much more effective, to tickle up a sore, kept open for the purpose, with a little bit of stick, while comfortably seated on the creature’s back. The fellow we refer to did that. We do not say or think that all Arabs are cruel; very far from it, but we hold that, as a race, they are so. Their great prophet taught them cruelty by example and precept, and the records of history, as well as of the African slave-trade, bear witness to the fact that their “tender mercies” are not and never have been conspicuous!

At first, as we have shown, indignities told pretty severely on the unfortunate Englishmen. But, as time went on, and they were taken further and further into the interior, and heavy burdens were daily bound on their shoulders, and the lash was frequently applied to urge them on, the keen sense of insult which had at first stirred them into wild anger became blunted, and at last they reached that condition of partial apathy which renders men almost indifferent to everything save rest and food. Even the submissive Stevenson was growing callous. In short, that process had begun which usually ends in making men either brutes or martyrs.

As before, we must remark that Jack Molloy was to some extent an exception. It did seem as if nothing but death itself could subdue that remarkable man. His huge frame was so powerful that he seemed to be capable of sustaining any weight his tyrants chose to put upon him. And the influence of hope was so strong within him that it raised him almost entirely above the region of despondency.

This was fortunate for his comrades in misfortune, for it served to keep up their less vigorous spirits.

There was one thing about the seaman, however, which they could not quite reconcile with his known character. This was a tendency to groan heavily when he was being loaded. To be sure, there was not much reason for wonder, seeing that the Arabs forced the Herculean man to carry nearly double the weight borne by any of his companions, but then, as Miles once confidentially remarked to Armstrong, “I thought that Jack Molloy would rather have died than have groaned on account of the weight of his burden; but, after all, it is a tremendously heavy one—poor fellow!”

One day the Arabs seemed to be filled with an unusual desire to torment their victims. A man had passed the band that day on a fast dromedary, and the prisoners conjectured that he might have brought news of some defeat of their friends, which would account for their increased cruelty. They were particularly hard on Molloy that day, as if they regarded him as typical of British strength, and, therefore, an appropriate object of revenge. After the midday rest, they not only put on him his ordinary burden, but added to the enormous weight considerably, so that the poor fellow staggered under it, and finally fell down beneath it, with a very dismal groan indeed!

Of course the lash was at once applied, and under its influence the sailor rose with great difficulty, and staggered forward a few paces, but only to fall again. This time, however, he did not wait for the lash, but made very determined efforts of his own accord to rise and advance, without showing the smallest sign of resentment. Even his captors seemed touched, for one of them removed a small portion of his burden, so that, thereafter, the poor fellow proceeded with less difficulty, though still with a little staggering and an occasional groan.

That night they reached a village near the banks of a broad river, where they put up for the night. After their usual not too heavy supper was over, the prisoners were thrust into a sort of hut or cattle-shed, and left to make themselves as comfortable as they could on the bare floor.

“I don’t feel quite so much inclined for sleep to-night,” said Miles to Molloy.

“No more do I,” remarked the sailor, stretching himself like a wearied Goliath on the earthen floor, and placing his arms under his head for a pillow.

“I feel pretty well used up too,” said Simkin, throwing himself down with a sigh that was more eloquent than his tongue. He was indeed anything but Rattling Bill by that time.

Moses Pyne being, like his great namesake, a meek man, sympathised with the others, but said nothing about himself, though his looks betrayed him. Armstrong and Stevenson were silent. They seemed too much exhausted to indulge in speech.

“Poor fellow!” said Moses to Molloy, “I don’t wonder you are tired, for you not only carried twice as much as any of us, but you took part of my load. Indeed he did, comrades,” added Moses, turning to his friends with an apologetic air. “I didn’t want him to do it, but he jerked part o’ my load suddenly out o’ my hand an’ wouldn’t give it up again; an’, you know, I didn’t dare to make a row, for that would have brought the lash down on both of us. But I didn’t want him to carry so much, an’ him so tired.”

“Tired!” exclaimed the sailor, with a loud laugh. “Why, I warn’t tired a bit. An’, you know, you’d have dropped down, Moses, if I hadn’t helped ye at that time.”

“Well, I confess I was ready to drop,” returned Moses, with a humbled look; “but I would much rather have dropped than have added to your burden. How can you say you wasn’t tired when you had fallen down only five minutes before, an’ groaned heavily when you rose, and your legs trembled so? I could see it!”

To this the seaman’s only reply was the expansion of his huge but handsome mouth, the display of magnificent teeth, the disappearance of both eyes, and a prolonged quiet chuckle.

“Why, what’s the matter with you, Jack?” asked Stevenson.

“Nothin’s the matter wi’ me, old man—’cept—”

Here he indulged in another chuckle.

“Goin’ mad, with over-fatigue,” said Simkin, looking suspiciously at him.

“Ay, that’s it, messmate, clean mad wi’ over-fatigue.”

He wiped his eyes with the hairy back of his hand, for the chuckling, being hearty, had produced a few tears.

“No, but really, Jack, what is it you’re laughing at?” asked Armstrong. “If there is a joke you might as well let us have the benefit of laughing along wi’ you, for we stand much in need of something to cheer us here.”

“Well, Billy boy, I may as well make a clean breast of it,” said Molloy, raising himself on one elbow and becoming grave. “I do confess to feelin’ raither ashamed o’ myself, but you mustn’t be hard on me, lads, for circumstances alters cases, you know, as Solomon said—leastwise if it warn’t him it was Job or somebody else. The fact is, I’ve bin shammin’, mates!”

“Shamming!”

“Ay, shammin’ weak. Purtendin’ that I was shaky on the legs, an’ so not quite up to the cargo they were puttin’ aboard o’ me.”

“If what you’ve been doing means shamming weak, I’d like to see

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