Black Ivory by Robert Michael Ballantyne (best autobiographies to read .txt) 📖

as the armed guard had commenced the toilsome march over ground into which they sank knee-deep at every step.

The first man of the gang hesitated and heaved a deep sigh as though his heart failed him at the prospect--and well it might, for, although young, he was not robust, and over-driving, coupled with the weight and the chafing of the goree, had worn him to a skeleton.

It was not the policy of the slave-traders to take much care of their Black Ivory. They procured it so cheaply that it was easier and more profitable to lose or cast away some of it, than to put off time in resting and recruiting the weak.

The moment it was observed, therefore, that the leading man hesitated, one of the drivers gave him a slash across his naked back with a heavy whip which at once drew blood. Poor wretch; he could ill bear further loss of the precious stream of life, for it had already been deeply drained from him by the slave-stick. The chafing of that instrument of torture had not only worn the skin off his shoulders, but had cut into the quivering flesh, so that blood constantly dropped in small quantities from it.

No cry burst from the man's lips on receiving the cruel blow, but he turned his eyes on his captors with a look that seemed to implore for mercy. As well might he have looked for mercy at the hands of Satan. The lash again fell on him with stinging force. He made a feeble effort to advance, staggered, and fell to the ground, dragging down the man to whom he was coupled with such violence as almost to break his neck. The lash was again about to be applied to make him rise, but Disco and Harold rose simultaneously and rushed at the driver, with what intent they scarcely knew; but four armed half-castes stepped between them and the slave.

"You had better not interfere," said Marizano, who stood close by.

"Out of the way!" cried Harold fiercely, in the strength of his passion hurling aside the man who opposed him.

"You shan't give him another cut," said Disco between his teeth, as he seized the driver by the throat.

"We don't intend to do so," said Marizano coolly, while the driver released himself from poor Disco's weakened grasp, "he won't need any more."

The Englishmen required no explanation of these words. A glance told them that the man was dying.

"Cut him out," said Marizano.

One of his men immediately brought a saw and cut the fork of the stick which still held the living to the dying man, and which, being riveted on them, could not otherwise be removed.

Harold and Disco lifted him up as soon as he was free, and carrying him a short distance aside to a soft part of the bank, laid him gently down.

The dying slave looked as if he were surprised at such unwonted tenderness. There was even a slight smile on his lips for a few moments, but it quickly passed away with the fast ebbing tide of life.

"Go fetch some water," said Harold. "His lips are dry."

Disco rose and ran to fill a small cocoa-nut-shell which he carried at his girdle as a drinking-cup. Returning with it he moistened the man's lips and poured a little of the cool water on the raw sores on each side of his neck.

They were so much engrossed with their occupation that neither of them observed that the slave-gang had commenced to pass through the swamp, until the sharp cry of a child drew their attention to it for a moment; but, knowing that they could do no good, they endeavoured to shut their eyes and ears to everything save the duty they had in hand.

By degrees the greater part of the long line had got into the swamp and were slowly toiling through it under the stimulus of the lash. Some, like the poor fellow who first fell, had sunk under their accumulated trials, and after a fruitless effort on the part of the slavers to drive them forward, had been kicked aside into the jungle, there to die, or to be torn in pieces by that ever-watchful scavenger of the wilderness, the hyena. These were chiefly women, who having become mothers not long before were unable to carry their infants and keep up with the gang. Others, under the intense dread of flagellation, made the attempt, and staggered on a short distance, only to fall and be left behind in the pestilential swamp, where rank reeds and grass closed over them and formed a ready grave.

The difficulties of the swamp were, however, felt most severely by the children, who, from little creatures of not much more than five years of age to well-grown boys and girls, were mingled with and chained to the adults along the line. Their comparatively short legs were not well adapted for such ground, and not a few of them perished there; but although the losses here were terribly numerous in one sense, they after all bore but a small proportion to those whose native vigour carried them through in safety.

Among the men there were some whose strength of frame and fierce expression indicated untameable spirits--men who might have been, probably were, heroes among their fellows. It was for men of this stamp that the _goree_, or slave-stick, had been invented, and most effectually did that instrument serve its purpose. Samson himself would have been a mere child in it.

There were men in the gang quite as bold, if not as strong, as Samson. One of these, a very tall and powerful negro, on drawing near to the place where Marizano stood superintending the passage, turned suddenly aside, and, although coupled by the neck to a fellow-slave, and securely bound at the wrists with a cord, which was evidently cutting into his swelled flesh, made a desperate kick at the half-caste leader.

Although the slave failed to reach him, Marizano was so enraged that he drew a hatchet from his belt and instantly dashed out the man's brains. He fell dead without even a groan. Terrified by this, the rest passed on more rapidly, and there was no further check till a woman in the line, with an infant on her back, stumbled, and, falling down, appeared unable to rise.

"Get up!" shouted Marizano, whose rage had rather been increased than abated by the murder he had just committed.

The woman rose and attempted to advance, but seemed ready to fall again. Seeing this, Marizano plucked the infant from her back, dashed it against a tree, and flung its quivering body into the jungle, while a terrible application of the lash sent the mother shrieking into the swamp. [See Livingstone's _Zambesi and its Tributaries_, page 857; and for a record of cruelties too horrible to be set down in a book like this, we refer the reader to McLeod's _Travels in Eastern Africa_, volume two page 26. Also to the Appendix of Captain Sulivan's _Dhow-Chasing in Zanzibar Waters_, which contains copious and interesting extracts from evidence taken before the Select Committee of the House of Commons.]

Harold and Disco did not witness this, though they heard the shriek of despair, for at the moment the negro they were tending was breathing his last. When his eyes had closed and the spirit had been set free, they rose, and, purposely refraining from looking back, hurried away from the dreadful scene, intending to plunge into the swamp at some distance from the place, and push on until they should regain the head of the column.

"Better if we'd never fallen behind, sir," said Disco, in a deep, tremulous voice.

"True," replied Harold. "We should have been spared these sights, and the pain of knowing that we cannot prevent this appalling misery and cruelty."

"But surely it is to be prevented _somehow_," cried Disco, almost fiercely. "Many a war that has cost mints o' money has been carried on for causes that ain't worth mentionin' in the same breath with _this_!"

As Harold knew not what to say, and was toiling knee-deep in the swamp at the moment he made no reply.

After marching about half an hour he stopped abruptly and said, with a heavy sigh,--"I hope we haven't missed our way?"

"Hope not sir, but it looks like as if we had."

"I've bin so took up thinkin' o' that accursed traffic in human bein's that I've lost my reckonin'. Howsever, we can't be far out, an', with the sun to guide us, we'll--"

He was stopped by a loud halloo in the woods, on the belt of the swamp.

It was repeated in a few seconds, and Antonio, who, with Jumbo, had followed his master, cried in an excited tone--

"Me knows dat sound!"

"Wot may it be, Tony?" asked Disco.

There was neither time nor need for an answer, for at that moment a ringing cry, something like a bad imitation of a British cheer, was heard, and a band of men sprang out of the woods and ran at full speed towards our Englishmen.

"Why, Zombo!" exclaimed Disco, wildly.

"Oliveira!" cried Harold.

"Masiko! Songolo!" shouted Antonio and Jumbo.

"An' Jose, Nakoda, Chimbolo, Mabruki!--the whole bun' of 'em," cried Disco, as one after another these worthies emerged from the wood and rushed in a state of frantic excitement towards their friends--"Hooray!"

"Hooroo-hay!" replied the runners.

In another minute our adventurous party of travellers was re-united, and for some time nothing but wild excitement, congratulations, queries that got no replies, and replies that ran tilt at irrelevant queries, with confusion worse confounded by explosions of unbounded and irrepressible laughter not unmingled with tears, was the order of the hour.

"But wat! yoos ill?" cried Zombo suddenly, looking into Disco's face with an anxious expression.

"Well, I ain't 'xac'ly ill, nor I ain't 'xac'ly well neither, but I'm hearty all the same, and werry glad to see your black face, Zombo."

"Ho! hooroo-hay! so's me for see you," cried the excitable Zombo; "but come, not good for talkee in de knees to watter. Fall in boy, ho! sholler 'ums--queek mash!"

That Zombo had assumed command of his party was made evident by the pat way in which he trolled off the words of command formerly taught to him by Harold, as well as by the prompt obedience that was accorded to his orders. He led the party out of the swamp, and, on reaching a dry spot, halted, in order to make further inquiries and answer questions.

"How did you find us, Zombo?" asked Harold, throwing himself wearily on the ground.

"_Yoos_ ill," said Zombo, holding up a finger by way of rebuke.

"So I am, though not so ill as I look. But come, answer me. How came you to discover us? You could not have found us by mere chance in this wilderness?"

"Chanz; wat am chanz?" asked the Makololo.

There was some difficulty in getting Antonio to explain the word, from the circumstance of himself being ignorant of it, therefore Harold put the question in a more direct form.

"Oh! ve comes here look for yoo, 'cause peepils d'reck 'ums--show de way. Ve's been veeks, monts, oh! _days_ look for yoo. Travil far-- g'rong road--turin bak--try agin--fin' yoo now--hooroo-hay!"

"You may say that, indeed. I'd have it