Harry Milvaine Part 32

His men and himself were rowed on sh.o.r.e in the last boat that left that doomed slave dhow.

In this boat sat that grim dark Arab I have introduced to the reader at the commencement of this chapter.

For some time he sat sternly regarding Harry. The young Highlander returned the gaze with interest.

"Would you not like," he said at last, "to know your fate?"

"No. And if it be death, I know how to face it."

"It _is_ death. It _is_ justice, not revenge. I am Suliemon. I was captain of that dhow. Now you know all and can prepare."

Like his poor men, Harry was bound hands and feet and placed by their side, fully exposed to the fierce glare of the tropical sun.

How very long the day seemed! But the evening came at last. Then great fires were lighted on the beach, the flare falling far athwart the waves, and giving the breaking waters the appearance of newly drawn blood.

The scene was wild in the extreme; only the pen of a d.i.c.kens and the pencil of a Rembrandt could have done justice to it. The trembling group of slaves--the waves had sadly thinned their ranks--lying, squatting, or standing on the sands, the poor white men, with pained, sad faces, the rude cords cutting into ankles and wrists, the wild gesticulating armed Indians, and the tall figure in white gliding, ghostlike, here, there, and everywhere.

One of the boats belonging to the _Bunting_ was now carried to the rear, and on his back across the thwarts, still bound, Harry was placed. Dry wood was piled beneath him. Dry wood was piled all round the boat.

He shut his eyes and commended himself to Heaven. Even then he thought of his poor father and mother far away in their bonnie Highland home, and he prayed that they might never know the fate that had befallen him.

The Indians formed themselves into a fiendish circle, and danced, yelling, around him, brandis.h.i.+ng sword and spear.

But the dark Arab commanded silence.

"Your hour has come," he said, solemnly.

"This," he added, "_is_ justice, not revenge."

Note 1. What is called sherbet on the Eastern sh.o.r.e of Africa is a fruit syrup of most delicious flavour and odour. It is mixed with water and drunk as a beverage. Certainly a great improvement on the _eau sucre_ of our ancestors.

Book 3--CHAPTER TWO.

HARRY IS MADE A SLAVE--THE JOURNEY INLAND--ESCAPE.

As he spoke these dread words the dark-skinned Arab seized a lighted torch from an Indian, and was about to apply it to the pyre, when his arm was struck upwards, and the torch alighted harmlessly on the soft sand.

It was Mahmoud who had struck the blow.

For a moment the two men stood confronting each other. Even Mahmoud now had a drawn sword in his hand.

"For his worthless life," cried the latter, "I care not, but for your eternal welfare, brother, I do. I have saved you from a deadly sin.

Take not thus rashly away the life you cannot give."

"Back!" he shouted to the Somali Indians, and they shrank cowering and silent before the wrath of this strange being whom they called a prophet.

With a sharp knife he now severed Harry's cords, and bade him stand up.

"You are my prisoner," said Mahmoud in good English; "you are _my slave_. If you make no attempt to escape, you shall be comparatively free; attempt to fly, and--"

He tapped the hilt of his sword as he spoke, and Harry knew only too well what was meant.

He pa.s.sed a sleepless night until within an hour or two of morning, when he dozed off into a pained and dreamful slumber, from which he was roused at daybreak by Mahmoud himself. To his great surprise and grief, the beach was almost deserted. Some armed Indians still lay near the white ashes of the dead fires, but his men, the other Arab, and all the rest of the Somalis were gone.

"Eat," said Mahmoud, "you have far to go." He placed a dish of fragrant curry before him as he spoke, and Harry partook of it mechanically.

"Where am I to be taken to?" he inquired of this warlike priest.

"Ask nothing," was the reply. "I have saved your life, be thankful to Allah. Prepare to march."

Surrounded by armed, grinning Somalis, many bearing parcels on their heads, with Mahmoud trudging on in front, the journey was commenced, straight away across the sandy hills, where only here and there some little tuft of gra.s.s or some pale green weed was growing.

At the top of the ridge Harry, in spite of his guard, paused for a moment to look back. Never, he thought, had the sea looked more lovely.

Save where in whitish yellow patches the coral shoals were showing, the whole surface, unrippled by a wavelet, was of a deep cerulean blue.

Here and there a shark's fin made the water tremble, and here and there a white bird floated.

"Oh," he thought, "could he only be as free as one of those happy sea-birds! But never again," he sighed; "no, never again!"

Even in the morning the sun was fiercely hot, but towards noon it became almost insupportable, and Harry was glad indeed when green things appeared at last, and the halt was made in the shade of a little forest land--a kind of oasis in a barren desert. Here was a cool spring and a few cocoanut trees.

Some of the Somalis climbed these as one climbs a ladder, holding on like monkeys to little stirrup-like steps that ran all up one side of the trees. They then cut and threw down some of the greenest, and Harry, in grief though he was, was glad enough to regale himself on the proffered fruit. They were filled princ.i.p.ally with "milk," for the nut itself was hardly yet formed, otherwise than as a transparent jelly.

It may interest some of my young readers to know how the water or milk of the cocoanut is got at, after the great nut has been thrown to the ground by the monkey-like boy in the tree.

Cocoanut trees grow all over the tropical world, and their appearance must be familiar to every one--immensely tall stems with feathery-like tops formed of great palmate leaves. The stems are hardly as thick as an ordinary larch, and they are seldom altogether straight. Close to the tree-top, and in under the leaves, as if to hide from the blazing sun, grow the nuts. When large enough for use one or two are culled.

The nut itself is covered by the thick, green husk--that which Sally scrubs the kitchen floor with at home here in England; it is young now, however, but tough enough. The "n.i.g.g.e.r" at the tree-foot, who has been very careful to look after his own nut while the fruit came tumbling down, now thrusts a stake pointed at both ends into the ground; against the protruding point he strikes the top of the cocoanut with all his force again and again till he has forced open a portion of husk. Then his knife comes into play, and presently he has quite cut away the top of the husk and nut as well, for the sh.e.l.l is still soft. Then he hands you the cool green cup, and before drinking you look inside and see only water with just a little clear jelly adhering to the inside of the sh.e.l.l. You drink and drink and drink again--there is probably about a pint and a quarter of it. Oh, how sweet, how cold--yes, _cold_--how delicious it is! Probably after you have drunk all the water, you may care to eat some of the jelly, which you scoop out with your knife the best way you can. Well, you will confess when you try it that you never really tasted cocoanut before. Neither Christmas pudding, nor custard, nor anything ever you ate in life is anything to be compared to it.

Yes, the cocoanut tree is well suited to the climate in which it grows; it is a G.o.d-gift to the native and to travellers from foreign lands. I may add that it is chiefly near the sea you find the cocoanut tree, for it is a thirsty soul. And no wonder. Look at those broad, green leaves expanded to the sun, from which the sap must be constantly evaporating.

When cruising on the sh.o.r.es of Africa in open boats, towards evening we used to look out for a part of the coast, where we saw cocoanut trees rearing their nodding heads high in air. There we used to land, certain that we would find native huts and human beings at the foot of them, from whom we could buy fowls to make our c.o.c.k-a-leekie soup and stew, previously to pulling off from the sh.o.r.e and lying at anchor to wait the coming morn.

All this is a digression, still I have no doubt it will be found interesting to some, and the others are welcome to skip it.

After a few hours of grateful rest, on went the caravan, Mahmoud himself at its head, trudging steadily, st.u.r.dily along, his eyes for the most part cast on the ground, and leaning on his spear. He never deigned to address a word to Harry--not that Harry cared much for that, for his back was turned to the sea, he was leaving all he cared for in the world, and going into exile, going he knew not whither. His prospects were as dreary as the scenery around him, and what is more heartless to behold than a barren plain stretching away apparently to the illimitable, without hill and with hardly rising ground, stunted bushes here and there, and beneath one's feet the everlasting scrubby, "benty,"

half-scorched gra.s.s? He thought this day would never end, that the sun would never decline towards the hazy horizon. But it did at last. It went round and stared them in the face; then it seemed to sink more rapidly, and finally--all a blaze of purple red--it went down.

The short twilight was occupied by Mahmoud and his yellow-skinned minions in preparing for the night's bivouac.

Wood was collected, a clearing was found on which to build a fire, and by and by supper was cooked.

Then Mahmoud retired to prayers!

He took a little carpet, and, going to a distance away, knelt down, then threw himself on his face in a devotion which I doubt not was sincere enough. We ought not to despise the Mahometan religion, nor any religion, for _any_ religion is better than none. Oh! woe is me for the boy or girl who retires to bed without having first felt grateful for the past, and commended his or her soul to Him for the night!

Harry Milvaine did not forget to pray.

No, he did not; and, like a Scotch boy, he always concluded his devotions with our Lord's Prayer; but ah! how hard he thought it to-night to breathe those words, "Thy will be done"! It seemed that Heaven itself had deserted him.