Dick Sands, the Boy Captain Part 31

He was right; the water had risen till it was quite six feet deep; none but Mrs. Weldon, Jack, Nan, and Cousin Benedict, who were lodged in the upper cells, were fairly above its surface.

d.i.c.k now came to his determination. At about a foot above the water-level, that is, about seven feet from the ground, he resolved to bore a hole through the clay. If he should find himself in communication with the open air, he would have the proof he desired that the top of the cone was still uncovered; if, on the other hand, he should ascertain that he had pierced the wall below the surface of the external water, he would be prepared to plug up the hole instantaneously, and repeat the experiment higher up. It was true that the inundation might have risen even fifteen feet above the plain; in that case the worst had come, and there was no alternative but that they must all die of asphyxia.

Carefully considering the chances of his undertaking, d.i.c.k calmly and steadily set about his task. The best instrument that suggested itself for his purpose was the ramrod of a gun, which, having a sort of corkscrew at the end for extracting the wadding, would serve as an auger. The hole would be very small, but yet large enough for the requisite test. Hercules showed him all the light he could by holding up the lantern. There were several candles left, so that they were not in fear of being altogether in darkness.

The operation hardly took a minute; the ramrod pa.s.sed through the clay without difficulty; a m.u.f.fled sound was distinguished as of air-bubbles rus.h.i.+ng through a column of water. As the air escaped, the water in the cone rose perceptibly. The hole had been pierced too low. A handful of clay was immediately forced into the orifice, which was thus effectually plugged; and d.i.c.k turned round quietly, and said,-

"We must try again."

The water had again become stationary, but its last rise had diminished the amount of breathing s.p.a.ce by more than eight inches. The supply of oxygen was beginning to fail, respiration was becoming difficult, and the flame of the candle burned red and dim.

About a foot higher than the first hole, d.i.c.k now set about boring a second. The experiment might again prove a failure, and the water rise yet higher in the cone; but the risk must be run.

Just as the auger was being inserted, a loud exclamation of delight was heard proceeding from Cousin Benedict's cell. d.i.c.k paused, and Hercules turned the lantern towards the excited naturalist, who seemed beaming with satisfaction.

"Yes, yes; I see it all well enough," he cried; "I know now why the termites left their home; they were wide-awake; they were more clever than we are; they knew that the storm was coming!"

Finding that this was all the worthy entomologist had

[Ill.u.s.tration: All fired simultaneously at the nearest boat.]

to communicate, d.i.c.k, without comment, turned back again to his operation. Again the gurgling noise! again the water's upward rus.h.!.+ For the second time he had failed to effect an aperture to the outer air!

The situation was to the last degree alarming. The water had all but reached Mrs. Weldon, and she was obliged to take her boy into her arms. Every one felt nearly stifled. A loud singing was heard in the ears, and the lantern showed barely any light at all. A few minutes more and the air would be incapable of supporting life. One chance alone remained. They must bore another hole at the very summit of the cone. Not that they were unaware of the imminent danger of this measure, for if the ant-hill were really submerged the water from below would immediately expel the remaining air and death must be instantaneous. A few brief words from d.i.c.k explained the emergency of the crisis. Mrs. Weldon recognized the necessity,-

"Yes, d.i.c.k, do it; there is nothing else to be done."

While she was speaking the light flickered out, and they were in total darkness.

Mounted on the shoulders of Hercules, who was crouching in one of the side-cells, his head only just above water, d.i.c.k proceeded to force the ramrod into the clay, which at the vertex of the ant-hill was considerably harder and thicker than elsewhere.

A strange mingling of hope and fear thrilled through d.i.c.k Sands as he applied his hand to make the opening which was to admit life and air, or the flood of death!

The silence of the general expectation was broken by the noise of a sharp hissing; the water rose for eight inches, but all at once it ceased to rise; it had found its level. No need this time to close the orifice; the top of the ant-hill was higher than the top of the flood; and for the present, at least, they could all rejoice that their lives were spared!

A general cheer, led by the stentorian voice of Hercules, involuntarily broke from the party; cutla.s.ses were brought into action, and the clay crumbled away beneath the vigorous a.s.sault that was made upon it. The welcome air was admitted through the new-made aperture, bringing with it the first rays of the rising sun. The summit of the ant-hill once removed, it would be quite easy to clamber to the top, whence it was hoped they would soon get away to some high ground out of reach of the flood.

d.i.c.k was the first to mount the summit; but a cry of dismay burst from his lips!

A sound only too well known to travellers in Africa broke upon his ear; that sound was the whizzing of arrows.

Hardly a hundred yards away was a large encampment; whilst, in the water, quite close to the ant-hill where he stood, he saw some long boats full of natives. From one of these had come the volley of arrows which had greeted his appearance above the opening of the cone.

To tell his people what had happened was the work of a moment. He seized his gun, and made Hercules, Bat, and Actaeon take theirs, and all fired simultaneously at the nearest boat. Several of the natives were seen to fall; but shouts of defiance were raised, and shots were fired in return.

Resistance was manifestly useless. What could they do against a hundred natives? they were a.s.sailed on every hand. In accordance with what seemed a preconcerted plan, they were carried off from the ant-hill with brutal violence, in two parties, without the chance of a farewell word or sign.

d.i.c.k Sands saw that Mrs. Weldon, Jack, and Cousin Benedict were placed on board one boat, and were conveyed towards the camp, whilst he himself, with the five negroes and old Nan, was forced into another, and taken in a different direction. Twenty natives formed a body-guard around them, and five boats followed in their rear.

Useless though it were, d.i.c.k and the negroes made one desperate attempt to maintain their freedom; they wounded several of their antagonists, and would doubtless have paid their lives as a penalty for their daring, if there had not been special orders given that they should be taken alive.

The pa.s.sage of the flood was soon accomplished. The boat had barely touched the sh.o.r.e, when Hercules with a

[Ill.u.s.tration: The giant clave their skulls with the b.u.t.t end of his gun.]

tremendous bound sprang on to the land. Instantly two natives rushed upon him. The giant clave their skulls with the b.u.t.t end of his gun, and made off. Followed though he was by a storm of bullets, he escaped in safety, and disappeared beneath the cover of the woods.

d.i.c.k Sands and the others were guarded to the sh.o.r.e, and fettered like slaves.

CHAPTER VII.

A SLAVE CARAVAN.

The storm of the previous night, by swelling the tributaries of the Coanza, had caused the main river to overflow its banks. The inundation had entirely changed the aspect of the country, transforming the plain into a lake, where the peaks of a number of ant-hills were the sole objects that emerged above the watery expanse.

The Coanza, which is one of the princ.i.p.al rivers of Angola, falls into the Atlantic about a hundred miles from the spot at which the "Pilgrim" was stranded. The stream, which a few years later was crossed by Cameron on his way to Benguela, seems destined to become the chief highway of traffic between Angola and the interior; steamers already ply upon its lower waters, and probably ten years will not elapse before they perform regular service along its entire course.

d.i.c.k Sands had been quite right in searching northwards for the navigable stream he had been so anxious to find; the rivulet he had been following fell into the Coanza scarce a mile away, and had it not been for this unexpected attack he and his friends might reasonably have hoped to descend the river upon a raft, until they reached one of the Portuguese forts where steam vessels put in. But their fate was ordered otherwise.

The camp which d.i.c.k had descried from the ant-hill was pitched upon an eminence crowned by an enormous sycamore-fig, one of those giant trees occasionally found in Central Africa, of which the spreading foliage will shelter some five hundred men. Some of the non-fruit-bearing kind of banyan-trees formed the background of the landscape.

Beneath the shelter of the sycamore, the caravan which had been referred to in the conversation between Negoro and Harris had just made a halt. Torn from their villages by the agents of the slave-dealer Alvez, the large troop of natives was on its way to the market of Kazonnde, thence to be sent as occasion required either to the west coast, or to Nyangwe, in the great lake district, to be dispersed into Upper Egypt or Zanzibar.

Immediately on reaching the camp, the four negroes and old Nan were placed under precisely the same treatment as the rest of the captives. In spite of a desperate resistance, they were deprived of their weapons, and fastened two and two, one behind another, by means of a pole about six feet long, forked at each end, and attached to their necks by an iron bolt. Their arms were left free, that they might carry any burdens, and in order to prevent an attempt to escape a heavy chain was pa.s.sed round their waists. It was thus in single file, unable to turn either right or left, they would have to march hundreds of miles, goaded along their toilsome road by the havildar's whip. The lot of Hercules seemed preferable, exposed though undoubtedly he would be in his flight to hunger, and to the attacks of wild beasts, and to all the perils of that dreary country. But solitude, with its worst privations, was a thing to be envied in comparison to being in the hands of those pitiless drivers, who did not speak a word of the language of their victims, but communicated with them only by threatening gestures or by actual violence.

As a white man, d.i.c.k was not attached to any other captive. The drivers were probably afraid to subject him to the same treatment as the negroes, and he was left unfettered, but placed under the strict surveillance of a havildar. At first he felt considerable surprise at not seeing Harris or Negoro in the camp, as he could not entertain a doubt that it was at their instigation the attack had been made upon their retreat; but when he came to reflect that Mrs. Weldon, Jack, and Cousin Benedict had not been allowed to come with them, but had been carried off in some other direction, he began to think it probable that the two rascals had some scheme to carry out with regard to them elsewhere.

The caravan consisted of nearly eight hundred, including about five hundred slaves of both s.e.xes, two hundred soldiers and freebooters, and a considerable number of havildars and drivers, over whom the agents acted as superior officers.

These agents are usually of Portuguese or Arab extraction; and the cruelties they inflict upon the miserable captives are almost beyond conception; they beat them continually, and if any unfortunate slave sinks from exhaustion, or in any way becomes unfit for the market, he is forthwith either stabbed or shot. As the result of this brutality it rarely happens that fifty per cent of the slaves reach their destination; some few may contrive to escape, and many are left as skeletons along the line of route.

Such of the agents as are Portuguese are (as it may well be imagined) of the very lowest dregs of society, outlaws, escaped criminals, and men of the most desperate character; of this stamp were the a.s.sociates of Negoro and Harris, now in the employ of Jose Antonio Alvez, one of the most notorious of all the slave-dealers of Central Africa, and of whom Commander Cameron has given some curious information.

Most frequently the soldiers who escort the captives are natives hired by the dealers, but they do not possess the entire monopoly of the forays made for the purpose of securing slaves; the native negro kings make war upon each other with this express design, and sell their vanquished antagonists, men, women, and children, to the traders for calico, guns, gunpowder and red beads; or in times of famine, according to Livingstone, even for a few grains of maize.

The escort of old Alvez' caravan was an average specimen of these African soldiers. It was simply a horde of half-naked banditti, carrying old flint-locked muskets, the barrels of which were decorated with copper rings. The agents are very often put to their wits' end to know how to manage them; their orders are called in question, halts are continually demanded, and in order to avert desertion they are frequently obliged to yield to the obstreperous will of their undisciplined force.

Although the slaves, both male and female, are compelled to carry burdens whilst on their march, a certain number of porters, called pagazis, is specially engaged to carry the more valuable merchandize, and princ.i.p.ally the ivory. Tusks occasionally weigh as much as 160 lbs., and require two men to carry them to the depots, whence they are sent to the markets of Khartoom, Natal, and Zanzibar. On their arrival the pagazis are paid by the dealers according to contract, which is generally either by about twenty yards of the cotton stuff known as merikani, or by a little powder, by a handful or two of cowries, by some beads, or if all these be scarce, they are paid by being allotted some of the slaves who are otherwise unsalable.

Among the five hundred slaves in the caravan, very few were at all advanced in years. The explanation of this circ.u.mstance was that whenever a raid is made, and a village is set on fire, every inhabitant above the age of forty is mercilessly ma.s.sacred or hung upon the neighbouring trees; only the children and young adults of both s.e.xes are reserved for the market, and as these const.i.tute only a small proportion of the vanquished, some idea may be formed of the frightful depopulation which these vast districts of Equinoctial Africa are undergoing.

Nothing could be more pitiable than the condition of this miserable herd. All alike were dest.i.tute of clothing, having nothing on them but a few strips of the stuff known as mbuza, made from the bark of trees; many of the women were covered with bleeding wounds from the drivers' lashes, and had their feet lacerated by the constant friction of the road, but in addition to other burdens were compelled to carry their own emaciated children; young men, too, there were who had lost their voices from exhaustion, and who, to use Livingstone's expression, had been reduced to "ebony skeletons" by toiling under the yoke of the fork, which is far more galling than the galley-chain. It was a sight that might have moved the most stony-hearted, but yet there was no symptom of compa.s.sion on the part of those Arab and Portuguese drivers whom Cameron p.r.o.nounces "worse than brutes." [Footnote: Cameron says, "In order to obtain the fifty women of whom Alvez is the owner, ten villages, containing altogether a population of not less than 1500, were totally destroyed. A few of the inhabitants contrived to escape, but the majority either perished in the flames, were slain in defending their families, or were killed by hunger or wild beasts in the jungle.... The crimes which are perpetuated in Africa, by men who call themselves Christians, seem incredible to the inhabitants of civilized countries. It is impossible that the government at Lisbon can be aware of the atrocities committed by those who boast of being subject to her flag." Tour du Monde.

N.B.-Against these a.s.sertions of Cameron, loud protestations have been made in Portugal.]

The guard over the prisoners was so strict that d.i.c.k Sands felt it would be utterly useless for him to make any attempt to seek for Mrs. Weldon. She and her son had doubtless been carried off by Negoro, and his heart sank when he thought of the dangers to which too probably she would be exposed. Again and again he repeated his reproaches on himself that he had ever allowed either Negoro or Harris to escape his hands. Neither Mrs. Weldon nor Jack could expect the least a.s.sistance from Cousin Benedict; the good man was barely able to consult for himself. All three of them would, he conjectured, be conveyed to some remote district of Angola; the poor mother, like some miserable slave, would insist upon carrying her own sick son until her strength failed her, and, exhausted by her endurances, she sank down helpless on the way.

A prisoner, and powerless to help! the very thought was itself a torture to poor d.i.c.k. Even Dingo was gone! It would have been a satisfaction to have had the dog to send off upon the track of the lost ones. One only hope remained. Hercules still was free. All that human strength could attempt in Mrs. Weldon's behalf, Hercules would not fail to try. Perhaps, too, under cover of the night, it was not altogether improbable that the stalwart negro would mingle with the crowd of negroes (amongst whom his dark skin would enable him to pa.s.s unnoticed), and make his way to d.i.c.k himself; then might not the two together elude the vigilance of the watch? might they not follow after and overtake Mrs. Weldon in the forest? would they not perchance be able either by stealth or by force to liberate her, and once free they would effect an escape to the river, and finally accomplish the undertaking in which they had been so lamentably frustrated. Such were the sanguine visions in which d.i.c.k permitted himself to indulge; his temperament overcame all tendency to despair, and kept him alive to the faintest chance of deliverance.

The next thing of importance was to ascertain the destination of the caravan. It was a matter of the most serious moment whether the convoy of slaves were going to be carried to one of the depots of Angola, or whether they were to be sent hundreds of miles into the interior to Nyangwe, in the heart of the great lake district that Livingstone was then exploring. To reach the latter spot would occupy some months, and to return thence to the coast, even if they should be fortunate enough to regain their liberty, would be a work of insuperable difficulty.