Dick Sands, the Boy Captain Part 35

A BOWL OF PUNCH.

The afternoon was pa.s.sing away, and it was now past four o'clock, when the sound of drums, cymbals, and a variety of native instruments was heard at the end of the main thoroughfare. The market was still going on with the same animation as before; half a day's screeching and fighting seemed neither to have wearied the voices nor broken the limbs of the demoniacal traffickers; there was a considerable number of slaves still to be disposed of, and the dealers were haggling over the remaining lots with an excitement of which a sudden panic on the London Stock Exchange could give a very inadequate conception.

But the discordant concert which suddenly broke upon the ear was the signal for business to be at once suspended. The crowd might cease its uproar, and recover its breath. The King of Kazonnde, Moene Loonga, was about to honour the lakoni with a visit.

Attended by a large retinue of wives, officers, soldiers, and slaves, the monarch was conveyed to the middle of the market-place in an old palanquin, from which he was obliged to have five or six people to help him to descend. Alvez and the other traders advanced to meet him with the most exaggerated gestures of reverence, all of which he received as his rightful homage.

He was a man of fifty years of age, but might easily have pa.s.sed for eighty. He looked like an old, decrepit monkey. On his head was a kind of tiara, adorned with leopards' claws dyed red, and tufts of greyish-white hair;

[Ill.u.s.tration: The potentate beneath whose sway the country trembled for a hundred miles round]

this was the usual crown of the sovereigns of Kazonnde. From his waist hung two skirts of coodoo-hide, stiff as blacksmiths' ap.r.o.ns, and embroidered with pearls. The tattooings on his breast were so numerous that his pedigree, which they declared, might seem to reach back to time immemorial. His wrists and arms were encased in copper bracelets, thickly encrusted with beads; he wore a pair of top-boots, a present from Alvez some twenty years ago; in his left hand he carried a great stick surmounted by a silver k.n.o.b; in his right a fly-flapper with a handle studded with pearls; over his head was carried an old umbrella with as many patches as a Harlequin's coat, whilst from his neck hung Cousin Benedict's magnifying-gla.s.s, and on his nose were the spectacles which had been stolen from Bat's pocket.

Such was the appearance of the potentate beneath whose sway the country trembled for a hundred miles round.

By virtue of his sovereignty Moene Loonga claimed to be of celestial origin; and any subject who should have the audacity to raise a question on this point would have been despatched forthwith to another world. All his actions, his eating and drinking, were supposed to be performed by divine impulse. He certainly drank like no other mortal; his officers and ministers, confirmed tipplers as they were, appeared sober men in comparison with himself, and he seemed never to be doing anything but imbibing strong pombe, and over-proof spirit with which Alvez kept him liberally supplied.

In his harem Moene Loonga had wives of all ages from forty to fourteen, most of whom accompanied him on his visit to the lakoni. Moena, the chief wife, who was called the queen, was the eldest of them all, and, like the rest, was of royal blood. She was a vixenish-looking woman, very gaily attired; she wore a kind of bright tartan over a skirt of woven gra.s.s, embroidered with pearls; round her throat was a profusion of necklaces, and her hair was mounted up in tiers that toppled high above her head, making her resemble some hideous monster. The younger wives, all of them sisters or cousins of the king, were less elaborately dressed. They walked behind her, ready at the slightest sign to perform the most menial services. Did his Majesty wish to sit down, two of them would immediately stoop to the ground and form a seat with their bodies, whilst others would have to lie down and support his feet upon their backs: a throne and footstool of living ebony.

Amidst the staggering, half-tipsy crowd of ministers, officers, and magicians that composed Moene Loonga's suite, there was hardly a man to be seen who had not lost either an eye, an ear, or hand, or nose. Death and mutilation were the only two punishments practised in Kazonnde, and the slightest offence involved the instant amputation of some member of the body. The loss of the ear was considered the severest penalty, as it prevented the possibility of wearing earrings!

The governors of districts, or kilolos, whether hereditary or appointed for four years, were distinguished by red waistcoats and zebra-skin caps; in their hands they brandished long rattans, coated at one extremity with a varnish of magic drugs.

The weapons carried by the soldiers consisted of wooden bows adorned with fringes and provided with a spare bowstring, knives filed into the shape of serpents' tongues, long, broad lances, and s.h.i.+elds of palm wood, ornamented with arabesques. In the matter of uniform, the royal army had no demands to make upon the royal treasury.

Amongst the attendants of the king there was a considerable number of sorcerers and musicians. The sorcerers, or mganga, were practically the physicians of the court, the savages having the most implicit faith in divinations and incantations of every kind, and employing fetishes, clay or wooden figures, representing sometimes ordinary human beings and sometimes fantastic animals. Like the rest of the retinue, these magicians were, for the most part, more or less mutilated, an indication that some of their prescriptions on behalf of the king had failed of success.

The musicians were of both s.e.xes, some performing on

[Ill.u.s.tration: Alvez advanced and presented the king with some fresh tobacco.]

shrill rattles, some on huge drums, whilst others played on instruments called marimbas, a kind of dulcimer made of two rows of different-sized gourds fastened in a frame, and struck by sticks with india-rubber b.a.l.l.s at the end. To any but native ears the music was perfectly deafening.

Several flags and banners were carried m the procession, and amongst these was mixed up a number of long pikes, upon which were stuck the skulls of the various chiefs that Moene Loonga had conquered in battle.

As the king as helped out of his palanquin, the acclamations rose higher and higher from every quarter of the market place The soldiers attached to the caravans fired off their old guns, though the reports were almost too feeble to be heard above the noisy vociferations of the crowd; and the havildars rubbed their black noses with cinnabar powder, which they carried in bags, and prostrated themselves. Alvez advanced and presented the king with some fresh tobacco, "the appeasing herb," as it is called in the native dialect; and certainly Moene Loonga seemed to require some appeasing, as, for some unknown reason, he was in a thoroughly bad temper.

Combra, Ibn Hamish and the dealers all came forward to pay their court to the monarch, the Arabs greeting him with the cry of marhaba, or welcome; others clapped their hands and bowed to the very ground; while some even smeared themselves with mud, in token of their most servile subjection.

But Moene Loonga scarcely took notice of any of them; he went staggering along, rolling like a s.h.i.+p upon a stormy sea, and made his way past the crowds of slaves, each of whom, no less than their masters, trembled lest he should think fit to claim them for his own.

Negoro, who kept close at Alvez' side, did not fail to render his homage along with the rest. Alvez and the king were carrying on a conversation in the native language, if that could be called a conversation in which Moene Loonga merely jerked out a few monosyllables from his inflamed and swollen lips. He was asking Alvez to replenish his stock of brandy.

"We are proud to welcome your majesty at the market of Kazonnde," Alvez was saying.

"Get me brandy," was all the drunken king's reply.

"Will it please your majesty to take part in the business of the lakoni?" Alvez tried to ask.

"Drink!" blurted out the king impatiently.

Alvez continued,-

"My friend Negoro here is anxious to greet your majesty after his long absence."

"Drink!" roared the monarch again.

"Will the king take pombe or mead?" asked Alvez, at last obliged to take notice of the demand.

"Brandy! give me fire-water!" yelled the king, in a fury. "For every drop you shall have ..."

"A drop of a white man's blood!" suggested Negoro, glancing at Alvez.

"Yes, yes; kill a white man," a.s.sented Moene Loonga, his ferocious instincts all aroused by the proposition.

"There is a white man here," said Alvez, "who has killed my agent. He must be punished for his act."

"Send him to King Masongo!" cried the king; "Masongo and the a.s.suas will cut him up and eat him alive."

Only too true it is that cannibalism is still openly practised in certain provinces of Central Africa. Livingstone records that the Manyuemas not only eat men killed in war, but even buy slaves for that purpose; it is said to be the avowal of these Manyuemas that "human flesh is slightly salt, and requires no seasoning." Cameron relates how in the dominions of Moene Booga dead bodies were soaked for a few days in running water as a preparation for their being devoured; and Stanley found traces of a widely-spread cannibalism amongst the inhabitants of Ukusu.

But however horrible might be the manner of death proposed by Moene Loonga, it did not at all suit Negoro's purpose to let d.i.c.k Sands out of his clutches.

"The white man is here," he said to the king; "it is here he has committed his offence, and here he should be punished."

"If you will," replied Moene Loonga; "only I must have fire-water; a drop of fire-water for every drop of the white man's blood."

"Yes, you shall have the fire-water," a.s.sented Alvez, "and what is more, you shall have it all alight. We will give your majesty a bowl of blazing punch."

The thought had struck Alvez, and he was himself delighted with the idea, that he would set the spirit in flames. Moene Loonga had complained that the "fire-water" did not justify its name as it ought, and Alvez hoped that perhaps, administered in this new form, it might revivify the deadened membranes of the palate of the king.

Moene Loonga did not conceal his satisfaction. Wives and courtiers alike were full of antic.i.p.ation. They had all drunk brandy, but they had not drunk brandy alight. And not only was their thirst for alcohol to be satisfied; their thirst for blood was likewise to be indulged; and when it is remembered how, even amongst the civilized, drunkenness reduces a man below the level of a brute, it may be imagined to what barbarous cruelties d.i.c.k Sands was likely to be exposed. The idea of torturing a white man was not altogether repugnant to the coloured blood of either Alvez or Combra, while with Negoro the spirit of vengeance had completely overpowered all feeling of compunction.

Night, without any intervening twilight, was soon drawing on, and the contemplated display could hardly fail to be effective. The programme for the evening consisted of two parts; first, the blazing punch-bowl; then the torture, culminating in an execution.

The destined victim was still closely confined in his dark and dreary dungeon; all the slaves, whether sold or not, had been driven back to the barracks, and the chitoka was cleared of every one except the slave-dealers, the havildars, and the soldiers, who hoped, by favour of the king, to have a share of the flaming punch.

Alvez did not long delay the proceedings. He ordered a huge caldron, capable of containing more than twenty gallons, to be placed in the centre of the market-place. Into this were emptied several casks of highly-rectified spirit, of a very inferior quality, to which was added a supply of cinnamon and other spices, no ingredient being omitted which was likely to give a pungency to suit the savage palate.

The whole royal retinue formed a circle round the king. Fascinated by the sight of the spirit, Moene Loonga came reeling up to the edge of the punch-bowl, and seemed ready to plunge himself head foremost into it. Alvez held him back, at the same time placing a lucifer in his hand.

"Set it alight!" cried the slave-dealer, grinning slily as he spoke.

The king applied the match to the surface of the spirit. The effect was instantaneous. High above the edge of the bowl the blue flame rose and curled. To give intensity to the process Alvez had added a sprinkling of salt to the mixture, and this caused the fire to cast upon the faces of all around that lurid glare which is generally a.s.sociated with apparitions of ghosts and phantoms. Half intoxicated already, the negroes yelled and gesticulated; and joining hands, they performed a fiendish dance around their monarch. Alvez stood and stirred the spirit with an enormous metal ladle, attached to a pole, and as the flames rose yet higher and higher they seemed to throw a more and more unearthly glamour over the ape-like forms that circled in their wild career.

Moene Loonga, in his eagerness, soon seized the ladle from the slave-dealer's hands, plunged it deep into the bowl, and bringing it up again full of the blazing punch, raised it to his lips.

A horrible shriek brought the dancers to a sudden standstill. By a kind of spontaneous combustion, the king had taken fire internally; though it was a fire that emitted little heat, it was none the less intense and consuming. In an instant one of the ministers in attendance ran to the king's a.s.sistance, but he, almost as much alcoholized as his master, caught fire as well, and soon both monarch and minister lay writhing on the ground in unutterable agony. Not a soul was able to lend a helping hand. Alvez and Negoro were at a loss what to do; the courtiers dared not expose themselves to so terrible a fate; the women had all