Dick Sands, the Boy Captain Part 37

In front of the effigy, at the end of the grave, a huge stake, painted red, was planted firmly in the earth. Bound to this stake, his body half naked, exhibiting marks of the

[Ill.u.s.tration: Friendless and hopeless.]

tortures which by Negoro's orders he had already undergone, friendless and hopeless, was d.i.c.k Sands!

The time, however, for opening the flood-gate had not yet arrived. First of all, at a sign from the queen, the fourth wife, forming the royal footstool had her throat cut by an executioner, her blood streaming into the grave. This barbarous deed was the commencement of a most frightful butchery. One after another, fifty slaves fell beneath the slaughterous knife, until the river-bed was a very cataract of blood. For half an hour the shrieks of the victims mingled with the imprecations of their murderers, without evoking one single expression of horror or sympathy from the gazing crowd around.

At a second signal from the queen, the barrier, which retained the water above, was opened. By a refinement of cruelty the torrent was not admitted suddenly to the grave, but allowed to trickle gradually in.

The first to be drowned were the slaves that carpeted the bottom of the trench, their frightful struggles bearing witness to the slow death that was overpowering them. d.i.c.k was immersed to his knees, but he could be seen making what might seem one last frantic effort to burst his bonds.

Steadily rose the water; the stream resumed its proper course; the last head disappeared beneath its surface, and soon there remained nothing to indicate that in the depth below there was a tomb where a hundred victims had been sacrificed to the memory 0f the King of Kazonnde.

Painful as they are to describe, it is impossible to ignore the reality of such scenes.

CHAPTER XIII.

IN CAPTIVITY.

So far from Mrs. Weldon and Jack having succ.u.mbed to the hards.h.i.+ps to which they had been exposed, they were both alive, and together with Cousin Benedict were now in Kazonnde. After the a.s.sault upon the ant-hill they had all three been conveyed beyond the encampment to a spot where a rude palanquin was in readiness for Mrs. Weldon and her son. The journey hence to Kazonnde was consequently accomplished without much difficulty; Cousin Benedict, who performed it on foot, was allowed to entomologize as much as he pleased upon the road, so that to him the distance was a matter of no concern. The party reached their destination a week sooner than Ibn Hamish's caravan, and the prisoners were lodged in Alvez' quarters.

Jack was much better. After leaving the marshy districts he had no return of fever, and as a certain amount of indulgence had been allowed them on their journey, both he and his mother, as far as their health was concerned, might be said to be in a satisfactory condition.

Of the rest of her former companions Mrs. Weldon could hear nothing. She had herself been a witness of the escape of Hercules, but of course knew nothing further of his fate; as for d.i.c.k Sands, she entertained a sanguine hope that his white skin would protect him from any severe treatment; but for Nan and the other poor negroes, here upon African soil, she feared the very worst.

Being entirely shut off from communication with the outer world, she was quite unaware of the arrival of the caravan; even if she had heard the noisy commotion of the market she would not have known what it meant, and she was in ignorance alike of the death of Harris, of the sale of Tom and his companions, of the dreadful end of the king, and of the royal obsequies in which poor d.i.c.k had been a.s.signed so melancholy a share. During the journey from the Coanza to Kazonnde, Harris and Negoro had held no conversation with her, and since her arrival she had not been allowed to pa.s.s the inclosure of the establishment, so that, as far as she knew, she was quite alone, and being in Negoro's power, was in a position from which it seemed only too likely nothing but death could release her.

From Cousin Benedict, it is needless to repeat, she could expect no a.s.sistance; his own personal pursuits engrossed him, and he had no care nor leisure to bestow upon external circ.u.mstances. His first feeling, on being made to understand that he was not in America, was one of deep disappointment that the wonderful things he had seen were no discoveries at all; they were simply African insects common on African soil. This vexation, however, soon pa.s.sed away, and he began to believe that "the land of the Pharaohs" might possess as much entomological wealth as "the land of the Incas."

"Ah," he would exclaim to Mrs. Weldon, heedless that she gave him little or no attention, "this is the country of the manticorae, and wonderful coleoptera they are, with their long hairy legs, their sharp elytra and their big mandibles; the most remarkable of them all is the tuberous manticora. And isn't this, too, the land of the golden-tipped calosomi? and of the p.r.i.c.kly-legged goliaths of Guinea and Gabon? Here, too, we ought to find the spotted anthidia, which lay their eggs in empty snail-sh.e.l.ls; and the sacred atenchus, which the old Egyptians used to venerate as divine."

"Yes, yes;" he would say at another time, "this is the proper habitat of those death's-head sphinxes which are now so common everywhere; and this is the place for those 'Idias Bigoti,' so formidable to the natives of Senegal.

There must be wonderful discoveries to be made here if only those good people will let me."

The "good people" referred to were Negoro and Harris, who had restored him much of the liberty of which d.i.c.k Sands had found it necessary to deprive him. With freedom to roam and in possession of his tin box, Benedict would have been amongst the most contented of men, had it not been for the loss of his spectacles and magnifying-gla.s.s, now buried with the King of Kazonnde. Reduced to the necessity of poking every insect almost into his eyes before he could discover its characteristics, he would have sacrificed much to recover or replace his gla.s.ses, but as such articles were not to be procured at any price, he contented himself with the permission to go where he pleased within the limits of the palisade. His keepers knew him well enough to be satisfied that he would make no attempt to escape, and as the enclosure was nearly a mile in circ.u.mference, containing many shrubs and trees and huts with thatched roofs, besides being intersected by a running stream, it afforded him a very fair scope for his researches, and who should say that he would not discover some novel specimen to which, in the records of entomological science, his own name might be a.s.signed?

If thus the domain of Antonio Alvez was sufficient to satisfy Benedict, to little Jack it might well seem immense. But though allowed to ramble over the whole place as he liked, the child rarely cared to leave his mother; he would be continually inquiring about his father, whom he had now so long been expecting to see: he would ask why Nan and Hercules and Dingo had gone away and left him; and perpetually he would be expressing his wonder where d.i.c.k could be, and wis.h.i.+ng he would come back again. Mrs. Weldon could only hide her tears and answer him by caresses.

Nothing, however, transpired to give the least intimation that any of the prisoners were to be treated otherwise than they had been upon the journey from the Coanza. Excepting such as were retained for old Alvez' personal service, all the slaves had been sold, and the storehouses were now

[Ill.u.s.tration: He contented himself with the permission to go where he pleased within the limits of the palisade.]

full of stuffs and ivory, the stuffs destined to be sent into the central provinces and the ivory to be exported. The establishment was thus no longer crowded as it had been, and Mrs. Weldon and Jack were lodged in a different hut to Cousin Benedict. All three, however, took their meals together and were allowed a sufficient diet of mutton or goats'-flesh, vegetables, manioc, sorghum and native fruits. With the traders' servants they held no communication, but Halima, a young slave who had been told off to attend to Mrs. Weldon, evinced for her new mistress an attachment which, though rough, was evidently sincere.

Old Alvez, who occupied the princ.i.p.al house in thedepot, was rarely seen; whilst the non-appearance of either Harris or Negoro caused Mrs. Weldon much surprise and perplexity. In the midst of all her troubles, too, she was haunted by the thought of the anxiety her husband must be suffering on her account. Unaware of her having embarked on board the "Pilgrim," at first he would have wondered at steamer after steamer arriving at San Francisco without her. After a while the "Pilgrim" would have been registered amongst the number of missing s.h.i.+ps; and it was certain the intelligence would be forwarded to him by his correspondents, that the vessel had sailed from Auckland with his wife and child on board. What was he to imagine? he might refuse to believe that they had perished at sea, but he would never dream of their having been carried to Africa, and would certainly inst.i.tute a search in no other direction than on the coast of America, or amongst the isles of the Pacific. She had not the faintest hope of her whereabouts being discovered, and involuntarily her thoughts turned to the possibility of making an escape. She might well feel her heart sink within her at the bare idea; even if she should succeed in eluding the vigilance of the watch, there were two hundred miles of dense forest to be traversed before the coast could be reached; nevertheless, it revealed itself to her as her last chance, and failing all else, she resolved to hazard it.

But, first of all, she determined, if it were possible, to discover the ultimate design of Negoro. She was not kept long in suspense. On the 6th of June, just a week after the royal funeral, the Portuguese entered the depot, in which he had not set foot since his return, and made his way straight to the hut in which he knew he should find the prisoner. Benedict was out insect-hunting; Jack, under Halima's charge, was being taken for a walk. Mrs. Weldon was alone.

Negoro pushed open the door, and said abruptly,-

"Mrs. Weldon, I have come to tell you, that Tom and his lot have been sold for the Ujiji market; Nan died on her way here; and d.i.c.k Sands is dead too."

Mrs. Weldon uttered a cry of horror.

"Yes, Mrs. Weldon," he continued; "he has got what he deserved; he shot Harris, and has been executed for the murder. And here you are alone! mark this! alone and in my power!"

What Negoro said was true; Tom, Bat, Actaeon, and Austin had all been sent off that morning on their way to Ujiji.

Mrs. Weldon groaned bitterly.

Negoro went on.

"If I chose, I could still further avenge upon you the ill-treatment I got on board that s.h.i.+p; but it does not suit my purpose to kill you. You and that boy of yours, and that idiot of a fly-catcher, all have a certain value in the market. I mean to sell you."

"You dare not!" said Mrs. Weldon firmly; "you know you are making an idle threat; who do you suppose would purchase people of white blood?"

"I know a customer who will give me the price I mean to ask," replied Negoro with a brutal grin.

She bent down her head; only too well she knew that such things were possible in this horrid land.

"Tell me who he is!" she said; "tell the name of the man who ..."

"James Weldon," he answered slowly.

"My husband!" she cried; "what do you mean?"

"I mean what I say. I mean to make your husband buy you back at my price; and if he likes to pay for them, he shall have his son and his cousin too."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "I suppose Weldon will not mind coming to fetch you?"]

"And when, and how, may I ask, do you propose to manage this?" replied Mrs. Weldon. forcing herself to be calm.

"Here, and soon too. I suppose Weldon will not mind coming to fetch you."

"He would not hesitate to come; but how could he know we are here?"

"I will go to him. I have money that will take me to San Francisco."

"What you stole from the 'Pilgrim'?" said Mrs. Weldon.

"Just so," replied Negoro; "and I have plenty more I suppose when Weldon hears that you are a prisoner in Central Africa, he will not think much of a hundred thousand dollars."

"But how is he to know the truth of your statement?"

"I shall take him a letter from you. You shall represent me as your faithful servant, just escaped from the hands of savages."

"A letter such as that I will never write; never," said Mrs. Weldon decisively.

"What? what? you refuse?"