The Great White Queen Part 3

A STRANGE PROMISE.

BY the light of the flambeaux the sleek, black, oily-looking natives managed their clumsy craft, which, dipping suddenly now and then, s.h.i.+pped great seas, compelling us to hang on for life. The sails creaked and groaned as they bent to the wind, speeding on in the darkness towards the mainland of Africa. To be transferred to such a s.h.i.+p, which I more than suspected was a slaver, was a complete change after the clean, well-ordered Liverpool liner, and I must confess that, had we not been in charge of Kouaga, I should have feared to trust myself among that shouting cut-throat crew of grinning blacks. Clinging to a rope I stood watching the strange scene, rendered more weird by the flickering uncertain light of the torches falling upon the swarm of natives who manned the craft.

"Are these your mother's people?" I inquired of Omar.

"Some are. I recognize several as our slaves, the remainder are Sanwi, or natives of the coast. Our slaves, I suppose, have been sent down to be our carriers."

"Judging from the manner in which they crawl about this is, I should think, their first experience of the sea," I said.

"No doubt. Over a thousand English miles of desert and almost impenetrable bush separates the sea from our kingdom, therefore few, very few of our people have seen it."

"They'll go back with some wonderful tales, I suppose."

"Yes. They will, on their return, be considered heroes of travel, and their friends will hold feasts in their honour."

As he finished speaking, however, our c.u.mbrous craft seemed suddenly to be lifted high out of the water, and amid the unearthly yells of the whole crew we were swept through a belt of foaming surf, until in a few moments our keel slid upon the sand.

I prepared to leap down upon the beach, but in a second half-a-dozen willing pairs of arms were ready to a.s.sist me, and I alighted in the midst of a swarm of half-clad, jabbering natives.

One of them, elbowing his way towards me, asked in broken English:

"Ma.s.sa have good voyage--eh?" whereupon the others laughed heartily at hearing one of their number speak the language of the white men. But Kouaga approached uttering angry words, and from that moment the same respect was paid to me as to Omar.

We found there was a small village where we landed, otherwise the coast was wild and desolate. In an uncleanly little hut to which we were taken when our boxes were landed and the excitement had subsided, we were regaled with various African delicacies, which at first I did not find palatable, but which Omar devoured with a relish, declaring that he had not enjoyed a meal so much since he had left "the Coast" for England.

But I did not care for yams, and the stewed monkey looked suspiciously like a cooked human specimen. My geographical knowledge was not so extensive as it might have been, and I was not certain whether these natives were not cannibals. Therefore I only made a pretence of eating, and sat silently contemplating the strange scene as we all sat upon the floor and took up our food with our fingers. When we had concluded the feast a native woman served Omar with some palm wine, which, however, he did not drink, but poured it upon the ground as an offering to the fetish for his safe return, and then we threw ourselves upon the skins stretched out for us and slept till dawn.

At sunrise I got up and went out. The place was, I discovered, even more desolate than I had imagined. Nothing met the eye in every direction but vast plains of interminable sand, with hillocks here and there, also of sand; no trees were to be seen, not even a shrub; all was arid, dry and parched up with heat. The village was merely an a.s.semblage of a dozen miserable mud huts, and so great was the monotony of the scene, that the eye rested with positive pleasure on the dirty, yellow-coloured craft in which we had landed during the night. It had apparently once been whitewashed, but had gradually a.s.sumed that tawny hue that always characterises the African wilderness.

Again Omar and I were surrounded by the crowd of fierce-looking barbarians, but the twenty stalwart carriers sent down from Mo, apparently considering themselves a superior race to these coast-dwellers, ordered them away from our vicinity, at the same time preparing to start for the interior. Under the direction of Kouaga, who had already abandoned his European attire and now wore an Arab haick and white burnouse, the gang of chattering men soon got their loads of food and merchandise together--for the Grand Vizier had apparently been purchasing a quant.i.ty of guns and ammunition in England--hammocks were provided for all three of us if we required them, and after a good meal we at length set out, turning our backs upon the sea.

After descending the crest of a sand-hill we found ourselves fairly in the desert. As far as we could see away to the limitless horizon was sand--arid, parched red-brown sand without a vestige of herbage. The wind that was blowing carried grains of it, which filled one's mouth and tasted hot and gritty; again, impalpable atoms of sand were blown into the corners of one's eyes, and, besides, this injury inflicted on the organ of vision was calculated by no means to improve one's temper.

However, Omar told me that a beautiful and fruitful land lay beyond, therefore we made light of these discomforts, and, after a march of three days, during which time we were baked by day by the merciless sun and chilled at night by the heavy dews, we at last came to the edge of the waterless wilderness, and remained for some hours to rest.

My first glimpse of the "Dark Continent" was not a rosy one. As a well-known writer has already pointed out, life with a band of native carriers might for a few days be a diverting experience if the climate were good and if there was no immediate necessity for hurry. But as things were it proved a powerful exercise, especially when we commenced to traverse the almost impenetrable bush by the native path, so narrow that two men could not walk abreast.

Across a great dismal swamp where high trees and rank vegetation grew in wondrous profusion we wended our way, day by day, amid the thick white mist that seemed to continually envelop us. But it required a little more than persuasion to make our carriers travel as quickly as Kouaga liked.

At early dawn while the hush of night yet hung above the forest, our guide would rise, stretch his giant limbs and kick up a sleeping trumpeter. Then the tall, dark forest would echo with the boom of an elephant-tusk horn, whose sound was all the more weird since it came from between human jaws with which the instrument was decorated. The crowd of blacks got up readily enough, but it was merely in order to light their fires and to settle down to eat plantains. At length the horn would sound again, but produce no result. The whole company still squatted, eating and jabbering away, indifferent to every other sound. The head man would be called for by Kouaga. "Why are your men not ready? Know you not that the son of the great Naya is with us?" With a deprecatory smile the head-man would make some excuse. He had hurt his foot, or had rheumatism, and therefore he, and consequently his men, would be compelled to rest that day. He would then be warned that if not ready to march in five minutes, he would be carried captive into Mo for the Great White Queen herself to deal with. In five minutes he would return to Kouaga, saying that if the Grand Vizier would only give the men a little more salt with their "chop" (food) that evening, they would march.

Kouaga would then become furious, soundly rating everybody, and declare that the Naya herself should deal with the whole lot as mutineers; whereupon, seeing all excuses for further halt unavailing, loads would be taken up, and within a few moments the whole string of half-clad natives would go laughing and singing on the forward path.

The first belt of forest pa.s.sed we entered a vast level land covered with scrub, which Omar informed me was the border of the Debendu territory.

Proceeding down a wide valley we came at length to the first inhabited region. Every three or four miles we pa.s.sed through a native village--usually a single street of thirty or forty houses. Each house consisted, as a rule, of three or four small sheds, facing inwards, and forming a tiny courtyard. The huts were on built-up platforms, with hard walls of mud, and roofs thatched with palm-leaves, while the front steps were faced with a kind of red cement. In the middle of each centre of habitation we found a tree with seats around it formed of untrimmed logs, on which the elders and head-men of the village would sit, smoke, and gravely discuss events. As we left each village to plunge boldly onward through the bush we would pa.s.s the village fetish ground, well defined by the decaying bodies of lizards and birds, a grinning human skull or two, broken pots and pieces of rag fluttering in the wind, all offered as propitiation to the presiding demon of the place, while away in the bush, behind the houses, we saw the giant leaves of the plantain groves that yielded the staple food of this primitive people.

Deeper and deeper we proceeded until we came into regular forest scenery, where day after day we pushed our way through solemn shady aisles of forest giants, whose upper parts gleamed far above the dense undergrowth in white pillars against the grey-blue sky. Sometimes we strode down a picturesque sunny glade, and at others struggled through deep dark crypts of ma.s.sive bamboo clumps. Here the noisome smell of decaying vegetation nauseated us, for the air in those forest depths is deadly.

Beautiful scarlet wax-flowers would gleam high among the dark-green foliage of the giant cotton-tree, whose stem would be covered with orchids and ferns and dense wreaths of creeper, while many other beautiful blossoms flourished and faded unseen. In that dark dismal place there was an absence of animal life. Sometimes, however, by day we would hear the tuneful wail of the finger-gla.s.s bird or an occasional robin would chirrup, while at night great frogs croaked gloomily and the sloth would shriek at our approach.

It was truly a toilsome, dispiriting march, as in single file we pushed our way forward into the interior, and I confess I soon began to tire of the monotony of the terrible gloom. But to all my questions Omar would reply:

"Patience. In Africa we have violent contrasts always. To-day we are toiling onward through a region of eternal night, but when we have traversed the barrier that shuts out our country from the influence of yours--then you shall see. What you shall witness will amaze you."

CHAPTER V.

THE GIANT'S FINGER.

FOR quite three weeks we pushed forward through the interminable forest until one day we came to a small village beyond which lay a great broad river glistening in the noon-day sun. It was the mighty Comoe. We had entered the kingdom of Anno. In the village I saw traces of human sacrifices, and Omar, in reply to a question, told me that although these happy-looking natives were very skilful weavers and dyers who did a brisk trade in _fu_, a bark cloth of excellent quality--which I found afterwards they manufactured from the bark of a tree apparently of the same species as the much-talked-of _rokko_ of Uganda--they nevertheless at the death of a chief sacrificed some of his slaves to "water the grave," while the memory of the departed was also honoured with gross orgies which lasted till everything eatable or drinkable in the village was consumed.

We only remained there a few hours, then embarked in three large canoes that were moored to the bank awaiting us. The chief of the village came to pay his respects to Omar, as the son of a ruling monarch, and presented us with food according to the usual custom.

Soon, amid the shouts of the excited villagers who had all come down to see us start, our canoes were pushed off, and the carriers, glad to be relieved of their packs, took the paddles, and away we went gaily up the centre of the winding river. Emerging as suddenly as we had from the gloomy forest depths where no warmth penetrated, into the blazing tropical sun was a sudden change that almost overcame me, for as we rowed along without shelter the rays beat down upon us mercilessly.

The banks were for the most part low, although it was impossible to say what height they were because of the lofty hedges of creeping plants which covered every inch of ground from the water's edge to as high as fifty feet above in some places, while behind them towered the black-green forest with here and there bunches of brilliant flowers or glimpses of countless grey trunks. Sometimes these trees, pressing right up to the edge of the warm sluggish water, grew horizontally to the length of fifty feet over the river. Creepers, vines, whip-like calamus, twisting lianes and great serpent-like convolvuli grew in profusion over everything, while the eye caught glimpses everywhere of gorgeous clouds of insects, gaily-plumaged birds, paraquets, and monkeys swinging in their shaded bowers.

Basking on the banks were crocodiles and hippopotami, while the river itself swarmed with fish and water-snakes. And over all rose the mist caused by heat and moisture, the death-dealing miasma of that tropic world.

But all were in good spirits, for rowing was more pleasurable than tramping in that dismal monotonous primeval forest that rose on either side, therefore against the broad, slowly-flowing waters our carriers bent to their paddles, grinning and joking the while.

Throughout that day Kouaga sat near us, smoking and thinking. Perhaps the responsibilities of State weighed heavily upon him; perhaps he was contemplating with trepidation the pa.s.sage that would be necessary through a country held by the enemies of Mo; at all events he was morose and taciturn, his dark face bearing a strange, stern look such as I had never before noticed.

During the weeks I had been travelling up country I had embraced every opportunity of improving my knowledge of the curious language spoken by Omar and his mother's subjects, until I found I could understand a large portion of a conversation and could even give directions to our carriers in their own tongue.

Omar was in high spirits, eager, it seemed, to return to his own people.

He took a gun and some ammunition from one of the cases that Kouaga had conveyed from England and gave us an exhibition of his skill with the rifle. He was a dead shot. I had no idea he could aim so true. As we sped past in our canoe he would raise his weapon from time to time and pick off a bird upon the wing, or fire directly into the eye of some basking animal, causing it to utter a roar, lash its tail and disappear to die.

He seldom missed, and the accuracy of his aim elicited from the sable rowers low grunts of admiration.

A lazy and enjoyable week we thus spent in the ascent of the Comoe, mostly through forest scenery or undulating gra.s.s-lands. By day our rowers bent with rhythmic music to their paddles, and at evening we would disembark, cook our food, and afterwards with Kouaga and my friend I would sleep in our canoe upon the heap of leopard skins that formed our couches. Here we were free from the pest of the myriad insects we had encountered in the forest; and at night, under the brilliant moon, the n.o.ble river and giant trees presented a fine picture of solitary grandeur. Onward we pressed through the flouris.h.i.+ng country of the Jimini, where we saw many prosperous villages of large roomy houses of rectangular form and reed thatched, wide tracts under cultivation with well-kept crops of cotton and rice. Everywhere we pa.s.sed, without opposition, and with expressions of good-will from the natives.

One evening when the blood-red sun had sunk low in the water behind us, we suddenly rounded a sharp bend of the river and there burst upon us, rising on our right high into the clouds, the great snow-capped crest of Mount Komono. Near its base it was hidden by a bank of cloud, but above all was clear and bright, so that the summit had the appearance of being suspended in mid-air.

"The Giant's Finger at last!" cried Omar, jumping up excitedly and pointing at the mountain. "We leave the river a little higher up, and push again across the bush a twelve days' journey until we come to the Volta, which will take us forward to the boundary of Mo."

"The Volta!" I cried, remembering the incident at school when he had answered correctly the master's question as to the estuary of that river, and had been dubbed "the Guinea Pig." "Why could we not have ascended it from the sea?"

"Because we should, by so doing, pa.s.s nearly the whole distance through the country of Prempeh, of Ashanti, one of our bitter foes. The Adoo, the Anno, and the Jimini kings have long ago made blood-brotherhood with our chiefs, therefore we are enabled to pa.s.s in peace by this route alone."

Before darkness fell we disembarked at a small village on the left bank, the name of which I learnt was Tomboura, and after our evening meal were given a hut in which to spend the night. Soon after dawn, however, we heard Kouaga astir, giving rapid orders to the carriers, and when we went out to go down to the canoes they were nowhere to be seen. We noticed, however, that the carriers were preparing their loads which they had no doubt landed during the night, and Omar, advancing towards the Grand Vizier, asked:

"Why do we not ascend the river further? We must cross to the other side if we would join the Great Salt Road."

"Dangers lurk there, O my Master," the negro answered, hitching his burnouse about his shoulders. "We must travel by a circuitous route."

"Did not my mother command me to speed unto her?" Omar asked, puzzled.

"Is it not necessary that we should travel by the shortest path?"

"The safest is the shortest," Kouaga answered with a frown.