The Great White Queen Part 8

"Is there no way to build up the seat of justice and mercy but in murder?" cried Omar. At a signal from the slave-raider, however, the scarred-face brute again withdrew the pincers from the fiery brazier, and applied them once more to the wretched prince's back.

He winced and turned with such strength that his limbs, fettered as they were in bonds of blood-smeared iron, cracked, while the muscles and veins stood out knotted like cords. The spotless marble of the floor was stained by a dark red pool, becoming larger every moment as the life-blood dripped slowly from beneath.

The scene was revolting. I placed my hands over my eyes to shut out from my gaze the horrible contortions of the victim's face.

Yet those a.s.sembled were gleeful and excited. Omar was the son of their unconquerable enemy, and they delighted in witnessing his humiliation and agony. Times without number the negro with the strangely-marked visage seared the flesh of my helpless companion; then in response to his orders his black-plumed slaves drew tighter the bonds that confined his ankles and wrists until the sound of the crus.h.i.+ng of bones and sinews reached our ears.

Again a loud shriek echoed along the high-roofed hall. Omar was no longer able to bear the excruciating pain in silence.

"Courage," I cried in English, heedless of the consequences. "Courage.

Let this fiend see that he cannot rule us as he does his cringing slaves."

"Think! think of yourself, Scars!" he gasped with extreme difficulty. "If they kill me, forgive me for bringing you from England. I--I did not know that this trap had been prepared for me."

"I forgive you everything," I answered, glancing for a moment at his white, blood-smeared countenance. "Bear up. You must--you shall not die."

But even as I spoke, the executioner, who had been bending over the fire, withdrew with his tongs a band of iron with long sharp spikes on the inside now red with heat, and as the slaves released the pressure upon his wrists and ankles the sinister-faced negro placed the terrible band around the victim's waist and by means of a screw quickly drew it so tight that the red-hot spikes ran into the flesh, causing it to smoke and emit a hissing noise that was horrible.

Again poor Omar squirmed in pain and gave vent to a shrill, agonised cry.

But it was not repeated.

Everyone stood eager and open-mouthed, and even the villainous Samory rose from his divan to more closely watch the effect of the fearful torture now being applied.

The victim's upturned face was white as the marble pavement. From the corners of the mouth a thin red stream oozed, and the closed eyes and imperceptible breathing showed plainly that no torture, however inhuman, could cause him further agony. He had lapsed into unconsciousness.

"Hold!" cried Samory at last, seeing the executioner about to prepare yet another torture. "Take the pagan author of malice from my sight, let his wounds be dressed, and apply thy persuasion unto him again to-morrow at sundown. He shall speak, I vow before the great Allah and Mahomet, the Prophet of the Just. He shall tell us where the treasure lieth hidden."

"O, light of the earth," cried one of the councillors, a white-bearded sage who wore a robe of crimson silk beautifully embroidered. "Though the hand of time hath not yet spread the fruits of manhood upon this youth's cheeks, yet neither the splendour of thy court nor the words from thy lips could steal from the young prince the knowledge of himself. He hath cursed thee with the three curses of the pagans Takhar, Tuirakh, and Zomara, the Crocodile-G.o.d, held in awe by all."

"Well, thinkest thou that I fear the empty threats of a youth whose hostility towards me arises from the fact that I captured his father on the Great Salt Road, and smiting off his head, sent it as a present to the Naya?" asked Samory in indignation.

But as the black-plumed slaves removed the inanimate form of Omar, the aged councillor stepped forward boldly, saying:

"I perceive, O source of light, that the dark clouds of evil are gathering to disturb the hours of futurity; the spirits of the wicked are preparing the storm and the tempest against thee; but--the volumes of Fate are torn from my sight, and the end of thy troubles is unknown."

The councillors exchanged glances and stood aghast, but Samory, livid with rage, sprang from his divan and commenced to upbraid the aged seer for his words of warning. I was not, however, allowed to listen to the further discussion of the old man's prophecy, being hurried by two of the torturer's slaves back to my underground cell, where I remained alone for many hours awaiting Omar, who, I presumed, was being brought back to consciousness in another part of the great impregnable fortress, the mazes of which were bewildering.

CHAPTER X.

ZOMARA.

IN darkness and anxiety I remained alone for many days in the foul subterranean prison. Had the fiendish tortures been repeated upon my hapless friend, I wondered; or had he succ.u.mbed to the injuries already inflicted? Hour by hour I waited, listening to the shuffling footsteps of my gaolers, but only once a day there came a black slave to hand me my meagre ration of food and depart without deigning to give answer to any of my questions.

I became sick with anxiety, and at last felt that I must abandon all hope of again seeing him. I was alone in the midst of the fiercest and most fanatical people of the whole of Africa, a people whose supreme delight it was to torture the whites that fell into their hands as vengeance for the many expeditions sent against them. Through those dismal days when silence and the want of air oppressed me, I remembered the old adage that when Hope goes out Death smiles and stalks in, but fortunately, although wearied and dejected, I did not quite abandon all thought of ever again meeting my companion. The hope of seeing him, of being able to escape and get into the land of Mo, was now the sole anchor of my life, yet as the monotonous hours pa.s.sed, the light in the c.h.i.n.k above grew brighter and time after time gradually faded into pitch darkness, I felt compelled to admit that my antic.i.p.ations were without foundation, and that Omar, the courageous descendant of a truly kingly race, was dead.

In the dull dispiriting gloom I sat hour after hour on the stone bench encrusted with the dirt of years, calmly reflecting upon the bright, happy life I had been, alas! too eager to renounce, and told myself with sorrow that, after all, old Trigger's school, or even the existence of a London clerk, was preferable to imprisonment in Samory's stronghold. Many were the means by which I sought to make time pa.s.s more rapidly, but the hours had leaden feet, and while the tiny ray struggled through above, my mind was constantly racked by bitter thoughts of the past, and a despairing dread of the hopeless future.

One morning, however, when I had lost all count of the days of my solitary confinement, my heart was suddenly caused to leap by hearing the unusual sound of footsteps, and a few moments later my door was thrown open and I was ordered by my captors to come forth.

I rose, and following them unwillingly, wondering what fate had been decided for me, ascended the steep flight of steps to the courtyard above, wherein I found a crowd of Arab nomads in their white haicks and burnouses. Samory was also there, and before him, still defiant and apparently almost recovered from his wounds, stood my friend Omar.

I sprang towards him with a loud cry of joy, and our recognition was mutually enthusiastic, as neither of us had known what fate had overtaken the other; but ere he could relate how he had fared, the Mohammedan chief lifted his hand, and a dead silence fell on those a.s.sembled.

"Omar, son of the accursed Naya whom may Eblis smite with the fiery sword, give ear unto my words," he said, in a loud, harsh voice. "Thou hast defied me, and will not impart to me the secret of the Treasure-house, even though I offer thee thy freedom. I have spared thee the second torture in order that a fate more degrading and more terrible shall be thine. Hearken! Thou and thy friend are sold to these Arab slavers for this single copper coin."

For an instant he showed us the coin in the palm of his brown hand, then tossed it far away from him with a gesture of disgust.

"Ye are both sold," he continued, "sold for the smallest coin, to be taken to k.u.ma.s.si as slaves for their pagan sacrifice."

At his words we both started. It was indeed a terrible doom to which this villainous brute had consigned us. We were to be butchered with awful rites for the edification of Prempeh and his wild hordes of fanatics!

"Rather kill us outright," Omar said boldly, his hands trembling nevertheless.

"Death will seize thee quite soon enough," laughed the chief derisively.

"Mine ally Prempeh will have the satisfaction of offering a queen's son to the fetish."

"Rest a.s.sured that the G.o.d Zomara will reward thee for this day's evil work," Omar cried, with a fierce look in his eyes. "Thou hast spent fiercest hatred upon me, but even if I die, word will sooner or later be carried into Mo that thou wert the cause of the death of the last of my race. Then every man capable of bearing arms will rise against thee.

Standing here, I make prophecy that this thy kingdom shall be uprooted as a weed in the garden of peace, and that thine own blood shall make satisfaction for thy cruelty."

"Begone!" cried Samory, in a tumult of wrath. And turning to the Arabs he cried in a commanding tone: "Take the dog to the slaughterers. Let me never look again upon his face."

But ere they could seize him, he had lifted his hand, invoking the curse of Zomara, saying:

"Omar, Prince of Mo, has spoken. This kingdom of Samory shall, ere many moons, be shaken to its foundations."

But the fierce Arabs quickly dragged us forth, bound us when out of sight of the great chief, and led us beyond the gates of the Kasbah to where we found a great slave caravan a.s.sembled in readiness to depart. Fully one hundred black slaves, each fastened in a long chain, were lying huddled up in the shadow, seeking a brief rest after a long and tedious march.

Most of them were terrible objects, mere skin and bone, and all showed signs of brutal ill-treatment, their backs bearing great festering sores caused by the lashes of their pitiless captors. The majority of them had, I ascertained, been captured in the forest wilds beyond the Niger, and all preserved a stolid indifference, for they knew their terrible doom.

They were being hurried on to k.u.ma.s.si to be sold to King Prempeh for sacrificial purposes.

To this wretched perspiring crowd of hopeless humanity we were bound, and amid the jeers of a number of Samory's officials who had crowded to the gate to see us depart, we moved onward, our steps hastened by the heavy whips of our masters who, mounted on wiry little ponies and heavily armed, galloped up and down the line administering blows to the laggards or the sick.

From the city away across the open gra.s.s-lands we wended our way, a dismal, sorrowful procession, but Omar, now beside me again, briefly related how, after being removed from the torture-frame, his wounds had been dressed and he had been tenderly nursed by an old female slave who had taken compa.s.sion upon him. A dozen times messengers from Samory had come to offer him his liberty in exchange for the secret of the Treasure-house, but he had steadfastly refused. Twice the scoundrel Kouaga had visited him and made merry over his discomfiture.

"But," said my friend, "the boastings of the traitor are empty words.

When we laugh it shall be at his vain implorings for a speedy death."

"To him we owe all these misfortunes," I said.

"Yes, everything. But if only we get into Mo he shall render an account of his misdeeds to my mother. No mercy will be shown him, for before the Naya's wrath the nation trembles."

"But our position at the present moment is one of extreme gravity," I observed. "We are actually on our way to another of your mother's enemies, whose relentless cruelty is common talk throughout the world."

"True," he answered. "If we find the slightest loop-hole for escape we must embrace it. But if not----" and he paused. "If not, then we must meet our deaths with the calm indifference alike traditional of the Sanoms and of Englishmen."

Whenever misfortune seemed to threaten he appeared only the more composed. Each day showed me that, even though an African and a semi-savage, yet his bearing in moments when others would have been melancholy, was dignified and truly regal. Even though his only covering was a loin-cloth and a piece of a white cotton garment wrapped about his shoulders, Omar Sanom was every inch a prince.