Suddenly the wounded man, forgetting his injury, sprang up and, grabbing a lump of quartz, rushed at me, roaring and gnashing his teeth; but I received him with such a poke in the chest from my pointed stick that he dropped the stone and fell, bellowing louder than ever, with a thin trickle of blood flowing from the spot where the point had penetrated. On this the others fell back a pace or two, not liking my looks, and stood round, grinning and chattering like apes, while I paused for an instant undecided whether to charge them or remain on the defensive. At this moment Annan came to his senses and interfered.
“Dis no good,” he exclaimed. “Softly, softly you catch de monkey. Finish palaver and come on.”
The carriers sulkily caught up their burdens and started, but it happened that the wounded man—who was very little hurt, after all—was the one to whom my trunk had been allotted, and, as he was now not fit to carry it, Annan bluntly informed me that, if I wanted it, I must carry it myself; and, angry as I was, I could not help perceiving that it would chime in very well with my plans to have the trunk in my own custody, so without more ado I clapped the head pad on top of my hat, and catching up the trunk, balanced it on my head as well as I could and followed. The ground continued to descend gently, and, as the path was a little more open at this part, we got on at a good pace, the wounded man limping along in fine style, and evidently rejoicing at having shifted his burden on to me. We presently entered a small village which appeared to be quite deserted, and our carriers halted and were just about to open an attack upon a plantation of plantains and papaw trees at its farther end, when we observed one or two men peering at us round the corners of the houses; on which they picked up their loads and hurried out of the village as if they had seen the devil.
The road continuing fairly distinct, I dropped behind a little to escape from the incessant chatter that Annan and the carriers kept up, in spite of the danger by which we were surrounded, and I frequently lost sight of our little caravan for some minutes at a time, overtaking them again when a fallen tree or other obstruction brought them to a temporary halt. I had separated in this manner and was walking along lost in thought, when a turn of the path brought me in view of our party all standing stock still and sniffing the air like dogs. At the same moment I became aware of a faint, stale and indescribably disagreeable odour which seemed to come from the forest ahead of us. As we proceeded it grew rapidly more powerful and was soon insupportably offensive, evidently proceeding from some putrifying animal matter. I surmised that some large animal had died in the bush and that the smell proceeded from its decaying remains, but my companions evidently had an inkling of the truth, for they stepped warily and fearfully along the track. Suddenly the path opened out into a large village clearing, and, as we emerged from the forest, a cloud of vultures arose and settled in the trees, from which they looked down with hoarse cries upon the horrid scene of desolation below.
In all the village there was not a single house left standing. Some were reduced to mere shapeless heaps of blackened ruins, while in others the charred skeleton of a roof yet rested on the scorched and cracked clay walls. The compound fences were reduced to lines of ashes; cooking pots stood over extinct fires; and half-burnt stools and wooden utensils lay scattered about among the ruins. And everywhere—in the streets, in the compounds, and by the ruined houses—the ground was literally strewn with corpses. In every attitude of death, in every stage of decay and dismemberment; bloated by the heat, shrivelled by the sun, hacked at by vultures, torn limb from limb by wild beasts: the loathsome harvest of war lay poisoning the air with the stale and horrid effluvium. Glossy-coated carrion beetles crept busily over them, swarms of flies hummed in the air above them, and, in one place, a broad shining stream of driver ants flowed through the village like a river of jet, leaving in its track clean-picked skeletons already bleached to the whiteness of chalk.
As we stood surveying these dreadful relics, the vultures began to drop down by twos and threes, watching us warily as they snapped up their grisly morsels; and when we moved up the village and came round a pile of ruins, we disturbed at their ghastly meal a troop of hyænas, which shuffled away and stood at a little distance with their shoulders hunched up, grinning at us and snarling with titters of idiotic laughter.
The village had been very completely looted by the enemy, but we found, nevertheless, in the remains of the plantation, a few bunches of plantains, and one or two half-rotten papaws, and, having secured these, we stole stealthily and guiltily out of the village and hurried away along the road, not a little affected by the awful spectacle we had witnessed.
It was now past midday, and I began to consider very earnestly how and where I was to pass the night, for I had definitely made up my mind that I would not spend it in the society of Annan and his gang of ruffians. It was now clear that they were of one mind in their desire to be rid of me, and it was equally evident that Annan had already appointed himself my sole executor and legatee. This being the case, it would be obvious madness for me to trust myself asleep in their company, and I had now to settle on the manner in which I should escape from them and yet find my way to my destination.
I had turned over various plans, none of them very satisfactory, and was wondering whether the travellers whose huts we had passed in the morning were far ahead, and if it would be possible for me to put on a spurt and overtake them, when the question was solved for me by the appearance of the men themselves. We came upon them quite suddenly, for they had made a fire some little distance off the road and were sitting by it roasting plantains—the only food obtainable just now—so that we did not see them until we came opposite their halting place. There were eight of them, all grown men, and dressed in the fashion common to the Hausas and other more civilised nations of the Southern Sudan.
Our party halted opposite the encampment, and Annan stepped forward a few paces and greeted the strangers in his barbarous Hausa.
“Sanu, Sanu!”
“Sanu kadai,” replied a little sharp-faced elderly man, apparently the leader of the caravan.
“Whither do you travel?” inquired Annan.
“We are journeying from Salt-pond to Kantámpo, and thence to our country, Kano, by way of Sálaga,” said the old man.
“This country is very unsafe to travel in at this time,” remarked Annan.
“That is true,” agreed the other.
“But it is more safe for a large company than a small one,” pursued Annan.
“That is also true,” said the Hausa.
“Therefore,” continued Annan, “since we go the same way as you, it will be safer if we travel in company.”
“Not so,” replied the old man. “We are strangers from afar, merchants and men of peace. We have no quarrel with this people nor they with us, and so we journey in safety. But you are men of this country who have here your friends and your enemies. It is better for us to go our ways apart.”
“You fear to walk with us because of the white man who is with us,” said Annan.
“We do not want to travel with Nasaráwa[Christians.],” rejoined the old man.
“But he is a stranger to us,” Annan urged. “We will send him away to walk by himself.”
“It is not good to desert a companion in the wilderness,” said the Hausa coldly. “I have answered thee. We shall walk by ourselves.”
“The road is open to all!” bawled Annan insolently, “and we may walk where you may, either before you or behind, as near or as far as we will.”
“That is true,” said the old man drily, “but the mouse who will walk with an elephant must needs look to his toes.”
Here occurred a kind of pantomimic commentary on the old Hausa’s remark, at which I could hardly forbear laughing aloud, for one of the men who had been reclining by the fire now rose and stretched himself, and reaching his spear from the tree against which it rested, stirred the embers with its heel iron. There was nothing very warlike in the action, but the appearance of the actor gave it a deep significance, for the fellow stood well over six feet six inches in height and was square and massive in build, and the spear that he used thus harmlessly was a great shaft seven feet long furnished with a blade like the paddle of a canoe.
The hint was not lost on Annan who, after an astonished glance at the giant, rejoined civilly enough:
“Let it be as you will, and so I wish you a safe journey and a speedy one.”
The Hausas returned his good wishes in chorus, and, as we turned to go on our way and I waved my hand to them, they bowed politely, and the jolly, smiling giant called out to me to “tafia sanu” in an extraordinarily small and squeaky voice.
I had now to set my wits to work in earnest, for, by hook or by crook, I must attach myself to the Hausa caravan before nightfall. We were evidently travelling more rapidly than the Hausas, but I calculated that they would pass us the next time we halted, and would be overtaken by our party in the morning. I must therefore wait until they had passed us, before joining them, in case they should decline my company as they had declined Annan’s. It now remained to invent a story sufficiently plausible to account for my appearance without companions on this perilous and solitary road, and I am free to admit that, not being an expert liar, the concoction of this fable heavily taxed my ingenuity.
It was half-past three by my watch when Annan called a halt and immediately began to make a fire to roast plantains on. He completely ignored my presence, as did also the carriers, so, as I did not choose to ask his permission to roast my plantains, and as he would probably have refused if I had, I contented myself with a couple of masa and then lit my pipe.
We had not halted more than a quarter of an hour when the Hausa caravan passed, and I noticed that each man carried a spear as a walking staff, and that three of the men had guns lashed lightly to their loads. They saluted us courteously enough in passing, but did not stop to talk, and I was glad to see that they obtained a start of fully three-quarters of an hour before we resumed our journey.
As soon as we were on the road again I began to watch for a chance to escape without being noticed, and it was not very long before an opportunity occurred. At a part of the road where the forest was densest, two gigantic trees had fallen across one another so that the way was completely stopped. When I came in sight of the obstruction, Annan had already climbed to the top, and as he stood up preparatory to helping one of the carriers to ascend, he sank in up to the middle of his thighs, for the tree had been eaten out by the white ants until it was a mere spongy mass of tinder.
I set my trunk down on the path and waited while the carriers laboriously climbed up the rotten barrier and hauled their loads up with the aid of those below, and I watched them hand the burdens down on the other side; and, when the last of them had leaped down without a glance in my direction, I clambered up half-way and peered over at them. The path ran straight ahead for some distance and they hurried along it without looking back; presently they came to a bend in the road, and, one by one, passed out of sight; and as the last man vanished, I jumped down and addressed myself to my task.
In a moment I had the trunk open and the bundle out on the road. I rummaged hastily among the other contents, but found nothing worth taking with me but an old woollen shawl, so, closing the trunk again, I locked it and twisted the key off in the lock, and then, catching up the bundle and the shawl, started back along the path at a run.
A little distance back I had noticed what appeared to be a faint track leading into the forest, and I now ran back until I reached this track, and, having found it, turned down it and ran as fast as the dense undergrowth would let me. I was surprised to find that it grew more distinct as I went on and it presently became quite a well-defined path. When I had run along it for some ten minutes, I turned off into the forest and pushed through the undergrowth until I was stopped by the great buttressed roots of an immense silk-cotton tree which towered up above me like some monumental column. In the angle between two of these buttresses I laid down the bundle, and, with my clasp knife, quickly ripped open the stitching and exposed my treasures to view.
The first thing to do was to shave, for, when I decided to make the journey, I had begun to let my beard grow, and it was now an inch and a half long and very stubbly. I had in the bundle one of those little folding pocket mirrors that are so extensively sold to the natives in West Africa, which I fixed to the tree by sticking my knife through the wire loop; and then taking my razor, mowed away at the dry stubble until the tears ran down my cheeks. But the next operation was worse, for my hair had to come off too, and, by the time I had got my scalp bare, my bald blue pate was covered with scratches and smeared with blood.
The rest, however, was plain sailing. In a twinkling I had stripped off my clothes and donned the vest, the baggy trousers and the long flowing riga, jammed the red cap upon my bald knob of a head and twisted round it the turban and face-cloth, and thrust my pale, naked-looking feet into the yellow slippers.
My toilet wanted now but the finishing touches, and these I proceeded to apply. A little leather flask (or stibium case) containing powdered antimony, and a slender copper rod, were among my possessions. With the rod I dipped up a little of the powder and drew it along my eyelashes, totally changing the expression of my eyes, as I discovered by examining them in the mirror. I next dyed my finger nails with some of the red stain that the forethought of Pereira had provided, hung round my neck a saffi, or amulet, that I found in the bundle, and I was complete. Lastly, I gathered up my few possessions—the compass, spear-irons, mirror, revolver, cartridge box, and burning glass and dropped them into the huge pocket of my riga and added to them my watch and chain, purse and clasp knife.
I stood for a moment looking down at my discarded clothes, much as a toad surveys his newly shed skin. The toad, indeed, had the advantage of me, for when he has peeled off his outgrown integument, he frugally rolls it into a ball and swallows it, so that nothing is wasted. As for me, I must needs leave my cast-off vestments to decay in the forest, and, as I picked up my stick and shawl and turned to go, I looked at them with a ludicrous feeling of regret. There they lay in the angle of the great root-buttresses, seeming to wait for me to come back; a pair of down-at-heel boots and toeless socks, a shabby suit of clothes, and a battered hat—a sorry enough collection, but all that was left of Richard Englefield.
CHAPTER XII.
I CHANGE MY IDENTITY.
When I had pushed my way through the undergrowth to the path, I did not at once turn back towards the road, for I reflected that by this time the hue and cry was no doubt raised, and Annan might quite possibly explore this very path in search of me. That he would let me go, without making an effort to detain me, I did not imagine for an instant, for he had heard the chink of the gold in my purse and had probably surmised that it represented more than the value of all the monkey skins he was likely to secure. So instead of returning to the road I walked off briskly in the opposite direction, and had not gone very far when I made a curious and very pleasing discovery; for there came through the forest, faintly but quite distinctly, the sound of voices.
I stopped and listened intently, and soon made out that what I heard was not the deep discordant jabber of our carriers, but the sharp, high-pitched tone characteristic of the Hausa and Fulah races. My Hausa friends were at no great distance to the right of the path, and seemed to be coming nearer.
The African forest roads have a peculiarity, which they share with certain rivers like the Amazon and the Mississippi—they are never stationary but are continually altering their position from side to side. When a large tree falls and obstructs the road, isolated travellers, like our party, will climb over it; but a large and heavily-laden caravan will find it easier to cut a fresh path round the obstruction, and this new path will thenceforth be used by all persons passing along. Meanwhile, the fallen tree slowly decays, but long before it has disappeared a young growth of forest has sprung up around it. Thus the new path becomes permanent and a curve of fifty or sixty yards in span becomes added to the road. By a continual repetition of this process the road becomes, in the course of time, a succession of serpentine curves, which meander far away from the original direction, their extreme sinuosity being disguised somewhat by the density of the forest growth, until some hunter from an adjacent village restores the road to its original direction by cutting a straight path across the loop, thus saving a circuit of perhaps several miles.
Now, this path upon which I had lighted was one of these short cuts, while the road along which the Hausas and Annan were travelling, was the original winding track; and I perceived that if I made haste I might come out upon the road ahead of both parties.
I therefore hurried forward as well as I could, encumbered with the various articles that I had not yet had time to make into a bundle, and in about a quarter of an hour reached the place where the path rejoined the road. Here I stood and listened for a while, but could at first hear nothing but the ordinary sounds of the forest: the chattering of monkeys, the trumpeting of a hornbill, and the squawking of parrots.
At length a high falsetto laugh came faintly through the woods, and feeling secure now that the Hausas were behind me, I walked slowly on.
By this time the sun was getting low, and it was necessary for me to be careful that I did not overshoot the mark and get ahead of the Hausas’ camping place for the night; and I was just thinking of sitting down and waiting for them to overtake me, when a turn of the road brought me out into a small grassy opening, through the middle of which ran a brawling muddy stream. This, I thought, would make an ideal camping place, and here the Hausas would probably halt, so I determined to await their arrival, and set about making my preparations. First, with the aid of my large handkerchief and the thin stem of a creeper, I made my more bulky possessions into a small parcel, to which I lashed the masa bag and the remainder of the bunch of plantains that I had brought from the deserted village; then I put off my slippers and paddled in the muddy stream for a time, for I feared that the whiteness and tenderness of my feet would attract immediate attention unless I could get them well stained by the red clay. Finally I laid down my shawl on the ground and standing on it with my back to the setting sun, began to pray aloud in the Moslem fashion.
I was quite disconcerted and bashful when my loudly intoned “Allah!” first broke the stillness of the forest, and I had some difficulty in giving the true falsetto turn at the end of the sentence, but a few minutes’ practice improved my style and gave me confidence; and by the time the voices of the Hausas began to sound plainly through the woods, I was chanting away as though to the manner born. At length, advancing footsteps were audible close at hand. I prostrated myself on the ground—cautiously, for fear I should knock off my turban—and as, with the tail of my eye, I saw the leader of the caravan come round the bend in the road, I rose and sent forth a howl that would have done credit to the Prophet himself.
The Hausas were evidently greatly surprised at my appearance, and looked round with a puzzled air for any signs of companions; they did not speak to me, however, but after a whispered consultation, sat down at a little distance and waited for me to finish my devotions. When at length I stepped off my shawl and put on my slippers, the old man came forward and saluted me, and the others gathered round to listen.
“Are thy companions far away, child of my mother?” the old man inquired.
“They are far away by now, my father,” I replied. “They were Wongára who journeyed to Kong, and they turned off by the road to the left this afternoon to avoid passing by Kumasi and Bekwe.”
“I saw no road to the left,” said the old man dubiously.
“He meaneth the little hunter’s path that we passed this afternoon,” put in a sturdy fellow with a broad, jet-black face.
“It is as thy friend sayeth,” said I. “They went by the little hunter’s path.”
“And whither dost thou go, friend?” asked the old man.
“I go to Sálaga by way of Kantámpo,” I replied.
“Thou art not heavily burdened,” remarked the old man significantly.
“The camel steppeth lightly that carrieth the merchant’s gold,” I answered.
“It is true,” he rejoined. “And how do they call thee?”
“The Hausas call me Yúsufu Dan Égadesh, but some call me Yúsufu Fuláni, for my mother was a woman of Futa.”
“I am called Musa Ba-Kachína,” said the old Hausa. “I go with my friends to our country through Kantámpo and Gonja. If it please thee to walk with us rather than to go alone through this wilderness, our fire shall warm thee, and our roofs shelter thee, and thou shalt be as our brother for the sake of the one God whom we all serve and who guides us through the land of the heathen.”
“I will walk with thee, thankfully, my father,” said I, “and thou shalt command me as thy servant while I continue with thee.”
My position as a member of the caravan being thus settled, the company bestowed on me sundry smiles of friendly recognition and set to work preparing for the night. To me was allotted the task of collecting wood for the fire and staves for the huts, in which I was assisted by the giant, whose name I found to be Abduláhi Dan-Daúra, more familiarly known as Dan-jiwa (child of the elephant); an amiable and joyous soul, as simple as a child, and as strong as a bull. I have myself generally passed for a powerful man, but beside this brown-skinned Titan I was like a young girl. The fashion in which he twisted off great branches and snapped them across his knee was perfectly amazing, and when I had been hacking ineffectually for five minutes at some hard-wood sapling, he would come along laughing and, with a flick of his great knife, snip it off as though it were a radish.
We had soon collected a large heap of faggots and long straight poles, and these Abduláhi proceeded to tie up with cords of tie-tie into bundles proportionate to our respective sizes. I endeavoured to lift his bundle on to his head, but could not move it, on which he laughed in his soft girlish voice and hoisting it up lightly, tucked the entire collection of poles under his arm and strolled off, leaving me to follow shamefacedly with a small parcel of faggots.
When we returned to the clearing we found everyone busy and all talking at once. A large heap of grass and leaves was ready for covering the huts and making beds, and a little fire had been kindled with a flint and steel.
“We are waiting for thee, Yúsufu,” said my black-skinned friend—Mahama Dam-Bornu by name. “But I see thou art an idle fellow to let the poor little Dan-jiwa carry all the wood.” There was a general laugh at this, and I presently discovered that the good-humoured Abduláhi was one of the two standing jokes of the caravan, the other being a small man named Osumánu Ba-Kánu, but familiarly known as Dam-biri (child of the monkey), a sobriquet due partly to his remarkable agility and partly to his incorrigibly mischievous disposition.
Musa himself attended to the building up of the fire while the remainder of the company busied themselves in setting up the huts. And here my nautical training was of great service, for although at the outset I had no idea how such shelters were erected, yet my skill and neatness in putting on the lashings of tie-tie earned me quite a reputation as a builder, and the jocose Dam-biri christened me Yasankengwa (cat’s fingers) on the spot.
The building proceeded with marvellous rapidity so that the daylight had barely gone before our little village in the wilderness was complete, and we sat down on the mats that Musa had placed round the fire, to roast our plantains and make our evening meal.
It was a strange experience, and one that, though often repeated, never lost its strangeness; to sit by the fire through the long evening, with the clamour of the forest all around, and listen to the familiar talk of my companions, and live the life of another world. It was as though by some enchantment the scene of my existence had been suddenly shifted to some remote period of antiquity, when the civilisation of the West was yet unborn.
At first the men were somewhat silent, for they were tired and hungry, and a meal of plantains involves a considerable amount of energetic eating; but as the last of the food disappeared and the diners cleansed their fingers with grass or leaves, each man settled himself upon his mat and prepared to make a night of it by talking as only an African can talk. And singularly sprightly and full of interest the conversation was, for these Hausa merchants are great travellers and, of course, make their long journeys either on foot or horseback; and a man who has walked and ridden a few thousand miles through the heart of Africa, will have gathered experiences that make his talk well worth listening to.
Presently someone suggested that Dam-biri should regale the company with a story, and accordingly, that humorist, being by no means afflicted with shyness, at once plunged into a rambling tale, far more remarkable for wit than delicacy, which related to the misfortunes of an elderly mallam who had two young wives; and with such spirit and drollery did the impish Dam-biri relate his story, standing up on his mat to impersonate the different characters, that the forest rang with our shouts of laughter until the pottos in the trees howled with alarm.
But even an African cannot talk for ever, and as the night wore on, one after another rose, yawned and went off to the huts; and at last, to my relief—for I was quite spent with the fatigues and excitements of the day—Musa stood up, touched me on the shoulder and retired into one of the huts. I followed him and found the enormous body of Dan-jiwa occupying half the floor, and I had hardly spread my shawl and stretched myself out on it when I fell asleep.
We were just rolling up our mats after morning prayers on the following day when an unmelodious jabber from the woods announced the approach of travellers, and shortly afterwards my late companions appeared round the bend of the road headed by David Annan.
The latter paused to exchange greetings, which were cool enough on the part of the Hausas, and I noticed my big friend scanning the row of carriers with a frown of curiosity.
“Where is the Anazára (Nazarene) who was with thee yesterday?” he asked, looking Annan full in the face.
“The way was too rough for him,” replied the latter with some confusion, “so he turned back towards the sea.”
“Alone?” inquired Dan-jiwa.
“He went alone. It is not far to Pra-su,” said Annan.
“I see that he has left with thee the box that he carried,” remarked Musa suspiciously.
“And thou hast burst open the lock,” added Dam-Bornu; for my trunk, which the wounded carrier had resumed, was now closed with a band of tie-tie.
“He burst it himself. He had lost the key, and so broke open the box that he might take his goods with him.” Then noting the undisguised incredulity on the faces of his hearers Annan added excitedly, “I swear it by my busum, by the great Busum-Pra. Look in my face and see if I speak not the truth,” and he stared insolently at Abduláhi.
“We like better to look at thy back, friend,” replied Musa drily, and turned away to tie up his mat, while the discomfitted Annan resumed his journey.
We travelled on that day, with few halts, until sunset, and passed through three villages, all of which were deserted, and one partially burned; but at each of them we managed to collect a few plantains from the grove outside the clearing, as well as some papaws, the sickly-sweet flavour of which seemed to be much appreciated by my comrades. We also passed two groups of decapitated corpses, the heads of which had been carried off to decorate the war drums of the victors, and as we camped at night not far from one of these melancholy relics, we were greatly disturbed by the hyænas, whose mournful howls, mingled with imbecile laughter, made it seem as though the forest was tenanted by devils.
Early on the following morning we turned off the main road and took a by-path that led north of Kókofu through Juábin, some distance to the east of Kumasi; for Musa considered it highly unsafe to venture into the vicinity of either Bekwe or Kumasi in the present state of the country. We thus gradually drew away from the active centres of warfare, and on the third day passed through a village on the borders of Juábin, where we were greeted by the welcome sight of a woman pounding fufu in a wooden mortar. We were not yet free, however, from war’s alarms, for, later in the day, a body of some twenty or thirty warriors filed swiftly and silently past us, and not long after, a tremendous fusillade in the bush, accompanied by a Babel of shouts and yells, told us that they had met their foe.
About noon next day the road entered one of the large kola plantations which make this country so important to the Hausa trader; and a wonderful sight it presented, since, owing to the war, the harvest had been left ungathered, and the ground was literally covered with the great pods and the magenta-coloured “nuts” or beans.
“Here is wealth going to waste!” exclaimed Dam-Bornu regretfully. “I could pick up and carry away enough to buy me a strong slave in Sálaga or even an ass to carry my goods for me.”
“There is no reason why we should not take a few nuts to chew as we go,” said Dam-biri, “if we may not gather them as merchandise,” and he commenced picking up the ripe nuts and dropping them into his pocket. Now the pocket of a riga occupies half the front of the garment and will hold upwards of a bushel, and Dambiri continued to drop the nuts into his riga until the huge receptacle was nearly full, a proceeding that did not escape the notice of Musa.
“How wilt thou pay for all that guru, Dam-biri?” he asked. “I thought thou hadst spent all thy money buying merchandise at Cape Coast.”
“I take but a few to chew by the way,” protested Dam-biri.
“A few!” exclaimed the old man. “Thou hast nearly a slave’s load,” and he caught the loose gown and unceremoniously tipped the whole cargo out on to the ground.
At the further end of the plantation we entered a large straggling village, in the main street of which a number of men were filling sacks of plaited grass with kola nuts, having first lined the sacks with fresh leaves. Their master, a swaggering over-dressed Wongára, whose cheeks bulged with kola, stood hard by haggling with the head man of the village and spitting out the orange-red juice as he talked. It seemed that guru was cheap just now, and my companions loudly lamented their want of capital; for they had spent all that they possessed at Cape Coast, on cutlery, silk, and other portable wares, and had barely enough kurdi (cowries) left to carry them home.
“Come now, Yúsufu,” said Musa to me, “thou art a big fellow and hast no load to carry. Wilt thou not buy some guru to sell at Kantámpo? It shall pay thee well.”
“That will I gladly,” I replied, although I wished the guru at Jericho, “but thou and our brethren, will not you buy, too? You have but small loads.”
“We have no money,” he replied.
“But I have,” I rejoined, “and if you will buy what you can carry, I will lend you the money wherewith to pay, if the chief will accept the gold coin of the Christians.”
“Thou art a good friend, Yúsufu,” said Musa. “I will speak with our brethren and the man of the village.”
He did so, and my comrades accepted the loan thankfully, but the headman made some difficulty about the sovereign that I tendered through Musa, having never seen one before. However, the kola was lying on the ground and the coin looked like gold, so he fetched from his house a little pair of scales, and placing the sovereign in one pan, laid in the other a bronze weight, formed of a tiny elephant upon a pedestal, and a few scarlet jequirity seeds: by which process one pound sterling was found to be equal to twenty-one thousand kurdi.
We spent that night in the village, sleeping in some stuffy malodorous houses lent us by the chief, and when we departed in the morning each of my companions carried on top of his bundle of merchandise a half load of kola, while I staggered under a full sack weighing upwards of sixty pounds, in addition to a smaller sack of cowrie shells—the “change” that had been due to me after the kola was paid for.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE GOLDEN POOL.
In the course of a long journey on foot through an uncultivated country one acquires the faculty of unconsciously observing and generalising from certain geographical facts. By noticing the vegetation one can detect at a distance an invisible river or a change in the soil; in dense forest, the proximity of an unseen range of hills is inferred from rapidly-flowing streams with beds of shingle, and the general slope of the country can be judged, apart from particular inclines, from the average direction of the rivers.
Now, very shortly after leaving Juábin, it became evident that we had entered a new watershed, for, whereas the streams had previously flowed mostly in a southerly direction, they now took a course for the most part towards the north-west, and were, moreover, increasing in size, the little rivulets giving place, as we travelled northward, to more considerable streams. It did not, therefore, cause me any surprise when, on the fifth day after leaving Juábin, we came to the brink of a large, slowly-flowing river.
A river of any size is, however, always an object of interest to the traveller, and as we came out into the open space on the bank, we halted and looked about us curiously. The black, sluggish waters were spanned by a rude bridge formed of a single gigantic odúm tree, and on either bank, at each end of the bridge, was a high pile of sticks, while on the farther side of the river an opening in the trees showed that the road led into a village.
As we approached the bridge, a man who had been sitting by the pile of staves rose and held up one hand, while with the other he pointed to the heap; and although he spoke not a word, our people clearly understood his meaning, for each of them who carried a stick cast it on to the pile. Then the man walked on to the bridge and, when he had passed three-quarters of the way across, halted, and tinkled a kind of primitive bell. Our men followed him, and each of them, as he reached the middle of the bridge, drew from his pocket one of the little cloth packets of gold dust that form the ordinary currency in Ashanti and, opening it, shook the gold out into the river. I was greatly surprised at this behaviour on the part of my orthodox friends, but I thought it wise to do as they did, so, laying my stick upon the wooden cairn, I took out the smallest of the packets of gold dust with which Pereira had furnished me, and very reluctantly shook out the contents into the water.
As I landed on the northern bank, I passed close to the fetish priest or wizard—for such he evidently was—and examined him with no little curiosity. He was an emaciated, shrivelled-looking rascal with a sly, sinister face, and grey hair, and was loaded with necklaces and other ornaments of cowrie shells. He appeared to resent my earnest inspection, and Musa, observing this, plucked me by the sleeve and hurried me away, whispering, “Stare not so, my son; remember that he dieth early that gazeth into the eye of a wizard.”
Although it was little past noon, Musa decided to camp outside the village (which I did not require to be told was Tánosu), for we were now beyond the seat of war and could not only rest in peace, but might expect to obtain some better food than plantains, of which we were all heartily sick. We did, in fact, obtain a fine short-haired ram which I gladly paid for out of my sack of cowries, silencing the protests of my comrades by stipulating that if I bought the animal, they should prepare it for eating; and having thus set them a task, I strolled away to enjoy the unwonted luxury of solitude.
And, indeed, it was necessary that I should be alone for a time, for my mind was in a veritable ferment. Here was the place just as the old journal had described it; there were the piles of staves, the wizard, the bridge, and the toll for the river god. What if this dream should turn out to be true after all?
Ah! what?
Should I be so very much forward? I had looked upon the river; I might look upon the wonderful pool; I might even trace the whereabouts of the cave itself. But what then?
I walked down to the bridge and looked at the pile of staves, which I now perceived rested on a great mound of black earth—the accumulation of centuries of decay. I turned away along by the river, and, sitting down on the bank, rested my elbows on my knees and fell into a reverie, gazing dreamily at the dark, turbid water as it crept slowly by.
What if I found the cavern? Should I, even then, be any nearer to its secret? And then, after all, what concern of mine could that secret possibly be? Was not my quest a mere wildgoose chase induced by credulity, mingled with idle curiosity?
I was still turning over these questions, with my eyes fixed on the water, when I started with a pang of disappointment. There had come into view a shoal of fishes swimming leisurely up stream and snapping at an occasional insect on the surface; not such fishes as had been mentioned in the journal, huge, hideous, and ferocious, but just ordinary river fish, much like grayling in appearance, and not more than a foot in length.
Here, then, the narrative had been embroidered by the fancy of the man Almeida, or of his informants, and if one part of the story was fabulous, how much more might turn out to be mythical?
In these reflections I was interrupted by the tinkling of a bell, and looking up, saw the fetish priest approaching with a basket on his head from which steam was rising. He seated himself close to the water’s edge, not far from me, and as I was on a higher level I could watch his proceedings. He laid his basket on the ground beside him, and I could now see that it was filled with eggs, which he took out one by one, and squeezing them in his hand began to peel off the shells, which he threw into the river. The bright-scaled fish gathered round, snapping at the egg-shells as they sank, and crowding nearer and nearer to the bank. Suddenly the entire shoal darted off, and then there loomed through the turbid water a great dark shape, and then another, and another, until a troop of seven had come into view; and as they slowly sailed into the clear water under the bank, I could see them distinctly—huge, smooth-skinned, slate-coloured fish, fully four feet long, with great blunt heads, and grinning mouths fringed with rows of worm-like barbules.
When the priest had finished his preparations, he took the peeled hard-boiled eggs one at a time and cast them out into the stream; and as each one fell, the hideous brutes rushed at it, lashing the water into foam and snapping their jaws in a most horrible manner.
As the last of the eggs vanished the fetish man rose, shook out his basket and departed, and the fish soon disappeared into the dark depths of the river. The truth of Almeida’s story was again vindicated and, in spite of my doubts, I was conscious of a feeling of elation and satisfaction.
I now retraced my steps towards the village, but, being still absorbed in thought, I missed my way and presently entered it at the farther end, where I saw a group of children gathered round a blacksmith’s shop; and, being in an idle frame of mind, I halted to look on. It was a primitive affair—just a thatched roof on four posts—but the work was proceeding briskly enough. A sturdy boy sat on the ground between a pair of goat skins that served as bellows, and, though the forge was but a wide-mouthed jar sunk in the ground, with a hole in the bottom for the blast-pipe, the charcoal fire in it glowed brightly. The smith was at the moment fashioning a spear head on a flat slab of iron-stone that served as an anvil, holding it with queer little tongs and tapping it with an absurd little hammer, but shaping it quickly and skilfully nevertheless.
I was about to move on, when my eye fell on the heap of crude iron—fresh from some native bloomery or furnace—and I observed an object that I decided to acquire if possible. This was a rough iron bar about ten inches long by an inch and a half thick—probably a half-wrought “pig.” It tapered somewhat to one end, and at the other it had an irregular cup-like hollow. The general shape—doubtless accidental—was that of a sounding lead, and for that purpose I proposed to use it, as will be seen hereafter; but it would be necessary to have a hole made in it to reeve the line through.
The smith, having finished the spear head, put it aside to cool, and then observing me for the first time accosted me in very barbarous, but quite intelligible, Hausa.
I returned his salutation, and, picking up the bar, asked him if he wished to sell it.
“Yes. I will sell it,” he replied.
“Canst thou make a hole through this end?”
“Certainly I can.”
“And what will the price then be?” I asked.
He considered a moment, and then said, “A thousand kurdi.”
“Very well,” I replied. “Make the hole and I will pay thee.”
He seemed greatly astonished at my accepting his price without haggling—a thing unheard of in Africa—but he promptly stuck the rod in the fire and looked out a point to make the hole with, while the boy worked the bellows.
I fished up out of my capacious pocket the remnants of my bag of cowries, and had hardly finished counting them out on the ground before the work was done and the hissing iron plunged into a calabash of water to cool.
That night our camp outside the village was a scene of roaring conviviality, for we had passed through the starving wilderness and now, for the first time, enjoyed the luxury of a hearty meal. And, let ascetics preach as they will, there is great virtue in a good dinner “which maketh glad the heart of man,” as anyone would have admitted who could have seen the beaming faces upon which the red glow of our camp fire shone that night. Now a man can smile—after a certain fashion—with his mouth full, whereas conversation under those circumstances is hardly practicable; whence it happened that the early part of the entertainment was of a somewhat silent character, communication being maintained principally by gestures and grins of satisfaction. But as the evening wore on and the remains of the ram dwindled into a “frail memorial” of clean-picked bones, and the roasted yams were scraped out to the very rinds, tongues began to wag and conversation and anecdote to buzz round the fire.
Naturally enough, the talk fell on the river god of Tano and the strange customs at the bridge.
“This is a proud god,” remarked Dam-Bornu, “that will not suffer any man to carry a staff before his face.”
“Say rather a proud devil,” said Musa gravely. “There is no god but God.”
“It is true,” replied Dam-Bornu, “there is but one God, the wise and the merciful. But this Tano devil, hast thou ever seen the heathen people worship him?”
“Never,” answered Musa. “How do they worship?”
“I saw them,” said Dam-Bornu, “when I went to Kumasi, at a town not far from here. The wizards dressed in strange garments and wore great wooden faces with horns all painted most horribly, and the people, too, wore curious garments, and danced round the wizards in a ring, sweeping the earth with brushes and shaking rattles.”
“Great is the folly of the heathen,” remarked Musa, sententiously, apparently forgetting the offering he had made to the river god as he crossed the bridge.
“Hast thou heard the story that Alhassan Ba-Adami tells about the gods’ treasure house?” asked Dan-jiwa.
“I have not heard it,” replied Musa. “Wilt thou tell us the story, Alhassan?”
“I will tell what I have heard,” said Alhassan; “but I know not if it be true or a fable.”
We all settled ourselves to listen, and Alhassan, a quiet, gentle-mannered man, began, a little shyly because of the sudden silence:
“It is said that in the days of old, certain Nasaráwa (Christians) came to this country to search for gold. And they came to a place called Aboási, where is a great rock and near to it a pool, in which pool the river Tano beginneth; and finding there much gold, they dug a mine which they made after the fashion of their country, not only digging a pit as the black men do, but burrowing deep into the earth as a mole doth. Now, the people of this country hated the Christians, and on a certain day, when the white men were working in their mine, the men of the country arose and took their knives and spears—for in those days the black people had no guns—and said to one another, ‘Let us go to the mine and take the white men and kill them; so they shall trouble us no more, and we shall have their gold.’
“So they came to the mine and went into one of the burrows, but did not find the white men. Then they went to another burrow, and the white men were not there. And they went into a third burrow, which was the deepest of all, and there they saw the Christians with lamps and torches digging for gold. Then they fell upon the Christians to kill them, but the white men had guns in the mine with them, and they fired at the black people. And the voice of the guns went out through the burrows and shook the earth so that it fell in and buried them, and they all perished, both the black people and the Christians, and were never seen again. And it is said that the demon of the river took the mine for his own, and that his priests serve him there in a temple underground to this day, and heap up more and more treasure, which they hide in a strong place deep in the earth; and, moreover, that these wizards waylay and catch strangers and drag them to the mine, where they keep them to labour for the river god; but what these slaves do I did not hear and cannot guess since—so it is said—the wizards put out their eyes so that, should any of them escape, they should not be able to tell any of the secrets of the place nor guide others to the mine. This is what I have been told of the river god, but whether or not it is true I cannot tell.”
As Alhassan finished speaking, a somewhat uncomfortable silence fell upon the assembly, and more than one of the men glanced round nervously towards the village whence the sound of drumming came down upon the night air.
“Where is this Aboási?” inquired Dan-jiwa.
“It is about two days’ journey from here,” replied Alhassan. “We pass near to it on the way to Kantámpo—that is to the pool; whereabouts the mine is I do not know.”
There was another silence and then Musa said—
“Well, we are ten strong men, followers of the Prophet and servants of the true God. So we need not fear the demons of the heathen. Still, I like not these wizards, and shall be glad to see the last of their accursed country.”
We were preparing for a somewhat leisurely start on the following morning when there filed into the village a caravan led by a fine stately Hausa, who stalked down the street as though the entire country belonged to him, until catching sight of Musa, he ran forward and embraced him with many demonstrations of joy and affection. It appeared that Imóru (which was the stranger’s name) was an old friend and fellow townsman of our leader, and had come direct from their country. So the members of the two caravans sat down joyfully together to exchange experiences and talk over the news.
I learned that Imóru was travelling first to Cape Coast and thence to Quittah, where he had a relative who was the mallam or priest to the Hausa troops with whom he had formerly lived for a time. I asked him if he knew a Christian named Pereira, and on his replying that he knew him very well, I determined to make him the bearer of a letter. But I soon saw, by the interest that my proposal to write a letter aroused, that I should have to write it in public and that it would be in the highest degree impolitic to display any knowledge of European language or letters. When, therefore, Imóru produced from his scrip a sheet of coarse paper, a reed pen and a little gourd of thick brown ink, and my comrades gathered round to look on, I contented myself with writing, in my very best Arabic, a brief but affectionately-worded note stating that all was well with me so far, and hoping to see my friends again before long. When I had given Imóru this letter I felt more easy in my mind with regard to Isabel and her father, for although the missive told them little, I knew that they would learn all they wished to know by questioning the bearer.
During the next two days our road lay mostly along the right bank of the Tano river, although, owing to its windings, we only saw it occasionally; but we crossed a number of tributary streams, and the main river rapidly diminished in volume as we ascended towards its source. About noon on the second day I noticed that the river, which had now dwindled to quite an inconsiderable stream, had, from being dark and turbid, suddenly become as clear as crystal; and Alhassan, who was walking near me, informed me that we had passed the last (or rather the first) of the tributaries, and that the clear water we saw came direct from the Aboási pool.
Soon afterwards we halted for our midday rest and meal, and I then took Alhassan aside and asked him if he knew how far away the pool was.
“It is quite near to this place,” he replied. “I can show thee the little path that leads to it from the road.”
“Come then and show it to me,” said I.
As we were starting off, Musa caught sight of us and called out to know where we were going.
“Yusufu has asked me to show him the little path to the pool,” said Alhassan.
“What hast thou to do with the pool, Yusufu?” asked Musa suspiciously.
“I have heard much talk of it,” I replied, “and would see for myself what manner of place it is.”
“The curiosity of fools is the bane of wise men,” exclaimed Musa angrily. “Because thou speakest little I had thought thee a man of sense; and now thou wilt bring a mischief on us by prying into the secrets of the heathen.”
“Surely,” said I, “it is no harm to go and look at the water. It is there for any man to see.”
“I tell thee the place is sacred and forbidden, and thou must not go near it,” persisted the old man.
“I am going to see it,” said I, and to save further discussion I pulled Alhassan by the sleeve and strode off.
In a few minutes we came to a small track that turned off from the caravan road into the forest.
“This is the path,” said Alhassan. “Shall I come with thee?”
He was brimful of curiosity, but mighty nervous, and would not have been sorry, I think, if I had refused his company. However, I told him he might come if he pleased, and we entered the path together; but we had not gone a couple of hundred yards when we encountered an object that brought Alhassan to a dead stop.
In the middle of the path and completely barring the way was a grotesque and frightful figure with long curved horns and great goggle eyes, seated on a stool and staring stonily before it. It was nearly life-size and was the more diabolical in aspect because it was really skilfully modelled and painted, and an additional touch of realism was imparted by an actual garment of palm fibre.
“Let us go back, Yúsufu,” exclaimed Alhassan in a shaky voice, surveying the apparition with dismay, as it sat with its little heap of votive offerings before it; “this place is the abode of devils. Come away.”
“Go thou and wait for me in the road,” said I. “I am going to see this pool since I have come so far”; and I pushed past the image and proceeded along the path.
I could now distinguish the sound of falling water, and walking on another hundred yards, I came out on to the bank of the pool.
A brief glance round sufficed to convince me that here again Almeida’s narrative was strictly veracious. The pool was a sheet of water some hundred and fifty yards across, surrounded by forest. At one end the bank rose so steeply as to form a kind of cliff, and from one part of this a small stream of red, muddy water fell into the pool, while at a little distance from the spring there stood up out of the water a solitary mass of red rock from which two slender tusk-like fragments of quartz projected. The spring did not, however, gush out of the tusked rock as Almeida had described it, but it may have done so formerly, as it now spouted from the end of a gorge which it had excavated, in the course of years, in the cliff.
The pool was evidently of considerable depth, even close inshore, and the water was very clear where I first came out on to the bank; but as I followed the path along the brink towards the spring, it became more turbid.
Before returning to the forest path I stood on the bank where the water was clearest, and attentively examined the bottom, which appeared to be of a greyish red mud; and as I stood there I was suddenly startled by the appearance of a shoal of the huge and hideous fishes such as I had seen at Tánosu. In the clear water they were horribly distinct, and as they crowded round the bank at my feet and leered up at me with their dull, glazy eyes, I felt quite a thrill of horror, and instinctively stepped back a pace lest I should slip down the bank; and as I did so, something rustled in the bush behind me. But although I turned round quickly I could see nothing, and concluded that some animal must have passed through the undergrowth.
When I got back to the road I found Alhassan awaiting me with evident anxiety, and I had no sooner joined him than he hurried me off towards the camp.
“Didst thou see the wizards, Yúsufu?” he asked in a whisper.
“Wizards!” I exclaimed. “No, I saw no one.”
“They saw thee,” said he, “for they came along the path soon after thee, having watched us both from the bush.”
I was sorry to hear this, for not only did I not want to arouse the suspicions of the fetish men on my own account, but I should hardly have forgiven myself if I had involved my kind and hospitable companions in any trouble with the natives. It was also a little disagreeable to find the priests so watchful and alert, and I took my way back to the camp in a rather anxious frame of mind.
The meal was nearly finished when we arrived, so we had but a short rest before the march was resumed; but this turned out to be of little importance, for before we had gone more than a couple of miles, the gathering clouds and a certain chill in the air gave warning of a threatened tornado, although the season of storms had gone by. The careful Musa, therefore, called a halt, and huts were hurriedly put up to shelter our persons and merchandise from the rain; but after a time the clouds drifted away and the slanting rays of the afternoon sun shone brightly enough on our little encampment. It was, however, too late to continue our journey, so our men sat about for the rest of the day chewing kola and talking.
The evening meal was prepared earlier than usual, and when it was finished we sat round the fire and talked again, until getting tired of this the men went off one by one, to rest either in huts or by the fire. I spread my own mat on the side of the fire farthest from the huts and lay down to think over my plans and wait till my comrades should be asleep.
The night was at first very dark, but as the time went on and the drowsy mutter of conversation gradually died away, the sky cleared, and presently the red beams of the rising moon began to filter through the trees. I turned out the contents of my great pocket on to the mat to make sure that I had forgotten nothing. The iron bar or sinker, a coil of the wiry stem of a creeper three or four fathoms long, a lump of shea butter wrapped in a piece of rag, a large knife, and my revolver; these formed my outfit for the night’s expedition, and when I had “mustered” them I put them back. I had spent the evening in fitting a shaft to my spear irons, and the finished spear lay by my mat.
The camp was wrapped in silence except for the ordinary sounds of the forest. A potto shrieked in a neighbouring tree, an owl hooted, a couple of flying foxes whistled monotonously as though they were blowing across gigantic keys, and from the undergrowth came the squeaky bark of a genet, and the stealthy, secret chuckle of some prowling civet.
I stood up on my mat and looked round at our little camp. The fire was already dull, every man was asleep, and the big white moon now sailed high above the tree tops. I took up my spear, and picking my way softly past my sleeping comrades, stole off at a rapid pace along the road towards Aboási.
It was a most eerie walk. The brilliant moonlight made the road in parts as clear as in broad daylight, for the forest being less dense here than it had been farther south, the path was fairly open. But on either side was a wall of impenetrable shadow, and, in places where the forest closed up, the road itself was as dark as a vault, and I had to fairly feel my way with the butt of my spear. And, as I went, I seemed to be accompanied by an invisible multitude. Every clump of bush stirred as I approached it; the dark undergrowth was all in a rustle of movement: stealthy steps came to and fro on all sides, and the air was full of strange whirrings and flutterings.
Several times I was startled by some bulky creature leaping up at my very feet and bounding away into the shadow, and once, as I was feeling my way along a stretch of road that was wrapped in absolute darkness, there appeared in the gloom before me a constellation of green and shining eyes that flitted and danced to a murmur of soft, snuffling growls; and when I flourished my spear and rushed at them, the forest rang out with a peal of wild laughter. It was only a pack of hyænas, but I breathed more freely when I came out again into the moonlight and saw that they had left me.
The path to the pool was not difficult to find, for a great silk-cotton tree stood at the junction and flung its huge serpent-like roots right across the road; so I strode along it with confidence, and soon came in sight of the grim idol which stood out, a hideous silhouette, against the moonlit opening. And certainly if it was frightful by daylight it now looked truly diabolical, and I half sympathised with Alhassan as I passed it in the gloom. It was quite a relief to get out into the open space by the pool; and very lovely the little lake appeared in the clear moonlight, its farther margin shrouded under the dark wall of forest and the tall monolith of the tusked rock faithfully repeated below its quiet surface.
I followed the path round the brink to a place that I had settled upon at my first visit, where a tree jutted out nearly horizontally, with its trunk partially immersed in the water. I had chosen this spot for two reasons. In the first place it was near to the spring, and I had calculated that, if there was really gold in the bed of the pool, that gold must be brought by the spring, and, as the heavy gold dust would settle sooner than the earthy sediment, the bottom in the neighbourhood of the fountain would be richest in gold. My second reason was the tree itself, which would form a kind of stage, convenient to work from.
I now hastily prepared my appliances. Passing the end of the line through the hole in the iron sinker I made it fast with a couple of half hitches. Then I took a lump of the shea butter and pressed it into the hollow at the end of the sinker to form what sailors call an “arming.” Kicking off my slippers to make my foothold safer, I crept out on to the tree trunk as far as I could, and, taking the coil of line in one hand, with the other softly dropped the sinker into the water, letting the line run through my fingers until I felt the iron thump on the bottom. Then I drew it up and crawled back on to the bank to examine it. The arming of shea butter was covered by a thick layer of greyish mud, but, although I inspected it most minutely, to my deep disappointment I could not discover a trace of gold.
However, I determined to save the mud for more thorough examination by daylight, and, to this end, sliced off with my knife the top layer of the arming and laid the muddy fragment in the rag. I then crept out on to the tree and again dropped the sinker to the bottom and returned to shore to see if I had any better fortune this time; but the mud which adhered to the sticky arming was similar to that brought up by the first cast—soft grey deposit with never a trace of sparkle or colour.
I was stooping over the rag with the sinker in my hand, comparing the two soundings, when, chancing to glance up, my eye was attracted by the swaying shadows of foliage on the white, lichen-clad trunk of a tree close by; and even as I looked, another shadow appeared on the tree and slowly moved across it—the shadow of a man’s head.
I remained for an instant petrified; then, as the shadow suddenly vanished, I sprang to my feet, whirling the sinker round as I rose. The heavy iron struck some hard object with a dull shock and, as I faced round, a man staggered backwards and fell, nearly upsetting a second man who was following close behind. The latter, however, quickly recovered and, as he rushed at me with an uplifted knife, I again raised the sinker; but before I could strike, he seized my wrist with his free hand and made a lunge at my chest with his dagger, which I barely escaped by grasping his arm below the elbow. So we stood for near upon a minute, holding one another at arm’s length, tugging and wrenching, swaying to and fro and trampling upon the prostrate body. Then we stood stock-still for a few moments, till suddenly, with a jerk of his arm, he swept the point of his knife within an inch of my neck, and as I twisted his elbow back, he snapped at my face with his teeth, snarling like a wild beast.
Meanwhile, as we staggered backward and forward, we were gradually edging nearer and nearer to the water, and each of us struggled to back the other towards the bank. We were within a couple of yards of the brink when my assailant made another sudden lunge at me with his knife, which again narrowly missed me; but the wrench that I gave his arm to save myself, turned the weapon, so that its point pricked him in the pit of his stomach, causing him to recoil so violently that he lost his footing, letting go my wrist in his confusion. I gave him a brisk shove so that he staggered back two or three paces, and he stood for a moment on the very edge of the bank, waving his arms and striving to recover his balance; then he toppled backwards and fell with a splash into the water.
He disappeared for an instant only and rose close to the tree, which he clutched at frantically, and struggled to haul himself up; but the trunk was wet and slippery, and offered very little hold, so that he continually slipped back. I debated hurriedly whether I should take the opportunity to make off, or knock him on the head with the sinker, and was inclining to the former course—for it was a repulsive idea to kill a helpless man—when the water around became violently agitated. The unfortunate wretch gave vent to a yell of agony and horror, and flinging up his arms, vanished below the surface.
I stood for some moments rooted to the spot, watching the foaming eddies that told of the awful struggle that was taking place in those black depths, but, as the prostrate man now began to show signs of returning animation, I thought it high time to be gone; so, wrapping the sinker in the rag, I dropped it into my pocket, picked up my spear, and ran off down the path.
When I got back to the camp all was still and quiet save for the heavy breathing of my comrades, and my mat lay by the dull fire just as I had left it. I pushed the ends of the long faggots into the heap of embers, and as a cheerful flame leaped up, I settled myself on my mat and immediately fell asleep.
CHAPTER XIV.
I AM LED INTO CAPTIVITY.
I was aroused next morning by a vigorous shaking, and, opening my eyes, found Abduláhi Dan-jiwa bending over me.
“Come, rouse up, thou sluggard,” said he, giving me another gentle shake that was like to have dislocated my shoulder; “the sun is up and I have found a lovely stream of pure water. Come and bathe so that we begin the day all fresh and clean.”
I rose and rubbed my eyes, yawning sleepily, for I was none the livelier for my nocturnal adventures; but I slipped off my riga, and folding it up neatly on the mat, followed my big friend who was frisking along with the buoyancy of a child.
The river was one of those beautiful little streams that are so plentiful in North Ashanti, whose crystal-clear waters trickle over beds of white sand between high banks carpeted with moss and fringed with lacy, delicate ferns.
Several of our people were already splashing about in the water, and when Abduláhi and I, flinging our remaining clothes down on the bank, leaped in and joined the party, a regular water frolic began; and as I watched these boisterous, high-spirited Africans chasing one another up and down the stream, sousing one another with water, and shouting with laughter and delight, my thoughts went back to the far-away Kentish shore and the sun-browned fisher-boys who gambol in the pools when the tide is out in the long summer days.
The fun was at its height when a loud shouting in the camp attracted our attention.
We stopped our play and listened.
Plainly enough the sound came down the wind, and we could clearly distinguish angry voices raised in high dispute. With one accord we rushed to the bank, and huddling on our clothes, ran off at top speed in the direction of the camp.
And as we came out into the opening I saw at a glance that there was going to be very serious trouble—for me at least. A party of some thirty natives, all armed with long muskets, stood at a little distance, motionless but alert, and close by the fire half-a-dozen men, whose cowrie ornaments showed them to be fetish priests, were talking excitedly to our companions. As I appeared, one of these men, whose head was bound up with a blood-stained rag, pointed to me, and I then noticed that my riga lay at his feet, and that he held in his hand the sinker with its coil of line.
“What is this thing that thou hast done, Yúsufu, fool that thou art?” exclaimed Musa, furiously, as I came up. “Did I not tell thee that thy folly would bring a mischief on us?”
“What say the wizards, my father?” I asked meekly, for my conscience was mighty sore at having brought this trouble upon my friends.
“This man saith thou hast killed one of his brethren, and also hast robbed the river god of his gold.”
“As to the man,” said I, “he fell into the water as we struggled together and the great fishes devoured him, and as to the gold I found none.”
“What, then, is this?” demanded Musa, taking the sinker from the fetish man’s hand and picking up the rag with the fragment of muddy grease in it. “What hast thou to say to these? Are they not thine?”
“They are mine, my father, but they are not gold,” said I.
He held out the rag with one hand and with the other presented the sinker with its arming still covered with mud.
“What is this on the shea butter, and what is sticking to this iron?” he asked.
“Surely it is dirt,” said I.
“It is very precious dirt,” he replied. “Look more closely.”
I did so, and then, to my amazement, I perceived that the mud was charged with gold dust; but so minute were the particles that it was only on the closest inspection that they could be distinguished amidst the grey deposit with which they were mixed.
“I see now,” said I, “there is gold among the dirt. I was deceived in the darkness.”
“The wizards speak the truth, then,” said he. “Thou didst go to rob their god?”
“It is so, my father,” I answered.
“Then I fear thou wilt pay a heavy price for thy folly,” rejoined Musa. “The wizards say that thou must go with them.”
“And what will they do with me?”
“That I know not,” he replied; “but I fear they mean to kill thee.”
“And if I will not go with them?”
“Then,” said Musa, “they will kill thee and us also.”
“It is enough, my father,” said I. “I will go with the wizards.”
Our people had gathered round to listen and, as the evidence of my misdoing had come to light, they, like Musa, had been highly incensed with me for thus bringing them into collision with the natives. But my frank acceptance of the responsibility for my actions mollified them considerably, and now the tide was suddenly turned in my favour by Abduláhi.
“This cannot be,” he exclaimed. “What! shall a servant of the true God be delivered into the hands of these devil-worshippers? Thou knowest, my father, how these heathen deal with their prisoners, and Alhassan hath told us what things are done by this people. Let us refuse, and then, if they will have it so, we will fight them.”
Musa looked round irresolutely. His anger had quite evaporated, and he was evidently loth to let me go to what he suspected would be a horrible death.