Part 15 (2/2)

To this the men replied that they could not tell. Marunga, they said, was known well to them by name and sight. They did not think she was among the captives, but could not tell what had become of her, as the village where she and her little boy lived had been burnt, and all who had not been killed or captured had taken to the bush. Marunga's husband, they added, was a man named Chimbolo--not a Manganja man, but a friend of the tribe--who had been taken by the slavers, under command of a Portuguese half-caste named Marizano, about two years before that time.

Chimbolo winced as though he had been stung when Marizano's name was mentioned, and a dark frown contracted his brows when he told the Manganja men that _he_ was Chimbolo, and that he was even then in search of Marunga and her little boy.

When all this had been explained to Harold Seadrift he told the men that it was a pity to waste time in travelling such a long way to see their chief, who could not, even if he wished, bewitch the guns of the Ajawa, and advised them to turn back and guide him and his men to the place where the attack had been made on the Manganja, so that a search might be made in the bush for those of the people who had escaped.

This was agreed to, and the whole party proceeded on their way with increased speed, Chimbolo and Harold hoping they might yet find that Marunga had escaped, and Disco earnestly desiring that they might only fall in with the Ajawa and have a brush with them, in which case he a.s.sured the negroes he would show them a way of bewitching their guns that would beat their chief's bewitchment all to sticks and stivers!

The village in which Marunga had dwelt was soon reached. It was, as they had been told by their new friends, a heap of still smouldering ashes; but it was not altogether dest.i.tute of signs of life. A dog was observed to slink away into the bush as they approached.

The moment Chimbolo observed it he darted into the bush after it.

”Hallo!” exclaimed Disco in surprise; ”that n.i.g.g.e.r seems to have took a sudden fancy to the cur?--Eh, Antonio, wot's the reason of that, think 'ee?”

”Dunno; s'pose where dog be mans be?”

”Ah! or womans,” suggested Disco.

”Or womans,” a.s.sented Antonio.

Just then they heard Chimbolo's shout, which was instantly followed by a succession of female shrieks. These latter were repeated several times, and sounded as though the fugitives were scattering.

”Hims find a nest of womins!” exclaimed Jumbo, throwing down his load and das.h.i.+ng away into the bush.

Every individual of the party followed his example, not excepting Harold and Disco, the latter of whom was caught by the leg, the moment he left the track, by a wait-a-bit thorn--most appropriately so-called, because its powerful spikes are always ready to seize and detain the unwary pa.s.ser-by. In the present instance it checked the seaman's career for a few seconds, and rent his nether garments sadly; while Harold, profiting by his friend's misfortune, leaped over the bush, and pa.s.sed on. Disco quickly extricated himself, and followed.

They were not left far behind, and overtook their comrades just as they emerged on an open s.p.a.ce, or glade, at the extremity of which a sight met their eyes that filled them with astonishment, for there a troop of women and one or two boys were seen walking towards them, with Chimbolo in front, having a child on his left shoulder, and performing a sort of insane war-dance round one of the women.

”He's catched her!” exclaimed Disco, with excited looks, just as if Chimbolo had been angling unsuccessfully for a considerable time, and had hooked a stupendous fish at last.

And Disco was right. A few of the poor creatures who were so recently burnt out of their homes, and had lost most of those dearest to them, had ventured, as if drawn by an irresistible spell, to return with timid steps to the scene of their former happiness, but only to have their worst fears confirmed. Their homes, their protectors, their children, their hopes, all were gone at one fell swoop. Only one among them--one who, having managed to save her only child, had none to mourn over, and no one to hope to meet with--only one returned to a joyful meeting. We need scarcely say that this was Marunga.

The fact was instantly made plain to the travellers by the wild manner in which Chimbolo shouted her name, pointed to her, and danced round her, while he showed all his glistening teeth and as much of the whites of his eyes as was consistent with these members remaining in their orbits.

Really it was quite touching, in spite of its being ludicrous, the way in which the poor fellow poured forth his joy like a very child,--which he was in everything except years; and Harold could not help remembering, and recalling to Disco's memory, Yoosoof's observations touching the hardness of negroes' hearts, and their want of natural affection, on the morning when his dhow was captured by the boat of the ”Firefly.”

The way in which, ever and anon, Chimbolo kissed his poor but now happy wife, was wondrously similar to the mode in which white men perform that little operation, except that there was more of an unrefined smack in it. The tears which _would_ hop over his sable cheeks now and then sparkled to the full as brightly as European tears, and were perhaps somewhat bigger; and the pride with which he regarded his little son, holding him in both hands out at arms'-length, was only excelled by the joy and the tremendous laugh with which he received a kick on the nose from that undutiful son's black little toes.

But Yoosoof never chanced to be present when such exhibitions of negro feeling and susceptibility took place. How could he, seeing that men and women and children--if black--fled from him, and such as he, in abject terror? Neither did Yoosoof ever chance to be present when women sat down beside their blackened hearths, as they did that night, and quietly wept as though their hearts would burst at the memory of little voices and manly tones--not silent in death, but worse than that--gone, gone _for ever_! Doubtless they felt though they never heard of, and could not in words express, the sentiment--

”Oh for the touch of a vanished hand, And the sound of a voice that is still.”

Yoosoof knew not of, and cared nothing for, such feelings as these. We ask again, how could he? His only experience of the negro was when cowering before him as a slave, or when yelling in agony under his terrible lash, or when brutalised and rendered utterly apathetic by inhuman cruelty.

Harold learned, that night on further conversation with the Manganja men, that a raid had recently been made into those regions by more than one band of slavers, sent out to capture men and women by the Portuguese half-castes of the towns of Senna and Tette, on the Zambesi, and that they had been carrying the inhabitants out of the country at the rate of about two hundred a week.

This however was but a small speck, so to speak, of the mighty work of kidnapping human beings that was going on--that is _still_ going on in those regions. Yoosoof would have smiled--he never laughed--if you had mentioned such a number as being large.

But in truth he cared nothing about such facts, except in so far as they represented a large amount of profit accrueing to himself.

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