Part 34 (1/2)
Although the slave failed to reach him, Marizano was so enraged that he drew a hatchet from his belt and instantly dashed out the man's brains.
He fell dead without even a groan. Terrified by this, the rest pa.s.sed on more rapidly, and there was no further check till a woman in the line, with an infant on her back, stumbled, and, falling down, appeared unable to rise.
”Get up!” shouted Marizano, whose rage had rather been increased than abated by the murder he had just committed.
The woman rose and attempted to advance, but seemed ready to fall again.
Seeing this, Marizano plucked the infant from her back, dashed it against a tree, and flung its quivering body into the jungle, while a terrible application of the lash sent the mother shrieking into the swamp. [See Livingstone's _Zambesi and its Tributaries_, page 857; and for a record of cruelties too horrible to be set down in a book like this, we refer the reader to McLeod's _Travels in Eastern Africa_, volume two page 26. Also to the Appendix of Captain Sulivan's _Dhow-Chasing in Zanzibar Waters_, which contains copious and interesting extracts from evidence taken before the Select Committee of the House of Commons.]
Harold and Disco did not witness this, though they heard the shriek of despair, for at the moment the negro they were tending was breathing his last. When his eyes had closed and the spirit had been set free, they rose, and, purposely refraining from looking back, hurried away from the dreadful scene, intending to plunge into the swamp at some distance from the place, and push on until they should regain the head of the column.
”Better if we'd never fallen behind, sir,” said Disco, in a deep, tremulous voice.
”True,” replied Harold. ”We should have been spared these sights, and the pain of knowing that we cannot prevent this appalling misery and cruelty.”
”But surely it is to be prevented _somehow_,” cried Disco, almost fiercely. ”Many a war that has cost mints o' money has been carried on for causes that ain't worth mentionin' in the same breath with _this_!”
As Harold knew not what to say, and was toiling knee-deep in the swamp at the moment he made no reply.
After marching about half an hour he stopped abruptly and said, with a heavy sigh,--”I hope we haven't missed our way?”
”Hope not sir, but it looks like as if we had.”
”I've bin so took up thinkin' o' that accursed traffic in human bein's that I've lost my reckonin'. Howsever, we can't be far out, an', with the sun to guide us, we'll--”
He was stopped by a loud halloo in the woods, on the belt of the swamp.
It was repeated in a few seconds, and Antonio, who, with Jumbo, had followed his master, cried in an excited tone--
”Me knows dat sound!”
”Wot may it be, Tony?” asked Disco.
There was neither time nor need for an answer, for at that moment a ringing cry, something like a bad imitation of a British cheer, was heard, and a band of men sprang out of the woods and ran at full speed towards our Englishmen.
”Why, Zombo!” exclaimed Disco, wildly.
”Oliveira!” cried Harold.
”Masiko! Songolo!” shouted Antonio and Jumbo.
”An' Jose, Nakoda, Chimbolo, Mabruki!--the whole bun' of 'em,” cried Disco, as one after another these worthies emerged from the wood and rushed in a state of frantic excitement towards their friends--”Hooray!”
”Hooroo-hay!” replied the runners.
In another minute our adventurous party of travellers was re-united, and for some time nothing but wild excitement, congratulations, queries that got no replies, and replies that ran tilt at irrelevant queries, with confusion worse confounded by explosions of unbounded and irrepressible laughter not unmingled with tears, was the order of the hour.
”But wat! yoos ill?” cried Zombo suddenly, looking into Disco's face with an anxious expression.
”Well, I ain't 'xac'ly ill, nor I ain't 'xac'ly well neither, but I'm hearty all the same, and werry glad to see your black face, Zombo.”
”Ho! hooroo-hay! so's me for see you,” cried the excitable Zombo; ”but come, not good for talkee in de knees to watter. Fall in boy, ho!