Part 9 (1/2)

”If we made a dash for liberty we should, I fear, be shot down like dogs,” I said.

”Yes,” he answered. ”The country we shall now traverse will not facilitate our flight, but the reverse. From the edge of the Great Forest to Buna, beyond the Kong mountains, it is mostly marshy hollows and pestilential swamps, while the lands beyond Buna away to Koranza, in Ashanti, are flat and open like your English pastures. We will, if opportunity offers, endeavour to escape, but even if we succeeded in eluding their vigilance death lurks everywhere in a hundred different forms.”

”Well, at present we are slaves hounded on towards the dreaded Golgotha of the Ashantis,” I said. ”We have escaped one fate only to be threatened by one more terrible.”

”True,” he answered. ”But down on the Coast they have an old proverb in the Negro-English jargon which says, 'Softly, softly catchee monkey.' Let us proceed cautiously, bear our trials with patience, seek not to incense these brutal Arabs against us, and we may yet tread the path that leads into my mother's kingdom. Then, within a week, the war-drums will sound and we will accompany our hosts against Samory and his hordes.”

”I shall act as you direct,” I replied. ”If you think that by patience all may come right no complaint shall pa.s.s my lips. We are companions in misfortune, therefore let us arm ourselves against despair.”

The compact thus made, we endured the toil and hards.h.i.+ps of travel without murmur. At first our bearded masters heaped upon the queen's son every indignity they could devise, but finding they could not incense him, nor cause him to utter complaint, ceased their taunts and cuts from their loaded whips, and soon began to treat us with less severity.

Yet the fatigues of that march were terrible. The suffering I witnessed in that slave gang is still as vivid in my memory as if it were only yesterday. Ere we had pa.s.sed through the great forest and gained the Kong mountains, a dozen of our unfortunate companions who had fallen sick had been left in the narrow path to be eaten alive by the driver-ants and other insects in which the gloomy depths abound, while during the twenty days which the march to the Ashanti border occupied many others succ.u.mbed to fever. Over all the marshes there hung a thick white mist deadly to all, but the more so to the starving wretches who came from the high lands far north beyond the Niger. Scarcely a day broke without one or more of the lean, weak negroes being attacked, and as a sick slave is only an inc.u.mbrance, they were left to die while we were marched onward.

Whose turn it might next be to be left behind to be devoured alive none knew, and in this agony of fear and suspense we pushed forward from day to day until we at last reached the undulating gra.s.s-land that Omar told me was within a few days' march of k.u.ma.s.si.

Here, even if the sun blazed down upon us like a ball of fire, it was far healthier than in the misty regions of King Fever, and at the summit of a low gra.s.s-covered hill our captors halted for two days to allow us to recuperate, fearing, we supposed, that our starved and weak condition might be made an excuse for low prices.

Soon, however, we were goaded forward again, and ere long, having traversed Mampon's country, entered the capital of King Prempeh, slaves to be sacrificed at the great annual custom.

No chance of escape had been afforded us. We were driven forward to the doom to which the inhuman enemy of the Naya of Mo had so ruthlessly consigned us.

CHAPTER XI.

THE HUMAN SACRIFICE.

k.u.ma.s.sI, the capital of the Ashanti kingdom, was, we found, full of curious contrasts. We approached it through dense high elephant gra.s.s, along a little beaten foot-path strewn with fetish dolls. It was evening when we entered it, and drums could be heard rumbling and booming far and near. Presently we pa.s.sed a cl.u.s.ter of the usual mud huts, then another; several other cl.u.s.ters were in sight with patches of high jungle gra.s.s between. Then in a bare open s.p.a.ce some two hundred yards across, were huts, and more thatched roofs in the hollow beyond. This was k.u.ma.s.si.

During that day three of our fellow-sufferers, knowing the horrible fate in store for them, managed to s.n.a.t.c.h knives from the belts of our captors and commit suicide before our eyes, preferring death by their own hands to decapitation by the executioners of Prempeh, that bloodthirsty monarch who has now happily been deposed by the British Government, but who at that time was sacrificing thousands of human lives annually, defiant and heedless of the remonstrances of civilized nations.

In size k.u.ma.s.si came up to the standard I had formed of it. The streets were numerous, some half-dozen were broad and uniform, the main avenue being some seventy yards wide, and here and there along its length a great patriarchal tree spread its branches. The houses were wattled structures with alcoves and stuccoed facades, embellished with Moorish designs and coloured with red ochre. Red seemed the prevailing colour.

Indeed it is stated on good authority that on one occasion Prempeh desired to stain the walls of his palace a darker red, and used the blood of a thousand victims for that purpose. Behind each of the pretentious buildings which fronted the streets were grouped the huts of the domestics, inclosing small courtyards.

Pa.s.sing down this main avenue, where many people watched our dismal procession, we came to the grove whence issued the terrible smell which caused travellers to describe k.u.ma.s.si as a vast charnel-house; we, however, did not halt there, but pa.s.sed onward to the palace of Prempeh, situated about three hundred yards away and occupying a level area in the valley dividing the two eminences on which the town is situated. The first view of what was designated as the palace was a number of houses with steep thatched roofs cl.u.s.tered together and fenced around with split bamboo stakes, while at one corner rose a square two-storeyed stone building. The lower part of the lofty walls of stucco was stained deep red, probably by blood, and the upper part whitewashed.

Presumably our captors had received a commission from Prempeh to supply him with slaves for the sacrifice, for we were marched into a small courtyard of the palace itself and there allowed to rest until next day, being given a plentiful supply of well-cooked _cankie_, or maize pudding wrapped in plantain leaves. Our position was, we knew, extremely critical. Attired in the merest remnant of a waist cloth, with a thick noose of gra.s.s-rope securely knotted around our necks, we lay in the open court with the stars s.h.i.+ning brilliantly above us, unable to sleep from the intensity of our feelings. In the next court there were more than a hundred unfortunates like ourselves huddled together, ready to be sacrificed on the morrow.

Soon after sunrise, while moodily awaiting our fate, we were made to stand up for inspection by one of the King's Ocras. These men were of three cla.s.ses; the first being relatives of the King and entrusted with State secrets, were never sacrificed, the second were certain soldiers appointed by the king, and the third slaves. All, on account of their distinguished services, were exempt from taxes, palavers and military services, and were kept in splendid style by the Royal exchequer, those of the inferior cla.s.ses being expected to sacrifice themselves upon the tomb of the king when he died.

The tall, rather handsome, man who inspected us was an Ocra of the first cla.s.s, for he wore a ma.s.sive gold circle like a quoit suspended around his neck by golden chains, and, walking beneath an enormous, gaudily-coloured silken umbrella bearing the crude device of a crouching leopard, was attended by a numerous retinue, who paid him the greatest respect.

The Arabs who had brought us there made him profound obeisance, while some members of the retinue snapped fingers with several of the Arabs, and the usual teetotal ceremony of drinking water to ”cool the heads”

was gone through. The inspection was a keen one, each of us being pa.s.sed in review before the Ocra, who made brief comments to the Arabs at his side. As Omar pa.s.sed the dark-faced official scrutinised him carefully and seemed interested to learn what the leader of the slave caravan told him in a tongue unknown to me regarding us both, for his gaze wandered from my companion to myself, and I was at once called out to pa.s.s before his keen glance. We were both kept there several minutes while the Arab presumably explained how we had been entrapped at the court of Samory. At last, however, we were allowed to retire, and very soon afterwards the great Ocra moved forward into the next court, followed by a couple of youths bearing long knives and a thin, lean-looking wretch with a stool curiously carved from a solid block of cotton wood, richly embellished with gold ornaments.

When he had gone I cast myself upon the ground in the shadow beside Omar, saying:

”After all, it would have been better if we had died in the woods than to endure this torture of waiting for execution.”

”Yes,” he answered, gloomily. ”That Ocra who has just inspected us was Betea, a bitter enemy of my mother. He is certain to revenge himself upon us.”