The Great White Queen: A Tale of Treasure and Treason Read online

  CHAPTER X.

  ZOMARA.

  IN darkness and anxiety I remained alone for many days in the foulsubterranean prison. Had the fiendish tortures been repeated upon myhapless friend, I wondered; or had he succumbed to the injuries alreadyinflicted? Hour by hour I waited, listening to the shuffling footsteps ofmy gaolers, but only once a day there came a black slave to hand me mymeagre ration of food and depart without deigning to give answer to anyof my questions.

  I became sick with anxiety, and at last felt that I must abandon all hopeof again seeing him. I was alone in the midst of the fiercest and mostfanatical people of the whole of Africa, a people whose supreme delightit was to torture the whites that fell into their hands as vengeance forthe many expeditions sent against them. Through those dismal days whensilence and the want of air oppressed me, I remembered the old adage thatwhen Hope goes out Death smiles and stalks in, but fortunately, althoughwearied and dejected, I did not quite abandon all thought of ever againmeeting my companion. The hope of seeing him, of being able to escape andget into the land of Mo, was now the sole anchor of my life, yet as themonotonous hours passed, the light in the chink above grew brighter andtime after time gradually faded into pitch darkness, I felt compelled toadmit that my anticipations were without foundation, and that Omar, thecourageous descendant of a truly kingly race, was dead.

  In the dull dispiriting gloom I sat hour after hour on the stone benchencrusted with the dirt of years, calmly reflecting upon the bright,happy life I had been, alas! too eager to renounce, and told myself withsorrow that, after all, old Trigger's school, or even the existence of aLondon clerk, was preferable to imprisonment in Samory's stronghold. Manywere the means by which I sought to make time pass more rapidly, but thehours had leaden feet, and while the tiny ray struggled through above, mymind was constantly racked by bitter thoughts of the past, and adespairing dread of the hopeless future.

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

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

  I sprang towards him with a loud cry of joy, and our recognition wasmutually enthusiastic, as neither of us had known what fate had overtakenthe other; but ere he could relate how he had fared, the Mohammedan chieflifted his hand, and a dead silence fell on those assembled.

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

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

  "Ye are both sold," he continued, "sold for the smallest coin, to betaken to Kumassi as slaves for their pagan sacrifice."

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

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

  "Death will seize thee quite soon enough," laughed the chief derisively."Mine ally Prempeh will have the satisfaction of offering a queen's sonto the fetish."

  "Rest assured that the god Zomara will reward thee for this day's evilwork," Omar cried, with a fierce look in his eyes. "Thou hast spentfiercest hatred upon me, but even if I die, word will sooner or later becarried into Mo that thou wert the cause of the death of the last of myrace. Then every man capable of bearing arms will rise against thee.Standing here, I make prophecy that this thy kingdom shall be uprooted asa weed in the garden of peace, and that thine own blood shall makesatisfaction for thy cruelty."

  "Begone!" cried Samory, in a tumult of wrath. And turning to the Arabs hecried in a commanding tone: "Take the dog to the slaughterers. Let menever look again upon his face."

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

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

  But the fierce Arabs quickly dragged us forth, bound us when out of sightof the great chief, and led us beyond the gates of the Kasbah to where wefound a great slave caravan assembled in readiness to depart. Fully onehundred black slaves, each fastened in a long chain, were lying huddledup 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 showedsigns of brutal ill-treatment, their backs bearing great festering sorescaused by the lashes of their pitiless captors. The majority of them had,I ascertained, been captured in the forest wilds beyond the Niger, andall preserved a stolid indifference, for they knew their terrible doom.They were being hurried on to Kumassi to be sold to King Prempeh forsacrificial purposes.

  To this wretched perspiring crowd of hopeless humanity we were bound, andamid the jeers of a number of Samory's officials who had crowded to thegate to see us depart, we moved onward, our steps hastened by the heavywhips of our masters who, mounted on wiry little ponies and heavilyarmed, galloped up and down the line administering blows to the laggardsor the sick.

  From the city away across the open grass-lands we wended our way, adismal, sorrowful procession, but Omar, now beside me again, brieflyrelated how, after being removed from the torture-frame, his wounds hadbeen dressed and he had been tenderly nursed by an old female slave whohad taken compassion upon him. A dozen times messengers from Samory hadcome to offer him his liberty in exchange for the secret of theTreasure-house, but he had steadfastly refused. Twice the scoundrelKouaga 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 accountof his misdeeds to my mother. No mercy will be shown him, for before theNaya's wrath the nation trembles."

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

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

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

  "If we made a dash for liberty we should, I fear, be shot down likedogs," I said.

  "Yes," he answered. "The country we shall now traverse will notfacilitate our flight, but the reverse. From the edge of the Great Forestto Buna, beyond the Kong mountains, it is mostly marshy hollows andpestilential swamps, while the lands beyond Buna away to Koranza, inAshanti, are flat and open like your English pastures. We will, ifopportunity offers, endeavour to escape, but even if we succeeded ineluding their vigilance death lurks everywhere in a hundred differentforms."

  "Well, at
present we are slaves hounded on towards the dreaded Golgothaof the Ashantis," I said. "We have escaped one fate only to be threatenedby one more terrible."

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

  "I shall act as you direct," I replied. "If you think that by patienceall may come right no complaint shall pass my lips. We are companions inmisfortune, therefore let us arm ourselves against despair."

  The compact thus made, we endured the toil and hardships of travelwithout murmur. At first our bearded masters heaped upon the queen's sonevery indignity they could devise, but finding they could not incensehim, nor cause him to utter complaint, ceased their taunts and cuts fromtheir loaded whips, and soon began to treat us with less severity.

  Yet the fatigues of that march were terrible. The suffering I witnessedin that slave gang is still as vivid in my memory as if it were onlyyesterday. Ere we had passed through the great forest and gained the Kongmountains, a dozen of our unfortunate companions who had fallen sick hadbeen left in the narrow path to be eaten alive by the driver-ants andother insects in which the gloomy depths abound, while during the twentydays which the march to the Ashanti border occupied many others succumbedto fever. Over all the marshes there hung a thick white mist deadly toall, but the more so to the starving wretches who came from the highlands far north beyond the Niger. Scarcely a day broke without one ormore of the lean, weak negroes being attacked, and as a sick slave isonly an incumbrance, they were left to die while we were marched onward.Whose turn it might next be to be left behind to be devoured alive noneknew, and in this agony of fear and suspense we pushed forward from dayto day until we at last reached the undulating grass-land that Omar toldme was within a few days' march of Kumassi.

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

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

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