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.
"What say you, my brethren?" he asked. "Shall we fight the heathen?"
"No," I interrupted, "you shall not fight. For one thing, they are too many and have guns; but also the fault is mine, and if any blood is to be spilt it must be mine, too," and by way of ending the debate I walked over to the fetish men, one of whom immediately seized me by the wrist.
"Thou shalt not go, Yúsufu," cried the warm-hearted Abduláhi, bursting into tears and trying to drag me away. But I gently pushed him off, and as the armed men closed round me, Musa and Dam-Bornu held the weeping giant by the arms that he might not attack my captors.
The business was now brought quickly to a conclusion. Two of the fetish-men took me by the arms, the rest of the party surrounded me, and I was marched off without more ceremony. I turned to take a last look at the camp as we moved away. Our people were all talking with furious excitement, pointing and shaking their fists at the retreating natives, and I could see the big, soft-hearted Abduláhi lying prone on the ground, rending his clothes and sobbing aloud.
As long as we were within sight of the camp no affront or violence was offered to me, for the pagans evidently had no desire to come to blows with the Hausas; but no sooner was the camp hidden from view than my captors began to give me a taste of their quality. First my arms were tightly bound to my sides with grass-rope, and when I had thus been rendered helpless, the ruffian with the bandaged head dealt me a heavy blow across the shoulders with his staff. Then a halter was fastened round my neck and the end taken by one of the fetish-men, who started off at a trot, dragging me after him.
We soon branched off the main road, and taking a forest path that I had not noticed before, travelled on rapidly for over half an hour in a direction which I roughly calculated would bring us to the neighbourhood of the pool. Presently we entered a large village where a crowd, largely composed of women and children, had assembled, apparently in expectation of our arrival.
Down the main street of the village I was dragged in the midst of this mob, almost deafened by the uproar of their shouting, and nearly choked by the dust, until we reached a large open space, in the centre of which stood a gigantic silk-cotton tree. At the foot of this tree, wedged in between two of the great root-buttresses, was a hut built of palm sticks, and, as we approached it, a swarm of smallish dog-faced monkeys ambled out and sat down at a little distance to watch us.
The door of the hut being removed, I was taken inside and my halter tied securely to one of the uprights, and then all the men went away with the exception of the fellow with the bandaged head, who remained behind apparently to gloat over my downfall. He came and stood before me, holding my unfortunate sinker in his hand and, thrusting his ugly countenance within an inch of my face, delivered a long and excited harangue, of which I, naturally, understood not a word. Then he held up the sinker before my face and put to me what I supposed to be a number of questions about it, and when I returned no answer, he slashed me across the face with his stick, and followed this up by several blows about my fettered arms and shoulders.
This entertainment seemed to satisfy him for the present, and, with a parting cut at my legs, he went out, leaving the door of the hut open.
The space in which the hut stood appeared to be a sacred precinct, for the crowd had not followed beyond its border, and I could now see them through the doorway, a half-naked, jabbering rabble, standing some sixty yards away, pointing and gazing at the hut, just as a mob at home hangs about the gates of a hospital when an accident case has been admitted.
Presently I ascertained that my halter was just long enough to allow me to sit down in the corner, so I lowered myself with great care—lest in my helpless state I should slip and thus be strangled—and seated myself on the bare earth. I had not been long in this position when a monkey's head was thrust cautiously round the corner of the doorway. Soon another appeared, and then two more, and so on until gradually the whole troop collected, grimacing and chattering with the greatest concern and anxiety. Then they began to creep in one by one, eyeing me cunningly and suspiciously all the time, and sat down before me in a semicircle; and at length one patriarchal male reached out his hand and pinched my leg, on which I gave a sudden shout and the whole party bundled pell-mell out through the door, barking, coughing and clucking in the wildest excitement. They returned from time to time, to my excessive discomfort and somewhat to my alarm, for if they had really mobbed me, I could have made no sort of defence; but a sudden movement on my part always caused them to decamp.
When I had been in the hut about three hours, I saw one of the fetish-men approaching, followed by a lad who carried a large flat calabash and an earthen jar. The calabash, I could see, contained some kind of food, for the monkeys gathered round the lad, chattering volubly and making snatches at him as he walked.
The fetish-man entered the hut and sat down on the floor, and the calabash being placed beside him, he began to distribute its contents—balls of coarse meal—among the monkeys, who came forward quietly enough to receive their rations, and having each taken a ball from his hand, ambled away to a little distance, and sat down to eat it. When the monkeys were all served, the fetish-man laid the calabash, which still contained a half-dozen balls, before me, and stood the jar of water beside it; but perceiving that my fetters prevented me from helping myself, he motioned to the slave boy to come and feed me, and then went away. The slave, whom I judged, by the elaborate pattern of incised lines on his face, to be a Dagómba, sat down by my side, and, breaking the balls into suitable pieces, very carefully inserted them into my mouth; and when I had finished eating he held the jar of water to my lips while I took a long draught.
This meal, rough as it was, greatly refreshed me, for I had taken no food since the previous day; but I was in a good deal of pain from the tight bands of rope round my arms, and the bruises that the fetish-man's staff had produced. This did not escape the good-natured slave's observation, for, when I had finished drinking, he proceeded to loosen the bands somewhat, and soaking a corner of his cloth in water, he bathed my black and swollen bruises very gently and tenderly.
These charitable ministrations were interrupted by the approach of a procession consisting of the fetish-men (who were now loaded with uncouth cowrie ornaments and had their faces and limbs painted with broad white stripes), a body of armed men, and a band of musicians, who produced appalling noises with trumpets formed of large antelope's horns and long drums, black and shiny with dried blood and elaborately ornamented with festoons of human jaw-bones.
When the musicians had played a few selections from some kind of devil's opera outside the hut, the fetish-men entered, and having untied my halter led me forth; and I now observed that a large crowd had collected near a shade tree in the village. Towards this spot our procession slowly advanced, preceded by the musicians and followed by the guard, and as we came near to the crowd the people arranged themselves into a long line and eventually enclosed us in a circle. I noticed that the villagers were not dressed in their usual fashion, but wore kilts or short petticoats of soft fibre and carried on their wrists and ankles a number of curious plaited bangles that rattled loudly at every movement; and that, moreover, each bore in his or her hand a long tassel or brush of the same fibre as the kilts were made of. When the circle was formed, the musicians and the guard disappeared; a wooden stool, thickly coated with dried blood, was placed in the centre of the circle, and I was seated on it with the party of fetish-men behind me.
Then the people began to chant a melancholy minor air, and as they chanted, they stooped and swept the ground with their brushes, moving slowly round me, punctuating the chant by stamping their feet and shaking their rattles in unison. This strange ceremonial had an effect that was very devilish and horrid, which was enhanced by the quiet and orderly manner in which it was performed, and by the sad, plaintive character of the chant. As I sat and watched the unending line of stooping figures slowly filing past, the brushes moving softly and rhythmically to and fro, and listened to the weird song and the murmur of the rattles, like the shingle on a sea beach, I could scarcely repress a feeling of superstitious dread.
Suddenly there appeared within the circle a most horrible and grotesque figure that instantly recalled the horned image in the path by the pool.
A tall man was shrouded from head to foot in a flowing garment of the soft palm fibre, and his face was hidden by a great wooden mask, hideously painted, and furnished with a pair of long, curved horns.
This frightful apparition stalked slowly round the circle, creating no small terror in the people whom he approached. Then he slowly walked up to me, and, bending over me, thrust the hideous mask in my face and glared at me through the eye-holes. When he had stood thus for a minute or so, he stepped back a few paces and began to dance very slowly and sedately, spreading out his garment on either side and wagging the great horned mask in a most horrible manner. Then he came and knelt on the ground before me, remaining perfectly motionless while the people still sidled round, chanting, sweeping, and shaking their rattles. At last he nodded the great mask at me, three times, in a slow and mysterious fashion, and in a twinkling there was slipped over my head and shoulders a leathern bag, which shut out the light and sound and nearly suffocated me. A confused din of drums, horns, and chanting voices came distantly to my ears, and I felt coil after coil of rope being passed round my body and limbs, and made out that I was being lashed to some kind of pole. Presently the pole was lifted into a horizontal position, and as I hung from it, the coils of rope cut into my flesh in the most agonising manner. I could feel my bearers lift the pole on to their shoulders, and then they started off at a brisk walk, each step causing me excruciating pain.
We left the village by a narrow forest path, as I could tell by feeling leaves and branches brushing against my body, and we travelled along this, as it seemed to me for hours. Next we crossed a wide clearing, where I could feel the hot sun pouring down upon my naked skin—for they had torn off the remnant of my clothing when they bound me to the pole—and then quite suddenly the air became dank and chilly, as if we had entered a cellar or a vault, and, in spite of the bag in which my head was muffled, I could hear that the creaking of the pole reverberated in a hollow fashion as sounds do in a tunnel. Presently they laid me on the ground, and then I was tilted over an edge and partly slid and partly hoisted down what seemed like a ladder, and again carried along the level for a time. Then came another steep descent and another stretch along the level, and of a sudden the air became hot, not with the heat of the sun but with the close warmth of a fire.
I was now laid down on a smooth, hard surface, and I felt someone unfastening the lashing that held me to the pole, although my arms and legs were still tightly bound. Then the bag was plucked from my head and I drew in a deep breath of hot, stuffy, foul-smelling air.
I was so closely bound that I was barely able to move my head, but I turned it about as well as I could and gazed round me very earnestly and curiously. But the place was in total darkness excepting for a faint red glow upon the roof above me, and I could not turn my head sufficiently to discover the source of this light. The roof itself I could barely make out, but it seemed to be formed of rough earth or rock.
That I was not alone was abundantly clear, for the place resounded with the murmur of voices, and with various noises as if a number of persons were engaged in some kind of handicraft, and all these sounds had a peculiar reverberating quality as sounds have in a vault or empty building.
The number of persons I judged to be considerable, for, although the hum of talk was loud and continuous, I could not separate any phrases or words nor distinguish what language was being spoken. Now and again I caught the clank as of a metal bucket set down on a hard floor, and the gurgle of water poured from one vessel into another; indistinct sounds of hammering came at intervals, and once or twice I thought I could hear the blowing of bellows.
The tight bands of rope which still encircled my arms and legs caused me very severe pain, and the more so by reason of the swelling caused by the blows that the ruffianly priest had dealt me, and it was intolerably irksome to lie on the hard floor unable to change my position in the slightest degree. So unbearable did the suffering become that, as hour after hour passed, I began to long for the return of my tormentors, although I felt that their arrival would be the signal for the infliction of new tortures the very thought of which made me shiver with horror.
For there was now no doubt of the circumstantial truth of Almeida's story. I had verified it step by step in every particular but one, and the time was drawing near when I should receive the last dreadful proof—when the awful secret of the cavern would be revealed to me.
At length, after what seemed a very eternity of misery, a faint flickering yellow light appeared on the roof and spread to the adjacent wall, and as it grew brighter the shadow of a man loomed vague and gigantic, gradually dwindling in size and growing more distinct as the light drew nearer, until there swept into my field of view a man carrying a clay dish on which was a conical heap of shea butter with a rush wick, forming a sort of primitive candle. He was accompanied by two others, in one of whom I recognised my acquaintance with the bandaged head.
The first man deposited the light on the floor beside me and the three fell to examining me attentively with a deal of talk and disputation; and their gestures made it easy for me to follow the gist of their discussion, which was as to whether or not my fetters required to be loosened. Two of the men were evidently in favour of slackening the cords, experience having, no doubt, taught them that when tight lashings are kept on a limb for more than a certain time, either mortification or incurable paralysis results; and as they pointed to my swollen hands and feet and the deep grooves in the flesh in which the cords were embedded, they appeared to be explaining this to my old enemy, who, for his part, was manifestly unwilling that I should be allowed even this relief. The more reasonable and humane councils, however, prevailed and one of the men set about making the change.
My feet were first dealt with.
The tight cord lashings having been cut through, a long strand of grass rope was wound round each ankle, securely but not uncomfortably tightly, and tied, and the two anklets thus formed were connected by a short length of cord. My feet were in this manner fastened together quite firmly but without any painful or injurious ligature. The same process was applied to my wrists, which were brought together in front of my body with a play of about two inches between them, and this was a great relief after having them tied closely to my sides for so many hours.
When this welcome change had been made, one of the men produced a calabash with half a dozen meal balls in it, and a very small pot of water; but my hands were too numbed from the pressure of the cords to allow me to either feed myself or take up the water jar, so the man placed the calabash and jar on the ground by my side, and having tied the halter, which still remained round my neck, to a large peg in the ground, so that I could not sit up, they went away, taking the light with them.
I observed now that the red glow was no longer visible upon the roof, and when the fetish-men with their light were gone, the place in which I lay was enveloped in total darkness. The hum of conversation continued, but the sounds indicative of labour had ceased, and I judged that the workers were settling down to rest.
After a time the talking ceased, and then a confused sound of snoring and heavy breathing told me that the other occupants of the cavern were asleep.
The numbness of my hands and feet gave place by degrees to a most intolerable tingling, but it was a long time before I could move my fingers in the smallest degree. Still it was an immense relief to have my arms partly free and to be able to draw my knees up and turn over on my side; so I rejoiced in my comparative freedom, changing my position frequently, and vigorously chafing my hands between my knees in the hope of regaining sensation and the power of movement.
For a long time I was unsuccessful in this, and my hands continued to be, to all appearance, quite lifeless except for the intense and painful tingling; but at last some signs of returning animation became evident in a slight power of stiff movement in the fingers and a certain amount of dull sensation, giving me the feeling of having thick gloves on my hands.
As I was suffering from intense thirst I now reached out for the water jar, and conveying it carefully to my lips, drained it to the last drop of the earthy-smelling water it contained. I then addressed myself to the meal balls, which I found gritty and tasteless but very acceptable nevertheless—so much so that I swept my fingers round the empty calabash quite regretfully when I had finished the last one.
Being thus refreshed with food and drink I endeavoured to compose myself for sleep, but the novel and alarming circumstances in which I found myself were not by any means conducive to slumber. It was impossible to banish, even for a moment, from my mind the consciousness of my awful situation, or to lose sight of the terrible prospect that lay before me in the immediate future. The reflection that my misfortune was of my own deliberate seeking, so far from comforting me, but aggravated my wretchedness, and I found myself again and again cursing the perverse folly that had sent me on this fool's errand. I could not help thinking, too, with bitter self-reproach, of the suffering that I should cause to those whom I loved so dearly, by my insane foolhardiness. My imagination pictured Isabel waiting and watching for news of me, and growing ever more anxious as the months rolled by and I made no sign. Of the painful suspense and growing dread that she and her father would feel, as doubts as to my safety merged into the conviction that some dreadful misfortune had overtaken me, and of the life-long, haunting grief that would pursue them, when I did not come back, and they would think of me—only too truly—as a maimed and miserable wretch dragging out an existence of unvarying woe, with nothing to hope for but the merciful stroke of an executioner's sword.
These gloomy reflections were interrupted by the appearance of a dim light on the roof above me, and, as I was no longer unable to move, I turned over to see whence it came. A shaft of light was falling into the cavern from some opening that I could not see, but presumably the entrance, and it grew rapidly brighter. Presently a party of eight men entered the cavern, the foremost of whom carried a flaring palm oil lamp swinging from a chain, while another bore an earthen pot from which a stick projected. None of these men wore any special garb, but I recognised among them the priests who had brought me from the camp and those who had visited me in the cavern, including the ruffian with the bandaged head.
By the light of the lamp I could make out to some extent the nature of the place that I was in. I could see that it was a large chamber or gallery, of no great width, but stretching away into undistinguishable gloom in the one direction that was visible to me; that its walls and low roof were of the rough rock, that it was divided by massive piers consisting of unexcavated portions of the rock, and that the ceiling was in places strengthened by great beams, which were supported by thick timber posts.
I obtained, too, flickering, uncertain glimpses of the objects that it contained, such as copper buckets standing here and there and piles of bowl-like calabashes; but my attention was more particularly attracted by the prostrate forms of my fellow prisoners, who lay about the floor in every attitude of weariness and repose. Poor wretches! they were at least unconscious. Perhaps some of them were even happy at that moment, living over again, in the shadowy land of dreams, the life of joyous freedom that they knew, while yet their eyes could look upon the light of heaven, and their ears were familiar with the murmur of trees and the voices of those they loved.
They were objects of interest to the priests as well as to me, for the sinister-looking band had evidently made this visit for the purpose of examining the sleeping captives. I watched them curiously as they stepped stealthily among the sleepers, lowering the lamp to let its light glare upon the sightless, unconscious faces, and gathering round like a pack of obscene carrion-seeking ghouls. They visited each prisoner by turn, and held a whispered consultation over each, and some question was evidently put to the white-headed villain who presided over this diabolical committee, for, as he shook his head, the party moved away to a fresh prisoner.
After they had inspected half a dozen of the prisoners they came to one over whom they consulted longer than usual, and eventually the old priest nodded his head. Then the man who carried the earthen pot took from it the stick, which appeared to be covered at its lower end with white paint of some kind, and with it made a mark on each of the shoulders of the sleeping man, and the procession moved on to the next prisoner.
I watched for a long time the little band of fetish-men flitting about from one sleeping form to another. Sometimes they were hidden from me by one of the great piers of rock, and then by the unsteady light I scrutinised the strange interior and the dimly-seen forms of the unconscious slaves. At one time our visitors retired to such a distance down the gallery that I could see nothing from the alcove or recess in which I lay but the glare of the lamp twinkling in the darkness like some red and lurid star; but presently they came back, having apparently made the round of the prisoners, and approached the place where I was lying.
As they appeared to be coming to inspect me, I closed my eyes and simulated sleep, and soon the glare of the light through my eyelids and the sound of muttered conversation told me that the examination was in progress.
The consultation over me was long and earnest and, although I spoke hardly a word of the Ochwi or Ashanti language, I could make out that they were debating as to who and what I was; and I gathered that they were not far from the truth, for, when someone suggested "Fulani" (Fulah), another voice, which sounded within a few inches of my face, replied very positively, "Broni, Broni" (white man), and with this the others seemed to agree.
I was very curious to know if I was to be among those distinguished by the white marking, and held myself prepared to receive it without starting; but at length the light grew fainter on my eyelids and the voices receded, and, when I opened my eyes, the party was retreating towards the entrance, where it vanished, leaving the cavern once more in total darkness.
I pondered long over this mysterious visitation and what it might portend.
That it boded no good to those eight or nine men who had been distinguished by the white markings I had little doubt, but what its meaning could be I was unable to conjecture, and I was still speculating upon the subject when, in spite of my mental anxiety and bodily discomfort, I fell asleep.
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