CHAPTER IX
THE YELLOW DEVIL'S NEST
Sundown came, and, as on the previous night, the three travellerscamped upon an island waiting for the moon to rise. They had caught twoflapper-ducks in some weeds, and there was a talk of lighting a fire tocook them by. Finally Leonard negatived this idea. "It is dangerous,"he said, "for fires can be seen from afar." So they made a wretched mealoff a little dried meat and some raw duck's eggs.
It was fortunate that his caution prevailed, since, as the twilightwas dying into dark, they heard the stroke of paddles and made out theshapes of canoes passing them. There were several canoes, each of whichtowed something behind it, and the men in them shouted to one anotherfrom time to time, now in Portuguese and now in Arabic.
"Lie still, lie still," whispered Otter, "these are the slave-men takingback the big boats."
Leonard and Soa followed his advice to the letter, and the slavers,paddling furiously up stream, passed within thirty feet of where theycrouched in the rushes.
"Give way, comrades," called one man to the captain of the next canoe;"the landing-place is near, and there is rum for those who earn it."
"I hope that they will not stop here," said Leonard beneath his breath.
"Hist!" answered Otter, "I hear them landing."
He was right; the party had disembarked about two hundred yards away.Presently they heard them collecting reeds for burning, and in tenminutes more two bright tongues of flame showed that they had lit theirfires.
"We had better get out of this," said Leonard; "if they discover us----"
"They will not discover us, Baas, if we lie still," answered Otter; "letus wait awhile. I have another plan. Listen, Baas." And he whispered inhis ear.
So they waited. From the fires below them came the sound of men eatingand drinking--especially drinking. An hour passed, and Leonard rose,followed by Otter, who said:
"I will come too, Baas; I can move like a cat."
"Where are you going, White Man?" asked Soa.
"I am going to spy upon those men. I understand Portuguese, and wish tohear what they say. Otter, take your knife and revolver, but no gun."
"Good," said the woman, "but be careful. They are very clever."
"Yes, yes," put in Otter, "but the Baas is clever also, and I, I amclever. Do not fear for us, mother."
Then they started, creeping cautiously through the reeds. When they werewithin twenty yards of the fires, Leonard missed his footing and fellinto a pool of water with a splash. Some of the slave-dealers heardthe noise and sprang to their feet. Instantly Otter grunted in exactimitation of a hippopotamus-calf.
"A sea-cow," said a man in Portuguese. "She won't hurt us. The fire willfrighten her."
Leonard and Otter waited awhile, then crept to a clump of reeds whencethey could hear every word that was spoken. The men round the firenumbered twenty-two. One, their leader, appeared to be a pure-bredPortugee, some of the others were Bastards and the rest Arabs. They weredrinking rum and water out of tin pannikins--a great deal of rum andvery little water. Many of them seemed half-drunk already, at any ratetheir tongues were loosened.
"May a curse fall upon our father, the Devil!" said one, a half-breed;"why did he take it into his head to send us back with the boats justnow? We shall miss the fun."
"What fun?" answered the leader of the party. "They won't cage the birdsfor another three or four days; the dhows are not ready, and there istalk of an English cruiser--may she sink to hell!--hanging about outsidethe river mouth."
"No, not that," said the man who had spoken first, "there is not muchsport in driving a lot of stinking niggers on to a dhow. I mean theauction of the white girl, the English trader's daughter, whom we caughtup the river yonder. There's a beauty for some lucky dog; I never sawsuch a one. What eyes she has, and what a spirit! why, most of thelittle dears would have cried themselves blind by now."
"You needn't think about her," sneered his leader; "she will go toodear for the likes of you; besides it is foolish to spend so much on onegirl, white or black. When is the auction?"
"It was to have been the night before the dhows sail, but now the Devilsays it shall be to-morrow night. I will tell you why--he is afraid ofher. He thinks that she will bring misfortune to him, and wants to berid of her. Ah! he is a wag, is the old man--he loves a joke, he does.'All men are brothers,' he said yesterday, 'white or black; thereforeall women are sisters.' So he is going to sell her like a nigger girl.What is good enough for them is good enough for her. Ha! ha! pass therum, brother, pass the rum."
"Perhaps he will put it off and we may be back in time, after all," saidthe captain. "Anyhow, here is a health to her, the love. By the way,did some of you think to ask the password before we left this morning? Iforgot to do so, myself."
"Yes," said a Bastard, "the old word, 'the Devil.'"
"There is none better, comrades, none better," hiccoughed the leader.
Then for an hour or more their talk went on--partly about Juanna, partlyabout other things. As they grew more drunk the conversation became moreand more revolting, till Leonard could scarcely listen to it and liestill. At length it died away, and one by one the men sank into a soundand sodden sleep. They did not set a sentry, for here on the island theyhad no fear of foes.
Then Otter rose upon his hands and knees, and his face looked fierce inthe faint light.
"Baas," he whispered, "shall we----" and he drew his hand across histhroat.
Leonard thought awhile. His rage was deep, and yet he shrank from theslaughter of sleeping men, however wicked. Besides, could it be donewithout noise? Some of them would wake--fear would sober them, and theywere many.
"No," he whispered back. "Follow me, we will cut loose the boats."
"Good, good," said Otter.
Then, stealthily as snakes, they crept some thirty yards to where theboats were tied to a low tree--three canoes and five large flat-bottomedpunts, containing the arms and provisions of the slave-dealers. Drawingtheir knives they cut these loose. A gentle push set them moving, thenthe current caught them, and slowly they floated away into the night.
This done they crawled back again. Their path took them within fivepaces of where that half-breed ruffian lay who had begun the talk towhich they had listened. Leonard looked at him and turned to creep away;already Otter was five paces ahead, when suddenly the edge of the moonshowed for the first time and its light fell full upon the slaver'sface. The sleeping man awoke, sat up, and saw them.
Now Leonard dared not hesitate, or they were lost. Like a tiger hesprang at the man's throat and had grasped it in his hand before hecould even cry aloud. Then came a struggle short and sharp, and a knifeflashed. Before Otter could get back to his side it was done--so swiftlyand so silently that none of the band had wakened, though one or two ofthem stirred and muttered in their heavy sleep.
Leonard sprang up unhurt, and together they ran, rather than walked,back to the spot where they had left Soa.
She was watching for them, and pointing to Leonard's coat, asked "Howmany?"
"One," answered Otter.
"I would it had been all," Soa muttered fiercely, "but you are onlytwo."
"Quick," said Leonard, "into the canoe with you. They will be after uspresently."
In another minute they had pushed off and were clear of the island,which was not more than a quarter of a mile long. They paddled acrossthe river, which at this spot ran rapidly and had a width of some eighthundred yards, so as to hide in the shadow of the opposite bank.When they reached it Otter rested on his paddles and gave vent to asuppressed chuckle, which was his nearest approach to laughter.
"Why do you laugh, Black One?" asked Soa.
"Look yonder," he answered, and he pointed to some specks on the surfaceof the river which were fast vanishing in the distance. "Yonder go theboats of the slave-dealers, and in them are their arms and food. We cutthem loose, the Baas and I. There on the island sleep two-and-twentymen--all save one: there they sleep, and when they wake what
will theyfind? They will find themselves on a little isle in the middle of greatwaters, into which, even if they could, they will not dare to swimbecause of the alligators. They can get no food on the island, forthey have no guns and ducks do not stop to be caught, but outside thealligators will wait in hundreds to catch _them_. By-and-by they willgrow hungry--they will shout and yell, but none will hear them--thenthey will become mad, and, falling on each other, they will eat eachother and die miserably one by one. Some will take to the water, thosewill drown or be caught by the alligators, and so it shall go on tillthey are all dead, every one of them, dead, dead, dead!" and again Otterchuckled.
Leonard did not reprove him; with the talk of these wretches yet echoingin his ears he could feel little pity for the horrible fate which wouldcertainly overtake them.
Hark! a faint sound stole across the quiet waters, a sound which grewinto a clamour of fear and rage. The slavers had awakened, they hadfound the dead man in their midst mysteriously slain by an invisiblefoe. And now the clamour gathered to a yell, for they had learned thattheir boats were gone and that they were trapped.
From their shelter on the other side of the river, as they droppedleisurely down the stream, Leonard and Otter could catch distantglimpses of the frantic men rushing to and fro in the bright moonlightand seeking for their boats. But the boats had departed to return nomore. By degrees the clamour lessened behind them, till at last it diedaway, swallowed in the silence of the night.
Then Leonard told Soa what he had heard by the slaver's fire.
"How far is the road, Black One?" she asked when he had finished.
"By sundown to-morrow we shall be at the Yellow Devil's gates!" answeredOtter.
Two hours later they overtook the boats which they had cut adrift. Mostof them were tied together, and they floated peacefully in a group.
"We had better scuttle them," said Leonard.
"No, Baas," answered Otter, "if we escape we may want them again. Yonderis the place where we must land," and he pointed to a distant tongue ofmarsh. "Let us go with the boats there and make them fast. Perhaps wemay find food in them, and we need food."
The advice was good, and they followed it. Keeping alongside of thepunts and directing them, when necessary, with a push of the paddles,they reached the point just as the dawn was breaking. Here in asheltered bay they found a mooring-place to which they fastened all theboats with ropes that hung ready. Then they searched the lockers andto their joy discovered food in plenty, including cooked meat, spirits,biscuits, bread, and some oranges and bananas. Only those who have beenforced to do without farinaceous food for days or weeks will know whatthis abundance meant to them. Leonard thought that he had never eaten amore delicious meal, or drunk anything so good as the rum and water withwhich they washed it down.
They found other things also: rifles, cutlasses and ammunition, and,better than all, a chest of clothes which had evidently belonged tothe officer or officers of the party. One suit was a kind of uniformplentifully adorned with gold lace, having tall boots and a broad felthat with a white ostrich feather in it to match. Also there were somelong Arab gowns and turbans, the gala clothes of the slave-dealers,which they took with them in order to appear smart on their return.
But the most valuable find of all was a leather bag in the breeches ofthe uniform, containing the sum of the honest gains of the leader ofthe party, which he had preferred to keep in his own company even onhis travels. On examination this bag was found to hold something over ahundred English sovereigns and a dozen or fifteen pieces of Portuguesegold.
"Now, Baas," said Otter, "this is my word, that we put on theseclothes."
"What for?" asked Leonard.
"For this reason: that should we be seen by the slave-traders they willthink us of their brethren."
The advantages of this step were so obvious that they immediatelyadopted it. Thus disguised, with a silk sash round his middle and apistol stuck in it, Leonard might well have been mistaken for the mostferocious of slave-traders.
Otter too looked sufficiently strange, robed as an Arab and wearing aturban. Being a dwarf, the difficulty was that all the dresses provedtoo long for him. Finally it was found necessary to cut one down by theprimitive process of laying it on a block of wood and chopping throughit with a sabre.
When this change of garments had been effected, and their own clotheswith the spare arms were hidden away in the rushes on the somewhatremote chance that they might be useful hereafter, they prepared for astart on foot across the marshes. By an afterthought Leonard fetched thebag of gold and put it in his pocket. He felt few scruples in availinghimself of the money of the slave-driver, not for his own use indeed,but because it might help their enterprise.
Now their road ran along marshes and by secret paths that none savethose who had travelled them could have found. But Otter had notforgotten. On they went through the broiling heat of the day, sincelinger they dared not. They met no living man on their path, though hereand there they found the body of some wretched slave, whose corpse hadbeen cast into the reeds by the roadside. But the road had been trodden,and recently, by many feet, among which were the tracks of two mules ordonkeys.
At last, about an hour before sunset, they came to the home of theYellow Devil. The Nest was placed thus. It stood upon an island havingan area of ten or twelve acres. Of this, however, only about four anda half acres were available for a living space; the rest was a morasshidden by a growth of very tall reeds, which morass, starting froma great lagoon on the northern and eastern sides, ran up to the lowenclosure of the buildings that, on these faces, were considered to besufficiently defended by the swamp and the wide waters beyond. On thesouthern and western aspects of the camp matters were different, forhere the place was strongly fortified both by art and nature. Firstly,a canal ran round these two faces, not very wide or deep indeed, butimpassable except in boats, owing to the soft mud at its bottom. On thefurther side of this canal an earthwork had been constructed, havingits crest stoutly palisaded and its steep sides planted with a naturaldefence of aloes and prickly-pears.
So much for the exterior of the place. Its interior was divided intothree principal enclosures. Of these three the easternmost was the siteof the Nest itself, a long low thatched building of wood, in front andto the west of which there was an open space or courtyard, with a hardfloor. Herein were but two buildings, a shed supported on posts and openfrom the eaves to the ground, where sales of slaves were carried on,and further to the north, almost continuous with the line of the Nestitself, but separate from it, a small erection, very strongly builtof brick and stone, and having a roof made from the tin liningsof ammunition and other cases. This was a magazine. All round thisenclosure stood rows of straw huts of a native build, evidently occupiedas a camp by the Arabs and half-breed slave-traders of the baser sort.
The second enclosure, which was to the west of the Nest, comprisedthe slave camp. It may have covered an acre of ground, and the onlybuildings in it were four low sheds, similar in every respect to thatwhere the slaves were sold, only much longer. Here the captives laypicketed in rows to iron bars which ran the length of the sheds, andwere fixed into the ground at either end. This camp was separated fromthe Nest enclosure by a deep canal, thirty feet in width and spannedat one point by a slender and primitive drawbridge that led across thecanal to the gate of the camp. Also it was protected on the Nest side bya low wall, and on the slave-camp side by an earthwork, planted asusual with prickly-pears. On this earthwork near the gate and littleguard-house a six-pounder cannon was mounted, the muzzle of whichfrowned down upon the slave camp, a visible warning to its occupants ofthe fate that awaited the froward. Indeed, all the defences of this partof the island were devised as safeguards against a possible _emeute_ ofthe slaves, and also to provide a second line of fortifications shouldthe Nest itself chance to be taken by an enemy.
Beyond the slave camp, lay the garden that could only be approachedthrough it. This also was fortified by water and earthworks, but not
sostrongly.
Such is a brief description of what was in those days the strongestslave-hold in Africa.
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