TRAPPED!
The Kruman who acted as pilot undoubtedly appeared—as St. Croix had asserted—to know the river thoroughly, for dark as the night was, he evinced no sign whatever of doubt or hesitation. Perched up in the stern of the canoe—which he steered with a short paddle laid out over the quarter—he sat silent and motionless as a bronze image, holding the boat's head straight for some unseen point, and never swerving a hair's-breadth from his course until, at the expiration of about two hours, we suddenly found ourselves entering a tolerably wide creek, only distinguishable as such by the deeper and more palpable darkness that enveloped us as the canoe slid in between its bush-lined banks. We were a taciturn trio, St. Croix having scarcely uttered a word since we shoved off from the schooner; while as for me, my thoughts were too full of the adventure before me to leave me much inclination for speech.
We navigated this winding creek for about three quarters of an hour, passing several branches on our way, and then, as the Kruman brought the canoe noiselessly alongside a low, gravelly bank, St. Croix leaned forward, and, laying his hand upon mine, remarked in a whisper—
"We land here, mon ami; the remainder of our journey we must perform on our feet if we desire not our throats to be cut. Tread cautiously, for ze bush it is full of snakes!"
That was a pleasant little item of news, truly, to be told on a dark night while feeling one's way along a bush path so narrow and so overgrown that the darkness was absolutely a thing to be felt! But it was a part of the adventure, so I murmured an acknowledgment of the caution and stepped over the gunwale of the canoe on to the bank, the gravel of which crunched under my feet with alarming loudness in the oppressive silence of the hot, damp night. As I did so, St. Croix said something to the Kruman in a language which I did not understand, and the next instant I received a crashing blow on the head from some hard, heavy instrument, a thousand stars danced before my eyes as I reeled forward under the impact of the stroke, and then I knew no more.
When I recovered consciousness, the first thing of which I became aware was that I was suffering from a splitting headache; the next, that I was again afloat, for I could hear the soft gurgle of water close to my ear on either side; and the next, that it was still as dark as ever. I was occupying a very cramped and uncomfortable position, lying on my right side, or shoulder, rather, with my hands behind me, and my legs doubled up so that my heels seemed to be tucked into the small of my back; but, upon attempting to move, I made the unwelcome discovery that I was lashed hard and fast, hands and heels together. Then, before my bemuddled brain had time to do more than suggest an inquiry as to what had happened, I heard St. Croix' voice.
Thereupon I spoke. "Are you there, St. Croix?" I inquired.
"Ay, I am here!" he answered, in a tone curiously suggestive of exultation.
"What has happened?" I next demanded.
"Happened?" he reiterated. "Why, you have simply fallen into ze tr-r-r-ap zat I set for you, scélérat, and are now in my power!"
"Your power?" I repeated. "I don't understand. Pray explain yourself. But, first of all, if you are free yourself, just cast off these lashings of mine, will you? They hurt most abominably!"
"Ha! ha! zhey hurt, do zhey?" he retorted. "Bon! so much ze better-r-r; I am glad! Listen, mon bon capitan! I am not Jules St. Croix at all; I am Jules Lenoir, ze elder brother of ze man you killed vhen you capture ze Don Cristoval, and I am also ze capitan of ze Josefa! Vhen I hear zhat my brother vhas kill, I svear zhat I vill have my revanche; and vhen ve hear zhat you have capture ze St. Iago and ze Mercedes" (the brigantine) "it vhas agree zhat you make yourself too troublesome, and zhat you must be remove out of our way. So I plan vone leetle plan, and go to sea in ze Muette to look for you; and behold! here you are!"
"So!" ejaculated I; "I begin to understand. And, now that you have me, pray what are you going to do with me? Murder me?"
"Non! non!" answered my captor, "I vill not stain my hands vith your dirty blood; I vill make a present of you to my good friend King Plenty. He vill know vhat to do vith you!"
King Plenty! I had heard of him as a most ferocious savage inhabiting a spot on one of the creeks on the southern bank of the river, a potentate who, thanks to his dealings with the slavers, had accumulated a vast store of wealth in the shape of rum, muskets, and ammunition, and who, with the aid of the two latter, had become quite a power among his neighbour kings. Naturally, therefore, the objects of his deepest and most concentrated hatred were those pestilent white men who were making such strenuous efforts to suppress the slave-trade; and it was rumoured that when, at rare intervals, one of these hated beings had the misfortune to fall into his hands, the event was celebrated by a festivity the principal feature of which consisted in putting the captive to death with every refinement of torture that the savage imagination could devise. And this was the individual into whose power I was to be delivered, bound hand and foot!
And this—a cruel, lingering death at the stake, most probably—was to be the end of all the high hopes and aspirations with which I had entered upon this disastrous adventure! What a fool I had been to allow myself to be so easily trapped, I reflected; and yet when I recalled all that had passed between this villain Lenoir and myself, I could remember no single word or look in the least calculated to arouse my suspicion; the whole plot had been woven with such diabolical skill, the story told had been so cunningly plausible, that, as it seemed to me, no man anxious to do his duty could fail to have been caught by it. Well, I could at least die game; I would not disgrace myself and my cloth by showing fear or pleading for mercy; and, having come to this resolution, I turned a deaf ear to all the revilings, the sneers, and the brutal jocosities to which Lenoir treated me. Then, just as day was breaking, I suddenly became aware of a group of tall trees towering overhead, and the next instant the canoe gently grounded on a sandy beach. Lenoir at once sprang to his feet and shouted something in a language that I did not understand; and presently a great crowd of jabbering savages came swarming round the canoe, and I was lifted out and carried off to a palm-leaf hut, upon the floor of which I was unceremoniously flung. But in the short interval of my transit from the canoe to the hut I managed to catch a fleeting glimpse of a broad creek, with the Josefa and a schooner at anchor on its placid bosom, a native town of probably a hundred and fifty huts, and two immense barracoons standing under the shadow of a clump of enormously tall trees. Lenoir quickly followed me into the hut, to examine my lashings, turning me over unceremoniously with his foot to do so; when, having satisfied himself that I was absolutely secure, he walked out again without uttering a word.
I was now left undisturbed for about a couple of hours, during which I strove my utmost to loosen my lashings; but I might as well have striven to fly, I was bound with new ratline, and it had been drawn so tight and knotted so securely that I was as helpless as though chained.
All this while I was conscious of the sounds of many feet passing to and fro outside the hut, and of a perfect babel of jabbering, excited tongues; and at length a couple of natives entered the hut and by significant gestures indicated that I was to rise and follow them. But, bound as I was, the thing was impossible; so after prodding me ineffectually several times with their spears they cut my feet loose, and, seizing me by the arms, half led, half dragged me from the hut.
Once in the open air, I was immediately surrounded by a crowd of laughing, shouting, gesticulating savages, who seemed to be vastly entertained by my helpless appearance—for my limbs had become so completely benumbed by the tightness of my bonds that I had no feeling or strength in them. Thus surrounded, I was dragged for about a quarter of mile to a great open space in the centre of the town, and there securely bound to the trunk of an immense tree, the scorched, blackened, and leafless branches of which told me only too well to what fiendish purpose it was from time to time put. And here for the remainder of that terrible day I was kept bare-headed, exposed to the full blaze of the relentless sun, without either food or drink, while the natives swarmed round me, discussing with great delight and animation what from their looks and gestures I divined to be the subject of my approaching torments.
What my sufferings, mental and physical, were during those few brief hours, language has no words to express; but you may guess something of what it was when I tell you that at last I actually longed for death to come to my relief, although I was well aware that the death for which I longed was to be one of fiery torment!
"A gang of some fifty negroes appeared."
At length, when the sun had declined to within about two hours of his setting, a gang of some fifty negroes appeared, each bearing either a heavy log or a large bundle of brushwood upon his shoulder, which they forthwith began to arrange in a wide circle round the tree to which I was bound. These fellows were speedily followed by others similarly burdened, so that within half-an-hour I was hemmed in by a compact wall of logs and brushwood standing about breast-high. I needed no explanation of these sinister preparations; but, that I might be left in no possible doubt, Lenoir made his appearance outside the barrier, over which he shouted the intelligence that some time that night it would be fired, and, when well ablaze, would be gradually pushed forward, so that I might be slowly roasted to death!
The heat that afternoon was positively frightful, for the wind died away to a breathless calm, and while the savages were building my funeral pyre, I noticed the upper edge of a great bank of purple-grey cloud soaring gradually into the western heavens, and spreading as it soared, the sure precursor of one of those terrific thunder-storms to which the Congo district is subject at certain periods of the year; so that, as I reflected dismally, I was likely to go to my fiery doom in a sufficiently picturesque and dramatic manner. When the sun at length plunged behind this livid curtain, the latter had spread in a crescent shape until a full quarter of the firmament was obscured, and I observed that it was rising and spreading with great rapidity.
The darkness gathered early that night, and as it did so the savages provided themselves with torches, gathering in such vast numbers round the circle of combustibles that hemmed me in that it soon became almost as light as day again, although not so light but that I could detect through the yellow, smoky glare the flickering lightnings wherewith the coming storm heralded its approach.
By-and-by the slow, measured beat of a tom-tom became audible through the noisy chattering of the vast crowd that had gathered about me, and immediately the excited jabbering subsided into an almost breathless silence. Then another tom-tom joined in, and another, and another, until there must have been a full dozen of them going, the beating becoming momentarily more rapid, until my throbbing brain fairly reeled with the giddy sounds, above which the low, sullen rumble of distant thunder now made itself heard. Presently I became aware, by the increasing loudness of the savage music, that the tom-tom beaters were approaching, and two or three minutes later they wheeled into the open space in front of me, and squatted down upon their haunches, with their tom-toms—now being most furiously beaten—between their knees. They were followed by about a hundred men fully armed with spear and shield, in the midst of which, borne aloft on a sort of rude throne supported upon the shoulders of eight stalwart negroes, sat an enormously fat man, black as ebony, naked save for a leopard skin apron about his loins, armed with some half-dozen long, broad-bladed, cruel-looking spears. This potentate, whom I rightly surmised to be King Plenty, halted his bearers square in front of me, scrutinised me curiously, and with a savage leer of delight upon his bloated features, for fully ten minutes. Then he made a sign by raising his right hand in the air, and on the instant some thirty or forty savages sprang forward with a shout and thrust their blazing torches into the heart of the combustibles by which I was surrounded.
"Thank God," thought I, "it will soon be over now!" and I only regretted that there was no wind to blow the smoke my way and suffocate me out of my misery. But the air was breathless, and the brown wreaths of pungent smoke went curling straight upward to the black heavens in an unbroken circle.
Meanwhile the storm was gathering apace; the lightning was rapidly becoming more vivid and frequent; the thunder louder, deeper, and nearer every moment; and I remember wondering whether the fire, when fully ignited, would have power enough to withstand the pelting torrents of rain that would by-and-by come, and whether I should be still alive to feel its refreshing coolness.
"Borne aloft on a sort of rude throne supported upon the shoulders of eight stalwart negroes."
But, rapidly as grew the storm, the fire grew more rapidly—for the savages had been careful to collect only thoroughly dry wood—and within ten minutes of its ignition the zone of flame which encircled me had become a roaring furnace, giving out an amount of heat that was already scarcely endurable, while fresh supplies of wood were being thrown upon the blazing pile, and the savages were pushing it slowly inward ............