The afternoon was passing away, and it was now past four o'clock, when the sound of drums, cymbals1, and a variety of native instruments was heard at the end of the main thoroughfare. The market was still going on with the same animation2 as before; half a day's screeching3 and fighting seemed neither to have wearied the voices nor broken the limbs of the demoniacal traffickers; there was a considerable number of slaves still to be disposed of, and the dealers4 were haggling5 over the remaining lots with an excitement of which a sudden panic on the London Stock Exchange could give a very inadequate6 conception.
But the discordant7 concert which suddenly broke upon the ear was the signal for business to be at once suspended. The crowd might cease its uproar8, and recover its breath. The King of Kazonndé, Moené Loonga, was about to honour the lakoni with a visit.
Attended by a large retinue9 of wives, officers, soldiers, and slaves, the monarch10 was conveyed to the middle of the market-place in an old palanquin, from which he was obliged to have five or six people to help him to descend11. Alvez and the other traders advanced to meet him with the most exaggerated gestures of reverence12, all of which he received as his rightful homage13.
He was a man of fifty years of age, but might easily have passed for eighty. He looked like an old, decrepit14 monkey. On his head was a kind of tiara, adorned15 with leopards16' claws dyed red, and tufts of greyish-white hair;
[Illustration: The potentate17 beneath whose sway the country trembled for a hundred miles round]
this was the usual crown of the sovereigns of Kazonndé. From his waist hung two skirts of coodoo-hide, stiff as blacksmiths' aprons18, and embroidered19 with pearls. The tattooings on his breast were so numerous that his pedigree, which they declared, might seem to reach back to time immemorial. His wrists and arms were encased in copper20 bracelets21, thickly encrusted with beads22; he wore a pair of top-boots, a present from Alvez some twenty years ago; in his left hand he carried a great stick surmounted23 by a silver knob; in his right a fly-flapper with a handle studded with pearls; over his head was carried an old umbrella with as many patches as a Harlequin's coat, whilst from his neck hung Cousin Benedict's magnifying-glass, and on his nose were the spectacles which had been stolen from Bat's pocket.
Such was the appearance of the potentate beneath whose sway the country trembled for a hundred miles round.
By virtue24 of his sovereignty Moené Loonga claimed to be of celestial25 origin; and any subject who should have the audacity26 to raise a question on this point would have been despatched forthwith to another world. All his actions, his eating and drinking, were supposed to be performed by divine impulse. He certainly drank like no other mortal; his officers and ministers, confirmed tipplers as they were, appeared sober men in comparison with himself, and he seemed never to be doing anything but imbibing27 strong pombé, and over-proof spirit with which Alvez kept him liberally supplied.
In his harem Moené Loonga had wives of all ages from forty to fourteen, most of whom accompanied him on his visit to the lakoni. Moena, the chief wife, who was called the queen, was the eldest28 of them all, and, like the rest, was of royal blood. She was a vixenish-looking woman, very gaily29 attired30; she wore a kind of bright tartan over a skirt of woven grass, embroidered with pearls; round her throat was a profusion31 of necklaces, and her hair was mounted up in tiers that toppled high above her head, making her resemble some hideous32 monster. The younger wives, all of them sisters or cousins of the king, were less elaborately dressed. They walked behind her, ready at the slightest sign to perform the most menial services. Did his Majesty33 wish to sit down, two of them would immediately stoop to the ground and form a seat with their bodies, whilst others would have to lie down and support his feet upon their backs: a throne and footstool of living ebony.
Amidst the staggering, half-tipsy crowd of ministers, officers, and magicians that composed Moené Loonga's suite34, there was hardly a man to be seen who had not lost either an eye, an ear, or hand, or nose. Death and mutilation were the only two punishments practised in Kazonndé, and the slightest offence involved the instant amputation35 of some member of the body. The loss of the ear was considered the severest penalty, as it prevented the possibility of wearing earrings36!
The governors of districts, or kilolos, whether hereditary37 or appointed for four years, were distinguished38 by red waistcoats and zebra-skin caps; in their hands they brandished39 long rattans, coated at one extremity40 with a varnish41 of magic drugs.
The weapons carried by the soldiers consisted of wooden bows adorned with fringes and provided with a spare bowstring, knives filed into the shape of serpents' tongues, long, broad lances, and shields of palm wood, ornamented42 with arabesques43. In the matter of uniform, the royal army had no demands to make upon the royal treasury44.
Amongst the attendants of the king there was a considerable number of sorcerers and musicians. The sorcerers, or mganga, were practically the physicians of the court, the savages45 having the most implicit47 faith in divinations and incantations of every kind, and employing fetishes, clay or wooden figures, representing sometimes ordinary human beings and sometimes fantastic animals. Like the rest of the retinue, these magicians were, for the most part, more or less mutilated, an indication that some of their prescriptions48 on behalf of the king had failed of success.
The musicians were of both sexes, some performing on
[Illustration: Alvez advanced and presented the king with some fresh tobacco.]
shrill49 rattles50, some on huge drums, whilst others played on instruments called marimbas, a kind of dulcimer made of two rows of different-sized gourds51 fastened in a frame, and struck by sticks with india-rubber balls at the end. To any but native ears the music was perfectly52 deafening53.
Several flags and banners were carried m the procession, and amongst these was mixed up a number of long pikes, upon which were stuck the skulls54 of the various chiefs that Moené Loonga had conquered in battle.
As the king as helped out of his palanquin, the acclamations rose higher and higher from every quarter of the market place The soldiers attached to the caravans55 fired off their old guns, though the reports were almost too feeble to be heard above the noisy vociferations of the crowd; and the havildars rubbed their black noses with cinnabar powder, which they carried in bags, and prostrated56 themselves. Alvez advanced and presented the king with some fresh tobacco, "the appeasing58 herb," as it is called in the native dialect; and certainly Moené Loonga seemed to require some appeasing, as, for some unknown reason, he was in a thoroughly59 bad temper.
Coïmbra, Ibn Hamish and the dealers all came forward to pay their court to the monarch, the Arabs greeting him with the cry of marhaba, or welcome; others clapped their hands and bowed to the very ground; while............