Mrs. Weldon's first feeling on being left alone was a sense of relief at having a week's respite1. She had no trust in Negoro's honesty, but she knew well enough that their "marketable value" would secure them from any personal danger, and she had time to consider whether some compromise might be effected by which her husband might be spared the necessity of coming to Kazonndé. Upon the receipt of a letter from herself, he would not hesitate for a moment in undertaking2 the journey, but she entertained no little fear that after all perhaps her own departure might not be permitted; the slightest caprice on the part of Queen Moena would detain her as a captive, whilst as to Negoro, if once he should get the ransom3 he wanted, he would take no further pains in the matter.
Accordingly, she resolved to make the proposition that she should be conveyed to some point upon the coast, where the bargain could be concluded without Mr. Weldon's coming up the country.
She had to weigh all the consequences that would follow any refusal on her part to fall in with Negoro's demands. Of course, he would spend the interval4 in preparing for his start to America, and when he should come back and find her still hesitating, was it not likely that he would find scope for his revenge in suggesting that she must be separated from her child.
The very thought sent a pang5 through her heart, and she clasped her little boy tenderly to her side.
"What makes you so sad, mamma?" asked Jack6.
"I was thinking of your father, my child," she answered; "would you not like to see him?"
"Yes, yes; is he coming here?"
"No, my boy, he must not come here."
"Then let us take Dick, and Tom, and Hercules, and go to him."
Mrs. Weldon tried to conceal7 her tears.
"Have you heard from papa?"
"No."
"Then why do you not write to him?"
"Write to him?" repeated his mother, "that is the very thing I was thinking about."
The child little knew the agitation8 that was troubling her mind.
Meanwhile Mrs. Weldon had another inducement which she hardly ventured to own to herself for postponing9 her final decision. Was it absolutely impossible that her liberation should be effected by some different means altogether?
A few days previously10 she had overheard a conversation outside her hut, and over this she had found herself continually pondering.
Alvez and one of the Ujiji dealers11, discussing the future prospects13 of their business, mutually agreed in denouncing the efforts that were being made for the suppression of the slave-traffic, not only by the cruisers on the coast, but by the intrusion of travellers and missionaries14 into the interior.
Alvez averred15 that all these troublesome visitors ought to be exterminated16 forthwith.
"But kill one, and another crops up," replied the dealer12.
"Yes, their exaggerated reports bring up a swarm17 of them," said Alvez.
It seemed a subject of bitter complaint that the markets of Nyangwé, Zanzibar, and the lake-district had been invaded by Speke and Grant and others, and although they congratulated each other that the western provinces had not yet been much persecuted18, they confessed that now that the travelling epidemic19 had begun to rage, there was no telling how soon a lot of European and American busy-bodies might be among them. Thedépôts at Cassange and Bihe had both been visited, and although Kazonndé had hitherto been left quiet, there were rumours20 enough that the continent was to be tramped over from east to west. [Footnote: This extraordinary feat21 was, it is universally known, subsequently accomplished22 by Cameron.]
"And it may be," continued Alvez, "that that missionary23 fellow, Livingstone, is already on his way to us; if he comes there can be but one result; there must be freedom for all the slaves in Kazonndé."
"Freedom for the slaves in Kazonndé!" These were the words which in connexion with Dr. Livingstone's name had arrested Mrs. Weldon's attention, and who can wonder that she pondered them over and over again, and ventured to associate them with her own prospects?
Here was a ray of hope!
The mere24 mention of Livingstone's name in association with this story seems to demand a brief survey of his career.
Born on the 19th of March, 1813, David Livingstone was the second of six children of a tradesman in the village of Blantyre, in Lanarkshire. After two years' training in medicine and theology, he was sent out by the London Missionary Society, and landed at the Cape25 of Good Hope in 1840, with the intention of joining Moffat in South Africa. After exploring the country of the Bechuanas, he returned to Kuruman, and, having married Moffat's daughter, proceeded in 1843 to found a mission in the Mabotsa valley.
After four years he removed to Kolobeng in the Bechuana district, 225 miles north of Kuruman, whence, in 1849, starting off with his wife, three children, and two friends, Mr. Oswell and Mr. Murray, he discovered Lake Ngami, and returned by descending26 the course of the Zouga.
The opposition27 of the natives had prevented his proceeding28 beyond Lake Ngami at his first visit, and he made
[Illustration: Dr. Livingstone. Page 408.]
a second with no better success. In a third attempt, however, he wended his way northwards with his family and Mr. Oswell along the Chobé, an affluent29 of the Zambesi, and after a difficult journey at length reached the district of the Makalolos, of whom the chief, named Sebituané, joined him at Linyanté. The Zambesi itself was discovered at the end of June, 1851, and the doctor returned to the Cape for the purpose of sending his family to England.
His next project was to cross the continent obliquely30 from south to west, but in this expedition he had resolved that he would risk no life but his own. Accompanied, therefore, by only a few natives, he started in the following June, and skirting the Kalahari desert entered Litoubarouba on the last day of the year; here he found the Bechuana district much ravaged31 by the Boers, the original Dutch colonists32, who had formed the population of the Cape before it came into the possession of the English. After a fortnight's stay, he proceeded into the heart of the district of the Bamangonatos, and travelled continuously until the 23rd of May, when he arrived at Linyanté, and was received with much honour by Sekeletoo, who had recently become sovereign of the Makalolos. A severe attack of fever detained the traveller here for a period, but he made good use of the enforced rest by studying the manners of the country, and became for the first time sensible of its terrible sufferings in consequence of the slave-trade.
Descending the course of the Chobé to the Zambesi, he next entered Naniele, and after visiting Katonga and Libonta, advanced to the point of confluence33 of the Leeba with the Zambesi, where he determined34 upon ascending36 the former as far as the Portuguese37 possessions in the west; it was an undertaking, however, that required considerable preparation, so that it was necessary for him to return to Linyanté.
On the 11th of November he again started. He was accompanied by twenty-seven Makalolos, and ascended38 the Leeba till, in the territory of the Balonda, he reached a spot where it received the waters of its tributary39 the Makondo.
It was the first time a white man had ever penetrated40 so far.
Proceeding on their way, they arrived at the residence of Shinté, the most powerful of the chieftains of the Balonda, by whom they were well received, and having met with equal kindness from Kateema, a ruler on the other side of the Leeba, they encamped, on the 20th of February, 1853, on the banks of Lake Dilolo.
Here it was that the real difficulty commenced; the arduous41 travelling, the attacks of the natives, and their exorbitant42 demands, the conspiracies43 of his own attendants and their desertions, would soon have caused any one of less energy to abandon his enterprise; but David Livingstone was not a man to be daunted44; resolutely45 he persevered46, and on the 4th of April reached the banks of the Coango, the stream that forms the frontier of the Portuguese possessions, and joins the Zaire on the north.
Six days later he passed through Cassangé. Here it was that Alvez had seen him. On the 31st of May he arrived at St. Paul de Loanda, having traversed the continent in about two years.
It was not long, however, before he was off again. Following the banks of the Coanza, the river which was to bring such trying experiences to Dick Sands and his party, he reached the Lombé, and having met numbers of slave-caravans on his way, again passed through Cassange, crossed the Coango, and reached the Zambesi at Kewawa. By the 8th of the following June he was again at Lake Dilolo,............