“Let us fire off our guns together—somebody may hear us—It’s our only chance.”
“I don’t think it’s any use.”
“Well, let us try anyhow.”
We fired three or four times, but heard nothing except the lap lap of the tide as it gradually drew nearer to us, and the screams of the frightened birds. Presently a ripple of water came along and washed our ancles, for our feet were buried, and almost simultaneously the doctor sank to the armpits. I thought it was all over then, but I loaded mechanically and fired once more. The report had scarcely died away before my companion shouted excitedly:—
“I saw something white behind you, by the flash of your gun—perhaps it’s hard sand.”
I helped him up on to the firmer mud where I was standing, and we tried to make our way towards what he had seen. After about two paces we both sank to our waists, and, in trying to get out, floundered on to our faces; but when our heads were thus raised but little above the level of the slime we could see, dimly through the darkness, a white crest about twenty yards off. It was a ridge of sand. How we got through the intervening distance I do not know; but, partly swimming, partly crawling and floundering along, we at last felt the dry sand under our hands, and, drawing ourselves up to the top of the little bank, fell down utterly done up.
We neither of us said anything for some time, and then we began complaining about the loss of our guns and hats, and wishing for something with which to take the taste of the mud out of our mouths. We could not see each other, it was too dark, but we must have looked pretty objects, clothed from head to foot in a coating of black mud which smelt—unpleasantly. Soon we began to shiver with cold, and there was no room for exercise; the minutes dragged on their flight as if they were leaden, and we thought the night would never come to an end. At last, after about two hours, we heard a faint halloo in the distance. We shouted in reply until we were quite hoarse and our throats sore; then the cry was repeated, and we knew we were all right. Soon we heard the creaking of rowlocks, and a boat glided up to us. We were not sorry to see it.
In 1879 a Member of Parliament, an extremely rara avis on the West Coast of Africa, visited Bonny in his yacht, and the traders still narrate the following harrowing tale about him. They say that one morning, being on shore, he strolled into old Oko Jumbo’s house about 11 a.m., and found that veteran warrior at breakfast. He was asked to partake of the meal, and, being anxious to try the native cookery, acquiesced. A black clay dish full of some oleaginous stew was set before him, which he eyed askance, and finally tasted with doubt. A little fiery perhaps, owing to the native liking for red peppers, but otherwise not bad: so he plunged his spoon in and fell to like a man. After a few mouthfuls he unearthed from the bottom of the dish a curious-looking object. A cold shudder convulsed his frame, and he looked closely. He could distinguish what seemed like five fingers and the palm of a hand, and, seized with a violent nervous contraction of the diaphragm, he leaped from the table and leaned out of a window. After a little he looked back into the room with brimming eyes, a haggard brow, and a mind full of the tales of the cannibal propensities of the natives of Bonny. He approached the old chief with tottering limbs, and one hand pressed upon the abdominal region, and inquired:—
“What’s in that dish?”