The bearers, properly so called, hired partly at Khartoum, but principally at Fort Rek, inarched next, two by two when the path was narrow, but any way they pleased when there was more room. These carried the bulk of the baggage, including all the various articles destined for presents or as payment for provisions, all of which were under the special charge of M. Delange.
Then came some Nubian women, and about a score of juvenile blacks, to whom were entrusted the care of the cattle, purchased from the Baggaras and used as beasts of burden until the necessity should arrive for converting them into food. This necessity, it was hoped, was far distant, for other animals there were none, except the horses and Joseph's donkey, and these might succumb to the climate at any moment. In that case the Europeans, if tired or sick, would be only too glad to get on the back of some complaisant bullock or amiable cow.
Last of all came ten soldiers of the escort, taken according to a roster from the company in front. These formed the rear-guard, whose duty it was to hurry on the laggards and prevent desertions. This latter evil is especially to be feared in case of meeting with a caravan returning from the interior towards the Nile. The African is passionately attached to his native soil, and notwithstanding the loss of the promised wages and the certainty of punishment, he is frequently seized with the desire to abandon his masters on the onward march, and turn back with the new-comers for the purpose of regaining his home as soon as possible. During the night there are no desertions, for fear of wild beasts and especially of Zomby, the "bogey" of the blacks, but in the day-time a cleft in a rock or a convenient thicket is adroitly seized upon as a means of escape. Pursuit is useless, because home-sickness sharpens the wits of the fugitives and makes them clever at concealment.
The owners take little notice of these desertions so long as they are solitary and a free man is the delinquent, but they are in a terrible state if a slave takes to flight. If they themselves have been slaves, or if they are in an inferior position, their anger knows no bounds. The man or woman purchased out of their savings, at the cost of great privations, becomes their property, their chattel. The feeling of proprietorship, very strongly developed amongst them, renders them furious, and the Europeans were destined to find this out before the end of their second day's march.
CHAPTER XIII.
M. Périères was riding on the flank of the column when his eyes fell on a man of the rear-guard, whose arms and hands were covered with blood. He thought he was wounded, and, going up to him, asked him how it had happened.
"I am not wounded," sulkily replied the Nubian.
"How, then, come your hands to be covered with blood?"
"It is my slave's blood, not mine."
"Your slave! You have a slave? Who gave her to you, or where did you get hold of her?"