A Parisian Sultana, Vol. 2 (of 3)

by Adolphe Belot

CHAPTER XVI.

We had just quitted the front of the Al-waj. It was ten o'clock in the morning, and we had to cross a vast plain in order to reach our next halting-place. The heat was oppressive in the extreme, as if a storm were brewing, although the sky was cloudless. The sun, as if foreseeing that a veil would soon be interposed between him and the earth, that the rainy season was coming on, and that he would no longer be sole monarch of these districts, was darting his most burning rays. We were weary, almost done up, and as we went slowly forward, we kept close together in the vain hope of affording each other some sort of shade.

In the midst of this barren, parched, and arid plain we unexpectedly caught sight of a leafless tree, whose branches had been lopped off so completely, that nothing but a post was left. Bound closely to this tree, with his face to the sun, we perceived a human being. De Morin and Delange galloped off at once, and stopped short at the tree in astonishment at the sight which met their gaze.

A man, about twenty years of age and completely naked, was bound to the tree. His features were regular and gave token of great energy of character, his eyes had a very peculiar expression in them, and his smile was somewhat sardonic. An artistic statue in bronze, modelled by a master hand, alone could give any just idea of his splendid proportions and the lustre of his dark brown, almost metallic skin. In spite of his bonds, his attitude was noble, he stood firmly and upright, with expanded chest, and uplifted head.

Followed by our two interpreters and some of the Al-waj, who had been engaged as guides as far as the next halt, I rejoined de Morin and Delange, and with one consent we made ready to cut the captive's bonds. The natives at once came up to us and indulged us with a vehement harangue, the sense of which we were fain to obtain from our interpreters.

According to their account, the man whom we wished to rescue was a poisoner, belonging to the Baggara tribe, whose acquaintance we had made when coming from Khartoum up the Nile. Taken prisoner by some dealers on their way to the south, he had in the preceding year been sold to one of the chiefs of the Al-waj. Soon afterwards the chief, together with all his family and more than ten members of the tribe, had died from the effects of poison, and, suspicion having rested on the slave, he was condemned to death from the sun.

This punishment, of which we now heard for the first time, is of the most simple description, and it may well be asked how it is that it is not more widely known in the tropics or at the equator, for, of course, in Europe, especially in the north, it would not be very efficacious.

It consists merely of fastening the criminal in the middle of a plain, and there leaving him without the power of moving, to be burnt at a slow fire, or, to speak more correctly, by a quick sun, in the simplest possible manner, without appliances of any kind, and without any expense in the shape of stake or faggots.

The Al-waj, like true artists, introduce a certain amount of refinement into the punishment they have thus devised, for lest it should not last long enough, or lest the prisoner should die too speedily from sun-stroke, they cover his head with leaves. The skull and forehead, the most vulnerable parts, are thus protected, but all the rest of the body burns to a cinder, and gradually dries up. The skin is not long before it peels off, and the sun darts his pitiless rays upon the quivering flesh.

It may possibly be said that, notwithstanding these precautions, the punishment cannot be of very long duration. Abandoned by all, riven to his post, the slave would certainly die of hunger and thirst before the sun would kill him. They who would argue thus do not know the Al-waj. They do not so abandon the criminal, but, on the contrary, pay him every attention. Each day, when the sun has lost his power, and they themselves no longer dread his rays, they bring their prisoner a few grains and a drop or two of water, thus prolonging his existence, and condemning him to die by the sun alone, according to their decree.