Leonard Lindsay ;

by Angus B. Reach

‘Ha! ha!’ he began, with that horrid laugh again. ‘Two ships come after. Two times I sharpened my knife; two times I went into the sea; two times I cut the great rope, and the ships struck the rocks and were broken. Some of the white men were drowned. Those who were not, we sold, and they were taken away, many days’ journey to the rising sun, and there will be until they die, as I am, slaves.

‘But we were wealthy and great. The king was powerful. He had more carabines, more iron, and more cloth than any king before. Strong drink ran amongst us like water in a river. We drank, we yelled, we whooped, we flung brands from the fire among the huts, and they were burned. Evil demons lived in those casks, and when we drank the fiery drinks, they entered in unto us and made us mad, and no man knew his brother. We fought among the burning houses, and the charred rafters were wet with blood. At length there came a ship to which we had already given slaves. We went aboard. I was on board with the king. We went into the great cabin, and they gave us more strong drink. They heard of four ships having been broken on the rocks hard by, and they asked us how it was. We said that a wind came up out of the sea, and that the ships were broken. They then asked us where the white men were, and we said that they were all drowned in the sea. On that they gave us more strong drink, and fires began to flash before our eyes. It was sweet drink, sweeter than ever we had tasted, and we drank greedily. The white men encouraged us, but they did not drink themselves, and they talked, of the ships that were broken. But we were getting mad, and we knew no more what we did. So the white men said that, if the king’s people were cunning, many more ships would be broken, and the king’s people would be rich. Then we fell into the snare, because we were mad with the strong drink, and we yelled out, and danced, and told the white men that they were but fools, and I drew out my knife, and I said: “Look here. This knife cut the great ropes that went down to the bottom of the sea, and the ships were broken. I cut the great ropes. I have a strong fetish. I am a great diver and a great swimmer.” After this I remember nothing, but that I was asleep, and that I awoke. It was in a dark place, very hot, and I could scarcely breathe. On my arms and legs were mighty chains. I called out, and a voice answered me in the darkness. It was the voice of the king, and he said, “I am chained, I know not where.” We shouted, and screamed, and clanked our chains, and then when we lay still, we felt the prison we were in move with a regular motion, and we knew that we were in a ship upon the sea. So, white men came with lanterns, and they told us we were slaves. We roared and howled at them, and spit upon them, but our chains would not allow us to rise and kill them. Therefore they laughed, and asked me if I would swim and dive and cut the great rope that held the ship to the bottom of the sea, so that the king’s people might be rich. First, we trusted in our fetishes, but they did not help us; and the king said: “Once go ashore, and me catch the Obi man, and send the tum-tum drum through the wood, and the people come, and me burn the Obi man for a sacrifice; me burn him with fire, and torment him till he die.” But we did not go ashore—we were slaves. Then other slaves come, men and women, and lay down in the dark with us. The white men were there with whips and sticks, and they tormented us, until we lay so that we were one great lump of human flesh. All through the ship, oh! there was the heat, and the stench, and the sweat, and the roarings! There was no light but from two little hatchways with gratings, and square bits of light came down there; but I was far from them, and the air I breathed was more foul than the mist fever that comes up out of the swamp with the smell of the rotten mud.’

The poor devil told this part of his strange tale with a visible shudder. He went on.

‘The ship sailed away, and there were waves very rough, and the slaves lay sick, rolling over each other, roaring and fighting to get near the hatchways. But white men, with iron bars, struck them, and drove them back. The white men struggled backwards and forwards, and beat and slashed the slaves with iron bars and knives. They carried lanterns at first, but the fire went out in the bad air and the stench. The place was only as high as half a man; there were hundreds and hundreds driven into it. The smoke of our bodies rose out of the hatchways. We struggled and tore each other with hands and teeth, because of the agony of sickness and smothering. We coughed, and gasped, and panted, and dashed ourselves here and there in our chains. Soon many died. The white men dragged out the corpses and took them away. In our struggles, we kicked the dying beneath our feet. Sometimes they clasped our legs, and tried to scratch or bite. The corpses were cold and soft beneath us, and all around was slime, and dirt, and air that was rotten, and one stench of corruption and of death.

‘In half a moon, more than half of the slaves were dead and thrown overboard. The king was yet alive; when he came on board, he was oily and fat, but now his bones were sticking out like knots and splinters, and he was covered with sores, as a leopard with spots. We lived on the flour of cassava and water. White men came down with great baskets of it mixed, and we plunged in our hands and drew out lumps of leaven, and ate. We did not now fight or struggle, but lay and tried to sleep; we had more room, and five or six died every day, because the stench had brought the fever spirit, and he sailed with us in the dark hold. Then, one night when the white moon was coming down the hatchway, the captain of the ship approached, and turned his lantern upon us as we lay—the king and me—where they had first chained us down. Then he began to ask where were the white men who were carried off after the ships broke, to be slaves. But he stopped and said to two sailors who were with him, “Take off their chains and bring them on the deck; it is better to speak there in the moonlight, than in this stench.” Our chains were taken off—we climbed the ladder—we passed the hatchway—and we stood upon the deck. The moon shone, as it shone above my hut—above the dark woods—above the dark river—above my country; the breeze was sweet to taste, as palm wine after bitter water. The white men slept upon the deck—the ship went steady before the night wind which came over the sea. It was good. The captain asked us again where the white men were slaves, and we told him a moon and two moons and three moons from where the dark river joined the sea. Then we said, that if he carried us back the white men would be found, and he would have them, and we would go ashore and we would make war and bring him many slaves and never cut the great ropes again. The captain spoke to the two white men who were with him, and very soon they took us down below, but they did not chain us again; many other slaves were also unchained, for all were very quiet; and when the white men struck them, or cut their flesh with their knives, they only groaned or cursed in their throats. I lay awake all that night, and the god that stood in my father’s hut, with the necklace of wild beasts’ teeth, gave me thoughts in my heart. I said to myself, we are slaves, but we may be masters; only one watches at the hatchway—at night the wind is small and the sea is smooth—the white men sleep in the moonlight—we may arise and kill them, and have the ship and its riches. I thought these things long to myself, and before the dawn I wakened the king and told him, and we conversed in whispers; the next day we told others, who were the stoutest men left, and who could speak the language of our nation. Thus we agreed, and we searched for billets of wood and spikes of iron, and bits of chains or fetters, to arm ourselves. The night came again, and the moon shone again through the hatchway. The wind was small and the sea smooth, and on deck the white men slept in the moonshine. Then every man adored his fetish, and called upon his god that he believed in, to help. I gave the sign, which was a shout of war, such as we raised when we rushed upon a sleeping village of our enemies to capture slaves. Then we all rushed at the hatchway—we tossed aside the grating of heavy wood and iron, as though it had been of the wattled hurdles which we planted round our fields. We were free. We shouted—we climbed—we leaped—we swarmed out in the moonshine. The white man who stood armed by the hatchway had only time to fire his carabine among us. Then a score of sticks, and iron chains, with handcuffs swung to them, split asunder his head. In a moment he was overboard and sunk in the sea. The white men were conquered. Some were asleep in hammocks, some on the deck. With great shouts and screams we rushed at them. We tore them from their beds. We dashed them on the deck. We slashed them with the knives we found. We hove them overboard. And the sharks which followed us from Africa, and were fat with the flesh of our fellows, swallowed the white men also. Therefore we were the masters of the ship, and it seemed a good slave; for when all the white men were dead and gone, it sailed on, and the small wind blew, and the sea was smooth, just as before. I looked then for the king, but he was dead. The one shot which the white man fired struck him—the ball drove the fetish of feathers, which was upon his breast, into his heart. He was dead, and the sharks had him also.

‘Then all my countrymen called out, and said that I was king in his place, and that we must go back to Africa, to the deep forests and the dark rivers, to their huts, and their wives, and their slaves, to where the panther leaped and the crocodile swam, and the large bats hung in clusters from the trees. So they led me to the helm, and they said, “Steer us home.” There were clouds then over the moon, and the night was dark. I said, “Wait until the morning, and I will steer you home.” The morning came, the clouds passed away, the sun rose, and the wind came fast over the sea. They said again, “Steer us home.” But I looked around. I looked far and near. There was no land, only water. As in the desert there is only sand; so round us there was only water. It was the same on the right hand and on the left. There was the sky and the sea, and that was all. How could I steer them home? But if I said I could not steer them home, they would kill me; therefore I took the tiller in my hand. I stayed by it all day. Those who were the masters of the ship and of me, danced and sung about the deck. Sometimes they asked when we would be at home. I said, soon. They thought that I could conduct the ship to land. They would not let me leave the tiller. They brought food there. I slept there. I was afraid to move. I did not know the road home. Days came and turned into nights, and nights into days again. The sun rose out of the sea, sometimes on the right hand, sometimes on the left; sometimes before us, sometimes behind us. We were wandering upon the sea; a moon passed over us, and they said to me, “We are not yet at home; there is no land, only water. Take us home, or we will kill you, as you made us kill the white men.” Then I was sorry that we killed the white men. The night after, the wind grew loud, and the waves beat over the ship. I did not know what to do. The sails were left as the white men had spread them. The ship was tossed. She moaned, and groaned, and plunged deep into the waves. The sails made strange noises, the masts reeled and bent as trees in a hurricane. Then one by one they broke, and fell into the sea. The foam flew over us all night. A great load of masts, and ropes, and sails lay upon the decks, and from the decks they reached down into the sea. These we cut asunder with hatchets, for they were pulling the ship down into the depths; and when the morning came, the wind had gone away, and the ship lay quite still. She had no masts, and no sails; and as a man without legs cannot walk, so a ship without rigging cannot move upon the ocean.

‘And still all on board cried, “Take us home.” Then I said to them, “We cannot go home, there are no sails; we must die here upon the sea.” Then for the first time I left the helm. I knew one thing that none else there knew—I knew where there was the strong drink.’

‘Ay, that I’ll be bound you did!’ said Captain Garbo.

I watched, and when none saw, when it was dark, I took a great vessel of strong drink, and also bread and meat, and went down with them into the deep places of the ship. I went near the keel. I sat in darkness, with beams around me, and ropes, and the rotten water that flowed slowly in from the sea—and which moved with regular tides, backwards and forwards, because of the ship rolling on the waves. That water had the smell of the thick mud in the creeks among the woods, after the rains, when the mists arise. It washed and gurgled over the slimy wood, and also the rusty chains and nails which lay at the bottom of the ship. There I ate and drank, and no one saw me. I heard them howling up above, for they knew not where I was; but they knew they were to die upon the sea. I stayed there drinking and sleeping. The strong drink was good, it made me drunk; it made me as if I was back again where the dark river joins the sea. When the jug was dry I went for more. It was night, and a great wind was blowing over the waves, and the ship rose up and sank down, like the first ship that went upon the rocks and was broken. The people were running on the deck—they were in fear; they said the sea was coming up over the ship. I did not care; I knew where the strong drink was. I got another jug, greater than the first, I also got some bread. As I passed in the dark, I heard a man say to a woman, “In two days there will be no food left.” I did not care; I went with the strong drink into the secret place of the ship. There I lay among the ropes and beams, and the stinking water which gurgled among them, as the waves beat hard on the outside. It was like a cave in the woods: it was like the den of the wild beasts. I burrowed in it like the crocodile in his abiding place, among the weeds and the thick herbage which grows by the creek. There I ate, there I drank—oh, much—much. The strong drink was like fire in me, and like light to me; it showed me my hut, where the river joins the sea; it showed me sun, and moon, and stars, and the sky over the woods and the sea; it showed me the deep waters where I paddled my canoe, and where I swam, and where I dived. I shouted and sang war-songs, and those above thought that the spirits of their enemies were exulting and were singing. When the jug was empty I went on deck. Many days had come and gone away into the past. The deck was full of people; they lay upon the planks, they groaned and cried, they were starving, and they yelled out for water, and for cassava, and millet, and maize, and rice. I went to the secret place where were the strong drinks. Lo! there were no more! Others found out the place, and took the drinks. I searched everywhere, but there was nothing—not a drop—not a crumb. There was no more food, no more drink—now we must die. I sat upon the deck, so did all; no man or woman spoke: sometimes one moaned—that was all. It was the same in the sunlight and the moonlight—when the air did not move and when the wind was strong. I looked upon the sky, it was always blue, there were no clouds from dawn-time to sun-setting: there was no rain to cool our lips; our tongues swelled and our throats were dry—as dry as the hole which the scorpion burrows in the hot sand. The people died one by one. When, they died they lay upon the deck where they fell; they rotted there amongst us, but we did not move to throw them to the sharks. At last there were ten men and women dead, to one man or woman living; then we spoke and we talked who would die next. One said he would, and another, that he would. When we die we fly back to Africa, and we said one to the other, “If you die first, you say we are coming: you say we are flying in the air behind you to Africa, to the dark woods and the dark river.” Then I sent messages to my father, who was killed in war, and to the king; I sent them by a young man who was very weak, and whose eyes were glazed. He lay close by me. I watched him well. His breath came longer and longer—then it ceased, as a branch you move ceases gradually to swing—and the jaw dropped down. I said, “Ha! my messenger has departed; I am glad.” That night there were but five left. I was the strongest of the five, but I could not rise from my seat amid the corpses. The breeze came fresh in the night; clouds came with it, and out of the clouds rain fell. We held up our mouths and we were refreshed. So, by means of the sweet rain, four out of the five lived until the grey light came out and showed fogs hanging on the water. The wind was small, and the sea smooth; and as the sun climbed out of the ocean, the fogs rose up and melted away, and we all gave a faint shout together, for not half an hour from us, a great ship, with many sails, glided like a bird upon the sea. As we looked, a canoe, with white men, came from the great ship, paddling fast towards us, and soon the white men leaped up among the corpses on the deck. They gave a great cry of horror when they saw all the planks covered with bodies, some sitting, some lying, some piled up upon each other in heaps—where fathers and sons, and brothers and sisters, and husbands and wives, had died together—and they were about to go back hastily into their canoe, but we all cried as with one voice for water. Then they turned and beheld us, and after some talking, they lifted us up and put us into the canoe, and rowed us to their ship. So was it that we became slaves again. Then they spread forth all sail, and our old ship, with its cargo of corpses, was left drifting about on the sea.

‘We had good food and good water; we grew stout again, lusty, and strong. A moon passed away, and then we saw land, and a city of the white men. The city was called Porto Bello. We were sold there. My master took me up far into great mountains, where there was gold. The gold was down in the earth. The slaves dug holes in the sides of the steep hills. We crawled into these holes. We dug and hammered in dark places under ground, and white men with whips lashed us if we stopped to rest. But I longed and panted again for rivers and the sea. I grew weak, and my arms were soft and thin, and a spirit whispered to me, and I put earth and clay into my mouth, and swallowed them. Other slaves did the same, and slowly they died, and flew back to Africa. I wanted to die, and I ate much clay. I was very sick and weak, but they flogged me with whips, until I crawled into the holes, digging and hollowing under the earth for gold. At last—’