The imagination reverently dwells on every detail of the scene, for the old hero has made his last journey, and is about to sleep his last sleep. While he was lying on his litter outside, and the rain was falling, curious villagers had gathered round, each man with bow in hand, for they had been guarding their crops. This was the great chief who had come from far. His fame they knew somewhat; they could not know that he was the best friend Africa ever had. They gazed respectfully and wonderingly at the thin, pale, emaciated sufferer with the bloodless hands and lips, and the face distorted with sharp throes of agony. Through the falling rain they watched him; and in days to come would tell their children that they had seen Livingstone.
That night passed quietly; and when Chitambo called next day, Livingstone, with unfailing courtesy, received him, though he had to beg the chief to go away and return on the following day, when he hoped to feel stronger. All that morning he lay suffering, his strength gradually ebbing. In the afternoon he bade Susi bring him his watch, and with great effort he slowly wound it. Night fell at last; and at eleven o’clock Livingstone called Susi. There were noises heard. “Are our men making those noises?” said Livingstone. Susi told him that the villagers were scaring a buffalo. “Is this the Luapula?” he asked again; and Susi knew that his master was wandering in his mind. How ardently he had desired to reach the Luapula through those terrible weeks and months on the sponges and through the floods! When Susi told him where they were, he asked again, “How many days to the Luapula?” “I think it is three days,” said Susi. There was no more except the cry of pain, “Oh, dear, dear!” Then he dozed. Near midnight he sent for Susi again. This time Livingstone told him to boil some water; and, when Susi had filled the copper kettle, he again asked for the medicine chest. The candle had to be held close to him, for his eyes were very dim. But he did just succeed in selecting some calomel, which he wanted to have at his side with a little water in a cup.
Then he said, very faintly, “All right! you can go now.”
These were the last words he was heard to speak. It almost seemed as if a higher Master had said to His tired servant, “All right! You can go now.”
What happened after that is known only to the One who was with him at the last. The boy Majwara slept; and while he slept the miracle happened. For it appeared miraculous and incredible to his men, who had seen his utter inability to move himself, that he did actually rise from off that rude couch and did kneel down at the side, his knees probably on the bare soil, and there in the attitude of prayer commended himself to God,
“And his fair soul unto his Captain Christ.”
When the lad Majwara awoke at 4 a.m. and saw the strange sight of his master kneeling thus, he was afraid, and slipped out to warn the others. Susi dared not go in alone. He ran to rouse Chumah, Chowperé, Matthew, and Nuanyaséré. The six stood awestruck at the door of the little hut. On the box a candle was burning. It was just stuck there in its own wax, but it relieved the darkness; and they gazed at the still, bowed form. He was lying, stretched forward across the bed, in the attitude of prayer, his head buried in his hands. None seemed to dare to approach him for a while. Then Matthew, reverently and tremblingly, stretched out his hand and laid it on his master’s cheek. It was quite cold. David Livingstone was dead. It was the morning of the first of May, 1873.
With the death of the hero, most biographies perforce end. In this respect Livingstone’s story is wholly unique. The most thrilling and sensational chapter remains to be written. Nothing more convincingly illustrates Livingstone’s ascendancy over his followers than the events which followed his death. It would have been easy for the men to have hurried the body into the ground, divided the property among themselves, and dispersed to their homes. Perhaps the last thing to be expected was that they would shoulder the dead body, and carry it from the centre of Africa, more than a thousand miles, through hostile and inhospitable country, to the ocean. Yet this was what they did; while the method, order and reverence of their proceedings would have done honour to the wisest and most civilised of our race. Let us now see how they faced the duty that had suddenly come to them.
The discovery that Livingstone was dead was made about 4 a.m. The news was carried round at once to all the men; and as soon as day dawned they assembled for conference. The dead man’s possessions were collected, the boxes opened in the presence of all, and Jacob Wainwright made a careful and exact inventory on a page of Livingstone’s little metallic pocket-book, in which his own last entries had been made. The next business was to appoint Susi and Chumah, the oldest and most experienced of Livingstone’s followers, as leaders of the expedition. All promised to obey their orders; and all kept their word. Fearing lest the native superstitions in regard to departed spirits might lead to some outrage on the dead body, or that Chitambo might demand some ruinous fine, they decided to conceal for the present the fact of the death. In this respect they had misjudged Chitambo, who soon learned what had happened, and proved himself the kindest and most sympathetic of advisers. All were agreed that the body of Livingstone must be carried back to the coast.
The first practical step, after making the inventory, was a remarkable one. Outside Chitambo’s village the men erected a small settlement of their own, fortified by a stockade. Here they built a circular hut, open to the sky, but strong enough to resist any attack of wild beasts, and in this they laid the body of Livingstone. His followers were stationed all round like a guard of honour. It happened that Farijala had once been servant to a Zanzibar doctor, and knew the elementary facts about a post-mortem. With the assistance of a Nassick boy, Carras, he undertook to do what was necessary. Certain rites of mourning having been performed, and volleys fired, a screen was held over these men while they did their work. The heart and viscera were removed, placed in a tin box, and reverently buried four feet in the ground, while Jacob Wainwright read the Burial Service from the English Prayer Book. The body was then dried in sun for fourteen days. So emaciated was it that there was little more than skin and bone. For coffin, they stripped the bark off a Myonga tree “in one piece”; the corpse was carefully enveloped in calico and inserted in the bark cylinder. The whole was sewn up in a piece of sail-cloth and lashed to a pole, so that it could be carried on the men’s shoulders. Then Jacob Wainwright carved Livingstone’s name and the date of his death on the tree standing near where the body rested. Chitambo was charged to keep the ground free from grass lest bush-fires should burn the tree. Finally they erected two strong posts, with a cross beam, and covered them thoroughly with tar, so that the spot might be definitely identified. They seem to have forgotten nothing that could be done to keep in perpetual memory the place where Livingstone breathed his last.