As we get near the village, I begin to sing and feel happy, and tell the other men what a good [[69]]wife I have, and what a feast she will have ready for me!
But how quiet it all is—and yes, surely I hear a wail! What can it be?
I rush on ahead, and hear the following story.
In the morning some sentries arrived to bring the rubber men to the white man’s place. We had not come in from the forest, so they took our wives, quite a number of them—Bamatafe amongst them with her baby at her breast—away to the white man’s prison, or hostage house as he calls it, and my relatives are crying over it!
I was mad with rage, but it was too late to do anything that night.
In the morning we took our rubber in to the white man, who received it, refused to pay anything for it, but allowed it to pass for the redemption of our wives! Of course, we did not say anything; we were only too glad to get them free at any price; for what could we do without them?
You, white men in Europe, who say you feel pity for us, how would you feel if such a thing happened to you and your wife and little child? We were treated like that not once, but many times. [[70]]
In a village not far from my father’s the men were all away on one occasion trying to procure what was required of them as their weekly tax. When the day for bringing it in fell due, they did not arrive in good time, and as usual sentries were sent out to inquire into it.
Finding no men in town, and most of the women having fled into the bush in fear at the approach of the sentries, they seized the wife of one of the absent men. She had recently become a mother; perhaps she was not strong enough to run away with her companions. Anyway she was arrested with her babe at her breast, and taken off to the white man’s place, where it was decided to give the village a lesson that they would not soon forget.
In the presence of the white man the poor thing was stretched on the ground, and the awful hippo-hide whip was brought into requisition. The man who started the whipping became tired, and passed the whip over to another to continue it, until at last, when the woman was more dead than alive, and in a condition which cannot be described to you, the white man gave the order to cease, and she was—set free, did you say?—No, sent into the prison house!