“They must have rounded the bend and then dragged her into the forest,” said Dick. “I think we might steam on another mile, and then talk to this fellow. He’s not an Ashanti, Jack.”
“And he’s no friend of theirs, either,” sang out Jack, from his post at the tiller. “He looks thin and ill-used, and may very well have been one of the wretched beggars you have told me about who are kept prisoners at Kumasi, till some uncle or grandmother of King Koffee’s dies, when hundreds of captives are sacrificed.”
“More than likely,” was our hero’s answer, for he had been in this part of the country long enough to have learned all that was known of the Ashantis and their ferocity. He knew that it was said that thousands were slain in cold blood every year in this horrible den called Kumasi, and that the death of a king’s son necessitated the slaying of at least two thousand wretched girls, children and men, to satiate the hideous Moloch reigning over the fetish house at the capital. And no doubt this poor fellow was one. Dick nodded to him and smiled, and at the sign of friendship the man rose and crept towards him till he crouched at his feet. Then he did a strange thing. He fumbled with his twitching fingers in the masses of his hair, and finally produced a discoloured piece of linen.
“For the white chief,” he said; “I have risked my life to bring it to you. These Ashanti men would have killed me as I came, and if they had captured me—”
The very thought of what might have followed unnerved the man, who was still suffering from the effects of his desperate efforts to escape. His teeth shook while his limbs trembled. Then he seized our hero by the hand and clung to it as if his life now depended upon doing so.
“Who are you?” asked Dick, using the Ashanti tongue. “Where do you come from, and why have you been pursued?”
“Look at the letter, chief. See the figures there and I will talk. I am an Assim. I hate these cruel Ashantis.”
The native watched with eager eyes as the strip of discoloured linen was unfolded, and started back as if in terror as the white youth suddenly rose from the roof of the deck cabin to his feet and glared at the strip. It was an important missive, evidently, for he grew red with excitement, and gave a prolonged whistle of astonishment. Then he called in loud tones to Jack to come to his side. There was a tone of profound astonishment and relief in his voice, and he waved the strip of linen above his head.
“News!” he shouted. “News at last! Look at the signature. Poor beggar! How he must be suffering!”
“Who? Who’s the poor beggar? Is it one of the captives about whom there has been such a row? You know whom I mean. The Europeans for whom King Koffee demanded a ransom.”