With Wolseley to Kumasi: A Tale of the First Ashanti War

by F. S. Brereton

“He won’t stand, then!” cried the half-caste, his cruel nature delighted at the sight of so much suffering, and at the plight in which he saw the son of his old employer. “Set him up again and hold him there. I will thrash him till he changes his tune and agrees to make good use of his legs.”

There was no haste about this ruffian. He drew a sheath knife and went in search of a knotted vine, returning with it, still plying his blade and paring off the small branches attached to it. Then he took his post behind his prisoner.

“Raise him, and stand well aside,” he cried, with a gay laugh. “Now we will see how long it takes us to persuade him.”

Could the prisoner have freed his hands at that moment and managed to reach his tormentor, he would have taken such a grip of his throat that James Langdon’s villainy would have been summarily ended for all time. Dick felt the cruel sting of the lashes as they fell upon his back, across his face, and on his legs and shoulders. But his indignation and rage at such cowardly and dastardly treatment helped to ease the pain. He clenched his fingers, closed his lips firmly, and when he could fixed his gaze upon the ruffian who belaboured him. Then, gradually, as the man tired and his blows lost power, and as the circulation returned to the prisoner’s legs, he gained sufficient strength to stand, and then to hobble.

“See what a good healer I am,” laughed the half-caste. “Others would have rubbed his legs and feet. I use my whip to his back, and the sulky dog is roused. He finds that it will be as well to walk and do as he is bid.”

“And he will find it in him to punish such an act when the time comes,” gasped Dick. “I do not threaten, James Langdon, thief and ruffian. I give you due warning. When the time comes, I will shoot you as if you were a wild beast, without notice and without mercy. Vermin such as you are do not deserve ordinary treatment.”

For a few seconds the half-caste was taken aback, for at heart he was an arrant coward, and the mere mention of what might happen to him was sufficient to shake his nerve. But he had the game in his own hands now, he flattered himself. This time the youth at whose door he laid all his troubles, the need which drove him to live this life in the jungle, the fever which racked him, and a hundred other evils, was securely bound, a prisoner, from whom no danger was to be apprehended. His words were harmless. He was as helpless as a new-born babe.

“When the time comes I shall be prepared,” he said, with a laugh which he vainly endeavoured to make easy and light. “For the present we will advance, and leave threats and chatter till later. Advance, and beat the dog if he shows signs of lagging.”

Had the Ashanti warriors who helped in the capture and who now formed the escort had even hearts of stone they would have pitied their prisoner. The very fact that he had made a very gallant and determined fight for freedom would have aroused their enthusiasm and respect. But these men of Kumasi had long since had all such feelings driven from their breasts. The constant succession of cruelties of the most frightful nature perpetrated at Kumasi had hardened them to all human feeling and misery. They had, every one of them, from the time when they were mere children, been daily witnesses of executions, of unmeaning and ferocious tortures, and of endless bloodshed. Mercy they had never encountered. There was but one punishment for prisoners and evil-doers alike, for the thief, the murderer, and those whose cruel fate had caused them to be born in slavery. The executioners stretched out their greedy and remorseless hands for all, and who could say when their turn would come? Was it remarkable, therefore, that these men marched on before and behind their prisoner, belabouring him when his steps flagged, and shouting oaths at him? And so, in this sorry plight, his feet tingling still, while his hands felt as if the skin would burst, so tight were the lashings, Dick was hurried on through the dark and sombre forest out to the clearing and to the site where had stood the mine stockade. There, as the procession halted, he threw himself on the ground in an exhausted condition, wishing almost that he might die. His thirst was now unbearable, while his head throbbed and ached from the blow he had received. No wonder, too, if he were apathetic, if his fate were now a matter of little concern to him; for his present miseries overshadowed all else.