A Chapter of Adventures

by G. A. Henty

"Well, some of the other drivers or guards, or whatever they call them, ran up, and there was a tidy skrimage, I can tell you. It was ten minutes, I should say, before they got the best of us; and there was not one among them but was badly damaged about the figure-head. When they had got us down they laid it on to rights, and I believe they would have finished us if the Arab had not come up and stopped it.

"'Look here,' said I, when I was able to get up on to my feet again; 'we are ready to work just as far as men can work, but if one of those niggers lays a finger on us we will do for him. You may cut us in pieces afterwards, but we will do for him.'

"I don't know whether the Arab understood just what I said, but I think he got the gist of it. He spoke sharp to his men, and they never touched us afterwards. I could not quite make out what they were taking us for, because I can say honestly we were not much good at carrying—not half as good as one of the slaves. The first day or two we carried a good manful load. Then our shoes went to pieces, and we got that footsore and bad we could scarcely crawl along, let alone carrying loads. Tom said he thought that the Arab was a-taking us to sell as curios to some fellow who had never seen white men before, and it turned out as he was right. After we had been travelling for nigh a month we came to a big village; and there was great excitement over our coming, and for two days there were feastings, while the Arab sold part of his goods to the people for gold dust and ivory.

"The chief had come to look at us the day we arrived, and we had been packed away together in a little hut. The third day he came again with the Arab, and made signs that I was his property now, while the Arab told Tom to go out and start with his caravan. It was a big wrench for us, but it were no good struggling against what was to be. So we shook hands and parted on it quietly, and what became of Tom I have never heard from that day to this; but like enough he is dead years ago.

"Well, it would be too long a story to tell you all that happened in the nine months I stopped in that village. The chief was very proud of me, and used to show me off to his visitors. I had not such a very bad time of it. I used to make myself as useful as I could. I had been a handy sort of chap, and fond of carpentry, and I made a shift with what native tools I could get to turn out tables and chairs, and cupboards, and such like. All this time I was wondering how I was ever to get back again. I used to share a hut with another slave who had been captured in war. They generally sell them to the Arab slave-dealers to take down to the coast, but this man was the son of a chief who had gone to war with the fellow who owned me, and had been killed; and he kept this chap as his slave as a sort of brag, I think.

"We got on very well together, and of course by the time we had been there six months I got to talk their lingo, and we agreed at last that we would try to make a bolt of it together. So one night—when it happened that there was a great feast in the village—we slipped away as soon as it got dark, and made south, our object being to strike one of the Portuguese stations. We armed ourselves with bows and arrows, and spears; and as many yams as we could carry. It would make a book, lads, if I was to tell you all we went through before we got there. We travelled chiefly by nights; sometimes killing a deer, sometimes getting a few yams or heads of corn from the fields of the villages we passed. We had one or two skrimages, but fortunately never ran against any strong bodies of natives. By myself I should have died before I had been gone a fortnight but Mwango was up to every dodge. He knew what roots were good to eat, and what fruit and berries were safe. He could steal up to a herd of deer without frightening them, and was a first-rate hand in making pitfalls for game.

"I didn't keep no account of time, but it was somewhere about six weeks after we had started when we came down on the banks of a biggish river. We followed it down until, two or three days later, we came on a village. There we stole a canoe, and paddling at night and lying up in the day, we came after about a week to a Portuguese post. There we were kindly received, and stopped for a month; and then I went down the river with some traders to the coast, while Mwango took service with the Portuguese. Six weeks later I was lucky enough to get a ship bound for the Cape, and there shifted into another for England. So that, young gentlemen, was the second time as I was off the books of Godstone & Son."

"Thank you very much, Joe. Some day you must give us some more yarns about it, and tell us something of your life in the village and your journey."

"I will think it over, Master Jim. It is a long time ago now, for I was not above six-and-twenty when it happened. But I will think it over, and see if I can call back something worth telling."

From that time onwards the boys had no reason to complain of dulness.