I went and found Jooma. I told him that his guilt was discovered, and that his life was in my hands; that a word from me would march him to the execution ground. He knelt and prayed for mercy. I told him he needn’t trouble, that Englishmen were far too honourable to harbour revenge. Then I made him bring a very old and savage billy-goat, and together we brought it to the king.
The king was greatly pleased. He said he never had liked the looks of the billy-goat, and he had no doubt that it had worked some deadly spell upon his rum. So the billy-goat—poor beast—was slain, and after a few more pills the king got better, and I was chief favourite among all the tribe.
Chapter Seven.
“But what avails this wondrous waste of wealth,
This gay profusion of luxurious bliss?
Ill-fated race! the softening arts of peace,
Kind equal rule, the government of laws,
These are not theirs.”
Thomson.
I became the king’s head-counsellor, his prime-minister, so to speak, his chief medicine man. There was not much honour in this, certainly, but nevertheless it procured me some amelioration of my sufferings. There was less of the dungeon after this, and fewer threats of decapitation.
I think the king still hankered after rum, and it was an anxious day for me when some Arab chiefs appeared in camp. Otakooma assembled not only, all his forces but most of his people. Something was going to happen, I knew, but till now I had had no idea of the utter depravity of this wretch.
He was positively going to barter his people for rum. The Arabs would buy them as slaves.