Meanwhile I devoted my spare moments to the construction of a flute, and, after two or three partial failures, succeeded in producing an instrument of very sweet tone and a sufficient range of notes to enable me to tootle the air of several of the most popular songs of the day, as well as a fairly full repertoire of jigs, hornpipes, and other dance music. And it was particularly interesting to observe how powerfully anything in the nature of real music, like some of the airs of Braham, Purcell, Dr Arne, and Sir H. Bishop, appealed to these simple savages; a sentimental ditty, such as “The Anchor’s weighed” or “Tom Bowling,” would hold them breathless and entranced; “Rule, Britannia!” or “Should He upbraid” set them quivering with excitement; and they seemed to know by intuition that “The Sailor’s Hornpipe” was written to be danced to, and they danced to it accordingly a wild, furious, mad fandango in which the extraordinary nature of the gambols of the performers was only equalled by the ecstasy of their enjoyment. Such proceedings as these could not of course long exist without the fame of them reaching the ears of the king, and I had only given some three or four performances when I was summoned to entertain his Majesty and his household, which I did in the great square before the palace, my audience numbering quite two thousand; Banda and his numerous family being seated in a huge semicircle—of which I was the centre—in front of the palace, while the rest of the audience filled the remaining portion of the square.
It was now that I first began to grow aware of the fact that there was a certain member of the king’s household who seemed to be taking rather more interest in me than any one else had thus far manifested. She was a girl of probably not more than sixteen years of age, but for all that a woman, and, as compared with the rest, a very pretty woman too; quite light in colour, exquisitely shaped, and with a most pleasing expression of countenance, especially when she smiled, as she generally did when my eyes happened to meet hers. I had seen her many times before, but had never taken very particular notice of her until now that she appeared determined to make me understand that she was friendly disposed toward me. I endeavoured to ascertain who she was; but although I had contrived to pick up a few words of the language, my ignorance of it was still so great that I had experienced the utmost difficulty in making myself understood, and all I could then learn about her was that her name was Ama. It was not until later that I discovered her to be King Banda’s favourite daughter. And the discovery was made in a sufficiently dramatic manner, as shall now be related.
It happened that one night, when, as now was frequently the case, I had been summoned to entertain the king and his household by “obliging them with a little music,” I was playing some soft, plaintive air—I forget what—when, chancing to glance toward Ama, who, seated on the ground on the extreme left of the semicircle, was well within my range of vision, I fancied I saw some moving object close to her left hand, which was resting lightly on the ground. At the moment I took but scant notice of the circumstance, for the flickering flames of the fire which was always kindled upon such occasions played strange pranks with the lights and shadows, and often imparted a weird effect of movement to stationery and even inanimate objects; but presently, happening to again glance in that direction, my eye was once more caught by the same queer wavering movement. There was something so strange and uncanny about it—for I by this time knew the ground well enough to be fully aware that there ought not to be any moving thing there—that I stopped playing and sprang to my feet so suddenly that my movement appeared to startle Ama, who uttered a little cry of alarm, or surprise, and made as though she too would spring to her feet.
At that instant the thing upon which my gaze was fixed, and which looked like half a fathom of stiff tarred lanyard, darted with lightning swiftness at the girl and coiled itself about her shapely bare arm, while a piercing scream rang out from her pallid lips. I of course knew in an instant what it was—a snake, that very possibly had been attracted to the spot by the notes of my flute, and, startled by the sudden cessation of the music and Ama’s quick, involuntary movement, had instantly coiled itself round her arm and struck at it in its blind and panic-stricken rage. Acting upon the impulse of the moment, and scarcely knowing what I was about, with a single bound I flung myself upon the terrified girl and, guided more by instinct than reason, seized the reptile immediately behind the head in so vice-like a grip that its jaws at once opened wide, when I tore its hideous coils from the girl’s arm and flung it far from me into the very heart of the blazing fire. Then, gripping the wounded limb, I turned it toward the light of the fire, and saw two marks close together upon the inner part of the arm, just below the elbow, from which, as I gazed, two drops of blood began to ooze slowly.
Without wasting a moment, I applied my lips to the double wound, intending to suck the poison from it, even as I had done in my own case; but another startling scream from the girl caused me to look up, and, following the direction of her terrified glance, I looked behind me and beheld the king himself, his eyes ablaze with demoniac fury, in the very act of raising a spear that he had snatched from the hand of one of his guards, to drive it through my body. Whether it was that he had not seen just what had happened—as might very well have been the case, since the whole thing seemed to have occurred in the space of a single instant—and was under the impression that I had suddenly gone mad and was attacking his daughter, I know not, but it is certain that Ama’s scream, and certain hasty words uttered by her, only barely saved me from his fury. But no sooner did he lower the threatening spear than I once more glued my lips to the wound, sucking hard at it with the object of extracting the poison before it had contaminated the blood; and in this effort I was happily successful, for although there was a slight swelling of the limb, and some pain for an hour or two, that was all that happened; and before morning my patient had quite recovered from all the effects of her alarming adventure.
The result of this was that I immediately became a prime favourite of the king. There was no further pretence of treating me as a prisoner, but, on the contrary, I was loaded with honours. A large house was assigned to my use, with a complete staff of servants to attend to my wants; an abundant supply of food was daily sent to me from the royal table; and, as I understood it, I was appointed physician in ordinary to the royal household. Another result—to which I did not attach nearly sufficient importance at the moment—was that I made an implacable and deadly enemy of Mafuta, the chief witch-doctor.
I have said that there was no further pretence of treating me as a prisoner, and this was true, but only within certain limits, as I discovered the moment that I set about taking measures to effect my escape. I was allowed to go freely where I pleased, it is true, even to the extent of making long hunting or exploring excursions into the adjacent country, but—whether or not by the king’s orders I could never satisfactorily ascertain—I soon found that I could never manage to steal off anywhere alone. If ever I attempted such a thing—and I did, very frequently—a party of the king’s guards was certain to turn up, in the most exasperatingly casual and unexpected manner, and join me, under the pretence, as they made me understand, that it was extremely dangerous to venture alone beyond the confines of the town, if I pretended that I was engaged in hunting for animals, or plants to be used in my medical practice. Or, if I attempted to go anywhere by water, I could take any canoe I chose, but two or more men always insisted upon accompanying me, that I might be spared the labour of paddling. It was always the same, no matter what the hour of day or night that I might choose to start upon my expeditions; no surprise was ever displayed at my eccentricity in the choice of times, but I simply could not contrive to elude notice; and at length it was borne in upon me that if I wished to effect my escape I must adopt tactics of a totally different kind. I therefore very gradually curtailed my excursions, and when I undertook them was careful that there should be nothing in the nature of secrecy connected with my movements.
Meanwhile, without any effort on my part, I now seemed to see a good deal of Ama, the king’s daughter, who appeared to have assumed the responsibility of seeing that my house was kept in order, and that the servants were faithfully performing their duty. She was frequently in and out, as often as three or four times a day, and very seldom indeed less than twice; moreover, she seemed exceedingly anxious to become my instructress in her own language, and as I had already felt heavily handicapped on several occasions by my inability to converse freely with those around me I made no demur, although I must confess that I at length began to view with vague disquietude the extreme freedom of intercourse thus instituted by the young woman. Yet I scarcely knew precisely what it was that I feared, but I certainly had a feeling that the situation was not altogether devoid of peril, one of the most obvious of which was foreshadowed in the question which I frequently asked myself, What would the king think of the intimacy of his daughter with one of totally different race and views of life, should the matter chance to come to his knowledge? Therefore I kept a very close watch upon myself, and was careful never to allow my manner to relax in the slightest degree from the strictest formality, although to preserve consistently this attitude of extreme reserve was sometimes exceedingly difficult with a companion of so amiable and altogether winsome a manner and disposition as that of Ama.
Under the zealous and indefatigable tuition of this young damsel I made astonishingly rapid progress as a student of the language spoken by those around me, and was soon able to converse in it with a very fair amount of freedom. Meanwhile I had practically abandoned my attempts to effect my escape, for the time being at least; for the conviction had at length been forced upon me that neither Banda nor his people would ever willingly let me go, and that, therefore, before engaging in any further attempts, I must contrive to disarm suspicion completely, and create the impression that I had at length resigned myself to live out my life in this remote African town, and with savages only for my companions.
It was while matters were in this very unsatisfactory state that I became aware that some event of extreme importance was imminent in the town; for upon sallying forth from my residence on a certain morning and crossing the great square, in the centre of which stood Banda’s crucifixion tree, I saw that a number of men were engaged in setting up some forty stout, quaintly-carved posts in a circle round about the tree. The arrangement somehow had a sinister, suggestive appearance that made me feel vaguely uncomfortable; and abandoning the intention, whatever it may have been, that took me to the spot, I returned to my house, and, as soon as Ama made her appearance, asked her what it meant.