My Kalulu, Prince, King and Slave: A Story of Central Africa

by Henry M. Stanley

Once outside the gate, Simba and Moto exerted their powers to the utmost, and by their extraordinary speed soon left their pursuers far behind.

Finding it useless to pursue the runaways, the Watuta began to examine the wounded, and especially the Arabs, whom they surveyed with astonishment. The group formed by Amer bin Osman, Selim his son, Abdullah, Mussoud, and Isa, attracted them most for their rich dresses. They began to strip the bodies, but their astonishment was very great when they perceived Isa sit up and fold his hands, asking for mercy.

Suspecting that others shammed death, they laid hold of Selim, and he also sat up; then Abdullah and Mussoud, and they also sat up, looking very sheepish, or like guilty people caught doing a mean action. Angry at the cheat, as they imagined, to have been practised upon them, they snatched the cloth from the face of the dead body of Amer bin Osman; but there was no mistaking him—he was dead.

Some were for slaying the boys at once; but the majority interposed, and said in an inquiring tone, “Why slay boys, when you can make slaves of them?” which shortly met general approbation.

Upon agreeing to this, they began to strip Isa, who shortly found himself as naked as when he was born; but being extremely dark of colour, there appeared nothing remarkable about him to attract any special attention, and he was taken at once to the other captives, where he wae firmly bound with strips of green bark.

They then laid violent hands on the others, on Selim, Abdullah, and Mussoud; and despite their struggles and tears, they were soon denuded of their finery and of their rich embroidered dress. When they saw the pale and clean colour of their bodies, the fierce Watuta gathered about them, and wondered what strange beings these were who were all over white, while they themselves were all black. They looked at the wound in Selim’s chest, and on pressing it saw the red blood flow, which only increased their astonishment; for how could people with white skins have red blood? But Selim’s proud heart was rebelling against the indignity of being stared at as a curious specimen of humanity, and he had endeavoured to hide his blushes with his hands; but when they pulled them down, and ordered him to show his tongue and teeth, and began to feel the muscles of his arms and legs, then he could bear no more; and flinging himself across the dead body of his father, he wept aloud, and prayed to God that he might die. Abdullah and Mussoud were as yet too terrified to do more than cry silently; and they were accordingly led away and bound without resistance. They then took hold of Selim to tie him, but he would not rise; and, angered at what they deemed his stubbornness, two warriors brought the shafts of their spears full upon his body, which had well-nigh broken the high courage of the young Arab; for so great was the pain his pride suffered, and so indescribable were his emotions, that he lay like one stunned.

While the boy lay fainting in the hot sun amid the dead and the blood, the chief of the party in charge of the prisoners, casting his eyes around, saw a whip of hippopotamus-hide in the waist-cloth of one of the dead fundis, or overseers, of the Arabs. This pliant and formidable whip the chief—a man of stern and forbidding aspect, whose name was Tifum (pronounced Tee-foom),—Tifum Byah, or the “Wicked Tifum,” and who was evidently a traveller—handled like a man who knew its uses, for he made it fly about his arm in black circles, and made it hiss its menace in the ears of the sorely-tried Selim.

“Proud Arab boy, arise! Tifum Byah speaks but once, else you will feel the pains of this whip, with which your cursed race torture the backs of your slaves. Many days lie between here and Ututa, and you will suffer more than this ere you see our plains. Arise! No? then words are light as air, and seldom go into the ears of the stubborn;” and as he spoke, he lashed the prostrate youth with all his might, while the shrieks which the pain elicited at last from him were responded to by the mocking laughter of the brutal crowd, who pointed at the marks which the whip made in high glee.

When Tifum fancied he had punished him enough, he ordered the boy to be assisted up to his feet and bound; and when this was done Tifum lowered his face to Selim’s, and said, “Mark my words, child of the pale race! You shall be Tifum’s slave, to hoe his field and bring him wood and water. You shall nurse his children, be a herdsman of his cattle, and I will break your heart, and make your ears open to his slightest breath. Do you hear me, white face?”

So strong was the nauseous and hateful repugnance he felt towards this man that Selim could not repress the expression of the loathing that filled him, and almost unconsciously he spat in his face, which was instantly retaliated by Tifum with a tremendous box on the ear, which prostrated the boy once more across the dead body of Amer, where he lay like one deprived of life, and not all the brutal lashing which the almost lifeless form received evoked one groan from him; and it was in this unconscious state that he was carried to where the other prisoners stood huddled together like frightened sheep.