“I don’t know. Most likely he is traveling rapidly so as to lose no time in reaching the districts where he can capture the most slaves. Would you be glad if we could really join his division?”
The girl nodded her little blonde head as a sign that she was most willing.
“Why would you like it?” asked Stasch, surprised.
“Because in the presence of Smain perhaps Gebhr would not dare beat this poor Kali so terribly.”
“Probably Smain is no better. None of them has any mercy for their slaves.”
“Yes, you are right.”
And tears flowed down her wan cheeks. This was the ninth day of the journey. Gebhr, who was now the leader of the caravan, at first found a few traces of Smain’s march. Stretches of burned jungle and places where he had camped, crunched bones, and various discarded material marked his route.
Five days later they came to a wide steppe, where the wind had carried the fire in every direction. The traces were indistinct and confusing, for Smain had apparently divided his company into several small groups in order to facilitate cornering the game and obtaining provisions. Gebhr did not know which direction to take, and it often seemed as if the caravan had traveled around in a circle, returning to the same place from which it started. Then they came upon woods, and after having traveled through them, they entered a rocky country, where the ground was covered with flat slabs or small level stones, that for some distance were strewn so thickly that they reminded the children of the roads in town. The vegetation was scanty. Only here and there, in the clefts of the rocks, grew euphorbias, mimosas, and rarer and slimmer pale green trees, which Kali, in the Ki-swahili language, called “m’ti.” The horses were fed with the leaves of these trees. In this land there were very few small rivers and streams, but fortunately it rained now and then, and there was sufficient water in the cavities and clefts of the rocks.
Smain’s party had frightened off the game, and the caravan would have died of hunger had it not been for a number of Pentaren birds that flew into the air every second from between the horses’ feet. Toward evening the trees were so full of them that one had only to shoot in their direction to bring some of them down, and they served for food. Besides, they were not shy, for they let people approach them, and were so clumsy and heavy in preparing for flight that Saba, who generally ran in advance of the caravan, caught and killed some of them nearly every day. Chamis killed a number of these birds with his old flintlock musket that he had stolen from one of the Dervishes under Hatim, on the road from Omdurman to Fashoda. But he only had enough shot for twenty cartridges, and he felt very much worried when he thought of what would happen when they were used up. Notwithstanding the game had been frightened away, they occasionally saw herds of gazels, a beautiful species of antelope which is found all over central Africa. These animals, however, could only be shot, and the men did not know how to use Stasch’s gun, and Gebhr would not give it to him.
But the Sudanese also began to be worried about the length of time they were on the way. Sometimes he even thought of returning to Fashoda, for if they were to miss Smain they might get lost in the wilderness and not only suffer from hunger, but be in danger of attack by wild animals and still wilder negroes, who vowed vengeance on account of having been hunted for slaves. But as he did not know that Seki Tamala had undertaken an expedition against Emin Pasha, because he had not been present when the conversation on that subject had taken place, he was alarmed at the thought of appearing before the powerful emir, who had ordered him to bring the children to Smain, and who had given him a letter to take to him, threatening that if he did not execute his orders faithfully he would be hanged. All this combined to fill his heart with bitterness and rage. Though he did not dare to vent his disappointments on Stasch and Nell, poor Kali’s back was daily covered with blood from being beaten with the scourge. The slave always approached his cruel master in fear and trembling. But in vain did he clasp him by the feet and kiss his hands, and fall on his face before him. Neither humility nor groans softened the stony heart; for on the slightest pretext, and sometimes without any provocation at all, the scourge tore the flesh of the unhappy boy. During the night his feet were chained to a piece of wood with two holes in it, so that he could not run away. During the daytime he walked alongside of Gebhr’s horse, attached to it by a rope, which greatly amused Chamis. Nell shed tears for poor Kali. Stasch revolted in his heart, and often valiantly championed Kali, but when he noticed that this annoyed Gebhr still more he simply clenched his teeth and was silent.