The party set off. They marched all day, with brief intervals for food and rest. Jack was only allowed to speak to his uncle during these pauses. The sick man lay inert, with closed eyes, protected from the heat by a light covering of grass, which his bearers made and fixed above his litter. Jack watched him anxiously. He seemed no worse when they arrived at the river just before sunset. Mr. Martindale had brought up four canoes; two of these had already been appropriated by Elbel and conveyed up the river; the other two remained. They passed the night on the canoes, and in the small hours, when the natives were asleep, Mr. Martindale insisted on continuing the story broken off the night before.
"Better now, dear boy," he said, when Jack implored him to wait until he was stronger. "I shall never see Boma; Elbel knows that. He knows that in this climate a sick man cannot survive a journey of over a thousand miles. I want you to understand clearly before I go what these officials are doing. They call it the Free State!—free! No one is free but the officials! The natives, poor wretches! are not free. Never, when slavery was an institution, were there slaves in such abject misery as these slaves of the Congo. Why, they made a great to-do about slavery in my country fifty years ago, and some of the pictures in Uncle Tom's Cabin were lurid enough. But the American slave's life was Paradise compared with this hell upon earth. Trade on the Congo was to be free. Is there any such freedom? Look at my case. They give me a patent to work minerals; they let me make my prospecting trip; then when I have located the gold and ordered my machinery they revoke my patent. I make the loaf, they eat it. Oh! it was all planned from the beginning. We have been fooled right through, Jack."
"But what of their courts, Uncle? Surely there is some redress for injustice."
"Their courts! They're all of a piece, Jack. The State grants a concession to a trading company. Half the time the State is the trading company; it takes up the larger portion of the shares. The Congo Free State is nothing but a big commercial speculation, and the courts dare not do anything that conflicts with its interests. Men come here, Belgians, Germans, Italians, good fellows some, honest, well-meaning; but they haven't been here long before they have to swim with the current, or throw up their careers. One poor fellow, a district judge, ventured to protest against an illegal sentence passed by a court-martial; he was broken, and hounded out of the country. In a sense he was lucky, for it is easier for such a man to get into this country than to get out of it—alive! A man who does justice and loves righteousness has no place in the Congo Free State.
"You see now why they let me go. They let me make what arrangements I pleased—engage a large party, buy a large quantity of stores; well knowing that at any moment of my journey they could arrest me and plunder my goods. And they knew of your doings up here, be sure of that. They intended to let me get into the neighbourhood of your fort and use me to decoy you out. They've done it. Oh! it was all planned in Boma. Neither you nor I will ever reach Boma if Elbel and the officials have their way. Elbel's suggestion of delaying so that we could get Barney to surrender the fort was all a part of the trick; it would make no difference to our treatment, and it would be the death-warrant of those poor negroes. Jack, I approve of all that you have done—approve with all my heart. I am proud of you, dear boy. What does it matter that I've lost my money, and my gold mine, and very likely my life too! I am thankful to Almighty God that we came to this country, glad that He has put it into our power to do some little good. I wouldn't undo any of it; I am proud that one of my blood has been called to this good work. Jack, Providence has made us responsible for the poor negroes who have trusted their lives to us. Do you remember I said at Banonga that I wasn't a philanthropist and wasn't set on starting a crusade? I spoke lightly, my boy. I would say now that if God spared my life I would spend all my strength and all my energy in a nobler work than ever mediæval crusader undertook. I shall not live to do it; but I leave it to you. Were this my last breath I would say, help the negroes of the Congo, fight the corrupt Government that enriches itself on their blood; go to the fountain-head and expose the hypocrisy of King Leopold."
"He may not know of it, Uncle. So far away he cannot check and control all the actions of his agents."
"Not know of it! How can he help knowing of it? Are not these things happening every day? And it is his business to know of it. Suppose I had a factory in the United States, and it was proved that while I was coining millions my hands were dying of overwork, or of insanitary buildings, or getting wages insufficient to keep them decently clothed and fed; wouldn't there be an outcry? Wouldn't the law step in, or if the law failed, public opinion? Where does Leopold get his dollars from? Who pays for the estates he is buying, the palace he is building, the fine public works he is presenting to Belgium? It is these poor black people. He is draining the life-blood out of the country he vowed before Almighty God to rule justly and administer wisely for the good of the people; and the cries and groans of these negroes, men like himself, are rising to Heaven, terrible witnesses of his broken vows, his callousness, his selfish apathy. Oh! I grant him good intentions to begin with. Twenty years ago he did not foresee all this; no man is a villain all at once! But it might have been foreseen. He was king of a few hundred miles of country; with a stroke of the pen he became sovereign of a State as big as Europe; and if a man has the passion for getting, unlimited opportunities of doing so will bring him to any villainy unless he has the grace of God in him."
Jack was deeply moved by his uncle's earnestness. At the same time he was concerned to see the exhaustion that followed his passionate speech. He gave him a little wine, imploring him to spare himself.
"Don't trouble, dear boy," said Mr. Martindale with a smile. "The fire is burning out; what does it matter if it burns a little more quickly? But I won't distress you; you will think over my words when I am gone."
In the morning the river journey was begun. It continued for several days, until with their arrival at the falls progress by water was interrupted, and a long portage had to be made.