"I come from Mpatu," he said. "It is not my village: my village is Ilola. I passed through Mpatu on my way home. It is no longer a village. Why? The servants of the Great White Chief had come up the river. They told the people that the lords of the world, the sons of heaven, had given all the land to the Great White Chief. Mpatu belonged no more to the chief Lualu: it belonged to the Great White Chief. But the Great White Chief was a good chief; he would be a father to his people. Would he take their huts, their gardens, their fowls, their children? No, he was a good chief. Everything that was theirs should be left to them; and the Great White Chief would keep peace in the land, and men should live together as brothers. Only one thing the Great White Chief required of them. In the forest grew a vine that yielded a milky sap. This stuff when hardened with acid from another plant would be of use to the Great White Chief, and he wished them to collect it for him, and bring to his servants every fourteenth day so many baskets full. Every man of Mpatu must bring his share. And they said too that the Great White Chief was just: for all this rubber they collected he would pay, in brass rods, or cloth, or salt; and seeing the Great White Chief was so kind and good, only a bad man would fail in the task set him, and such bad men must be punished. And two servants of the Great White Chief would be left in Mpatu to instruct the people as to the furnishing of the rubber; and these kind teachers the men of Mpatu would surely provide with food and shelter.
"The men of Mpatu laughed at first. Well they knew the vine! Was there not enough of it and to spare in the forest? How easily they could collect what was demanded! How soon would they become rich! And they set the women and children to weave new baskets for the rubber, and made ready new and well-built huts for the men who were to teach them their duty to the Great White Chief.
"But as time went on, woe came to Mpatu. The two servants of the Great White Chief were bad men, selfish, cruel. They stalked about the village, treating the people as their slaves; they seized the plumpest fowls and the choicest fruits; if any man resisted, they whipped him with a long whip of hippopotamus hide.
"But the servants of the Great White Chief demanded still more. It was not only rubber the men of Mpatu were bade to bring them, but so many goats, so many fowls, so many fish and cassava and bananas. How could they do it? The rubber vines near by were soon exhausted. Every week the men must go farther into the forest. They had not enough time now to hunt and fish for their own families. How supply the strangers too?
"Grief came to Mpatu! For long days there was no man in the village save the chief Lualu and the forest guards. The women cowered and crouched in their huts. No longer did they take pride in tidy homes and well-tended hair; no longer sing merrily at the stream, or croon lullabies to their babes; all joy was gone from them.
"Some of the men fled, and with their wives and children lived in the forest, eating roots and leaves. But even flight was vain, for the forest guards tracked them, hunted them down. Some they killed as soon as they found them; others they flogged, chained by the neck, and hauled to prison. There they are given heavy tasks, carrying logs and firewood, clearing the bush, cutting up rubber; and there is a guard over them with a whip which at a single blow can cut a strip from the body. Many have died; they are glad to die.
"And now Mpatu is a waste. One day the rubber was again short; the soldiers came—they burned the huts; they killed men, women, and children; yea, among the soldiers were man-eaters, and many of Mpatu's children were devoured. Only a few escaped—they wander in the forest, who knows where? I tell what I have seen and heard."
When Faraji had finished his story, there was silence for a time. The chief seemed disposed to let the facts sink into the minds of the white men, and Mr. Martindale was at a loss for words. Faraji's story, so significantly similar to what he had himself discovered at Banonga, had deeply impressed him. Were these atrocities going on throughout the Congo Free State? Were they indeed a part of the system of government? It seemed only too probable—the rubber tax was indeed a tax of blood. And what could he say to convince Imbono that he was no friend of the white men who authorized or permitted such things? How could the negro distinguish?
"'Pon my soul," said the American in an aside to Jack, "I am ashamed of the colour of my skin."
Then the chief began to speak.