Samba: A Story of the Rubber Slaves of the Congo

by Herbert Strang

The pigmies who had captured Samba at the river were a different tribe from those with whom he had lived in the forest. Like those, however, they made much of him, giving him plenty of food, but never letting him go out of their sight.

One night, a fierce tempest swept through the forest, snapping great trees and whirling them about like feathers. Thunder crashed, lightning cut black paths through the foliage; and the Bambute cowered in their huts, dreading lest these should be crushed by a falling tree or scorched by the lightning's flame, yet feeling safer within than without. But Samba rejoiced in the elemental disturbance. Reckless of the terrors of the storm in his fixed determination to escape, he stole out when the uproar was at its height and plunged into the forest. All other peril was banished by the fury of the tempest. Once he passed a leopard within a few feet, but the beast was too much scared by the lightning to seize the opportunity of securing an easy meal.

After many days of wandering and privation Samba came within a day's journey of what had been his village. Stumbling accidentally upon one of his fellow-villagers, he told him his story, and was taken by him to a cave in the forest where several of the fugitives from Banonga were in hiding, some badly wounded. Samba came to them like a sunbeam. What he told them about Mr. Martindale gave them courage and hope. Some set off at once to seek out the Inglesa whose praise Samba was so loud in singing; they would implore his protection: others, more timorous or less hardy, dreading the long and toilsome journey, resolved to remain where they were, for they were at least in no straits for food. None of them could give Samba any news of his parents: so after remaining a day or two with them he went on alone. He reached the site of the desolated village in the evening, and took refuge in the branches of a tree. His intention was to push on next day and search the forest beyond the village. But with morning light something impelled him to wander round the scene of his happy childhood. Here had stood his father's hut; there, not far away, the old chief Mirambo had dwelt. It seemed to Samba that the place was altered in appearance since he had left it in company with Mr. Martindale. An attempt had been made to repair the ruins of Mirambo's hut. Somewhat startled, Samba approached it curiously, and was still more startled to hear low groans proceeding from a spot where a corner of the site had been covered with rough thatch. Entering, he discovered with mingled joy and terror that his father and mother lay there, nearly dead from wounds and starvation.

With the negro's instinct for returning to his old haunts, Mboyo had come back with his wife to Banonga, and managed to rig up a precarious shelter in his father's shattered hut. Then his strength failed him. He had been wounded in the attack on the village, but had made good his escape to the forest with his favourite wife. His other wives and children had disappeared; of them he never heard again. The unwonted exposure soon told upon his wife Lukela; she fell ill, and, weakened as Mboyo was by his wounds, they were unable to scour the forest as they might otherwise have done for food. As the days passed their condition had gone from bad to worse, and at last they had painfully, despairingly, made their way back to their old home, to die.

But Samba did not mean them to die. He set himself at once to rescue them. As he knew well, there was little or no food near by; the wanton destruction of plantations had been very thorough. They were too weak to travel. He emptied his tin, to which he had clung through all his wanderings, of the food it contained, and making a rough barrier for them against wild beasts, cheered them with hopeful words and started back on his tracks for a further supply of food.

When he reached the cavern where he had left his fellow-villagers, he found it empty. Apparently even the timid ones had set off to seek the protection of the good Inglesa. He could do nothing that night, but next morning he went down to the stream whence they had obtained their supply of fish and plied his spear until he had caught several. Then he made the long journey back, filling his tin as he went with berries and nuts and anything else from which nourishment could be obtained. His parents were already a little better, thanks to the food he had already given them, and perhaps also to the new spirit awakened in them by the unexpected arrival of their dearly loved son.

Thus for several days Samba watched over them, making long journeys for food. Each time he left them his absence became more prolonged; food was harder to get, and he was less able to hunt for it. While his parents slowly regained a little strength, Samba weakened from day to day. At last he could scarcely drag one foot after the other; he was worn out by the terrible fatigue of constant marching through the forest, and by want of sleep, for he stinted himself of rest so that his parents might be left alone as little as possible. More than once he sank exhausted to the ground, feeling that he could go no farther, do no more. His strength was spent; his head swam with dizziness; a mist gathered before his eyes. Thus he would remain, half conscious, perhaps for minutes, perhaps for hours; he knew not: he had lost count of time. Then with the enforced rest the small remnant of his strength returned to him, and with it the memory of his parents' plight. Upon him depended the life of the two beings he held dearest in the world. As the perils to which they were exposed were borne in upon his fevered intelligence he would struggle to his feet, and grope his way painfully along the forest track, his feet blistered, his flesh torn with spikes and thorns: above all, a dreadful gnawing hunger within him, for he would scarcely spare himself sufficient food for bare sustenance while his parents were ill and in want.

This dark and terrible period was illumined by one ray of hope. His weariness and toil were bearing fruit. Day by day his parents grew stronger; in a fortnight they were able to move about, and a week later they were ready to start for the cavern. But now it was Samba who required tendance. He could walk only a few yards at a time, supported by Mboyo, who almost despaired of reaching the cavern before starvation again overtook them. But the weary journey was completed at last, and after a few days' stay at the cavern within easier reach of food, the party became fit to undertake a longer march, and set out hopefully for Mr. Martindale's camp.

Jack could only conjecture what the terrors of that march had been, for before Samba's story was finished Lepoko returned from the village. He reported that Elobela, furious at the boy's escape, had announced that he would double the punishment to be meted out to his parents. This practice of striking at children through parents, and at parents through children, was so much the rule in the Congo system of tax collection that Jack did not doubt Elbel would carry out his threat. Meanwhile the two prisoners had been removed from the open air before Boloko's hut at the far side of the village, and conveyed to a stoutly-built fetish hut near the stockade. This change of quarters had provoked murmurs not only from the villagers, but from Elbel's own men. The fetish hut was sacred to the medicine man of the village, and even he affected to approach it with fear and trembling. The whole population was talking about the desecration of the hut by the presence of the two captives; men were shaking their heads and saying that something would happen; and the medicine man himself—a hideous figure with his painted skin—did not fail to seize the opportunity of inflaming the minds of the villagers against the impious white man. But no one ventured to remonstrate with Elbel. He meanwhile had gone off with a number of forest guards to an outlying village, leaving orders that the captives were to be watched with particular vigilance.

Samba's face was an image of despair as he listened to Lepoko's report. What hope was there of his parents' rescue now?