While this was going on, I was at work among the plants which grew in a patch of ground adjoining the wigwam of Amoo; but I could in no way discover who this last victim was. However, as Baylis and Hartly had been condemned to slavery together, I was full of deep sorrow lest the sufferer might be my friend.
CHAPTER XLII.
AMOO.
Amoo, the savage who wore the amulet or coin at his neck, proved to be the King's brother; and when first dragged to his miserable dwelling he informed me, by signs—pointing to the earth which I was to till, and to the trees which I was to hew—that I was to be his obedient servant or slave, and by placing the poisoned point of his asseguy in dangerous proximity to my throat, he menacingly indicated that death would be the result of the least attempt at resistance or escape.
I understood his grim pantomime in all its terrible minutiæ; but in no way daunted thereby, resolved, whatever froward fate might have in store for me, to leave no means untried to fly his thraldom and reach the coast, in the hope of escaping to any vessel that might come in sight, or anchor off the Pongos on the same unfortunate errand as the Princess.
I could no longer hope that she was still there, as the chief mate, after the lapse of a week, would suppose we were all murdered, and so continue his voyage to the Cape of Good Hope.
Amoo, though savage and exacting in the tasks he set me, was nothing in severity when compared to his wife, for this Brave of the Rio Serpientes had "a helpmate meet for him," who hoed his rice and maize, shared his matted hut and couch of skins, and who scraped in thankful silence what he was pleased to leave her after meals at the bottom of his calibash; who shared with the house-dog his half-picked bones, and nursed a frightful little imp about a month old. They had three others, and Amoo doubtless fondly hoped (to quote Ossian) "they would carry his name and fame to future times."
By an anomaly in savage life, Amoo was very much attached to his four children, while their mother was tolerably indifferent about them, and often forced me to carry her black bantling, which I did, with an exhibition of all the solicitude I could assume, and with as little disgust as possible, conceiving that if her good will and confidence could be won, they might improve my chances of escape; but I strove in vain, and might as well have caudled the cub of a she-bear.
My mistress was a negress of Guinea, and of unusually horrible aspect. Her lower lip was slit, and had a long wooden peg inserted in it so curiously, that the end thereof dangled upon her breast. Her great ears, set high upon her woolly head, had ponderous rings of metal, which dragged them downward to her shoulders. Her teeth were dyed blood red by some native herb, known to the fetishers alone, and her whole body, where revealed by her only garment—an apron of grass matting—was covered with a species of tattooing, and always smeared with a thick unctuous grease, in which the embedded gnats and flies could revel undisturbed.
To eat repasts which were cooked by her odious hands excited a loathing which hunger alone could conquer; but anxiety for the future, and the intense heat of the atmosphere, made me generally averse to animal food; hence I found the yams, which there grow like turnips (and shoot out long leaves like French beans), my most pleasant food, as I could cook them for myself, either by boiling them in a pipkin, or roasting them among cinders. The inside is white as flour, and sweet and dry.