The one comparatively easy road was that to the coast, but “to return to England without accomplishing the object of my mission was worse than all.”
The old spirit, never quite killed, was beginning to reassert itself, with the enjoyment of a certain measure of free will and liberty. Whatever was to be his fate, he should meet it, he determined, with his face towards the Niger.
On the night of the 26th, the women worked incessantly, preparing food and packing articles that were not absolutely necessary for the flight. Early in the morning they took the road for Bambarra.
The exodus was affecting in the extreme—the women and children weeping, the men sullen and dejected—all of them looking back with regret to the spot where they had passed their lives, and shuddering at the possible fate before them. Amid many heartrending scenes Park mounted his horse, and taking a large bag of corn before him, set forth with the flying multitude.
In this fashion he travelled onward for two days, accompanied so far by Johnson and the slatee. At Koiro a halt of two days had to be made to recruit his half-starved animal—an unfortunate delay, since it gave time for Ali’s chief slave and four Moors to arrive in quest of their white prisoner. This new calamity had to be met with prompt action if Park was not to face an indefinite period of miserable captivity. At once he resolved to escape by flight—a “measure which I thought offered the only chance of saving my life and gaining the object of my mission.”
Johnson was ready to applaud his master’s resolution, but flatly refused to join him.
The Moors, thinking the white man safe, did not trouble themselves about him, and he was thus able to prepare a few articles to take with him. Two suits of clothes and a pair of boots were all he possessed. He had not now a single bead or other article of commercial value to purchase food for himself.
About daybreak the Moors were all asleep. Now was the time to make good his opportunity. Liberty and possible success were in the balance with renewed captivity and possible death. A cold sweat moistened his forehead as the importance of the step he was about to take was brought with twofold force to his consciousness. But to deliberate was to lose the only chance of escape. He must make one more bold attempt to regain liberty and reach the Niger. The thought was inspiration. He picked up his bundle, stepped stealthily over the sleeping negroes, and reached his horse. Johnson was bidden farewell, and once more begged to take particular care of the papers entrusted to him, and to inform his friends on the Gambia “that he had left me in good health, on my way to Bambarra.”
A few years before, Major Houghton had sent an almost identical message to the same Gambian friends.