“Who are you?” she said; “the other people tied and starved us, but you cut the ropes and tell us to eat; what sort of people are you? Where did you come from?”
To this Harold replied briefly that he was an Englishman, who hated slavers and slavery, but he said nothing more at that time, as he intended to have a palaver and explanation with the freed captives after their meal was over.
There was a great clapping of hands among the slaves, expressive of gratitude, on hearing that they were free.
About a hundred sat down to that meal, most of whom were women and children, and the manner in which they devoured the food set before them, told eloquently of their previous sufferings. At first they timidly held back, scarce venturing to believe that their new captors, as they thought them, were in earnest. But when their doubts and fears were removed, they attacked the mapira porridge like ravening wolves. Gradually the human element began to reappear, in the shape of a comment or a smile, and before long the women were chatting together, and a few of the stronger among the young children were making feeble attempts to play.
When the oldest man of the party, who appeared to be between twenty and thirty, was brought forward and questioned, he gave some interesting and startling information.
“Tell him,” said Harold to Antonio, “that we are Englishmen; that we belong to the same nation as the great white man Dr Livingstone, who travelled through this land some years ago—the nation which hates slavery because the Great God hates it, and would have all men to be free, to serve each other in love, and to do to other people as they would have other people do to them. Ask him, also, where he comes from, and who captured him and his companions.”
To this the negro replied— “What the white man says may be true, but the white men seem to tell lies too much. The men who killed our warriors, burned our villages, and took our women and children away, came to us saying that they were friends; that they were the servants of the same people as the white man Livingstone, and wanted to trade with us. When we believed and trusted them, and were off our guard, they fired on us with their guns. We know not what to think or to believe.”
Harold was much perplexed by this reply, for he knew not what evidence to cite in proof that he, at least was not a deceiver.
“Tell him,” he said at length, “that there are false white men as well as true, and that the best proof I can give him that I am one of the true is, to set him and his friends at liberty. They are now as free to go where they please as we are.”
On receiving this assurance the negro retired to consult with his friends. Meanwhile Antonio, who seemed to have been touched by the unvarying kindness with which he had been treated by his employers, opened his mind to them, and gave them a good deal of information, of which the substance is as follows:—