By degrees, the warriors dropped in around their chieftain. A palaver-house, immediately in front of my quarters, was the general rendezvous; and scarcely a bushman appeared without the body of some maimed and bleeding victim. The mangled but living captives were tumbled on a heap in the centre, and soon, every avenue to the square was crowded with exulting savages. Rum was brought forth in abundance for the chiefs. Presently, slowly approaching from a distance, I heard the drums, horns, and war-bells; and, in less than fifteen minutes, a procession of women, whose naked limbs were smeared with chalk and ochre, poured into the palaver-house to join the beastly rites. Each of these devils was armed with a knife, and bore in her hand some cannibal trophy. Jen-ken’s wife, a corpulent wench of forty-five,—dragged along the ground, by a single limb, the slimy corpse of an infant ripped alive from its mother’s womb. As her eyes met those of her husband the two fiends yelled forth a shout of mutual joy, while the lifeless babe was tossed in the air and caught as it descended on the point of a spear. Then came the refreshment, in the shape of rum, powder, and blood, which was quaffed by the brutes till they reeled off, with linked hands, in a wild dance around the pile of victims. As the women leaped and sang, the men applauded and encouraged. Soon, the ring was broken, and, with a yell, each female leaped on the body of a wounded prisoner and commenced the final sacrifice with the mockery of lascivious embraces!
In my wanderings in African forests I have often seen the tiger pounce upon its prey, and, with instinctive thirst, satiate its appetite for blood and abandon the drained corpse; but these African negresses were neither as decent nor as merciful as the beast of the wilderness. Their malignant pleasure seemed to consist in the invention of tortures, that would agonize but not slay. There was a devilish spell in the tragic scene that fascinated my eyes to the spot. A slow, lingering, tormenting mutilation was practised on the living, as well as on the dead; and, in every instance, the brutality of the women exceeded that of the men. I cannot picture the hellish joy with which they passed from body to body, digging out eyes, wrenching off lips, tearing the ears, and slicing the flesh from the quivering bones; while the queen of the harpies crept amid the butchery gathering the brains from each severed skull as a bonne-bouche for the approaching feast!
After the last victim yielded his life, it did not require long to kindle a fire, produce the requisite utensils, and fill the air with the odor of human flesh. Yet, before the various messes were half broiled, every mouth was tearing the dainty morsels with shouts of joy, denoting the combined satisfaction of revenge and appetite! In the midst of this appalling scene, I heard a fresh cry of exultation, as a pole was borne into the apartment, on which was impaled the living body of the conquered chieftain’s wife. A hole was quickly dug, the stave planted and fagots supplied; but before a fire could be kindled the wretched woman was dead, so that the barbarians were defeated in their hellish scheme of burning her alive.
I do not know how long these brutalities lasted, for I remember very little after this last attempt, except that the bush men packed in plantain leaves whatever flesh was left from the orgie, to be conveyed to their friends in the forest. This was the first time it had been my lot to behold the most savage development of African nature under the stimulus of war. The butchery made me sick, dizzy, paralyzed. I sank on the earth benumbed with stupor; nor was I aroused till nightfall, when my Kroomen bore me to the conqueror’s town, and negotiated our redemption for the value of twenty slaves.
CHAPTER LXII.
I hope that no one will believe I lingered a moment in Digby, or ever dealt again with its miscreants, after the dreadful catastrophe I have described in the last chapter. It is true that this tragedy might never have happened within the territory of the rival kinsmen had not the temptations of slave-trade been offered to their passionate natures; yet the event was so characteristic, not only of slave-war but of indigenous barbarity, that I dared not withhold it in these sketches of my life.
Light was not gleaming over the tops of the forest next morning before I was on the beach ready to embark for Gallinas. But the moon was full, and the surf so high that my boat could not be launched. Still, so great were my sufferings and disgust that I resolved to depart at all hazards; and divesting myself of my outer garments, I stepped into a native canoe with one man only to manage it, and dashed through the breakers. Our provisions consisted of three bottles of gin, a jug of water, and a basket of raw cassava, while a change of raiment and my accounts were packed in an air-tight keg. Rough as was the sea, we succeeded in reaching the neighborhood of Gallinas early next morning. My Spanish friends on shore soon detected me with their excellent telescopes, by my well-known cruising dress of red flannel shirt and Panama hat; but, instead of running to the beach with a welcome, they hoisted the black flag, which is ever a signal of warning to slavers.