Ahmah was in trouble. He had been recalled, as I said, from Jallica by family quarrels. When he reached the paternal mat, he found his sister Beeljie bound hand and foot in prison, with orders for her prompt transportation to my factory as a slave. These were the irrevocable commands of his royal father, and of her half-brother, Sulimani. All his appeals, seconded by those of his mother, were unheeded. She must be shipped from the Rio Pongo; and no one could be trusted with the task but the Ali-Mami’s son and friend, the Mongo Téodor!
To resist this dire command, Ahmah charged the messenger to appeal to my heart by our brotherly love not to allow the maiden to be sent over sea; but, by force or stratagem, to retain her until he arrived on the beach.
The news amazed me. I knew that African Mahometans never sold their caste or kindred into foreign slavery, unless their crime deserved a penalty severer than death. I reflected a while on the message, because I did not wish to complicate my relations with the leading chiefs of the interior; but, in a few moments, natural sensibility mastered every selfish impulse, and I told the envoy to hasten back on the path of the suffering brother, and assure him I would shield his sister, even at the risk of his kindred’s wrath.
About a week afterwards I was aroused one morning by a runner from a neighboring village over the hill, who stated that a courier reached his town the night before from Sulimani-Ali,—a prince of Timbo,—conducting a Fullah girl, who was to be sold by me immediately to a Spanish slaver. The girl, he said, resisted with all her energy. She refused to walk. For the last four days she had been borne along in a litter. She swore never to “see the ocean;” and threatened to dash her skull against the first rock in her path, if they attempted to carry her further. The stanch refusal embarrassed her Mahometan conductor, inasmuch as his country’s law forbade him to use extraordinary compulsion, or degrade the maiden with a whip.
I saw at once that this delay and hesitation afforded an opportunity to interfere judiciously in behalf of the spirited girl, whose sins or faults were still unknown to me. Accordingly, I imparted the tale to Ali-Ninpha; and, with his consent, despatched a shrewd dame from the Mandingo’s harem, with directions for her conduct to the village. Woman’s tact and woman’s sympathy are the same throughout the world, and the proud ambassadress undertook her task with pleased alacrity. I warned her to be extremely cautious before the myrmidons of Sulimani, but to seize a secret moment when she might win the maiden’s confidence, to inform her that I was the sworn friend of Ahmah-de-Bellah, and would save her if she followed my commands implicitly. She must cease resistance at once. She must come to the river, which was fresh water, and not salt; and she must allow her jailers to fulfil all the orders they received from her tyrannical kinsmen. Muffled in the messenger’s garments, I sent the manuscript Koran of Ahmah-de-Bellah as a token of my truth, and bade the dame assure Beeljie that her brother was already far on his journey to redeem her in Kambia.
The mission was successful, and, early next day, the girl was brought to my factory, with a rope round her neck.
The preliminaries for her purchase were tedious and formal. As her sale was compulsory, there was not much question as to quality or price. Still, I was obliged to promise a multitude of things I did not intend to perform. In order to disgrace the poor creature as much as possible, her sentence declared she should be “sold for salt,”—the most contemptuous of all African exchanges, and used in the interior for the purchase of cattle alone.
Poor Beeljie stood naked and trembling before us while these ceremonies were performing. A scowl of indignation flitted like a shadow over her face, as she heard the disgusting commands. Tenderly brought up among the princely brood of Timbo, she was a bright and delicate type of the classes I described at the brook-side. Her limbs and features were stained by the dust of travel, and her expression was clouded with the grief of sensible degradation: still I would have risked more than I did, when I beheld the mute appeal of her face and form, to save her from the doom of Cuban exile.
When the last tub of salt was measured, I cut the rope from Beeljie’s neck, and, throwing over her shoulders a shawl,—in which she instantly shrank with a look of gratitude,—called the female who had borne my cheering message, to take the girl to her house and treat her as the sister of my Fullah brother.
As I expected, this humane command brought the emissary of Sulimani to his feet with a bound. He insisted on the restitution of the woman! He swore I had deceived him; and, in fact, went through a variety of African antics which are not unusual, even among the most civilized of the tribes, when excited to extraordinary passion.