“Come to my house,” he answered, “the canoes will be ready, and so will Iguma; but be prepared to fight, for if the people come and find out that we are going to carry her off, they will try to prevent it. Better fight than lose Iguma.”
We of course promised, unless prevented by any unforeseen occurrence, that we would do as he proposed, feeling confident that we could trust to his honesty, and that he had a real desire to save his wife from the horrible fate which threatened her. We had not in the meantime forgotten poor Shimbo. Aboh constantly cried out—
“Oh! my brodder, my brodder.”
“I say, it would be a great shame to allow these murderous scoundrels to put the poor fellow to death,” exclaimed Charley. “If the old woman dies they’ll make short work of him; I propose that we set off and claim him as our servant, threatening them with the vengeance of England should a shock of his woolly pate be injured.”
Aboh, who understood what was said, cried out, “Tankee, massa, tankee, no let my brodder die.”
We scarcely needed this appeal from the faithful Aboh to run every risk for the sake of rescuing his brother.
“Never fear, we will do what we can to save him,” said Charley, “but do you remain in the house, lest that abominable juggler takes it into his wicked head to accuse you as well as your brother.”
Aboh was very thankful to follow this advice, indeed, he was scarcely fit to accompany us, so overcome was he by the fears of death for himself and his brother, increased by the superstitious dread he had of the doctor. Shouldering our arms, with our knapsacks on our backs, we left the house, closing the door behind us, and marched boldly towards the fetish house, a sort of temple situated near the residence of the king. The number of people collected round it showed that something was going forward. At the further end of the structure—a sort of temple composed of rough timber with a thatched roof—was a hideous idol standing in a shrine raised on an altar, for such it resembled, possibly imitated from the Portuguese who once held sway in the land, and established for a short period what they called Christianity, although it was in reality an idolatrous system, scarcely superior in the effect it produced on the moral and religious sentiments of the people to that which it displaced. This Christianity, however, such as it was, had long ago been overthrown, and only such slight traces as I now observed remained. I may here remark, that wherever the Spaniards and Portuguese have established their religion, the people have invariably sunk back again into the barbarism and gross idolatry of their original state, indeed, it might be safe to say that they were never really raised out of idolatry. On getting nearer we saw that the king was standing in front of the temple, with a drawn scimitar of enormous size in his hand. We were hurrying forward, when the starling cry arose. “The queen is dead, the queen is dead!”
The multitude immediately uttered the most piercing shrieks and lamentations. Directly afterwards we caught sight of the hideous doctor, or priest, urging on a party who were dragging forward a person between them. We did not at first see the features of the latter, and it was not until he had been hauled up on the platform, where the king was standing, that we discovered him to be our friend Shimbo. His hands were tied behind his back, so that he was unable to make any movement with them. He cast an imploring look around him, for he knew but too well why he was brought there.
Harry on seeing him shouted out to the king: “Let that man go, he is our servant.”