The Eye of Istar: A Romance of the Land of No Return

by William Le Queux

Ngalyema.

There is much truth in our Arab saying, that a day of pain appears everlasting if one does not dream of the bright to-morrow. A life’s unrest, indeed, seems but a day’s if one looks to the calm that Allah has promised shall be the reward of Believers. Beyond the pain and weariness is a white dawn, reunion and peace. Life with the fierce brigands of Tippu-Tib, the ivory king, was full of vicissitudes and horrors, as along the narrow native track, through the gloomy forest, we pushed forward.

Owing to the large number of rapids, it was impossible for the raiders to use the native canoes to ascend the Aruwimi on their return to Ipoto, where they had temporarily established themselves; therefore, in order to secure more ivory and slaves, Ngalyema had decided to take a route which ran into the forest, six days’ journey from the river, and which the guides assured us would follow the course of the Ituri and pass through a district where many settlements might be raided.

Compelled to travel in single file, our journey through the dark, endless Forest of Perpetual Night was slow, tedious and hazardous. At almost every step we were retarded by stumps, roots, climbers, convolvuli and green-scummed pools, while, by the absence of light, we were chilled and depressed, and the poisonous odours arising from the decaying mass of vegetation sickened us. Here and there, where the interlaced foliage overhead allowed the sunshine to struggle through, flocks of parrots screamed and whistled gleefully, and the tall tree-trunks looked grey and ghostly in the pale light; but our progress, creeping among the dense undergrowth, and climbing over fallen patriarchs of the forest, was full of anxiety. Plantains grew everywhere, therefore there was no lack of food; but the brutality with which the raiders treated their slaves caused a number of deaths ere we had been a dozen days on the march.

At length, one morning, the scouts, consisting of the two native guides, and about twenty Arabs, who were some distance ahead, rushed back with the news that they had come upon a large clearing, and that we were evidently approaching a village. The order to halt was immediately given, and Ngalyema himself, with a small force, went rapidly forward with the scouts to reconnoitre. In an hour they returned, stating that there were several villages in close proximity, and, with my gun ready, I accompanied the fighting-men in their dash forward. Passing across the clearing, where every plantain-stalk bore an enormous bunch of the fruit which filled the air with its odour, and where corn and sugar-canes were profusely cultivated, our pioneers suddenly came across a number of poisoned skewers, artfully concealed in the path, and these having been carefully picked out, we crept along, past a heap of bones of slaughtered game, to surround the settlement.

It was exciting work. We knew not whether the alarm had already been raised and the natives were lying in ambush. Each moment we expected to be greeted with a flight of poisoned arrows from the concealed defenders; but as we got within sight of the huts it seemed that our approach had been unnoticed.

Suddenly, however, the white garments of the raiders attracted attention, and in a few moments the village was in a tumult of apprehension. Without hesitation, our thick-lipped headman ordered the raiders to disperse into the jungle and surround the village, and as they dashed away and I took up a position behind a tree at a little distance from Tiamo, we could hear loud blasts being blown upon a horn.

In an instant the raiders opened a galling fire. A number of my fellow-marksmen had clambered up the adjacent trees, others were concealed in the dense undergrowth, while a small body still remained in the rear, prepared to charge when commanded. A few seconds after the alarm had been raised, the black warriors, armed with bows, arrows, shields and long spears, poured out of the stockade, yelling and brandishing their weapons, but so well had the attack been planned, that each volley of the Arabs felled dozens of the blacks.

Finding that we had got into ambush so cleverly, they retired immediately within their stockade, and from their cover launched flights of poisoned arrows in every direction. The missiles, the merest scratch from which would produce tetanus and death, swept through the foliage above us and stuck in the trunks of the trees in our vicinity, nevertheless wherever a black head or savage head-dress showed above the high stockade, it was picked off with unerring precision by our sharpshooters.

The rattle of musketry, however, had alarmed the neighbouring villages, and almost before we were aware of it we were attacked in the rear by a crowd of yelling savages armed with clubs and bows. For a few minutes our position appeared exceedingly critical; but this contingency had not been overlooked, for suddenly I noticed a number of our men, who had been left to guard the slaves, were drawing off the defenders’ reinforcement, and shooting them down with a cool recklessness that was surprising.