But he waved them aside with regal gesture, and folded his arms resolutely.
Then, one of the women rose, and turning to the Arab headman, said,—
“To save our lives I will reveal the spot unto thee. Come, it is but an arrow’s flight distant!”
The chief heard the words and sprang straight at her throat, but ere he could reach her the Arabs pulled him down. She stood erect and queenly, a splendid specimen of savage womanhood.
“Follow me,” she cried, wildly, and twenty of the raiders, myself included, sprang forward and accompanied her a little distance into the jungle until we came to a great ironwood-tree. For a moment she halted, with her back towards it, apparently taking bearings by a cottonwood-tree with silvery bark, and then, counting thirty paces in its direction, told us to search.
In a few minutes the dead leaves and fallen boughs were cleared, revealing a floor of hewn wood, and this being torn up the coveted treasure, consisting of more than a hundred magnificent tusks, was discovered beneath.
Shouting with glee, the raiders rushed back to their leader, announcing the news, and triumphantly dragging the chief’s wife back with them. Her three female companions cried loudly to the headman to release them, but he only laughed brutally, and ordered the Arabs around him to put them back with the other slaves. Then, finding to their dismay that the headman’s promise would not be fulfilled, the whole of the captured women made the forest ring with howls of execration, and heaped upon the raiders the most terrible curses their tongues could utter.
Meanwhile, the ivory was being pulled out of its hiding-place, and allotted in burdens to the slave-carriers. The flames, now spreading from hut to hut, leaped, roared and crackled, and a thick black smoke ascended, drifting slowly over the tops of the giant trees.
Turning to the proud chief of the Avejeli, the headman, through the negro interpreter, exclaimed,—
“I gave unto thee a chance to escape, but thou wouldst not accept it, even though the liberty of thy wives depended upon thy word.”