All was dark, gloomy, rayless. Though neither of us admitted it, we both were aware that we were lost amid that primeval mass of tropical vegetation, into the depths of which even the savages themselves dare not venture. We had one day crossed a number of small swamps, and thick, scum-faced quagmires, green with rank weeds, emitting a stench most sickening, and on emerging from the foetid slough into which our feet sank at every step, a dozen black heads suddenly appeared above the undergrowth.
Next second, ere we could recover from our surprise, the weird echoes of the forest were awakened by fiendish yells, as twenty black warriors, veritable companions of the left hand, wearing strange head-dresses with black tufts of feathers, and unclothed save for a piece of bark-cloth around their loins, and a thick pad of goatskin on the left arm to protect it from the bow string, bounded towards us, running long and low, with heads stretched forward and spears trailing, shouting, brandishing their long, broad-headed weapons, and drawing their bows ready to send their poisoned arrows through our bodies.
They had evidently lain in ambush, believing us to be scouts of Kabba Rega, or of Ugarrowwa, Abed bin Salem, or some other ivory-raider from the Congo, and so suddenly did they appear, screaming, threatening and gesticulating, that I deemed it best to throw down my rifle and raised my hands to show I had no hostile intent. Seized quickly by these tall, slim, thick-lipped, monkey-eyed men, who bore quivers full of arrows smeared freshly with a dark, copal-coloured substance, we were dragged onward in triumph for nearly two hours, preceded by a band of leaping, exultant warriors who, from the interest they took in our asses and the close manner in which they all scrutinised them, I judged had never seen such animals before.
One of our captors, snatching my rifle from my grasp, held it aloft in glee, crying,—
“Tippu-tib! Tippu-tib!” whereat his companions laughed and yelled triumphantly.
This incident brought to my memory that the renown of the relentless slave-raider Tippu-Tib had reached Omdurman, and that this name had been bestowed upon him by the natives because the noise made by the rifles of his dreaded band sounded like “tippu-tib.” This savage’s joy when, a few moments later, on touching the trigger the rifle discharged, was unbounded. The others crowded around him, chattering and gesticulating like apes, then finding they could not cause another explosion they handed it to me, compelling me to reload it. Again it was fired, one of the dusky denizens of the forest narrowly escaping, for the bullet struck his head-dress and carried it away, much to the amusement of his companions.
While this was proceeding our position was exceedingly critical. As prisoners in the hands of these vicious warriors our lives were in greatest danger, and whither they were hurrying us we knew not.
As in sorry plight we were dragged forward, Tiamo addressed a question to one of the sinewy savages who held him. At first it was apparent that their tongue was different to any he knew, but after some questions and replies, the dwarf, in a wail of dismay, cried to me in Arabic,—
“We are lost, O master! We are lost!”
“Keep a stout heart,” I answered. “We may yet escape.”