Un capitaine de quinze ans. English Read online

  CHAPTER XI.

  A BOWL OF PUNCH.

  The afternoon was passing away, and it was now past four o'clock, whenthe sound of drums, cymbals, and a variety of native instruments washeard at the end of the main thoroughfare. The market was still goingon with the same animation as before; half a day's screeching andfighting seemed neither to have wearied the voices nor broken the limbsof the demoniacal traffickers; there was a considerable number ofslaves still to be disposed of, and the dealers were haggling over theremaining lots with an excitement of which a sudden panic on the LondonStock Exchange could give a very inadequate conception.

  But the discordant concert which suddenly broke upon the ear was thesignal for business to be at once suspended. The crowd might cease itsuproar, and recover its breath. The King of Kazonnde, Moene Loonga, wasabout to honour the _lakoni_ with a visit.

  Attended by a large retinue of wives, officers, soldiers, and slaves,the monarch was conveyed to the middle of the market-place in an oldpalanquin, from which he was obliged to have five or six people to helphim to descend. Alvez and the other traders advanced to meet him withthe most exaggerated gestures of reverence, all of which he received ashis rightful homage.

  He was a man of fifty years of age, but might easily have passed foreighty. He looked like an old, decrepit monkey. On his head was a kindof tiara, adorned with leopards' claws dyed red, and tufts ofgreyish-white hair; this was the usual crown of the sovereigns ofKazonnde. From his waist hung two skirts of coodoo-hide, stiff asblacksmiths' aprons, and embroidered with pearls. The tattooings on hisbreast were so numerous that his pedigree, which they declared, mightseem to reach back to time immemorial. His wrists and arms were encasedin copper bracelets, thickly encrusted with beads; he wore a pair oftop-boots, a present from Alvez some twenty years ago; in his left handhe carried a great stick surmounted by a silver knob; in his right afly-flapper with a handle studded with pearls; over his head wascarried an old umbrella with as many patches as a Harlequin's coat,whilst from his neck hung Cousin Benedict's magnifying-glass, and onhis nose were the spectacles which had been stolen from Bat's pocket.

  The potentate beneath whose sway the country trembledfor a hundred miles round]

  Such was the appearance of the potentate beneath whose sway the countrytrembled for a hundred miles round.

  By virtue of his sovereignty Moene Loonga claimed to be of celestialorigin; and any subject who should have the audacity to raise aquestion on this point would have been despatched forthwith to anotherworld. All his actions, his eating and drinking, were supposed to beperformed by divine impulse. He certainly drank like no other mortal;his officers and ministers, confirmed tipplers as they were, appearedsober men in comparison with himself, and he seemed never to be doinganything but imbibing strong pombe, and over-proof spirit with whichAlvez kept him liberally supplied.

  In his harem Moene Loonga had wives of all ages from forty to fourteen,most of whom accompanied him on his visit to the _lakoni_. Moena, thechief wife, who was called the queen, was the eldest of them all, and,like the rest, was of royal blood. She was a vixenish-looking woman,very gaily attired; she wore a kind of bright tartan over a skirt ofwoven grass, embroidered with pearls; round her throat was a profusionof necklaces, and her hair was mounted up in tiers that toppled highabove her head, making her resemble some hideous monster. The youngerwives, all of them sisters or cousins of the king, were lesselaborately dressed. They walked behind her, ready at the slightestsign to perform the most menial services. Did his Majesty wish to sitdown, two of them would immediately stoop to the ground and form a seatwith their bodies, whilst others would have to lie down and support hisfeet upon their backs: a throne and footstool of living ebony.

  Amidst the staggering, half-tipsy crowd of ministers, officers, andmagicians that composed Moene Loonga's suite, there was hardly a man tobe seen who had not lost either an eye, an ear, or hand, or nose. Deathand mutilation were the only two punishments practised in Kazonnde, andthe slightest offence involved the instant amputation of some member ofthe body. The loss of the ear was considered the severest penalty, asit prevented the possibility of wearing earrings!

  The governors of districts, or _kilolos_, whether hereditary orappointed for four years, were distinguished by red waistcoats andzebra-skin caps; in their hands they brandished long rattans, coated atone extremity with a varnish of magic drugs.

  The weapons carried by the soldiers consisted of wooden bows adornedwith fringes and provided with a spare bowstring, knives filed into theshape of serpents' tongues, long, broad lances, and shields of palmwood, ornamented with arabesques. In the matter of uniform, the royalarmy had no demands to make upon the royal treasury.

  Amongst the attendants of the king there was a considerable number ofsorcerers and musicians. The sorcerers, or _mganga_, were practicallythe physicians of the court, the savages having the most implicit faithin divinations and incantations of every kind, and employing fetishes,clay or wooden figures, representing sometimes ordinary human beingsand sometimes fantastic animals. Like the rest of the retinue, thesemagicians were, for the most part, more or less mutilated, anindication that some of their prescriptions on behalf of the king hadfailed of success.

  The musicians were of both sexes, some performing on shrill rattles,some on huge drums, whilst others played on instruments called_marimbas_, a kind of dulcimer made of two rows of different-sizedgourds fastened in a frame, and struck by sticks with india-rubberballs at the end. To any but native ears the music was perfectlydeafening.

  Alvez advanced and presented the king with some freshtobacco.]

  Several flags and banners were carried in the procession, and amongstthese was mixed up a number of long pikes, upon which were stuck theskulls of the various chiefs that Moene Loonga had conquered in battle.

  As the king as helped out of his palanquin, the acclamations rosehigher and higher from every quarter of the market place The soldiersattached to the caravans fired off their old guns, though the reportswere almost too feeble to be heard above the noisy vociferations of thecrowd; and the havildars rubbed their black noses with cinnabar powder,which they carried in bags, and prostrated themselves. Alvez advancedand presented the king with some fresh tobacco, "the appeasing herb,"as it is called in the native dialect; and certainly Moene Loongaseemed to require some appeasing, as, for some unknown reason, he wasin a thoroughly bad temper.

  Coimbra, Ibn Hamish and the dealers all came forward to pay their courtto the monarch, the Arabs greeting him with the cry of _marhaba_, orwelcome; others clapped their hands and bowed to the very ground; whilesome even smeared themselves with mud, in token of their most servilesubjection.

  But Moene Loonga scarcely took notice of any of them; he wentstaggering along, rolling like a ship upon a stormy sea, and made hisway past the crowds of slaves, each of whom, no less than theirmasters, trembled lest he should think fit to claim them for his own.

  Negoro, who kept close at Alvez' side, did not fail to render hishomage along with the rest. Alvez and the king were carrying on aconversation in the native language, if that could be called aconversation in which Moene Loonga merely jerked out a fewmonosyllables from his inflamed and swollen lips. He was asking Alvezto replenish his stock of brandy.

  "We are proud to welcome your majesty at the market of Kazonnde," Alvezwas saying.

  "Get me brandy," was all the drunken king's reply.

  "Will it please your majesty to take part in the business of the_lakoni_?" Alvez tried to ask.

  "Drink!" blurted out the king impatiently.

  Alvez continued,--

  "My friend Negoro here is anxious to greet your majesty after his longabsence."

  "Drink!" roared the monarch again.

  "Will the king take pombe or mead?" asked Alvez, at last obliged totake notice of the demand.

  "Brandy! give me fire-water!" yelled the king, in a fury. "For everydrop you shall have ..."

  "A drop of a white man's blood!" suggested Negoro, glanc
ing at Alvez.

  "Yes, yes; kill a white man," assented Moene Loonga, his ferociousinstincts all aroused by the proposition.

  "There is a white man here," said Alvez, "who has killed my agent. Hemust be punished for his act."

  "Send him to King Masongo!" cried the king; "Masongo and the Assuaswill cut him up and eat him alive."

  Only too true it is that cannibalism is still openly practised incertain provinces of Central Africa. Livingstone records that theManyuemas not only eat men killed in war, but even buy slaves for thatpurpose; it is said to be the avowal of these Manyuemas that "humanflesh is slightly salt, and requires no seasoning." Cameron relates howin the dominions of Moene Booga dead bodies were soaked for a few daysin running water as a preparation for their being devoured; and Stanleyfound traces of a widely-spread cannibalism amongst the inhabitants ofUkusu.

  But however horrible might be the manner of death proposed by MoeneLoonga, it did not at all suit Negoro's purpose to let Dick Sands outof his clutches.

  "The white man is here," he said to the king; "it is here he hascommitted his offence, and here he should be punished."

  "If you will," replied Moene Loonga; "only I must have fire-water; adrop of fire-water for every drop of the white man's blood."

  "Yes, you shall have the fire-water," assented Alvez, "and what ismore, you shall have it all alight. We will give your majesty a bowl ofblazing punch."

  The thought had struck Alvez, and he was himself delighted with theidea, that he would set the spirit in flames. Moene Loonga hadcomplained that the "fire-water" did not justify its name as it ought,and Alvez hoped that perhaps, administered in this new form, it mightrevivify the deadened membranes of the palate of the king.

  Moene Loonga did not conceal his satisfaction. Wives and courtiersalike were full of anticipation. They had all drunk brandy, but theyhad not drunk brandy alight. And not only was their thirst for alcoholto be satisfied; their thirst for blood was likewise to be indulged;and when it is remembered how, even amongst the civilized, drunkennessreduces a man below the level of a brute, it may be imagined to whatbarbarous cruelties Dick Sands was likely to be exposed. The idea oftorturing a white man was not altogether repugnant to the colouredblood of either Alvez or Coimbra, while with Negoro the spirit ofvengeance had completely overpowered all feeling of compunction.

  Night, without any intervening twilight, was soon drawing on, and thecontemplated display could hardly fail to be effective. The programmefor the evening consisted of two parts; first, the blazing punch-bowl;then the torture, culminating in an execution.

  The destined victim was still closely confined in his dark and drearydungeon; all the slaves, whether sold or not, had been driven back tothe barracks, and the chitoka was cleared of every one except theslave-dealers, the havildars, and the soldiers, who hoped, by favour ofthe king, to have a share of the flaming punch.

  Alvez did not long delay the proceedings. He ordered a huge caldron,capable of containing more than twenty gallons, to be placed in thecentre of the market-place. Into this were emptied several casks ofhighly-rectified spirit, of a very inferior quality, to which was addeda supply of cinnamon and other spices, no ingredient being omittedwhich was likely to give a pungency to suit the savage palate.

  The whole royal retinue formed a circle round the king. Fascinated bythe sight of the spirit, Moene Loonga came reeling up to the edge ofthe punch-bowl, and seemed ready to plunge himself head foremost intoit. Alvez held him back, at the same time placing a lucifer in his hand.

  "Set it alight!" cried the slave-dealer, grinning slily as he spoke.

  The king applied the match to the surface of the spirit. The effect wasinstantaneous. High above the edge of the bowl the blue flame rose andcurled. To give intensity to the process Alvez had added a sprinklingof salt to the mixture, and this caused the fire to cast upon the facesof all around that lurid glare which is generally associated withapparitions of ghosts and phantoms. Half intoxicated already, thenegroes yelled and gesticulated; and joining hands, they performed afiendish dance around their monarch. Alvez stood and stirred the spiritwith an enormous metal ladle, attached to a pole, and as the flamesrose yet higher and higher they seemed to throw a more and moreunearthly glamour over the ape-like forms that circled in their wildcareer.

  Moene Loonga, in his eagerness, soon seized the ladle from theslave-dealer's hands, plunged it deep into the bowl, and bringing it upagain full of the blazing punch, raised it to his lips.

  A horrible shriek brought the dancers to a sudden standstill. By a kindof spontaneous combustion, the king had taken fire internally; thoughit was a fire that emitted little heat, it was none the less intenseand consuming. In an instant one of the ministers in attendance ran tothe king's assistance, but he, almost as much alcoholized as hismaster, caught fire as well, and soon both monarch and minister laywrithing on the ground in unutterable agony. Not a soul was able tolend a helping hand. Alvez and Negoro were at a loss what to do; thecourtiers dared not expose themselves to so terrible a fate; the womenhad all fled in alarm, and Coimbra, awakened to the conviction of theinflammability of his own condition, had rapidly decamped.

  The king had taken fire internally.]

  To say the truth, it was impossible to do anything; water would haveproved unavailing to quench the pale blue flame that hovered over theprostrate forms, every tissue of which was so thoroughly impregnatedwith spirit, that combustion, though outwardly extinguished, wouldcontinue its work internally.

  In a few minutes life was extinct, but the bodies continued longafterwards to burn; until, upon the spot where they had fallen, a fewlight ashes, some fragments of the spinal column, some fingers and sometoes, covered with a thin layer of stinking soot, were all thatremained of the King of Kazonnde and his ill fated minister.