Читать книгу: «The Veiled Man», страница 8

I sprang towards the small, low door, but at first could not open it. In a few moments the crafty Ibn Batouba, with the Franks, gained the spot; but I had already unlocked the door and flung it open. Then, just as they put out their hands to seize me, I swung aside, lifted my knife, and struck my evil-faced betrayer full to the heart.

With a piercing shriek he fell forward over the door lintel, and his lifeless body rolled into the awful chasm, while at the same instant I gave a bound, and with a cry of defiance, leaped down into the darkness after him.

I felt myself rushing through air, the wind whistling in my ears as deep down I went like a stone in the impenetrable gloom. Those moments seemed hours, until of a sudden a blow on the back knocked me half-insensible, and I found myself a second later wallowing in a bed of thick, soft dust. Instantly it occurred to me that because this carpet of dust deadened the sound of things pitched into the chasm, the belief had naturally arisen that it was unfathomable. I rose, but sank up to the knees in the soft sand, which, stirred by my fall, half-choked me. Far above, looking distant like a star, I saw the light of a torch. My infidel pursuers were peering into the fearsome place in chagrin that I had evaded them. The air, however, was hot and foul, and I knew that to save my life I must be moving; therefore, with both hands outstretched, I groped about, amazed to discover the great extent of this natural cleft in the earth, formed undoubtedly by some earthquake in a remote age.

Once I stumbled, and bending, felt at my feet the still warm body of my betrayer – may Eblis rend him. I drew my jambiyah from his breast, and replaced it in its sheath. Then, tearing from his body the silken gauze which formed his girdle, I fashioned a torch, igniting it after some difficulty with my steel. Around me was only an appalling darkness, and I feared to test the extent of the place by shouting, lest my pursuers above should hear. So forward I toiled in a straight line, floundering at every step in the dust of ages, until the cleft narrowed and became tunnel-like with a hard floor. I stooped to feel it, and was astounded to discover that the rock had been worn smooth and hollow by the tramp of many feet.

Besides, the air had become distinctly fresher, and this fact renewed courage within me. At first I felt myself doomed to die like a fox in a trap; but with hope reawakened there might, after all, I thought, be some outlet.

Of a sudden, however, there arose before me a colossal female figure seated on a kind of stool, with features so hideous and repulsive that I drew back with an involuntary cry. It was a score times as high as myself, and as I hold my torch above my head to examine it, I saw it was of some white, semi-transparent stone of a kind I had never before beheld. The robes were coloured scarlet and bright blue, and the face and hands were tinted to resemble life. One hand was outstretched. On the brow was a chaplet of wonderful pearls, and on the colossal fingers, each as thick as my own wrist, were massive golden rings which sparkled with gems. But the sinister grinning countenance was indeed that of a high-priestess of Eblis.

In amazement I held my breath and gazed about me. Around the sides of the cavern were ranged many other smaller female figures, seated like the central one, and the face of each bore a hideous, repulsive grin, as if in mockery of my misfortunes. Before the great central colossus was a small triangular stone altar, upon which was some object. I crossed, and glancing at it found to my dismay that it was a beautiful and very ancient illuminated manuscript of our holy Korân. But through it had been thrust a poignard, now red with rust, and it had been torn, slashed, and otherwise defiled.

The truth then dawned upon me that this noisome place into which I had plunged was actually the abode of the ancient and accursed sect who worshipped Eblis as their god.

As I gazed wonderingly about me, I saw everywhere evidence that for ages no foot of man had entered that dark silent chamber. The dust of centuries lay smooth and untrodden.

Again I passed beneath the ponderous feet of the gigantic statue, when suddenly my eyes were attracted by an inscription in Kufic, the ancient language of the marabouts, traced in geometrical design upon the hem of the idol’s garment. My torch had burned dim, so I lit another, and by its flickering rays succeeded in deciphering the following words: —

“Lo! I am Azour, wife of Eblis, and Queen of all Things Beneath the Earth. To me, all bow, for I hold its riches in the hollow of my hand.”

I glanced up quickly, and there, far above, I distinguished that in the idol’s open palm there lay some object which the fickle flame of my torch could not reveal. But consumed by curiosity, I at once resolved to clamber up and ascertain what riches lay there. With extreme difficulty, and holding my flambeau in my left hand, I managed at length to reach the platform formed by the knees of the figure, and then scrambled up the breast and along the outstretched arm. But on mounting the latter, I was dismayed to discover that the object for which I had toiled was neither gold, silver, nor gems, but merely a brown and mouldy parchment scroll. Standing at last upon the open hand, I bent and picked it up; but in an instant I recognised that my find was of priceless value. Ere I had read three lines of the beautifully formed but sadly faded Arabic characters, I knew that it was none other than the long-sought manuscript of the Fatassi, the mysterious phantom book of the Soudan.

I placed my treasure beneath my dissa, and at once proceeded to descend, eager to discover some means of escape from that gloomy cavern, peopled by its hideous ghosts of a pagan past. In frantic haste I sought means of exit; but not until several hours had elapsed did I succeed in entering a burrow which, leading out into a barren ravine in the desert, had once, no doubt, been used as entrance to the secret temple of those who believed not in the One Merciful, but in Eblis and Azour.

After travelling many days, I succeeded in rejoining my people at a spot four marches from Gao, bearing concealed in my dissa the priceless history of my ancestors, with the minute plans for the recovery of their hidden treasure. At this moment the Fatassi, traced by the hand of Koti, so long coveted by the Franks, is in my possession; though only to two of my headmen have I imparted the secret that I have recovered it.

To seek to unearth the ancient treasure at present would be worse than useless, for our conquerors would at once despoil us. But when the great Jehad is at last fought, and more peaceful days dawn in the Soudan, then will the secret treasure-houses be opened and the Azjar become a power in the land, because of the inexhaustible riches left to them by their valiant ancestors for the re-establishment of their lost kingdom. Until then, they possess themselves in patience, and trust in the One.

To thee, O Reader of this my Tarik of toil and tumult, peace.

Chapter Nine
The Father of the Hundred slaves

Ahamadou, squatting upon his haunches before our camp fire, calmly smoking his long pipe, related to me the following story, declaring it to be a true incident. All wanderers in the Great Desert, be they Arabs or Touaregs, are born story-tellers, therefore I reproduce the narrative as he told it. It must be remembered that the Azjars were, at one period – not so very long ago – slavers who made many raids in the primeval forests south of Lake Tsâd, and that Ahamadou himself profited very considerably by that illegitimate trade. It was rumoured down at “the coast” that the leaders of these Touareg raiders were not Africans, and this story appears to substantiate a statement which was, at the time, ridiculed at the Colonial Office in London.

“Get up, you lazy devil. Stir yourself. We’re in a complete hole!”

“Hole? hole? Ah, your English tongue is indeed extraordinaire! A hole is a place in the ground, n’est ce pas?”

“Yes, and you’ll have a hole in the ground all to yourself, my dear Pierre, if you don’t bustle up a bit.”

Pierre Dubois, the man addressed, a bronzed, grey-bearded, stout, small-eyed Belgian of fifty, was lying tranquilly on his back on a pile of soft rugs, like an Oriental potentate, smoking his shisha, or travelling pipe, and being fanned by an extremely ugly negress. Dubois was the name he had adopted after leaving the Congo hurriedly, carrying with him a goodly sum belonging to the Belgian Government, in whose employ he had been for ten years. A native of Liège, he was one of the pioneers of that so-called Central African civilisation of trade, gin, and the whip; but after lining his pockets well, and making good his escape through the boundless virgin forests of “darkest Africa,” he had started as a trader in that most marketable of all commodities – black ivory.

Pierre Dubois and Henry Snape, his partner, were slave-raiders. They dressed as Arabs, and lived as Arabs.

Outside in the blazing noon, beneath the scanty shade of a few palms and mimosa scrub which surrounded that desert watering-place known as Akdul, a number of their heavily-armed followers were lying stretched upon the sand, sleeping soundly after their two-bow prayer to Allah, while here and there alone sat one of their number on his haunches, wrapped in his white burnouse, hugging his knees, his rifle at his side, keeping watch. They were a forbidding, evil-looking lot these Songhoi Touaregs, pirates of the forests and the desert, each with his black litham wrapped around his face concealing his features, a complete arsenal of weapons in his girdle, a string of charms sewn in little bags of yellow leather around his neck, and, strapped beneath his left arm, a short cross-kilted sword, keen-edged as a razor.

Beyond, lying in the full sun glare, were sixty or seventy wretched, woolly-haired negroes, men and women, chained together and guarded by a dozen of the veiled men. Throughout Northern and Central Africa the very name of the Songhoi was synonymous with all that was fierce, cruel, and relentless, for they lived by robbing the desert caravans or capturing slaves in the boundless virgin forests between the Niger and the Congo, being essentially a nomadic race, and having no other home than their tents in the Sahara, that limitless wilderness of rock and sand. Of all the slavers of Central Africa these “veiled men” were the worst, for they attacked and burned villages, placed the unfortunate blacks to torture to compel them to reveal the hiding-places of their store of ivory, and afterwards took them prisoners, and sold them in the great central slave-market at El Obeïd, away in Kordofan.

Among the natives of the Upper Congo and the Aruwimi, even the hordes of that notorious king of slavers, Tippu-Tib, – so called by the negroes because the guns of his men created a noise, from which they have named him phonetically, – were more tolerated than the fierce Songhoi bands, with their black veils, which none ever removed, sleeping or waking; for the track of the latter through the forest or grass-land was always marked by murder, devastation, and wanton cruelty.

Dubois, when in the service of King Leopold, had been active in endeavouring to put down the trade, but seeing how lucrative it was, and finding Snape, an English adventurer, ready to join him, he had collected a following of the fiercest Touaregs he could gather, and as he paid all well for their services, while on their part they were proud to be led by a white man in whom they had once lived in fear, their trade had, for a long time, been a most lucrative one. They were the terror of the whole region from Stanley Falls to Tanganyika. A dozen times they had been north to El Obeïd with ivory of both varieties, white and black, and on each occasion the profits had been far beyond their expectations. The trade is still easy enough in the Congo State, and slaves are captured without very much difficulty. The great risk, however, is to transport them by the route they had been following for the past two months, as, in order to reach the central market, they had to pass through that portion of British territory where a very watchful eye is kept, and where the notorious Arab raider Kilonga-Longa met his fate only a few months before.

But Dubois and Snape had run the gauntlet many times, and were absolutely fearless. On the present raid through the country of Emin and Junker, they had made their captures in the Moubouttou, within the Belgian sphere of influence, with the complicity of the Belgian agent at Sanga, whom they, of course, bribed with a goodly present of ivory; then, marching through the great Forest of Eternal Night, due northward to Zayadin, they had passed through the Dinka country to Fatik, which, being only two days’ march from the Bahr-el-Guebel upon which the British have posts, is a dangerous point. Nevertheless, they had pushed forward night and day, and were now in the centre of that great, sunburnt desert, the Wilderness of Nouer, which stretches northward for three hundred miles to El Obeïd.

Dubois grumbled loudly at the Englishman for interrupting his meditations, saying —

“Go and sleep, mon cher. You’ll be getting fever if you worry too much.”

“Worry!” echoed Snape. “There’s danger, I tell you. Surely you’re not a confounded fool, man?”

“Ah,” answered his partner, quite calmly, “is there not always danger here, in Africa? You have a wonderful imagination, my dear Henri, I quite admit; but do allow me to finish my sleep. Then let us talk of this extraordinary hole, whatever it may be.”

“Idiot!” ejaculated the Englishman, hitching up his flowing white burnouse. He was a tall, good-looking fellow of forty, whose career, however, had been a singularly eventful one. Since he left Balliol he had met with a good many adventures in various lands, most of them being to his discredit. He had been a born gambler, and had drifted from the London clubs to the tables at Monte Carlo, and thence, by a very crooked channel, to that sink of the world, Africa, where chance had brought him in contact with the scoundrel and arch-slaver Dubois. They were a well-matched pair. At college Snape had taken honours for Arabic, therefore his knowledge of that language now served him in good stead. He was one of those men who could never run straight, even though he had often tried. He was a born outsider.

“Why idiot?” inquired his partner lazily. The old negress waved the fan backwards and forwards, understanding not a word of the conversation between the headman and the great white Sheikh, who, on account of his raiding, the Touaregs had named The Father of the Hundred Slaves.

“Well, I’m not the sort of fellow to let the grass grow under my feet when there’s any danger,” snapped Snape. “You remember what Zafar said yesterday.”

“He’s like yourself, mon cher, – always apprehensive of some horrible calamity,” muttered the Belgian, blowing a cloud of smoke from his lips.

“This time, I tell you, it’s no mere imagination,” the Englishman went on. “Last night, after the dua, I left secretly, so as not to arouse any misgivings, and rode due east until the dawn, when I discovered, encamped among the aghrad, a whole troop of Soudanese soldiers. I got near enough to ascertain that the officers were Englishmen.”

“Well?”

“They’ve got word somehow that we are passing through,” he said. “And now, if you don’t stir yourself, you’ll never see Brussels again – you understand?”

“I have no wish to see Bruxelles, mon cher,” the elder man replied, quite undisturbed. “If I did, it would only be to see the inside of a prison. No; I prefer Africa to the pleasures of the miniature Paris. Here, if one has a little ivory, one is a king. Life is very pleasant.”

“I admit that,” his companion said. “But do, for Heaven’s sake, get up and let us decide what to do. There’s danger, and we can’t afford to be trapped, especially with all those niggers tied in a string. The evidence is a bit too strong against us, and the officers are English. There’s no bribing them, you know.”

The Belgian stirred himself lazily at last, and asked —

“Are they at a well?”

“No. They are without water.”

“Then as this is the only well for about a hundred miles, they’ll arrive here to-day – eh?”

“Of course. That’s why I came straight to warn you. There’s no time to be lost. Let’s strike camp and get away. It’s skip or fight.”

“If we skeep – I suppose you mean march – ah! your English language! – then they will skeep in pretty quick time after us. They’ve got wind of our presence in the vicinity, therefore why not remain and fight?”

“Fight my own people?” cried Snape. “No, I’m damned if I do!”

“Why not?” asked the Belgian, with gesticulation. “Our Touaregs will slice them into mincemeat. Besides, at long range they’re as good shots, and better, than those Soudanese, all fez and swagger.”

“No,” the Englishman argued. “Let’s fly now, while there’s time. In two days we shall be in the Nioukour, and they’ll never find us in the mountains. We hid there quite snugly once before, you recollect.”

“Muhala,” said the Belgian, turning to the old negress, “go. Call Yakub, and remain outside.”

The hideous old woman went forth into the sun glare, and in a few moments an old thin-faced Touareg entered, making a low salaam.

“Now, Yakub,” exclaimed the Belgian in Arabic, “answer me. Of what did our caravan consist when we left the Aruwimi?”

“Three hundred and thirty-three slaves, and twenty-nine tusks,” answered the villainous-looking old fellow.

“And now?”

“Seventy-three blacks and twenty-nine tusks.”

“Then two hundred and sixty have died?”

“Yea, O master,” he responded. “The new lash of elephant hide has killed many, and the black death has been responsible for the remainder. Five are suffering from it now, and never a day passes ere one or more is not attacked. I have feared that none will live to sight the mosques of El Obeïd.”

“In short, Yakub, they are a diseased lot – eh? You think they’re worthless?”

“Only two women are left, O master, and both were seized by the black death yesterday.”

“In that case,” observed the Belgian, turning to his partner, “the whole batch are not worth transporting. The game is not, as you English say, worth the lamp.”

“Then what’s your suggestion?” asked Snape.

“Well, as you are so much in fear of these confounded English, we must, I suppose, act.”

“How?”

“It is quite simple. We just abandon the whole lot, and save ourselves and the ivory.”

“Very well,” his companion agreed. “I’m open to any move except fighting against the English.”

“Bah! You are full of scruples, mon cher Henri,” he laughed. “I have none – none. And I am happy – perfectly happy.” He was silent a moment, as though reflecting deeply.

“But,” he added, “I do wish we could teach these interfering English a lesson. It would do them good. They try to rule Africa nowadays. Ah! if we could – if we could!” And there was a strange glint of evil in his eyes.

An hour later Dubois and Snape, at the head of their formidable troop of brigandish horsemen, were riding at full speed across the desert due west, towards the far distant forest of Dyonkor, it having been decided to skirt this, and then travel south for a fresh raid in Congo territory.

As for the poor wretches bound together, and dying of thirst and disease, they were still secured to the palm trunks and abandoned to their fate, tortured by being within sight of the well, yet unable to slake the frightful thirst consuming them. Dwellers in the damp, gloomy forest, where the sunlight never penetrates, the intense heat of the desert struck them down one after another, sending them insane or killing them outright.

Time after time Snape turned in his high Arab saddle, glancing back apprehensively to see if they were followed. But his partner only laughed sarcastically, saying – “You still fear your friends the English? Ah! you have the heart of the chicken. All is quite unnecessary. We have made them a present of the whole lot, and I hope they will appreciate our kindness. Now we shall take it easy, and hope for better fortune with the next batch. I fancy that the new lash must be too hard. The women can’t stand it, so it seems.”

“A little less whipping and a little more water would keep ’em in better condition,” Snape observed. “Yakub is eternally lashing them for some imaginary laziness or offence.”

“Yes, it’s all due to that new lash,” the Belgian admitted. “It must be used with less frequency on the next lot.”

“It’s a revolting punishment. Twenty blows kill a strong nigger,” his companion declared. “The thing ought to be thrown away.”

“Ah, yes,” sneered his companion. “You would, if you had your own way, keep women to brash the flies off them, and carry feather-beds for them to sleep on. You always forget that you are not dealing with civilised beings. They’re mere niggers.”

“Well, we’re not of the most civilised type, you and I, if the unwelcome truth be told,” the Englishman responded. “If we are trapped there’ll be a howl in Europe.”

“But I, for one, don’t mean to be caught,” laughed the Belgian gaily, with perfect confidence of his security. And they both rode side by side, the troop of white-burnoused Pirates of the Desert thundering on behind, raising a cloud of dust which, in that clear atmosphere, could be seen many miles away.

On, on they sped over the burning sand, riding easily at a hand gallop, without a halt, the black-veiled raiders laughing and chaffing, chattering, pushing forward, even in the blood-red track of the dying day.

Night fell quickly, as it does in that region. The slavers encamped in a sandy hollow beneath the rocks, and Dubois, ordering the tent to be pitched, sat smoking with his partner after the dish of dakkwa (pounded Guinea-corn with dates) which old Muhala had prepared. They were alone.

“To camp like this before we reach the forest is, to my mind, simply inviting capture,” Snape grumbled. “The military detachment is evidently out in search of us, and the little lot we’ve abandoned will point out to them the direction we’ve taken. Then they’ll follow and overtake us.”

“Oh no, they won’t,” answered the Belgian, with a serene smile.

“What makes you so sure?”

“Remember that, coming up from the river, they must have been at least six days without water; therefore they’ll halt at Akdul to drink and fill their water-skins before pushing forward.”

“Well?” inquired Snape.

The crafty Belgian looked curiously into the face of his companion, and smiled grimly.

“Well, if they halt there,” he said, “they won’t trouble us any more.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I doctored the water before we left. That’s why I didn’t leave the blacks loose to drink it.”

“What!” gasped the Englishman wildly, starting to his feet. “You’ve actually poisoned the well?”

The Belgian nodded and laughed, without removing his shisha from his lips.

“You scoundrel! You fiend!” the Englishman shouted, his face white with passion. “I’ve done some shabby tricks in my time, but, by Heaven! I’d rather have given myself up than have assented to the wholesale murder of my own people like that!”

A sarcastic smile crossed the Belgian’s sinister features.

“Excitement is entirely unnecessary, mon cher Henri,” he said, calmly. “It may, you know, bring on a touch of fever. Besides, by this time there isn’t many of them, white or black, left to tell the tale. Yakub, whom I left behind to watch, has just come in to report that they arrived an hour after we had left, released the slaves, and watered freely, enjoying themselves immensely. Before he started to return, fully fifty were dead or dying, including all the white officers. But why trouble further? We’ve saved ourselves.”

“Trouble!” roared Snape, his eyes flashing with a fierce fire of indignation, “Get up, you infernal scoundrel, or I’ll shoot you as you lie! You’re an outlaw; so am I. Trouble! Why, one of those white officers was Jack Myddleton, my brother, and,” he added in a harsh tone – “and I’m going to avenge his death!” Instantly Dubois saw his partner’s intention, and sprang to his feet, revolver in hand.

Two reports sounded almost simultaneously, but only one man fell. It was the Belgian, who, with an imprecation on his lips, dropped back with a bullet through his temple, and in a few seconds expired.

At dawn Muhala discovered her master dead, and his companion missing. Search was at once made for the Englishman, who was found lying dead upon the sand half a mile from the camp.

He had committed suicide.

Around the well of Akdul the caravans that water there in crossing the arid wilderness still see quantities of bones of horses and of men. Long ago the vultures have stripped them, and they now lie bleaching in the sun, a mute record of a coward’s treachery, of the revolting vengeance of The Father of the Hundred Slaves.