Chapter XII A Startling Adventure in the Woods — The Chief’s Plot
Without Kep on board, the Breezy didn’t seem the same that night either to officers or men. He was missed in the gun-room mess, and missed in the ward-room, while the crew sadly missed the merry notes of his little black flute. But Kep was by this time alone in the woods with his faithful little black guide Bungle.
Brave though Kep undoubtedly was, he felt a little nervous to-night in those dreary woods. There are strange weird sounds in them by night.
Bungle could find his way here on the darkest night, but the dread that they might be watched was in both hearts, and several times they stopped and crept farther into the gloom as the sound of approaching footsteps fell upon their ears. Kep had two tiny revolvers of the best make, and meant to use them if attacked. His life was of some little value to him, and he would sell it dearly.
They saw figures glide past them, but these passed on, and they resumed their journey.
It was five long miles to the suburbs of this half-barbarian city. But once they began to come among the glimmering lights, Bungle and Kep separated. They knew when and where to meet again.
Kep held on now, boldly exchanging a “Yambo” or “Yambo Sana” with a stranger, until he entered a side lane and darted quickly into a house. The house of an Arab friend it was. He lived there all alone with his child, a soft-eyed little Arab maid of some ten years, whose life Kep had saved in the street by shooting dead in his tracks a hulking black naked and low-caste Arab, who had seized the child with the intention of abducting her.
She had been able to tell Kep, frightened though she was, where she lived, and the strong, hardy British boy had mounted her on his shoulder and carried her to her grateful father’s house.
The fellow he had shot was buried out of the way, and no questions asked.
Such a favour as this no Arab could forget, so Kep knew he was safe enough there. But at first the Arab did not know the boy in his disguise.
The child knew him first, and ran to embrace him.
“You are very beautiful now,” she said in her pretty Arabic, “and little Zeena loves you.”
A steamer from India was due at Zanzibar next day, and all unsuspected, though gazed at by a thousand eyes, Kep betook himself to the beach and soon was engaged as guide to a lady who seemed fascinated with him.
He talked to her in broken English, called her “Meesie” (little Miss), and took her all through the town all day long and into the woods.
On parting with him, Kep certainly was not the loser, for he found half-a-crown in his hand, and a kiss on his cheek.
“Mamma,” the girl told her mother frankly when she returned, “I’ve had the sweetest Arab boy for a guide ever any one saw, and he seemed so pleased when I kissed him.”
The ship lay coaling, etc., for four days, and every day Kep was on the beach to guide the young lady.
Though Arabs did not know him, they put him down as simply a boy of a different tribe, trying to make some money.
But in this way Kep was able to confer with Bungle any day he liked, and every night he lay perdu in his friend’s house.
He was soon able to mingle freely in the best and worst Arab society, and one night, to his great joy but quite by accident, he made a marvellous discovery, which, as it turned out, was of the greatest importance.
His residence with this faithful Arab Kep enjoyed most thoroughly. In fact, he was very much at home, and did not for the present, at all events, long for the return of the Breezy. She was gone on a cruise up Aden way, and it would be six weeks before she could again cast anchor in Zanzibar waters.
Kep had a capital opportunity now of improving his Arabic and Swahili, and he was not slow in taking advantage of it.
The Arab himself taught him a great deal, especially as to writing, and the construction of words and phrases. But Zeena taught him much more, and her language was probably more useful, as it was of a conversational kind. Zeena was very clever, as well as very innocent and charming. But Arab children in these tropical countries are like tropical flowers, they come early to maturity, and Zeena, though but ten, had all the wisdom of, and perhaps a good deal more, than an English girl of sixteen. Yet she was as sweet and innocent in all her ways as a baby.
There are white Arabs, swarthy olive Arabs, and black. Zeena and her father were white and of high caste.
I don’t think I should be going a bit too far if I told you that Kep came to love the child almost as much he loved Madge his sister.
Zeena’s rapt attention to all he told her about his own far-away land was very flattering to the boy. She seemed to hang on every word he said. When the great lamp was lit, she sat cross-legged on a pretty ottoman beside him, and when tired of listening, she leaned back and fell sound asleep, looking then in her crimson evening robes of silk, so Kep told himself, as beautiful as an houri of the Arab’s paradise. This room, with its strange furniture and rich hangings was paradise enough to Kep. Meanwhile, the father sat quietly by, reading, ever reading.
It was one night when belated in the forest or jungle that Kep had a strange adventure. He came upon a group of Arabs, all armed to the teeth and talking round a fire.
The boy crept nearer and nearer, till he could hear every word spoken. Yet well he knew that discovery meant imprisonment or even death itself.
They were gentlemen Arabs, soldiers and slave-raiders all in one, and some, Kep could tell from their uniforms, were servants of the Sultan of Lamoo himself.
Their meeting here in the open forest probably showed a want of caution. But they believed they had no need to fear anything. There was not a warship anywhere on the coast, and all in this island were friends. So they drank their coffee and squatted round the fire, conversing freely. Just beyond the spot where under a bush Kep lay hidden, a sentinel had been placed, and into whose arms the boy at first had almost precipitated himself. The duty of this man was to keep walking round in a circle, stopping occasionally to give vent to a long, low, bird-like whistle, as a signal that all was well.
Kep smiled at this. Had the sentry only known how near to him Kep was!
By raising a little of the foliage that screened him, the boy could not only hear better, but see the faces of the men as well. One was a bold and peculiarly good-featured man. His sword and sword-belt were bejewelled. He wore a gilded turban, and the huge dark-green cloak that covered him, showed he was a scion of the prophet’s. The others addressed him with tokens of great respect, and listened almost in silence to his proposals.
One of these was of so terrible and daring a character that Kep could hardly believe that they were made in earnest, and he shuddered as he listened.
The plot that more immediately concerned Kep was one to get the British cruisers sent off from the equatorial part of the coasts, in order that they might run an immense cargo of slaves from villages far in the interior, and get safely away before they could possibly be discovered.
This chief was well known to the gun-boats and cruisers on the coast. A price had been set on his head. If caught, his would indeed be a short shrift, for he had been guilty of wholesale murder and slaughter.
At this moment he had a fleet of dhows under his command, of which he was admiral; he had a whole army of Arabs and Somalis on shore, of which a brother of his was general; and the two between them had managed to make fools of the British times without number.
Abdularram, as the chief was called, and his brother had been very active lately. The latter had journeyed into the far interior of Africa with his followers. In this wild foray the brother of Abdul had been more than usually fortunate. He had made a détour, and had come to pastures new, swooping down upon defenceless village after defenceless village, laying them waste with fire and sword, and bearing thence the strongest and youngest of the men and women.
These attacks were accompanied by all the horrors incidental to the slave trade, but probably worse even than ever they had been in the older days.
They were worse, for this reason. As a rule, the Arabs do not at once attack primitive villages. They prefer to pretend friendship for the unsuspecting and innocent natives. They follow the same tactics as did the brutal soldiery at the massacre of Glencoe. When they succeed in lulling to sleep every suspicion, and causing the poor blades to believe firmly that the strangers are their friends, then they rise. And for a night or two hell itself seems let loose upon earth. The midnight darkness is lit up by the blazing of the grass huts; in the lurid glare the wild and beautiful scenery, its rolling hills, its waving woods and lakes, look strangely weird; but in the stillness of the night the most heart-rending screams and mournful pleadings for mercy may be heard even miles away, the pop-pop-popping of rifles also, if resistance has been made to the onslaught; if not, sounds that are more sickening still—dull, heavy thuds that speak of brains dashed out and of old men and women lying murdered in cold blood.
But in the present instance there had been no time to form sham friendships with the natives. The attack on each village had been therefore made suddenly, and without warning of any kind. The fighting natives were speedily driven in, the conqueror followed, and the butchery began.
The best of the natives were soon weeded out and placed in chained gangs, paralysed with fear, smitten to the heart with the awful calamity that had come upon them like a bolt from the blue, and hardly daring to utter a cry, though low moans and piteous cries escaped the poor women as they saw perhaps their babies tossed on the spears of the Arabs, and their grey-headed fathers and mothers clubbed as ruthlessly as if they were but cattle led out for slaughter.
Village after village was raided and laid in ashes, and probably the biggest haul of slaves ever taken eastward was soon en route for the distant coast.
All this and much more Kep learned from the conversation of these Arabs to-night.
He was thanking his stars for his good fortune, when close beside him in the bush there was a rustle and the sound of a breaking twig.
The sentry had heard it too, and suddenly gave the alarm. Every Arab sprang to his feet and laid his hand on his sword.
Poor Kep’s heart seemed to cease beating. He thought his last hour had come, but he kept his place and remained quiet and still. Suddenly the chief broke into a fit of laughing, as an enormous grey and warty lizard crept silently into the light.
Kep’s life was spared. Had this lizard gone the other way and not been seen by the Arabs, spears would have prodded the bush, and his doom would have been sealed.
As it was, he was glad when they left, glad to find himself alone once more, and gladder still when he reached the friendly Arab’s house and received his evening welcome from him and little Zeena.