Jules Verne (36 page)

From May 11th to 15th
.—The caravan continues its march. The
prisoners drag themselves along more and more painfully. The majority
have marks of blood under their feet. I calculate that it will take
ten days more to reach Kazounde. How many will have ceased to suffer
before then? But I—I must arrive there, I shall arrive there.

It is atrocious! There are, in the convoy, unfortunate ones whose
bodies are only wounds. The cords that bind them enter into the flesh.

Since yesterday a mother carries in her arms her little infant, dead
from hunger. She will not separate from it.

Our route is strewn with dead bodies. The smallpox rages with new
violence.

We have just passed near a tree. To this tree slaves were attached by
the neck. They were left there to die of hunger.

From May 16th to 24th
.—I am almost exhausted, but I have no right
to give up. The rains have entirely ceased. We have days of "hard
marching." That is what the traders call the "tirikesa," or afternoon
march. We must go faster, and the ground rises in rather steep
ascents.

We pass through high shrubs of a very tough kind. They are the
"nyassi," the branches of which tear the skin off my face, whose sharp
seeds penetrate to my skin, under my dilapidated clothes. My strong
boots have fortunately kept good.

The agents have commenced to abandon the slaves too sick to keep up.
Besides, food threatens to fail; soldiers and
pagazis
would revolt
if their rations were diminished. They dare not retrench from them,
and then so much worse for the captives.

"Let them eat one another!" said the chief.

Then it follows that young slaves, still strong, die without the
appearance of sickness. I remember what Dr. Livingstone has said on
that subject: "Those unfortunates complain of the heart; they put
their hands there, and they fall. It is positively the heart
that breaks! That is peculiar to free men, reduced to slavery
unexpectedly!"

To-day, twenty captives who could no longer drag themselves along,
have been massacred with axes, by the
havildars
! The Arab chief is
not opposed to massacre. The scene has been frightful!

Poor old Nan has fallen under the knife, in this horrible butchery!
I strike against her corpse in passing! I cannot even give her a
Christian burial! She is first of the "Pilgrim's" survivors whom God
has called back to him. Poor good creature! Poor Nan!

I watch for Dingo every night. It returns no more! Has misfortune
overtaken it or Hercules? No! no! I do not want to believe it! This
silence, which appears so long to me, only proves one thing—it is
that Hercules has nothing new to tell me yet. Besides, he must be
prudent, and on his guard.

ON May 26th, the caravan of slaves arrived at Kazounde. Fifty per
cent. of the prisoners taken in the last raid had fallen on the road.
Meanwhile, the business was still good for the traders; demands were
coming in, and the price of slaves was about to rise in the African
markets.

Angola at this period did an immense trade in blacks. The Portuguese
authorities of St. Paul de Loanda, or of Benguela, could not stop it
without difficulty, for the convoys traveled towards the interior
of the African continent. The pens near the coast overflowed with
prisoners, the few slavers that succeeded in eluding the cruisers
along the shore not being sufficient to carry all of them to the
Spanish colonies of America.

Kazounde, situated three hundred miles from the mouth of the Coanza,
is one of the principal "lakonis," one of the most important markets
of the province. On its grand square the "tchitoka" business is
transacted; there, the slaves are exposed and sold. It is from this
point that the caravans radiate toward the region of the great lakes.

Kazounde, like all the large towns of Central Africa, is divided into
two distinct parts. One is the quarter of the Arab, Portuguese or
native traders, and it contains their pens; the other is the residence
of the negro king, some ferocious crowned drunkard, who reigns through
terror, and lives from supplies furnished by the contractors.

At Kazounde, the commercial quarter then belonged to that Jose-Antonio
Alvez, of whom Harris and Negoro had spoken, they being simply agents
in his pay. This contractor's principal establishment was there, he
had a second at Bihe, and a third at Cassange, in Benguela, which
Lieutenant Cameron visited some years later.

Imagine a large central street, on each side groups of houses,
"tembes," with flat roofs, walls of baked earth, and a square court
which served as an enclosure for cattle. At the end of the street was
the vast "tchitoka" surrounded by slave-pens. Above this collection
of buildings rose some enormous banyans, whose branches swayed with
graceful movements. Here and there great palms, with their heads in
the air, drove the dust on the streets like brooms. Twenty birds of
prey watched over the public health. Such is the business quarter of
Kazounde.

Near by ran the Louhi, a river whose course, still undetermined, is an
affluent, or at least a sub-affluent, of the Coango, a tributary of
the Zoire.

The residence of the King of Kazounde, which borders on the business
quarter, is a confused collection of ill-built hovels, which spread
over the space of a mile square. Of these hovels, some are open,
others are inclosed by a palisade of reeds, or bordered with a hedge
of fig-trees. In one particular enclosure, surrounded by a fence of
papyrus, thirty of these huts served us dwellings for the chief's
slaves, in another group lived his wives, and a "tembe," still larger
and higher, was half hidden in a plantation of cassada. Such was
the residence of the King of Kazounde, a man of fifty—named Moini
Loungga; and already almost deprived of the power of his predecessors.
He had not four thousand of soldiers there, where the principal
Portuguese traders could count twenty thousand, and he could no
longer, as in former times, decree the sacrifice of twenty-five or
thirty slaves a day.

This king was, besides, a prematurely-aged man, exhausted by debauch,
crazed by strong drink, a ferocious maniac, mutilating his subjects,
his officers or his ministers, as the whim seized him, cutting the
nose and ears off some, and the foot or the hand from others. His own
death, not unlooked for, would be received without regret.

A single man in all Kazounde might, perhaps, lose by the death of
Moini Loungga. This was the contractor, Jose-Antonio Alvez, who agreed
very well with the drunkard, whose authority was recognized by the
whole province. If the accession of his first wife, Queen Moini,
should be contested, the States of Moini Loungga might be invaded by
a neighboring competitor, one of the kings of Oukonson. The latter,
being younger and more active, had already seized some villages
belonging to the Kazounde government. He had in his services another
trader, a rival of Alvez Tipo-Tipo, a black Arab of a pure race, whom
Cameron met at N'yangwe.

What was this Alvez, the real sovereign under the reign of an imbruted
negro, whose vices he had developed and served?

Jose-Antonio Alvez, already advanced in years, was not, as one might
suppose, a "msoungou," that is to say, a man of the white race. There
was nothing Portuguese about him but his name, borrowed, no doubt, for
the needs of commerce. He was a real negro, well known among traders,
and called Kenndele. He was born, in fact, at Donndo, or the borders
of the Coanza. He had commenced by being simply the agent of the
slave-brokers, and would have finished as a famous trader, that is to
say, in the skin of an old knave, who called himself the most honest
man in the world.

Cameron met this Alvez in the latter part of 1874, at Kilemmba, the
capital of Kassonngo, chief of Ouroua. He guided Cameron with his
caravan to his own establishment at Bihe, over a route of seven
hundred miles. The convoy of slaves, on arriving at Kazounde, had been
conducted to the large square.

It was the 26th of May. Dick Sand's calculations were then verified.
The journey had lasted thirty-eight days from the departure of the
army encamped on the banks of the Coanza. Five weeks of the most
fearful miseries that human beings could support.

It was noon when the train entered Kazounde. The drums were beaten,
horns were blown in the midst of the detonations of fire-arms. The
soldiers guarding the caravan discharged their guns in the air, and
the men employed by Jose-Antonio Alvez replied with interest. All
these bandits were happy at meeting again, after an absence which had
lasted for four months. They were now going to rest and make up for
lost time in excesses and idleness.

The prisoners then formed a total of two hundred and fifty, the
majority being completely exhausted. After having been driven like
cattle, they were to be shut up in pens, which American farmers would
not have used for pigs. Twelve or fifteen hundred other captives
awaited them, all of whom would be exposed in the market at Kazounde
on the next day but one. These pens were filled up with the slaves
from the caravan. The heavy forks had been taken off them, but they
were still in chains.

The "pagazis" had stopped on the square after having disposed of their
loads of ivory, which the Kazounde dealers would deliver. Then, being
paid with a few yards of calico or other stuff at the highest price,
they would return and join some other caravan.

Old Tom and his companions had been freed from the iron collar which
they had carried for five weeks. Bat and his father embraced each
other, and all shook hands; but no one ventured to speak. What could
they say that would not be an expression of despair. Bat, Acteon and
Austin, all three vigorous, accustomed to hard work, had been able
to resist fatigue; but old Tom, weakened by privations, was nearly
exhausted. A few more days and his corpse would have been left, like
poor Nan's, as food for the beasts of the province.

As soon as they arrived, the four men had been placed in a narrow pen,
and the door had been at once shut upon them. There they had found
some food, and they awaited the trader's visit, with whom, although
quite in vain, they intended to urge the fact that they were
Americans.

Dick Sand had remained alone on the square, under the special care of
a keeper.

At length he was at Kazounde, where he did not doubt that Mrs. Weldon,
little Jack, and Cousin Benedict had preceded him. He had looked for
them in crossing the various quarters of the town, even in the depths
of the "tembes" that lined the streets, on this "tchitoka" now almost
deserted.

Mrs. Weldon was not there.

"Have they not brought her here?" he asked himself. "But where could
she be? No; Hercules cannot be mistaken. Then, again, he must have
learned the secret designs of Negoro and Harris; yet they, too—I do
not see them."

Dick Sand felt the most painful anxiety. He could understand that Mrs.
Weldon, retained a prisoner, would be concealed from him. But Harris
and Negoro, particularly the latter, should hasten to see him, now in
their power, if only to enjoy their triumph—to insult him, torture
him, perhaps avenge themselves. From the fact that they were not
there, must he conclude that they had taken another direction, and
that Mrs. Weldon was to be conducted to some other point of Central
Africa? Should the presence of the American and the Portuguese be the
signal for his punishment, Dick Sand impatiently desired it. Harris
and Negoro at Kazounde, was for him the certainty that Mrs. Weldon and
her child were also there.

Dick Sand then told himself that, since the night when Dingo had
brought him Hercules's note, the dog had not been seen. The young man
had prepared an answer at great risks. In it he told Hercules to
think only of Mrs. Weldon, not to lose sight of her, and to keep her
informed as well as possible of what happened; but he had not been
able to send it to its destination. If Dingo had been able to
penetrate the ranks of the caravan once, why did not Hercules let
him try it a second time? Had the faithful animal perished in some
fruitless attempt? Perhaps Hercules was following Mrs. Weldon, as Dick
Sand would have done in his place. Followed by Dingo, he might have
plunged into the depths of the woody plateau of Africa, in the hope of
reaching one of the interior establishments.

What could Dick Sand imagine if, in fact, neither Mrs. Weldon nor her
enemies were there? He had been so sure, perhaps foolishly, of finding
them at Kazounde, that not to see them there at once gave him a
terrible shock. He felt a sensation of despair that he could not
subdue. His life, if it were no longer useful to those whom he loved,
was good for nothing, and he had only to die. But, in thinking in that
manner, Dick Sand mistook his own character. Under the pressure of
these trials, the child became a man, and with him discouragement
could only be an accidental tribute paid to human nature.

A loud concert of trumpet-calls and cries suddenly commenced. Dick
Sand, who had just sunk down in the dust of the "tchitoka," stood up.
Every new incident might put him on the track of those whom he sought.

In despair a moment before, he now no longer despaired.

"Alvez! Alvez!" This name was repeated by a crowd of natives and
soldiers who now invaded the grand square. The man on whom the fate
of so many unfortunate people depended was about to appear. It was
possible that his agents, Harris and Negoro, were with him. Dick Sand
stood upright, his eyes open, his nostrils dilated. The two traitors
would find this lad of fifteen years before them, upright, firm,
looking them in the face. It would not be the captain of the "Pilgrim"
who would tremble before the old ship's cook.

A hammock, a kind of "kitanda" covered by an old patched curtain,
discolored, fringed with rags, appeared at the end of the principal
street. An old negro descended. It was the trader, Jose-Antonio Alvez.
Several attendants accompanied him, making strong demonstrations.