Black Ivory

Governor Letotti’s health had failed him of late, and he had suffered some severe disappointments in money matters, so that his wonted amiability had been considerably reduced. He objected, at first, to interfere with the course of justice; but finally gave a reluctant consent, and the man was pardoned. Afterwards, however, when our travellers were absent from the town for a day, the wretched slave was again tied up, and the full amount of his punishment inflicted; in other words, he was flogged to death. (For the incident on which this is founded we are indebted to the Reverend Doctor Ryan, late Bishop of the Mauritius.)

This incident had such an effect on the mind of Harold, that he resolved no longer to accept the hospitality of Governor Letotti. He had some difficulty, however, in persuading himself to carry his resolve into effect, for the Governor, although harsh in his dealing with the slave, had been exceedingly kind and amiable to himself; but an unexpected event occurred which put an end to his difficulties. This was the illness and sudden death of his host.

Poor, disconsolate Maraquita, in the first passion of her grief, fled to the residence of the only female friend she had in the town, and refused firmly to return home. Thus it came to pass that Harold’s intercourse with the Senhorina was cut short at its commencement, and thus he missed the opportunity of learning something of the fortunes of Azinté; for it is certain that, if they had conversed much together, as would probably have been the case had her father lived, some mention of the slave-girl’s name could not fail to have been made, and their mutual knowledge of her to have been elicited and interchanged.

In those days there was no regular communication between one point and another of the east coast of Africa and the neighbouring islands. Travellers had frequently to wait long for a chance; and when they got one were often glad to take advantage of it without being fastidious as to its character. Soon after the events above narrated, a small trading schooner touched at the port. It was bound for the Seychelles, intending to return by Zanzibar and Madagascar, and proceed to the Cape. Harold would rather have gone direct to Zanzibar, but, having plenty of time on his hands, as well as means, he was content to avail himself of the opportunity, and took passage in the schooner for himself, Disco, and Jumbo. That sable and faithful friend was the only one of his companions who was willing to follow him anywhere on the face of the earth. The others received their pay and their discharge with smiling faces, and scattered to their several homes—Antonio departing to complete his interrupted honeymoon.

Just before leaving, Harold sought and obtained permission to visit Maraquita, to bid her good-bye. The poor child was terribly overwhelmed by the death of her father, and could not speak of him without giving way to passionate grief. She told Harold that she meant to leave the coast by the first opportunity that should offer, and proceed to the Cape of Good Hope, where, in some part of the interior, lived an old aunt, the only relative she now had on earth, who, she knew, would be glad to receive her. Our hero did his best to comfort the poor girl, and expressed deep sympathy with her, but felt that his power to console was very small indeed. After a brief interview he bade her farewell.

The voyage which our travellers now commenced was likely to be of considerable duration, for the Seychelles Islands lie a long way to the eastward of Africa, but as we have said, time was of no importance to Harold, and he was not sorry to have an opportunity of visiting a group of islands which are of some celebrity in connexion with the East African slave-trade. Thus, all unknown to himself or Disco, as well as to Maraquita, who would have been intensely interested had she known the fact, he was led towards the new abode of our sable heroine Azinté.

But alas! for Kambira and Obo,—they were being conveyed, also, of course, unknown to themselves or to any one else, further and further away from one whom they would have given their heart’s blood to meet with and embrace, and it seemed as if there were not a chance of any gleam of light bridging over the ever widening gulf that lay between them, for although Lieutenant Lindsay knew that Azinté had been left at the Seychelles, he had not the remotest idea that Kambira was Azinté’s husband, and among several hundreds of freed slaves the second lieutenant of the ‘Firefly’ was not likely to single out, and hold converse with a chief whose language he did not understand, and who, as far as appearances went, was almost as miserable, sickly, and degraded as were the rest of the unhappy beings by whom he was surrounded.

Providence, however, turned the tide of affairs in favour of Kambira and his son. On reaching Zanzibar Captain Romer had learned from the commander of another cruiser that Aden was at that time somewhat overwhelmed with freed slaves, a considerable number of captures having been recently made about the neighbourhood of that great rendezvous of slavers, the island of Socotra.

The captain therefore changed his mind, and once more very unwillingly directed his course towards the distant Seychelles.

On the way thither many of the poor negroes died, but many began to recover strength under the influence of kind treatment and generous diet. Among these latter was Kambira. His erect gait and manly look soon began to return, and his ribs, so to speak, to disappear. It was otherwise with poor Obo. The severity of the treatment to which he had been exposed was almost too much for so young a frame. He lost appetite and slowly declined, notwithstanding the doctor’s utmost care.

This state of things continuing until the ‘Firefly’ arrived at the Seychelles, Obo was at once conveyed to the hospital which we have referred to as having been established there.

Azinté chanced to be absent in the neighbouring town on some errand connected with her duties as nurse, when her boy was laid on his bed beside a number of similar sufferers. It was a sad sight to behold these little ones. Out of the original eighty-three children who had been placed there forty-seven had died in three weeks, and the remnant were still in a pitiable condition. While on their beds of pain, tossing about in their delirium, the minds of these little ones frequently ran back to their forest homes, and while some, in spirit, laughed and romped once more around their huts, thousands of miles away on the banks of some African river, others called aloud in their sufferings for the dearest of all earthly beings to them—their mothers. Some of them also whispered the name of Jesus, for the missionary had been careful to tell them the story of our loving Lord, while tending their poor bodies.

Obo had fevered slightly, and in the restless half-slumber into which he fell on being put to bed, he, too, called earnestly for his mother. In his case, poor child, the call was not in vain.

Lieutenant Lindsay and the doctor of the ship, with Kambira, had accompanied Obo to the hospital.

“Now, Lindsay,” said the doctor, when the child had been made as comfortable as circumstances would admit of, “this man must not be left here, for he will be useless, and it is of the utmost consequence that the child should have some days of absolute repose. What shall we do with him?”

“Take him on board again,” said Lindsay. “I daresay we shall find him employment for a short time.”

“If you will allow me to take charge of him,” interposed the missionary, who was standing by them at the time, “I can easily find him employment in the neighbourhood, so that he can come occasionally to see his child when we think it safe to allow him.”

“That will be the better plan,” said the doctor, “for as long as—”

A short sharp cry near the door of the room cut the sentence short.

All eyes were turned in that direction and they beheld Azinté gazing wildly at them, and standing as if transformed to stone.

The instant Kambira saw his wife he leaped up as if he had received an electric shock, bounded forward like a panther, uttered a shout that did full credit to the chief of a warlike African tribe, and seized Azinté in his arms.

No wonder that thirty-six little black heads leaped from thirty-six little white pillows, and displayed all the whites of seventy-two eyes that were anything but little, when this astonishing scene took place!

But Kambira quickly recovered himself, and, grasping Azinté by the arm, led her gently towards the bed which had just been occupied, and pointed to the little one that slumbered uneasily there. Strangely enough, just at the moment little Obo again whispered the word “mother.”

Poor Azinté’s eyes seemed ready to start from their sockets. She stretched out her arms and tried to rush towards her child, but Kambira held her back.

“Obo is very sick,” he said, “you must touch him tenderly.”

The chief looked into his wife’s eyes, saw that she understood him, and let her go.

Azinté crept softly to the bed, knelt down beside it and put her arms so softly round Obo that she scarcely moved him, yet she gradually drew him towards her until his head rested on her swelling bosom, and she pressed her lips tenderly upon his brow. It was an old familiar attitude which seemed to pierce the slumbers of the child with a pleasant reminiscence, and dissipate his malady, for he heaved a deep sigh of contentment and sank into profound repose.

“Good!” said the doctor, in a low tone, with a significant nod to Lindsay, when an interpreter had explained what had been already guessed by all present, that Kambira and Azinté were man and wife; “Obo has a better chance now of recovery than I had anticipated; for joy goes a long way towards effecting a cure. Come, we will leave them together.”

Kambira was naturally anxious to remain, but like all commanding spirits, he had long ago learned that cardinal virtue, “obedience to whom obedience is due.” When it was explained to him that it would be for Obo’s advantage to be left alone with his mother for a time, he arose, bowed his head, and meekly followed his friends out of the room.

Exactly one week from that date little Obo had recovered so much of his former health that he was permitted to go out into the air, and, a few days later, Lieutenant Lindsay resolved to take him, and his father and mother, on board the ‘Firefly,’ by way of a little ploy. In pursuance of this plan he set off from the hospital in company with Kambira, followed at a short distance by Azinté and Obo.

Poor Lindsay! his heart was heavy, while he did his best to convey in dumb show his congratulations to Kambira, for he saw in this unexpected re-union an insurmountable difficulty in the way of taking Azinté back to her former mistress—not that he had ever seen the remotest chance of his being able to achieve that desirable end before this difficulty arose, but love is at times insanely hopeful, just as at other times—and with equally little reason—it is madly despairing.

He had just made some complicated signs with hands, mouth, and eyebrows, and had succeeded in rendering himself altogether incomprehensible to his sable companion, when, on rounding a turn of the path that led to the harbour, he found himself suddenly face to face with Harold Seadrift, Disco Lillihammer, and their follower, Jumbo, all of whom had landed from a schooner, which, about an hour before, had cast anchor in the bay.

“Mr Lindsay!” “Mr Seadrift!” exclaimed each to the other simultaneously, for the reader will remember that they had met once before when our heroes were rescued from Yoosoof by the “Firefly.”

“Kambira!” shouted Disco.

“Azinté!” cried Harold, as our sable heroine came into view.

“Obo!” roared the stricken mariner.

Jumbo could only vent his feelings in an appalling yell and an impromptu war-dance round the party, in which he was joined by Disco, who performed a hornpipe with Obo in his arms, to the intense delight of that convalescent youngster.

Thus laughing, questioning, shouting, and dancing, they all effervesced towards the shore like a band of lunatics just escaped from Bedlam!

Chapter Twenty Five.

The Last

“How comes it,” said Lieutenant Lindsay to Harold, on the first favourable opportunity that occurred after the meeting described in the last chapter; “how comes it that you and Kambira know each other so well?”

“I might reply by asking,” said Harold, with a smile, “how comes it that you are so well acquainted with Azinté? but, before putting that question, I will give a satisfactory answer to your own.”

Hereupon he gave a brief outline of those events, already narrated in full to the reader, which bore on his first meeting with the slave-girl, and his subsequent sojourn with her husband.

“After leaving the interior,” continued our hero, “and returning to the coast, I visited various towns in order to observe the state of the slaves in the Portuguese settlements, and, truly, what I saw was most deplorable—demoralisation and cruelty, and the obstruction of lawful trade, prevailed everywhere. The settlements are to my mind a very pandemonium on earth. Every one seemed to me more or less affected by the accursed atmosphere that prevails. Of course there must be some exceptions. I met with one, at the last town I visited, in the person of Governor Letotti.”

“Letotti!” exclaimed Lindsay, stopping abruptly.

“Yes!” said Harold, in some surprise at the lieutenant’s manner, “and a most amiable man he was—”

“Was!—was! What do you mean? Is—is he dead?” exclaimed Lindsay, turning pale.

“He died suddenly just before I left,” said Harold.

“And Maraquita—I mean his daughter—what of her?” asked the lieutenant, turning as red as he had previously turned pale.

Harold noted the change, and a gleam of light seemed to break upon him as he replied:—

“Poor girl, she was overwhelmed at first by the heavy blow. I had to quit the place almost immediately after the event.”

“Did you know her well?” asked Lindsay, with an uneasy glance at his companion’s handsome face.

“No; I had just been introduced to her shortly before her father’s death, and have scarcely exchanged a dozen sentences with her. It is said that her father died in debt, but of course in regard to that I know nothing certainly. At parting, she told me that she meant to leave the coast and go to stay with a relative at the Cape.”

The poor lieutenant’s look on hearing this was so peculiar, not to say alarming, that Harold could not help referring to it, and Lindsay was so much overwhelmed by such unexpected news, and, withal, so strongly attracted by Harold’s sympathetic manner, that he straightway made a confidant of him, told him of his love for Maraquita, of Maraquita’s love for Azinté, of the utter impossibility of his being able to take Azinté back to her old mistress, now that she had found her husband and child, even if it had been admissible for a lieutenant in the British navy to return freed negroes again into slavery, and wound up with bitter lamentations as to his unhappy fate, and expressions of poignant regret that fighting and other desperate means, congenial and easy to his disposition, were not available in the circumstances. After which explosion he subsided, felt ashamed of having thus committed himself, and looked rather foolish.

But Harold quickly put him at his ease. He entered on the subject with earnest gravity.

“It strikes me, Lindsay,” he said thoughtfully, after the lieutenant had finished, “that I can aid you in this affair; but you must not ask me how at present. Give me a few hours to think over it, and then I shall have matured my plans.”

Of course the lieutenant hailed with heartfelt gratitude the gleam of hope held out to him, and thus the friends parted for a time.

That same afternoon Harold sat under a palm-tree in company with Disco, Jumbo, Kambira, Azinté, and Obo.

“How would you like to go with me to the Cape of Good Hope, Kambira?” asked Harold abruptly.

“Whar dat?” asked the chief through Jumbo.

“Far away to the south of Africa,” answered Harold. “You know that you can never go back to your own land now, unless you want to be again enslaved.”

“Him say him no’ want to go back,” interpreted Jumbo; “got all him care for now—Azinté and Obo.”

“Then do you agree to go with me?” said Harold.

To this Kambira replied heartily that he did.

“W’y, wot do ’ee mean for to do with ’em?” asked Disco, in some surprise.

“I will get them comfortably settled there,” replied Harold. “My father has a business friend in Cape Town who will easily manage to put me in the way of doing it. Besides, I have a particular reason for wishing to take Azinté there.—Ask her, Jumbo, if she remembers a young lady named Senhorina Maraquita Letotti.”

To this Azinté replied that she did, and the way in which her eyes sparkled proved that she remembered her with intense pleasure.

“Well, tell her,” rejoined Harold, “that Maraquita has grieved very much at losing her, and is very anxious to get her back again—not as a slave, but as a friend, for no slavery is allowed in English settlements anywhere, and I am sure that Maraquita hates slavery as much as I do, though she is not English, so I intend to take her and Kambira and Obo to the Cape, where Maraquita is living—or will be living soon.”

“Ye don’t stick at trifles, sir,” said Disco, whose eyes, on hearing this, assumed a thoughtful, almost a troubled look.

“My plan does not seem to please you,” said Harold.

“Please me, sir, w’y shouldn’t it please me? In course you knows best; I was only a little puzzled, that’s all.”

Disco said no more, but he thought a good deal, for he had noted the beauty and sprightliness of Maraquita, and the admiration with which Harold had first beheld her; and it seemed to him that this rather powerful method of attempting to gratify the Portuguese girl was proof positive that Harold had lost his heart to her.

Harold guessed what was running in Disco’s mind, but did not care to undeceive him, as, in so doing, he might run some risk of betraying the trust reposed in him by Lindsay.

The captain of the schooner, being bound for the Cape after visiting Zanzibar, was willing to take these additional passengers, and the anxious lieutenant was induced to postpone total and irrevocable despair, although, Maraquita being poor, and he being poor, and promotion in the service being very slow, he had little reason to believe his prospects much brighter than they were before,—poor fellow!

Time passed on rapid wing—as time is notoriously prone to do—and the fortunes of our dramatis personae varied somewhat.

Captain Romer continued to roam the Eastern seas, along with brother captains, and spent his labour and strength in rescuing a few hundreds of captives from among the hundreds of thousands that were continually flowing out of unhappy Africa. Yoosoof and Moosa continued to throw a boat-load or two of damaged “cattle” in the way of the British cruisers, as a decoy, and succeeded on the whole pretty well in running full cargoes of valuable Black Ivory to the northern markets. The Sultan of Zanzibar continued to assure the British Consul that he heartily sympathised with England in her desire to abolish slavery, and to allow his officials, for a “consideration,” to prosecute the slave-trade to any extent they pleased! Portugal continued to assure England of her sympathy and co-operation in the good work of repression, and her subjects on the east coast of Africa continued to export thousands of slaves under the protection of the Portuguese and French flags, styling them free engagés. British-Indian subjects—the Banyans of Zanzibar,—continued to furnish the sinews of war which kept the gigantic trade in human flesh going on merrily. Murders, etcetera, continued to be perpetrated, tribes to be plundered, and hearts to be broken—of course “legally” and “domestically,” as well as piratically—during this rapid flight of time.

But nearly everything in this life has its bright lights and half-tints, as well as its deep shadows. During the same flight of time, humane individuals have continued to urge on the good cause of the total abolition of slavery, and Christian missionaries have continued, despite the difficulties of slave-trade, climate, and human apathy, to sow here and there on the coasts the precious seed of Gospel truth, which we trust shall yet be sown broad-cast by native hands, throughout the length and breadth of that mighty land.

To come more closely to the subjects of our tale:

Chimbolo, with his recovered wife and child, sought safety from the slavers in the far interior, and continued to think with pleasure and gratitude of the two Englishmen who hated slavery, and who had gone to Africa just in the nick of time to rescue that unhappy slave who had been almost flogged to death, and was on the point of being drowned in the Zambesi in a sack. Mokompa, also, continued to poetise, as in days gone by, having made a safe retreat with Chimbolo, and, among other things, enshrined all the deeds of the two white men in native verse. Yambo continued to extol play, admire, and propagate the life-sized jumping-jack to such an extent that, unless his career has been cut short by the slavers, we fully expect to find that creature a “domestic institution” when the slave-trade has been crushed, and Africa opened up—as in the end it is certain to be.

During the progress and continuance of all these things, you may be sure our hero was not idle. He sailed, as proposed, with Kambira, Azinté, Obo, Disco, and Jumbo for Zanzibar, touched at the town over which poor Senhor Francisco Alfonso Toledo Bignoso Letotti had ruled, found that the Senhorina had taken her departure; followed, as Disco said, in her wake; reached the Cape, hunted her up, found her out and presented to her, with Lieutenant Lindsay’s compliments, the African chief Kambira, his wife Azinté, and his son Obo!

Poor Maraquita, being of a passionately affectionate and romantic disposition, went nearly mad with joy, and bestowed so many grateful glances and smiles on Harold that Disco’s suspicions were confirmed, and that bold mariner wished her, Maraquita, “at the bottom of the sea!” for Disco disliked foreigners, and could not bear the thought of his friend being caught by one of them.

Maraquita introduced Harold to her aunt, a middle-aged, leather-skinned, excessively dark-eyed daughter of Portugal. She also introduced him to a bosom friend, at that time on a visit to her aunt. The bosom friend was an auburn-haired, fair-skinned, cheerful-spirited English girl. Before her, Harold Seadrift at once, without an instant’s warning, fell flat down, figuratively speaking of course, and remained so—stricken through the heart!

The exigencies of our tale require, at this point, that we should draw our outline with a bold and rapid pencil.

Disco Lillihammer was stunned, and so was Jumbo, when Harold, some weeks after their arrival at the Cape, informed them that he was engaged to be married to Alice Gray, only daughter of the late Sir Eustace Gray, who had been M.P. for some county in England, which he had forgotten the name of, Alice not having been able to recall it, as her father had died when she was four years old, leaving her a fortune of next-to-nothing a year, and a sweet temper.

Being incapable of further stunning, Disco was rather revived than otherwise, and his dark shadow was resuscitated, when Harold added that Kambira had become Maraquita’s head-gardener, Azinté cook to the establishment, and Obo page-in-waiting—more probably page-in-mischief—to the young Senhorina. But both Disco and Jumbo had a relapse from which they were long of recovering, when Harold went on to say that he meant to sail for England by the next mail, take Jumbo with him as valet, make proposals to his father to establish a branch of their house at the Cape, come back to manage the branch, marry Alice, and reside in the neighbourhood of the Senhorina Maraquita Letotti’s dwelling.

“You means wot you say, I s’pose?” asked Disco.

“Of course I do,” said Harold.

“An’ yer goin’ to take Jumbo as yer walley?”

“Yes.”

“H’m; I’ll go too as yer keeper.”

“My what?”

“Yer keeper—yer strait-veskit buckler, for if you ain’t a loonatic ye ought to be.”

But Disco did not go to England in that capacity. He remained at the Cape to assist Kambira, at the express command of Maraquita; and continued there until Harold returned, bringing Lieutenant Lindsay with him as a partner in the business; until Harold was married and required a gardener for his own domain; until the Senhorina became Mrs Lindsay; until a large and thriving band of little Cape colonists found it necessary to have a general story-teller and adventure-recounter with a nautical turn of mind; until, in short, he found it convenient to go to England himself for the gal of his heart who had been photographed there years before, and could be rubbed off neither by sickness, sunstroke, nor adversity.