> of my questions.



I became sick with anxiety, and at last felt that I must abandon all hope

of again seeing him. I was alone in the midst of the fiercest and most

fanatical people of the whole of Africa, a people whose supreme delight

it was to torture the whites that fell into their hands as vengeance for

the many expeditions sent against them. Through those dismal days when

silence and the want of air oppressed me, I remembered the old adage that

when Hope goes out Death smiles and stalks in, but fortunately, although

wearied and dejected, I did not quite abandon all thought of ever again

meeting my companion. The hope of seeing him, of being able to escape and

get into the land of Mo, was now the sole anchor of my life, yet as the

monotonous hours passed, the light in the chink above grew brighter and

time after time gradually faded into pitch darkness, I felt compelled to

admit that my anticipations were without foundation, and that Omar, the

courageous descendant of a truly kingly race, was dead.



In the dull dispiriting gloom I sat hour after hour on the stone bench

encrusted with the dirt of years, calmly reflecting upon the bright,

happy life I had been, alas! too eager to renounce, and told myself with

sorrow that, after all, old Trigger's school, or even the existence of a

London clerk, was preferable to imprisonment in Samory's stronghold. Many

were the means by which I sought to make time pass more rapidly, but the

hours had leaden feet, and while the tiny ray struggled through above, my

mind was constantly racked by bitter thoughts of the past, and a

despairing dread of the hopeless future.



One morning, however, when I had lost all count of the days of my

solitary confinement, my heart was suddenly caused to leap by hearing the

unusual sound of footsteps, and a few moments later my door was thrown

open and I was ordered by my captors to come forth.



I rose, and following them unwillingly, wondering what fate had been

decided for me, ascended the steep flight of steps to the courtyard

above, wherein I found a crowd of Arab nomads in their white haicks and

burnouses. Samory was also there, and before him, still defiant and

apparently almost recovered from his wounds, stood my friend Omar.



I sprang towards him with a loud cry of joy, and our recognition was

mutually enthusiastic, as neither of us had known what fate had overtaken

the other; but ere he could relate how he had fared, the Mohammedan chief

lifted his hand, and a dead silence fell on those assembled.



"Omar, son of the accursed Naya whom may Eblis smite with the fiery

sword, give ear unto my words," he said, in a loud, harsh voice. "Thou

hast defied me, and will not impart to me the secret of the

Treasure-house, even though I offer thee thy freedom. I have spared thee

the second torture in order that a fate more degrading and more terrible

shall be thine. Hearken! Thou and thy friend are sold to these Arab

slavers for this single copper coin."



For an instant he showed us the coin in the palm of his brown hand, then

tossed it far away from him with a gesture of disgust.



"Ye are both sold," he continued, "sold for the smallest coin, to be

taken to Kumassi as slaves for their pagan sacrifice."



At his words we both started. It was indeed a terrible doom to which this

villainous brute had consigned us. We were to be butchered with awful

rites for the edification of Prempeh and his wild hordes of fanatics!



"Rather kill us outright," Omar said boldly, his hands trembling

nevertheless.



"Death will seize thee quite soon enough," laughed the chief derisively.

"Mine ally Prempeh will have the satisfaction of offering a queen's son

to the fetish."



"Rest assured that the god Zomara will reward thee for this day's evil

work," Omar cried, with a fierce look in his eyes. "Thou hast spent

fiercest hatred upon me, but even if I die, word will sooner or later be

carried into Mo that thou wert the cause of the death of the last of my

race. Then every man capable of bearing arms will rise against thee.

Standing here, I make prophecy that this thy kingdom shall be uprooted as

a weed in the garden of peace, and that thine own blood shall make

satisfaction for thy cruelty."



"Begone!" cried Samory, in a tumult of wrath. And turning to the Arabs he

cried in a commanding tone: "Take the dog to the slaughterers. Let me

never look again upon his face."



But ere they could seize him, he had lifted his hand, invoking the curse

of Zomara, saying:



"Omar, Prince of Mo, has spoken. This kingdom of Samory shall, ere many

moons, be shaken to its foundations."



But the fierce Arabs quickly dragged us forth, bound us when out of sight

of the great chief, and led us beyond the gates of the Kasbah to where we

found a great slave caravan assembled in readiness to depart. Fully one

hundred black slaves, each fastened in a long chain, were lying huddled

up in the shadow, seeking a brief rest after a long and tedious march.

Most of them were terrible objects, mere skin and bone, and all showed

signs of brutal ill-treatment, their backs bearing great festering sores

caused by the lashes of their pitiless captors. The majority of them had,

I ascertained, been captured in the forest wilds beyond the Niger, and

all preserved a stolid indifference, for they knew their terrible doom.

They were being hurried on to Kumassi to be sold to King Prempeh for

sacrificial purposes.



To this wretched perspiring crowd of hopeless humanity we were bound, and

amid the jeers of a number of Samory's officials who had crowded to the

gate to see us depart, we moved onward, our steps hastened by the heavy

whips of our masters who, mounted on wiry little ponies and heavily

armed, galloped up and down the line administering blows to the laggards

or the sick.



From the city away across the open grass-lands we wended our way, a

dismal, sorrowful procession, but Omar, now beside me again, briefly

related how, after being removed from the torture-frame, his wounds had

been dressed and he had been tenderly nursed by an old female slave who

had taken compassion upon him. A dozen times messengers from Samory had

come to offer him his liberty in exchange for the secret of the

Treasure-house, but he had steadfastly refused. Twice the scoundrel

Kouaga had visited him and made merry over his discomfiture.



"But," said my friend, "the boastings of the traitor are empty words.

When we laugh it shall be at his vain implorings for a speedy death."



"To him we owe all these misfortunes," I said.



"Yes, everything. But if only we get into Mo he shall render an account

of his misdeeds to my mother. No mercy will be shown him, for before the

Naya's wrath the nation trembles."



"But our position at the present moment is one of extreme gravity," I

observed. "We are actually on our way to another of your mother's

enemies, whose relentless cruelty is common talk throughout the world."



"True," he answered. "If we find the slightest loop-hole for escape we

must embrace it. But if not----" and he paused. "If not, then we must

meet our deaths with the calm indifference alike traditional of the

Sanoms and of Englishmen."



Whenever misfortune seemed to threaten he appeared only the more

composed. Each day showed me that, even though an African and a

semi-savage, yet his bearing in moments when others would have been

melancholy, was dignified and truly regal. Even though his only covering

was a loin-cloth and a piece of a white cotton garment wrapped about his

shoulders, Omar Sanom was every inch a prince.



"If we made a dash for liberty we should, I fear, be shot down like

dogs," I said.



"Yes," he answered. "The country we shall now traverse will not

facilitate our flight, but the reverse. From the edge of the Great Forest

to Buna, beyond the Kong mountains, it is mostly marshy hollows and

pestilential swamps, while the lands beyond Buna away to Koranza, in

Ashanti, are flat and open like your English pastures. We will, if

opportunity offers, endeavour to escape, but even if we succeeded in

eluding their vigilance death lurks everywhere in a hundred different

forms."



"Well, at present we are slaves hounded on towards the dreaded Golgotha

of the Ashantis," I said. "We have escaped one fate only to be threatened

by one more terrible."



"True," he answered. "But down on the Coast they have an old proverb in

the Negro-English jargon which says, 'Softly, softly catchee monkey.' Let

us proceed cautiously, bear our trials with patience, seek not to incense

these brutal Arabs against us, and we may yet tread the path that leads

into my mother's kingdom. Then, within a week, the war-drums will sound

and we will accompany our hosts against Samory and his hordes."



"I shall act as you direct," I replied. "If you think that by patience

all may come right no complaint shall pass my lips. We are companions in

misfortune, therefore let us arm ourselves against despair."



The compact thus made, we endured the toil and hardships of travel

without murmur. At first our bearded masters heaped upon the queen's son

every indignity they could devise, but finding they could not incense

him, nor cause him to utter complaint, ceased their taunts and cuts from

their loaded whips, and soon began to treat us with less severity.



Yet the fatigues of that march were terrible. The suffering I witnessed

in that slave gang is still as vivid in my memory as if it were only

yesterday. Ere we had passed through the great forest and gained the Kong

mountains, a dozen of our unfortunate companions who had fallen sick had

been left in the narrow path to be eaten alive by the driver-ants and

other insects in which the gloomy depths abound, while during the twenty

days which the march to the Ashanti border occupied many others succumbed

to fever. Over all the marshes there hung a thick white mist deadly to

all, but the more so to the starving wretches who came from the high

lands far north beyond the Niger. Scarcely a day broke without one or

more of the lean, weak negroes being attacked, and as a sick slave is

only an incumbrance, they were left to die while we were marched onward.

Whose turn it might next be to be left behind to be devoured alive none

knew, and in this agony of fear and suspense we pushed forward from day

to day until we at last reached the undulating grass-land that Omar told

me was within a few days' march of Kumassi.



Here, even if the sun blazed down upon us like a ball of fire, it was far

healthier than in the misty regions of King Fever, and at the summit of a

low grass-covered hill our captors halted for two days to allow us to

recuperate, fearing, we supposed, that our starved and weak condition

might be made an excuse for low prices.



Soon, however, we were goaded forward again, and ere long, having

traversed Mampon's country, entered the capital of King Prempeh, slaves

to be sacrificed at the great annual custom.



No chance of escape had been afforded us. We were driven forward to the

doom to which the inhuman enemy of the Naya of Mo had so ruthlessly

consigned us.