Jules Verne For Children: 16 Incredible Tales of Mystery, Courage & Adventure (Illustrated Edition). Jules Verne
Dick Sand thought with terror of the obstacles such encounters would present against Hercules’s enterprise, of the perils that menaced each of his steps. And meanwhile if he himself should find an opportunity to flee, he would not hesitate.
Here are some notes taken by Dick Sand during this journey from the Coanza to Kazounde. Twenty-five “marches” were employed to make this distance of two hundred and fifty miles, the “march” in the traders’ language being ten miles, halting by day and night.
From 25th to 27th April.—Saw a village surrounded by walls of reeds, eight or nine feet high. Fields cultivated with maize, beans, “sorghas” and various arachides. Two blacks seized and made prisoners. Fifteen killed. Population fled.
The next day crossed an impetuous river, one hundred and fifty yards wide. Floating bridge, formed of trunks of trees, fastened with lianes. Piles half broken. Two women, tied to the same fork, precipitated into the water. One was carrying her little child. The waters are disturbed and become stained with blood. Crocodiles glide between the parts of the bridge. There is danger of stepping into their open mouths.
April 28th.—Crossed a forest of bauhiniers. Trees of straight timber—those which furnish the iron wood for the Portuguese.
Heavy rain. Earth wet. March extremely painful.
Perceived, toward the center of the convoy, poor Nan, carrying a little negro child in her arms. She drags herself along with difficulty. The slave chained with her limps, and the blood flows from her shoulder, torn by lashes from the whip.
In the evening camped under an enormous baobab with white flowers and a light green foliage.
During the night roars of lions and leopards. Shots fired by one of the natives at a panther. What has become of Hercules?
April 29th and 30th.—First colds of what they call the African winter. Dew very abundant. End of the rainy season with the month of April; it commences with the month of November. Plains still largely inundated. East winds which check perspiration and renders one more liable to take the marsh fevers.
No trace of Mrs. Weldon, nor of Mr. Benedict. Where would they take them, if not to Kazounde? They must have followed the road of the caravan and preceded us. I am eaten up with anxiety. Little Jack must be seized again with the fever in this unhealthy region. But does he still live?
From May 1st to May 6th.—Crossed, with several halting-places, long plains, which evaporation has not been able to dry up. Water everywhere up to the waist. Myriads of leeches adhering to the skin. We must march for all that. On some elevations that emerge are lotus and papyrus. At the bottom, under the water, other plants, with large cabbage leaves, on which the feet slip, which occasions numerous falls.
In these waters, considerable quantities of little fish of the silurus species. The natives catch them by billions in wickers and sell them to the caravans.
Impossible to find a place to camp for the night. We see no limit to the inundated plain. We must march in the dark. To-morrow many slaves will be missing from the convoy. What misery! When one falls, why get up again? A few moments more under these waters, and all would be finished. The overseer’s stick would not reach you in the darkness.
Yes, but Mrs. Weldon and her son! I have not the right to abandon them. I shall resist to the end. It is my duty.
Dreadful cries are heard in the night. Twenty soldiers have torn some branches from resinous trees whose branches were above water. Livid lights in the darkness.
This is the cause of the cries I heard. An attack of crocodiles; twelve or fifteen of those monsters have thrown themselves in the darkness on the flank of the caravan.
Women and children have been seized and carried away by the crocodiles to their “pasture lands”—so Livingstone calls those deep holes where this amphibious animal deposits its prey, after having drowned it, for it only eats it when it has reached a certain degree of decomposition.
I have been rudely grazed by the scales of one of these crocodiles. An adult slave has been seized near me and torn from the fork that held him by the neck. The fork was broken. What a cry of despair! What a howl of grief! I hear it still!
May 7th and 8th.—The next day they count the victims. Twenty slaves have disappeared.
At daybreak I look for Tom and his companions. God be praised! they are living. Alas! ought I to praise God? Is one not happier to be done with all this misery!
Tom is at the head of the convoy. At a moment when his son Bat made a turn, the fork was presented obliquely, and Tom was able to see me.
I search in vain for old Nan. Is she in the central group? or has she perished during that frightful night?
The next day, passed the limit of the inundated plain, after twenty-four hours in the water. We halt on a hill. The sun dries us a little. We eat, but what miserable food! A little tapioca, a few handfuls of maize. Nothing but the troubled water to drink. Prisoners extended on the ground—how many will not get up!
No! it is not possible that Mrs. Weldon and her son have passed through so much misery! God would be so gracious to them as to have them led to Kazounde by another road. The unhappy mother could not resist.
New case of small-pox in the caravan; the “ndoue,” as they say. The sick could not be able to go far. Will they abandon them?
May 9th.—They have begun the march again at sunrise. No laggards. The overseer’s whip has quickly raised those overcome by fatigue or sickness. Those slaves have a value; they are money. The agents will not leave them behind while they have strength enough to march.
I am surrounded by living skeletons. They have no longer voice enough to complain. I have seen old Nan at last. She is a sad sight. The child she was carrying is no longer in her arms. She is alone, too. That will be less painful for her; but the chain is still around her waist, and she has been obliged to throw the end over her shoulder.
By hastening, I have been able to draw near her. One would say that she did not recognize me. Am I, then, changed to that extent?
“Nan,” I said.
The old servant looked at me a long time, and then she exclaimed:
“You, Mr. Dick! I—I—before long I shall be dead!”
“No, no! Courage!” I replied, while my eyes fell so as not to see what was only the unfortunate woman’s bloodless specter.
“Dead!” she continued; “and I shall not see my dear mistress again, nor my little Jack. My God! my God! have pity on me!”
I wished to support old Nan, whose whole body trembled under her torn clothing. It would have been a mercy to see myself tied to her, and to carry my part of that chain, whose whole weight she bore since her companion’s death.
A strong arm pushes me back, and the unhappy Nan is thrown back into the crowd of slaves, lashed by the whips. I wished to throw myself on that brutal——The Arab chief appears, seizes my arm, and holds me till I find myself again in the caravan’s last rank.
Then, in his turn, he pronounces the name, “Negoro!”
Negoro! It is then by the Portuguese’s orders that he acts and treats me differently from my companions in misfortune?
For what fate am I reserved?
May 10th.—To-day passed near two villages in flames. The stubble burns on all sides. Dead bodies are hung from the trees the fire has spared. Population fled.
Fields devastated. The razzie is exercised there. Two hundred murders, perhaps, to obtain a dozen slaves.
Evening has arrived. Halt for the night. Camp made under great trees. High shrubs forming a thicket on the border of the forest.
Some prisoners fled the night before, after breaking their forks. They have been retaken, and treated with unprecedented cruelty.