I Am Led Into Captivity

I was aroused next morning by a vigorous shaking, and, opening my eyes, found Abduláhi Dan-jiwa bending over me.

“Come, rouse up, thou sluggard,” said he, giving me another gentle shake that was like to have dislocated my shoulder; “the sun is up and I have found a lovely stream of pure water. Come and bathe so that we begin the day all fresh and clean.”

I rose and rubbed my eyes, yawning sleepily, for I was none the livelier for my nocturnal adventures; but I slipped off my riga, and folding it up neatly on the mat, followed my big friend who was frisking along with the buoyancy of a child.

The river was one of those beautiful little streams that are so plentiful in North Ashanti, whose crystal-clear waters trickle over beds of white sand between high banks carpeted with moss and fringed with lacy, delicate ferns.

Several of our people were already splashing about in the water, and when Abduláhi and I, flinging our remaining clothes down on the bank, leaped in and joined the party, a regular water frolic began; and as I watched these boisterous, high-spirited Africans chasing one another up and down the stream, sousing one another with water, and shouting with laughter and delight, my thoughts went back to the far-away Kentish shore and the sun-browned fisher-boys who gambol in the pools when the tide is out in the long summer days.

The fun was at its height when a loud shouting in the camp attracted our attention.

We stopped our play and listened.

Plainly enough the sound came down the wind, and we could clearly distinguish angry voices raised in high dispute. With one accord we rushed to the bank, and huddling on our clothes, ran off at top speed in the direction of the camp.

And as we came out into the opening I saw at a glance that there was going to be very serious trouble—for me at least. A party of some thirty natives, all armed with long muskets, stood at a little distance, motionless but alert, and close by the fire half-a-dozen men, whose cowrie ornaments showed them to be fetish priests, were talking excitedly to our companions. As I appeared, one of these men, whose head was bound up with a blood-stained rag, pointed to me, and I then noticed that my riga lay at his feet, and that he held in his hand the sinker with its coil of line.

“What is this thing that thou hast done, Yúsufu, fool that thou art?” exclaimed Musa, furiously, as I came up. “Did I not tell thee that thy folly would bring a mischief on us?”

“What say the wizards, my father?” I asked meekly, for my conscience was mighty sore at having brought this trouble upon my friends.

“This man saith thou hast killed one of his brethren, and also hast robbed the river god of his gold.”

“As to the man,” said I, “he fell into the water as we struggled together and the great fishes devoured him, and as to the gold I found none.”

“What, then, is this?” demanded Musa, taking the sinker from the fetish man’s hand and picking up the rag with the fragment of muddy grease in it. “What hast thou to say to these? Are they not thine?”

“They are mine, my father, but they are not gold,” said I.

He held out the rag with one hand and with the other presented the sinker with its arming still covered with mud.

“What is this on the shea butter, and what is sticking to this iron?” he asked.

“Surely it is dirt,” said I.

“It is very precious dirt,” he replied. “Look more closely.”

I did so, and then, to my amazement, I perceived that the mud was charged with gold dust; but so minute were the particles that it was only on the closest inspection that they could be distinguished amidst the grey deposit with which they were mixed.

“I see now,” said I, “there is gold among the dirt. I was deceived in the darkness.”

“The wizards speak the truth, then,” said he. “Thou didst go to rob their god?”

“It is so, my father,” I answered.

“Then I fear thou wilt pay a heavy price for thy folly,” rejoined Musa. “The wizards say that thou must go with them.”

“And what will they do with me?”

“That I know not,” he replied; “but I fear they mean to kill thee.”

“And if I will not go with them?”

“Then,” said Musa, “they will kill thee and us also.”

“It is enough, my father,” said I. “I will go with the wizards.”

Our people had gathered round to listen and, as the evidence of my misdoing had come to light, they, like Musa, had been highly incensed with me for thus bringing them into collision with the natives. But my frank acceptance of the responsibility for my actions mollified them considerably, and now the tide was suddenly turned in my favour by Abduláhi.

“This cannot be,” he exclaimed. “What! shall a servant of the true God be delivered into the hands of these devil-worshippers? Thou knowest, my father, how these heathen deal with their prisoners, and Alhassan hath told us what things are done by this people. Let us refuse, and then, if they will have it so, we will fight them.”

Musa looked round irresolutely. His anger had quite evaporated, and he was evidently loth to let me go to what he suspected would be a horrible death.

“What say you, my brethren?” he asked. “Shall we fight the heathen?”

“No,” I interrupted, “you shall not fight. For one thing, they are too many and have guns; but also the fault is mine, and if any blood is to be spilt it must be mine, too,” and by way of ending the debate I walked over to the fetish men, one of whom immediately seized me by the wrist.

“Thou shalt not go, Yúsufu,” cried the warm-hearted Abduláhi, bursting into tears and trying to drag me away. But I gently pushed him off, and as the armed men closed round me, Musa and Dam-Bornu held the weeping giant by the arms that he might not attack my captors.

The business was now brought quickly to a conclusion. Two of the fetish-men took me by the arms, the rest of the party surrounded me, and I was marched off without more ceremony. I turned to take a last look at the camp as we moved away. Our people were all talking with furious excitement, pointing and shaking their fists at the retreating natives, and I could see the big, soft-hearted Abduláhi lying prone on the ground, rending his clothes and sobbing aloud.

As long as we were within sight of the camp no affront or violence was offered to me, for the pagans evidently had no desire to come to blows with the Hausas; but no sooner was the camp hidden from view than my captors began to give me a taste of their quality. First my arms were tightly bound to my sides with grass-rope, and when I had thus been rendered helpless, the ruffian with the bandaged head dealt me a heavy blow across the shoulders with his staff. Then a halter was fastened round my neck and the end taken by one of the fetish-men, who started off at a trot, dragging me after him.

We soon branched off the main road, and taking a forest path that I had not noticed before, travelled on rapidly for over half an hour in a direction which I roughly calculated would bring us to the neighbourhood of the pool. Presently we entered a large village where a crowd, largely composed of women and children, had assembled, apparently in expectation of our arrival.

Down the main street of the village I was dragged in the midst of this mob, almost deafened by the uproar of their shouting, and nearly choked by the dust, until we reached a large open space, in the centre of which stood a gigantic silk-cotton tree. At the foot of this tree, wedged in between two of the great root-buttresses, was a hut built of palm sticks, and, as we approached it, a swarm of smallish dog-faced monkeys ambled out and sat down at a little distance to watch us.

The door of the hut being removed, I was taken inside and my halter tied securely to one of the uprights, and then all the men went away with the exception of the fellow with the bandaged head, who remained behind apparently to gloat over my downfall. He came and stood before me, holding my unfortunate sinker in his hand and, thrusting his ugly countenance within an inch of my face, delivered a long and excited harangue, of which I, naturally, understood not a word. Then he held up the sinker before my face and put to me what I supposed to be a number of questions about it, and when I returned no answer, he slashed me across the face with his stick, and followed this up by several blows about my fettered arms and shoulders.