The G.A. Henty

by G. A. Henty

  Three days afterwards they were told that the king wished to see them in his palace. This was a large building situated at the extremity of the town. It was constructed of stone, and was evidently built from European designs. It was square, with a flat roof and embattled parapet. They were conducted through the gateway into a large courtyard, and then into a hall where the king sat upon a raised throne. Attendants stood round fanning him.

  “Why,” he asked abruptly as they took their places before him, “do the English take my town of Elmina?”

  Mr. Goodenough explained that he had been nine months absent from the coast, and that having come straight out from England he was altogether unaware of what had happened at Elmina.

  “Elmina is mine,” the king said. “The Dutch, who were my tributaries, had no right to hand it over to the English.”

  “But I understood, your majesty, that the English were ready to pay an annual sum, even larger than that which the Dutch have contributed.”

  “I do not want money,” the king said. “I have gold in plenty. There are places in my dominions where ten men in a day can wash a thousand ounces. I want Elmina, I want to trade with the coast.”

  “But the English will give your majesty every facility for trade.”

  “But suppose we quarrel,” the king said, “they can stop powder and guns from coming up. If Elmina were mine I could bring up guns and powder at all times.”

  “Your majesty would be no better off,” Mr. Goodenough said; “for the English in case of war could stop supplies from entering.”

  “My people will drive them into the sea,” the king said. “We have been troubled with them too long. They can make guns, but they cannot fight. My people will eat them up. We fought them before; and see,” he said pointing to a great drum, from the edge of which hung a dozen human skulls, “the heads of the White men serve to make a fetish for me.”

  He then waved his hand to signify that the audience was terminated.

  “Things look bad, Frank,” Mr. Goodenough said as they walked towards their home. “I fear that the king is determined upon war, and if so our lives are not worth a month’s purchase.”

  “It can’t be helped,” Frank said as cheerfully as he could. “We must make the best of it. Perhaps something may occur to improve our position.”

  The next day the four German missionaries, who had so long been kept captive, called upon them, and they obtained a full insight into the position. This seemed more hopeful than the king’s words had given them to expect. The missionaries said that negotiations were going on for their release, and that they expected very shortly to be sent down to Cape Coast. So far as they knew everything was being done by the English to satisfy the king, and they looked upon the establishment of peace as certain. They described the horrible rites and sacrifices which they had been compelled to witness, and said that at least three thousand persons were slaughtered annually in Coomassie.

  “You noticed,” one of them said, “the great tree in the marketplace under which the king sat. That is the great fetish tree. A great many victims are sacrificed in the palace itself, but the wholesale slaughters take place there. The high brushwood comes up to within twenty yards of it, and if you turn in there you will see thousands of dead bodies or their remains putrefying together.”

  “I thought I felt a horribly offensive smell as I was talking to the king,” Frank said shuddering. “What monsters these people must be! Who would have thought that all that show of gold and silver and silks and bright colors covered such horrible barbarism!”

  After chatting for some time longer, and offering to do anything in their power to assist the captives, the Germans took their leave.

  CHAPTER XVII

  THE INVASION OF FANTI LAND

  The following morning Mr. Goodenough and Frank were called to the door by the noise of a passing crowd, and to their horror saw a man being taken to sacrifice. He was preceded by men beating drums, his hands were pinioned behind him. A sharp thin knife was passed through his cheeks, to which his lips were noozed like the figure 8. One ear was cut off and carried before him, the other hung to his head by a small piece of skin. There were several gashes in his back, and a knife was thrust under each shoulder blade. He was led by a cord passed through a hole bored in his nose. Frank ran horror stricken back into the house, and sat for a while with his hand over his eyes as if to shut out the ghastly spectacle.

  “Mr. Goodenough,” he said presently, “if we are to be killed, at least let us die fighting to the last, and blow out our own brains with the last shots we have left. I don’t think I’m afraid of being killed, but to be tortured like that would be horrible.”

  The next day a message was brought them that their retaining private guards was an insult to the king, and that the Houssas must remove to another part of the town. Resistance was evidently useless. Mr. Goodenough called his four men together and told them what had happened.

  “I am sorry I have brought you into this plight, my poor fellows,” he said. “There are now but two things open to you. You can either volunteer to join the king’s army and then try to make your escape as an opportunity may offer, or slip away at once. You are accustomed to the woods, and in native costume might pass without notice. You can all swim, and it matters not where you strike the Prah. If you travel at night and lie in the woods by day you should be able to get through. At any rate you know that if you try to escape and are caught you will be killed. If you stop here it is possible that no harm may happen to you, but on the other hand you may at any moment be led out to sacrifice. Do not tell me your decision; I shall be questioned, and would rather be able to say that I was ignorant that you intended to escape. There is one other thing to settle. There is a long arrear of pay due to you for your good and faithful service. It would be useless for me to pay you now, as the money might be found on you and taken away, and if you should be killed it would be lost to your friends. I have written here four orders on my banker in England, which the agents down at Cape Coast will readily cash for you. Each order is for twice the sum due to you. As you have come into such great danger in my service, and have behaved so faithfully, it is right that you should be well rewarded. Give me the names of your wives or relatives whom you wish to have the money. Should any of you fall and escape, I will, on my arrival at Cape Coast, send money, double the amount I have written here, to them.”

  The men expressed themselves warmly grateful for Mr. Goodenough’s kindness, gave him the names and addresses of their wives, and then, with tears in their eyes, took their leave.

  “Now, Ostik, what do you say?” Mr. Goodenough asked, turning to him.

  “I stay here, sar,” Ostik said. “Houssas fighting men, creep through wood, crawl on stomach. Dey get through sure enough. Ostik stay with massa. If dey kill massa dey kill Ostik. Ostik take chance.”

  “Very well, Ostik, if we get through safe together you shall not have reason to regret your fidelity. Now, Frank, I think it would be a good thing if you were to spend some hours every day in trying to pick up as much of the language here as you can. You are quick at it, and were able to make yourself understood by our bearers far better than I could do. You already know a great many words in four or five of these dialects. They are all related to each other, and with what you know you would in a couple of months be able to get along very well in Ashanti. It will help to pass your time and to occupy your mind. There will be no difficulty in finding men here who have worked down on the coast and know a little English. If we get away safely you will not regret that your time has been employed. If we have trouble your knowledge of the language may in some way or other be of real use to you. We can go round to the Germans, who will, no doubt, be able to put you in the way of getting a man.”

  The next day they were again sent for to the king, who was in a high state of anger at having heard that the Houssas had escaped.

  “I know nothing about it,” Mr. Goodenough said. “They were contented when they were with m
e, and had no wish to go. Your soldiers took them away yesterday afternoon, and I suppose they were frightened. It was foolish of them. They should have known that a great king does not injure travelers who come peacefully into his country. They should have known better. They were poor, ignorant men, who did not know that the hospitality of a king is sacred, and that when a king invites travelers to enter his country they are his guests, and under his protection.”

  When the interpreter translated this speech the king was silent for two or three minutes. Then he said, “My white friend is right, They were foolish men. They could not know these things. If my warriors overtake them no harm shall come to them.”

  Pleased with the impression that his words had evidently made Mr. Goodenough returned to Frank, who had not been ordered to accompany him to the palace. In the afternoon the king sent a sheep and a present of five ounces of gold, and a message that he did not wish his white friends to remain always in the town, but that they might walk to any of the villages within a circle of three or four miles, and that four of his guards would always accompany them to see that no one interfered with or insulted them. They were much pleased with this permission, as they were now enabled to renew their work of collecting. It took them, too, away from the sight of the horrible human sacrifices which went on daily. Through the German missionaries they obtained a man who had worked for three years down at Cape Coast. He accompanied them on their walks, and in the evening sat and talked with Frank, who, from the knowledge of native words which he had picked up in his nine months’ residence in Africa, was able to make rapid progress in Ashanti. He had one or two slight attacks of fever, but the constant use of quinine enabled him to resist their effect, and he was now to some degree acclimatized, and thought no more of the attacks of fever than he would have done at home of a violent bilious attack.

  This was not the case with Mr. Goodenough. Frank observed with concern that he lost strength rapidly, and was soon unable to accompany him in his walks. One morning he appeared very ill.

  “Have you a touch of fever, sir?”

  “No, Frank, it is worse than fever, it is dysentery. I had an attack last time I was on the coast, and know what to do with it. Get the medicine chest and bring me the bottle of ipecacuanha. Now, you must give me doses of this just strong enough not to act as an emetic, every three hours.”

  Frank nursed his friend assiduously, and for the next three days hoped that he was obtaining a mastery over the illness. On the fourth day an attack of fever set in.

  “You must stop the ipecacuanha, now,” Mr. Goodenough said, “and Frank, send Ostik round to the Germans, and say I wish them to come here at once.”

  When these arrived Mr. Goodenough asked Frank to leave him alone with them. A quarter of an hour later they went out, and Frank, returning, found two sealed envelopes on the table beside him.

  “My boy,” he said, “I have been making my will. I fear that it is all over with me. Fever and dysentery together are in nine cases out of ten fatal. Don’t cry, Frank,” he said, as the lad burst into tears. “I would gladly have lived, but if it is God’s will that it should be otherwise, so be it. I have no wife or near relatives to regret my loss—none, my poor boy, who will mourn for me as sincerely as I know that you will do. In the year that we have been together I have come to look upon you as my son, and you will find that I have not forgotten you in my will. I have written it in duplicate. If you have an opportunity send one of these letters down to the coast. Keep the other yourself, and I trust that you will live to carry it to its destination. Should it not be so, should the worst come to the worst, it will be a consolation to you to know that I have not forgotten the little sister of whom you have spoken to me so often, and that in case of your death she will be provided for.”

  An hour later Mr. Goodenough was in a state of delirium, in which he remained all night, falling towards morning into a dull coma, gradually breathing his last, without any return of sensibility, at eight in the morning.

  Frank was utterly prostrated with grief, from which he roused himself to send to the king to ask permission to bury his friend.

  The king sent down to say how grieved he was to hear of the white man’s death. He had ordered many of his warriors to attend his funeral. Frank had a grave dug on a rising spot of ground beyond the marsh. In the evening a great number of the warriors gathered round the house, and upon the shoulders of four of them Mr. Goodenough was conveyed to his last resting place, Frank and the German missionaries following with a great crowd of warriors. The missionaries read the service over the grave, and Frank returned heart broken to his house, with Ostik, who also felt terribly the loss of his master.

  Two days later a wooden cross was erected over the grave. Upon this Frank carved the name of his friend. Hearing a week afterwards that the king was sending down a messenger to Cape Coast, Frank asked permission to send Mr. Goodenough’s letter by him. The king sent for him.

  “I do not wish any more troubles,” he said, “or that letters should be sent to the governor. You are my guest. When the troubles are settled I will send you down to the coast; but we have many things to write about, and I do not want more subjects for talk.”

  Frank showed the letter and read the address, and told the king that it was only a letter to the man of business of Mr. Goodenough in England, giving directions for the disposal of his property there.

  The king then consented that his messenger should take the letter.

  At the end of December, when Frank had been nearly three months at Coomassie, one of the Germans said to him:

  “The king speaks fairly, and seems intent upon his negotiations; but he is preparing secretly for war. An army is collecting on the Prah. I hear that twelve thousand men are ordered to assemble there.”

  “I have noticed,” Frank said, “that there have been fewer men about than usual during the last few days. What will happen to us, do you think?”

  The missionary shook his head.

  “No one can say,” he said. “It all depends upon the king’s humor. I think, however, that he is more likely to keep us as hostages, and to obtain money for us at the end of the war, than to kill us. If all goes well with his army we are probably safe; but if the news comes of any defeat, he may in his rage order us to be executed.”

  “What do you think are the chances of defeat?” Frank asked.

  “We know not,” the missionary said; “but it seems probable that the Ashantis will turn the English out of the coast. The Fantis are of no use. They were a brave people once, and united might have made a successful resistance to the Ashantis; but you English have made women of them. You have forbidden them to fight among themselves, you have discouraged them in any attempts to raise armies, you have reduced the power of the chiefs, you have tried to turn them into a race of cultivators and traders instead of warriors, and you can expect no material aid from them now. They will melt away like snow before the Ashantis. The king’s spies tell him that there are only a hundred and fifty black troops at Cape Coast. These are trained and led by Englishmen, but, after all, they are only negroes, no braver than the Ashantis. What chance have they of resisting an army nearly a hundred to one stronger than themselves?”

  “Is the fort at Cape Coast strong?” Frank asked.

  “Yes, against savages without cannon. Besides, the guns of the ships of war would cover it.”

  “Well,” Frank said, “if we can hold that, they will send out troops from England.”

  “They may do so,” the missionary asserted; “but what could white troops do in the fever haunted forests, which extend from Coomassie to the coast?”

  “They will manage somehow,” Frank replied confidently. “Besides, after all, as I hear that the great portion of Ashanti lying beyond this is plain and open country, the Ashantis themselves cannot be all accustomed to bush fighting, and will suffer from fever in the low, swamp land.”

  Three days later the king sent for Frank.

  “The English are not
true,” he said angrily. “They promised the people of Elmina that they should be allowed to retain all their customs as under the Dutch. They have broken their word. They have forbidden the customs. The people of Elmina have written to me to ask me to deliver them. I am going to do so.”

  Frank afterwards learned that the king’s words were true. Colonel Harley, the military commandant, having, with almost incredible fatuity, and in spite of the agreement which had been made with the Elminas, summoned their king and chiefs to a council, and abruptly told them that they would not be allowed henceforth to celebrate their customs, which consisted of firing of guns, waving of flags, dancing, and other harmless rites. The chiefs, greatly indignant at this breach of the agreement, solemnly entered into with them, at once, on leaving the council, wrote to the King of Ashanti, begging him to cross the Prah and attack the English. Frank could only say that he knew nothing of what was going on at the coast, and could only think that his majesty must have been misinformed, as the English wished to be friendly with the Ashantis.

  “They do not wish it,” the king said furiously; “they are liars.”

  A buzz of approval sounded among the cabooceers and captains standing round. Frank thought that he was about to be ordered to instant execution, and grasped a revolver, which he held in his pocket, resolving to shoot the king first, and then to blow out his own brains, rather than to be put to the horrible tortures which in Ashanti always precede death.

  Presently the king said suddenly to him:

  “My people tell me that you can talk to them in their own tongue.”

  “I have learnt a little Ashanti,” Frank said in that language. “I cannot talk well, but I can make myself understood.”