Un capitaine de quinze ans. English

by Jules Verne

  CHAPTER XIV.

  A RAY OF HOPE.

  Mrs. Weldon's first feeling on being left alone was a sense of reliefat having a week's respite. She had no trust in Negoro's honesty, butshe knew well enough that their "marketable value" would secure themfrom any personal danger, and she had time to consider whether somecompromise might be effected by which her husband might be spared thenecessity of coming to Kazonnde. Upon the receipt of a letter fromherself, he would not hesitate for a moment in undertaking the journey,but she entertained no little fear that after all perhaps her owndeparture might not be permitted; the slightest caprice on the part ofQueen Moena would detain her as a captive, whilst as to Negoro, if oncehe should get the ransom he wanted, he would take no further pains inthe matter.

  Accordingly, she resolved to make the proposition that she should beconveyed to some point upon the coast, where the bargain could beconcluded without Mr. Weldon's coming up the country.

  She had to weigh all the consequences that would follow any refusal onher part to fall in with Negoro's demands. Of course, he would spendthe interval in preparing for his start to America, and when he shouldcome back and find her still hesitating, was it not likely that hewould find scope for his revenge in suggesting that she must beseparated from her child.

  The very thought sent a pang through her heart, and she clasped herlittle boy tenderly to her side.

  "What makes you so sad, mamma?" asked Jack.

  "I was thinking of your father, my child," she answered; "would you notlike to see him?"

  "Yes, yes; is he coming here?"

  "No, my boy, he must not come here."

  "Then let us take Dick, and Tom, and Hercules, and go to him."

  Mrs. Weldon tried to conceal her tears.

  "Have you heard from papa?"

  "No."

  "Then why do you not write to him?"

  "Write to him?" repeated his mother, "that is the very thing I wasthinking about."

  The child little knew the agitation that was troubling her mind.

  Meanwhile Mrs. Weldon had another inducement which she hardly venturedto own to herself for postponing her final decision. Was it absolutelyimpossible that her liberation should be effected by some differentmeans altogether?

  A few days previously she had overheard a conversation outside her hut,and over this she had found herself continually pondering.

  Alvez and one of the Ujiji dealers, discussing the future prospects oftheir business, mutually agreed in denouncing the efforts that werebeing made for the suppression of the slave-traffic, not only by thecruisers on the coast, but by the intrusion of travellers andmissionaries into the interior.

  Alvez averred that all these troublesome visitors ought to beexterminated forthwith.

  "But kill one, and another crops up," replied the dealer.

  "Yes, their exaggerated reports bring up a swarm of them," said Alvez.

  It seemed a subject of bitter complaint that the markets of Nyangwe,Zanzibar, and the lake-district had been invaded by Speke and Grant andothers, and although they congratulated each other that the westernprovinces had not yet been much persecuted, they confessed that nowthat the travelling epidemic had begun to rage, there was no tellinghow soon a lot of European and American busy-bodies might be amongthem. Thedepots at Cassange and Bihe had both been visited, andalthough Kazonnde had hitherto been left quiet, there were rumoursenough that the continent was to be tramped over from east to west.[1]

  [Footnote: This extraordinary feat was, it is universally known,subsequently accomplished by Cameron.]

  "And it may be," continued Alvez, "that that missionary fellow,Livingstone, is already on his way to us; if he comes there can be butone result; there must be freedom for all the slaves in Kazonnde."

  "Freedom for the slaves in Kazonnde!" These were the words which inconnexion with Dr. Livingstone's name had arrested Mrs. Weldon'sattention, and who can wonder that she pondered them over and overagain, and ventured to associate them with her own prospects?

  Here was a ray of hope!

  The mere mention of Livingstone's name in association with this storyseems to demand a brief survey of his career.

  Born on the 19th of March, 1813, David Livingstone was the second ofsix children of a tradesman in the village of Blantyre, in Lanarkshire.After two years' training in medicine and theology, he was sent out bythe London Missionary Society, and landed at the Cape of Good Hope in1840, with the intention of joining Moffat in South Africa. Afterexploring the country of the Bechuanas, he returned to Kuruman, and,having married Moffat's daughter, proceeded in 1843 to found a missionin the Mabotsa valley.

  After four years he removed to Kolobeng in the Bechuana district, 225miles north of Kuruman, whence, in 1849, starting off with his wife,three children, and two friends, Mr. Oswell and Mr. Murray, hediscovered Lake Ngami, and returned by descending the course of theZouga.

  The opposition of the natives had prevented his proceeding beyond LakeNgami at his first visit, and he made a second with no better success.In a third attempt, however, he wended his way northwards with hisfamily and Mr. Oswell along the Chobe, an affluent of the Zambesi, andafter a difficult journey at length reached the district of theMakalolos, of whom the chief, named Sebituane, joined him at Linyante.The Zambesi itself was discovered at the end of June, 1851, and thedoctor returned to the Cape for the purpose of sending his family toEngland.

  Dr. Livingstone. _Page_ 408.]

  His next project was to cross the continent obliquely from south towest, but in this expedition he had resolved that he would risk no lifebut his own. Accompanied, therefore, by only a few natives, he startedin the following June, and skirting the Kalahari desert enteredLitoubarouba on the last day of the year; here he found the Bechuanadistrict much ravaged by the Boers, the original Dutch colonists, whohad formed the population of the Cape before it came into thepossession of the English. After a fortnight's stay, he proceeded intothe heart of the district of the Bamangonatos, and travelledcontinuously until the 23rd of May, when he arrived at Linyante, andwas received with much honour by Sekeletoo, who had recently becomesovereign of the Makalolos. A severe attack of fever detained thetraveller here for a period, but he made good use of the enforced restby studying the manners of the country, and became for the first timesensible of its terrible sufferings in consequence of the slave-trade.

  Descending the course of the Chobe to the Zambesi, he next enteredNaniele, and after visiting Katonga and Libonta, advanced to the pointof confluence of the Leeba with the Zambesi, where he determined uponascending the former as far as the Portuguese possessions in the west;it was an undertaking, however, that required considerable preparation,so that it was necessary for him to return to Linyante.

  On the 11th of November he again started. He was accompanied bytwenty-seven Makalolos, and ascended the Leeba till, in the territoryof the Balonda, he reached a spot where it received the waters of itstributary the Makondo.

  It was the first time a white man had ever penetrated so far.

  Proceeding on their way, they arrived at the residence of Shinte, themost powerful of the chieftains of the Balonda, by whom they were wellreceived, and having met with equal kindness from Kateema, a ruler onthe other side of the Leeba, they encamped, on the 20th of February,1853, on the banks of Lake Dilolo.

  Here it was that the real difficulty commenced; the arduous travelling,the attacks of the natives, and their exorbitant demands, theconspiracies of his own attendants and their desertions, would soonhave caused any one of less energy to abandon his enterprise; but DavidLivingstone was not a man to be daunted; resolutely he persevered, andon the 4th of April reached the banks of the Coango, the stream thatforms the frontier of the Portuguese possessions, and joins the Zaireon the north.

  Six days later he passed through Cassange. Here it was that Alvez hadseen him. On the 31st of May he arrived at St. Paul de Loanda, havingtraversed the continent in about two years.

  It was not long, however, before he w
as off again. Following the banksof the Coanza, the river which was to bring such trying experiences toDick Sands and his party, he reached the Lombe, and having met numbersof slave-caravans on his way, again passed through Cassange, crossedthe Coango, and reached the Zambesi at Kewawa. By the 8th of thefollowing June he was again at Lake Dilolo, and descending the river,he re-entered Linyante. Here he stayed till the 3rd of November, whenhe commenced his second great journey, which was to carry himcompletely across Africa from west to east.

  After visiting the famed Victoria Falls, the intrepid explorer quittedthe Zambesi, and took a north-easterly route. The transit of theterritory of the Batokas, a people brutalized by the inhalation ofhemp; a visit to Semalemboni the powerful chief of the district; thepassage of the Kafoni; a visit to king Mbourouma; an inspection of theruins of Zumbo, an old Portuguese town; a meeting with the chiefMpende, at that time at war with the Portuguese, these were theprincipal events of this journey, and on the 22nd of April, Livingstoneleft Tete, and having descended the river as far as its delta, reachedQuilimane, just four years after his last departure from the Cape. Onthe 12th of July he embarked for the Mauritius, and on the 22nd ofDecember, 1856, he landed in England after an absence of sixteen years.

  With none to guide him except a few natives.]

  Loaded with honours by the Geographical Societies of London and Paris,brilliantly entertained by all ranks, it would have been no matter ofsurprise if he had surrendered himself to a well-earned repose; but nothought of permanent rest occurred to him, and on the 1st of March,1858, accompanied by his brother Charles, Captain Bedingfield, Dr.Kirk, Dr. Miller, Mr. Thornton, and Mr. Baines, he started again, withthe intention of exploring the basin of the Zambesi, and arrived in duetime at the coast of Mozambique.

  The party ascended the great river by the Kongone mouth; they were onboard a small steamer named the "Ma-Robert," and reached Tete on the8th of September.

  During the following year they investigated the lower course of theZambesi, and its left affluent the Shire, and having visited LakeShirwa, they explored the territory of the Manganjas, and discoveredLake Nyassa. In August, 1860, they returned to the Victoria Falls.

  Early in the following year, Bishop Mackenzie and his missionary staffarrived at the mouth of the Zambesi.

  In March an exploration of the Rovouma was made on board the "Pioneer,"the exploring party returning afterwards to Lake Nyassa, where theyremained a considerable time. The 30th of January, 1862, was signalizedby the arrival of Mrs. Livingstone, and by the addition of anothersteamer, the "Lady Nyassa;" but the happiness of reunion was verytransient; it was but a short time before the enthusiastic BishopMackenzie succumbed to the unhealthiness of the climate, and on the27th of April Mrs. Livingstone expired in her husband's arms.

  A second investigation of the Rovouma soon followed and at the end ofNovember the doctor returned to the Zambesi, and reascended the Shire.In the spring of 1803 he lost his companion Mr. Thornton, and as hisbrother and Dr. Kirk were both much debilitated, he insisted upon theirreturn to Europe, while he himself returned for the third time to LakeNyassa, and completed the hydrographical survey which already he hadbegun.

  A few months later found him once more at the mouth of the Zambesi;thence he crossed over to Zanzibar, and after five years' absencearrived in London, where he published his work, "The exploration of theZambesi and its affluents."

  Still unwearied and insatiable in his longings, he was back again inZanzibar at the commencement of 1866, ready to begin his fourthjourney, this time attended only by a few sepoys and negroes.Witnessing on his way some horrible scenes which were perpetrated asthe result of the prosecution of the slave-trade, he proceeded toMokalaose on the shores of Lake Nyassa, where nearly all his attendantsdeserted him, and returned to Zanzibar with the report that he was dead.

  Dr. Livingstone meanwhile was not only alive, but undaunted in hisdetermination to visit the country between the two lakes Nyassa andTanganyika. With none to guide him except a few natives, he crossed theLoangona, and in the following April discovered Lake Liemmba. Here helay for a whole month hovering between life and death, but rallying alittle he pushed on to the north shore of Lake Moero. Taking up hisquarters at Cazembe for six weeks, he made two separate explorations ofthe lake, and then started farther northwards, intending to reachUjiji, an important town upon Lake Tanganyika; overtaken, however, byfloods, and again abandoned by his servants, he was obliged to retracehis steps. Six weeks afterwards he had made his way southwards to thegreat lake Bangweolo, whence once more he started towards Tanganyika.

  This last effort was most trying, and the doctor had grown so weak thathe was obliged to be carried, but he reached Ujiji, where he wasgratified by finding some supplies that had been thoughtfully forwardedto him by the Oriental Society at Calcutta.

  "You are Dr. Livingstone, I presume?"]

  His great aim now was to ascend the lake, and reach the sources of theNile. On the 21st of September he was at Bambarre, in the country ofthe cannibal Manyuema, upon the Lualaba, the river afterwardsascertained by Stanley to be the Upper Zaire or Congo. At Mamobela thedoctor was ill for twenty-four days, tended only by three followers whocontinued faithful; but in July he made a vigorous effort, and althoughhe was reduced to a skeleton, made his way back to Ujiji.

  During this long time no tidings of Livingstone reached Europe, andmany were the misgivings lest the rumours of his death were only tootrue. He was himself, too, almost despairing as to receiving any help.But help was closer at hand than he thought. On the 3rd of November,only eleven days after his return to Ujiji, some gun shots were heardwithin half a mile of the lake. The doctor went out to ascertain whencethey proceeded, and had not gone far before a white man stood beforehim.

  "You are Dr. Livingstone, I presume," said the stranger, raising hiscap.

  "Yes, sir, I am Dr. Livingstone, and am happy to see you," answered thedoctor, smiling kindly.

  The two shook each other warmly by the hand.

  The new arrival was Henry Stanley, the correspondent of the _New YorkHerald_, who had been sent out by Mr. Bennett, the editor, in search ofthe great African explorer. On receiving his orders in October, 1870,without a day's unnecessary delay he had embarked at Bombay forZanzibar, and, after a journey involving considerable peril, hadarrived safely at Ujiji.

  Very soon the two travellers found themselves on the best of terms, andset out together on an excursion to the north of Tanganyika. Theyproceeded as far as Cape Magala, and decided that the chief outlet ofthe lake must be an affluent of the Lualaba, a conclusion that wassubsequently confirmed by Cameron.

  Towards the end of the year Stanley began to prepare to return.Livingstone accompanied him as far as Kwihara, and on the 3rd of thefollowing March they parted.

  "You have done for me what few men would venture to do; I am trulygrateful," said Livingstone.

  Stanley could scarcely repress his tears as he expressed his hope thatthe doctor might be spared to return to his friends safe and well.

  "Good-bye!" said Stanley, choked with emotion.

  "Good-bye!" answered the veteran feebly.

  Thus they parted, and in July, 1872, Stanley landed at Marseilles.

  Again David Livingstone resumed his researches in the interior.

  After remaining five months at Kwihara he gathered together a retinueconsisting of his faithful followers Suzi, Chumah, Amoda, and JacobWainwright, and fifty-six men sent to him by Stanley, and lost no timein proceeding towards the south of Tanganyika. In the course of theensuing month the caravan encountered some frightful storms, butsucceeded in reaching Moura. There had previously been an extremedrought, which was now followed by the rainy season, which entailed theloss of many of the beasts of burden, in consequence of the bites ofthe tzetsy.

  On the 24th of January they were at Chitounkwe, and in April, afterrounding the east of Lake Bangweolo, they made their way towards thevillage of Chitambo. At this point it was that Livingstone had partedcompany with certain sl
ave-dealers, who had carried the information toold Alvez that the missionary traveller would very likely proceed byway of Loanda to Kazonnde.

  But on the 13th of June, the very day before Negoro reckoned onobtaining from Mrs. Weldon the letter which should be the means ofsecuring him a hundred thousand dollars, tidings were circulated in thedistrict that on the 1st of May Dr. Livingstone had breathed his last.

  The report proved perfectly true. On the 29th of April the caravan hadreached the village of Chitambo, the doctor so unwell that he wascarried on a litter. The following night he was in great pain, andafter repeatedly murmuring in a low voice, "Oh dear, oh dear!" he fellinto a kind of stupor. A short time afterwards he called up Suzi, andhaving asked for some medicine, told his attendant that he should notrequire anything more.

  "You can go now."

  About four o'clock next morning, when an anxious visit was made to hisroom, the doctor was found kneeling by the bed-side, his head in hishands, in the attitude of prayer. Suzi touched him, but his foreheadwas icy with the coldness of death. He had died in the night.

  His body was carried by those who loved him, and in spite of manyobstacles was brought to Zanzibar, whence, nine months after his death,it was conveyed to England. On the 12th of April, 1874, it was interredin Westminster Abbey, counted worthy to be deposited amongst those whomthe country most delights to honour.