a blow on the head with a spear-staff, Saramba
gave a c ry as a club descended on his back.
I sprang up this time to remonstrate, with the
two revolvers in my left hand. I addressed myself
to an elder, who seemed to be restraining the
people from proceeding too far. I showed him
beads, cloth, wire, and invoked the names o f
Mtesa, and Antari their king.
T he sight o f the heaps o f beads and cloth I
exposed awakened, however, the more deliberate
passions o f selfishness and greed in each heart.
A n attempt at massacre, th ey began to argue,
would certainly entail the loss o f some o f
themselves. “ Guns might be seized and handled
with terrible effect even b y dying men, and
who knows what those little iron things in the
white man’s hands are?” th e y seemed to be
asking themselves. T he elder, whatever he
thought, responded with an affectation o f indignation,
raised his stick, and to right and left
o f him drove back the demoniac crowd. Other
prominent men now assisted this elder, whom
we subsequently discovered to be Sh ekk a, the
king o f Bumbireh.
Shekka then, having thus bestirred himself,
beckoned to half a dozen men and walked away
a few yards behind the mass. It was the “ shauri,”
dear to a free and independent African’s heart,
that was about to be held. Half the crowd
followed the king and his council, while the other
half remained to indulge their violent, vituperative
tongues on us, and to continually menace us
with either club or spear. An audacious party
came round the stern o f the boat and, with
superlatively hideous gestures, affronted me; one
o f them even gave a tug at my hair, thinking
it was a wig. I revenged myself b y seizing his
hand, and suddenly bending it back almost
dislocated it, causing him to howl with pain.
His comrades swayed their lances, but I smilingly
looked at them, for all idea o f self-preservation
had now almost fled.
The issue had surely arrived. There had been
just one brief moment o f agony when I reflected
how unlovely death appears in such guise as
that in which it then threatened me. What
would my people think as they anxiously waited
for the never returning master! What would
Pocock and Barker sa y when they heard o f the
tragedy o f Bumbireh! And my friends in America
and Europe! “ T u t, it is only a brief moment
o f pain, and then what can the ferocious dogs
do more? It is a consolation that, if anything,
it will be short, sharp, sudden— a gasp, and then
a silence— for ever and e v e r !” A n d after that
I was ready for the fight and for death.
“ Now, my black friends, do your worst; anything
yo u choose; I am ready.”
A messenger from the king and the council
arrives, and beckons Safeni. I said to him,