CHAPTER XI. THE HUMAN SACRIFICE.

Kumassi, the capital of the Ashanti kingdom, was, we found, full of curious contrasts. We approached it through dense high elephant grass, along a little beaten foot-path strewn with fetish dolls. It was evening when we entered it, and drums could be heard rumbling and booming far and near. Presently we passed a cluster of the usual mud huts, then another; several other clusters were in sight with patches of high jungle grass between. Then in a bare open space some two hundred yards across, were huts, and more thatched roofs in the hollow beyond. This was Kumassi.

During that day three of our fellow-sufferers, knowing the horrible fate in store for them, managed to snatch knives from the belts of our captors and commit suicide before our eyes, preferring death by their own hands to decapitation by the executioners of Prempeh, that bloodthirsty monarch who has now happily been deposed by the British Government, but who at that time was sacrificing thousands of human lives annually, defiant and heedless of the remonstrances of civilized nations.

In size Kumassi came up to the standard I had formed of it. The streets were numerous, some half-dozen were broad and uniform, the main avenue being some seventy yards wide, and here and there along its length a great patriarchal tree spread its branches. The houses were wattled structures with alcoves and stuccoed façades, embellished with Moorish designs and coloured with red ochre. Red seemed the prevailing colour. Indeed it is stated on good authority that on one occasion Prempeh desired to stain the walls of his palace a darker red, and used the blood of a thousand victims for that purpose. Behind each of the pretentious buildings which fronted the streets were grouped the huts of the domestics, inclosing small courtyards.

Passing down this main avenue, where many people watched our dismal procession, we came to the grove whence issued the terrible smell which caused travellers to describe Kumassi as a vast charnel-house; we, however, did not halt there, but passed onward to the palace of Prempeh, situated about three hundred yards away and occupying a level area in the valley dividing the two eminences on which the town is situated. The first view of what was designated as the palace was a number of houses with steep thatched roofs clustered together and fenced around with split bamboo stakes, while at one corner rose a square two-storeyed stone building. The lower part of the lofty walls of stucco was stained deep red, probably by blood, and the upper part whitewashed.

Presumably our captors had received a commission from Prempeh to supply him with slaves for the sacrifice, for we were marched into a small courtyard of the palace itself and there allowed to rest until next day, being given a plentiful supply of well-cooked cankie, or maize pudding wrapped in plantain leaves. Our position was, we knew, extremely critical. Attired in the merest remnant of a waist cloth, with a thick noose of grass-rope securely knotted around our necks, we lay in the open court with the stars shining brilliantly above us, unable to sleep from the intensity of our feelings. In the next court there were more than a hundred unfortunates like ourselves huddled together, ready to be sacrificed on the morrow.

Soon after sunrise, while moodily awaiting our fate, we were made to stand up for inspection by one of the King's Ocras. These men were of three classes; the first being relatives of the King and entrusted with State secrets, were never sacrificed, the second were certain soldiers appointed by the king, and the third slaves. All, on account of their distinguished services, were exempt from taxes, palavers and military services, and were kept in splendid style by the Royal exchequer, those of the inferior classes being expected to sacrifice themselves upon the tomb of the king when he died.

The tall, rather handsome, man who inspected us was an Ocra of the first class, for he wore a massive gold circle like a quoit suspended around his neck by golden chains, and, walking beneath an enormous, gaudily-coloured silken umbrella bearing the crude device of a crouching leopard, was attended by a numerous retinue, who paid him the greatest respect.

The Arabs who had brought us there made him profound obeisance, while some members of the retinue snapped fingers with several of the Arabs, and the usual teetotal ceremony of drinking water to "cool the heads" was gone through. The inspection was a keen one, each of us being passed in review before the Ocra, who made brief comments to the Arabs at his side. As Omar passed the dark-faced official scrutinised him carefully and seemed interested to learn what the leader of the slave caravan told him in a tongue unknown to me regarding us both, for his gaze wandered from my companion to myself, and I was at once called out to pass before his keen glance. We were both kept there several minutes while the Arab presumably explained how we had been entrapped at the court of Samory. At last, however, we were allowed to retire, and very soon afterwards the great Ocra moved forward into the next court, followed by a couple of youths bearing long knives and a thin, lean-looking wretch with a stool curiously carved from a solid block of cotton wood, richly embellished with gold ornaments.

When he had gone I cast myself upon the ground in the shadow beside Omar, saying:

"After all, it would have been better if we had died in the woods than to endure this torture of waiting for execution."

"Yes," he answered, gloomily. "That Ocra who has just inspected us was Betea, a bitter enemy of my mother. He is certain to revenge himself upon us."

But even as he spoke we heard the adulatory shouts of the royal crier somewhere in our vicinity. They were more than sufficient to transform any man, white or black, into a vain despot, and as translated by Omar were in the strain of:

"O, King, thou art the king above all kings! Thou art great! Thou art mighty! Thou art strong! Thou hast done enough! The princes of the earth bow down to thee, and humble themselves in the dust before thy stool. Who is like unto the King of all the Ashantis?"

It was the preliminary of the great sacrifice!

King Prempeh, though arrogant, vain and cruel beyond measure, had, we afterwards saw, the eye of a king, which means that it was the eye of one possessing unlimited power over life and death. It was the custom for the king to be placed on the stool by the united voice of the chiefs; but immediately he was seated in him became vested the supreme power.

Soon the firing of guns and the loud beating of the great kinkassis, or drums ornamented with human skulls, sounded outside the walls wherein we were confined, while the air was rent by the wild yells of the excited populace. For nearly an hour this continued, and we thus remained in terrible suspense until at last the gate opened, and with the grass ropes still around our neck we were marched out of the palace under an escort of the king's slaves.

Turning to the left along the broad avenue we saw upon a long pole a human head grinning at us, two vultures perched upon it eagerly stripping it. It was, Omar told me, the head of a thief. The street was crowded with people, who shouted to their gods as we passed in procession, and presently we came to a great fetish-gallows, from the cross beams of which hung the decomposing body of a ram. Some of the men forming our escort were a strangely-dressed set, their uniform consisting of striped tunics reaching to the knee, confined round the waist by belts profusely decorated with strips of leopard skin and tiny brass bells which tinkled musically as they moved. In their belts they carried several knives, while the musket and the little round cap of pangolin skin completed their equipment.

At last we reached the grove at Bantama on the out-skirts of the town, one of the three execution places. Several thousand people had assembled around a great tree where a number of gorgeous umbrellas of every hue and material had been erected. Many were ornamented with curious devices, and the tops of some bore little images of men and animals in gold and silver. Under the centre umbrella, upon a brass-nailed chair close to the tree, sat King Prempeh in regal splendour, surrounded by a crowd of chiefs, whose golden accoutrements glittered in the sun. Three scarlet-clad dwarfs were dancing before him amid the dense crowd of sword-bearers, fly-whiskers, court criers and minor officials. As he sat there, his thin flabby yellow face glistening with oil, he looked a truly regal figure, wearing upon his head a high black and gold crown, and on his neck and arms great golden beads and nuggets. His habit was to suck a large nut that looked like a big cigar, and as he sat there with it in his mouth it gave his face a strangely idiotic expression.

The whole Ashanti court had assembled at the theatre of human sacrifice.

As we approached the drumming grew louder, the roar of voices filled the air, and the great coloured umbrellas were seen whirling and bobbing above the heads of the surging crowd of natives. The great barrel-like drums, with their grim ornamentations, boomed forth, and bands of elephant-tusk horns added to the deafening din.

In the distance could be seen the great fetish-house, with its enormous high thatched roof wherein was supposed to be hidden Prempeh's great treasures of gold-dust and jewels. The ground whereon the glittering court had assembled was covered with the skulls and bones of thousands of former victims, and as we advanced slowly through the turbulent crowd we saw a sight that froze our blood. At the foot of the fetish tree was placed a great brass execution-bowl, about five feet in diameter. It was ornamented with four small lions and a number of knobs all around its rim, except at one part where there was a space for the victim's neck to rest upon the edge. The blood of those sacrificed to the gods was allowed to putrefy in this great bowl—which has recently passed into the hands of the English, and is now in London—and leaves of certain herbs being added it was considered valuable as a fetish medicine.

As we entered the cleared space between the chiefs and caboocers surrounding the King and the thousands of warriors and spectators, salvo after salvo of musketry was fired, until the smoke obscured all objects in our immediate vicinity. Around the sacrificial bowl were grouped a dozen or more royal executioners with their faces whitewashed and hideously decorated. Some upon their heads wore caps of monkey skin with the face in front, while others had high head-dresses of eagles' feathers, their tunics of long grasses being covered with magical charms tied in little bunches. All were copiously smeared with blood, while each wore a necklace of human teeth, and carried a heavy broad-bladed sword rusted by the blood of former victims. Behind them were twenty or thirty Ashantis, each with a knife stuck through both cheeks, to prevent the unhappy victims from asking the King to spare their lives, which, according to national law, must be granted, while a broad-bladed dagger was in many cases run under the shoulder-blades. They were prisoners who had tried to stir revolt, and were, we understood, to be sacrificed first. Our turn would come later.

The scene was horrible; we were appalled. At a signal from the King the first unfortunate wretch was instantly seized by two executioners and held over the bowl, while a third lifted his keen sword, and with a dull, sickening thud brought it down upon the poor fellow's neck, hacking into his spine until the head was severed. Then there arose a loud shout of triumph. The offering to the fetish was the signal for the most enthusiastic rejoicing, and the shouts of adulation were deafening. The people, ground down by a crafty priesthood, and steeped in the most degrading superstitions, looked upon the wholesale butchery that followed without a shudder. King, courtiers and slaves seemed seized with an insatiable desire for blood, and as one head fell after another, the cries of the victims drowned by the vociferous shouts of the onlookers, Omar and I stood shackled and trembling.

One after another the victims were thrown across the bowl and their life-blood gushed into it as the cruel swords descended, while the King gloated over the sight with an expression of pleasure upon his oily sinister face, until the heap of headless trunks grew large, and the number sacrificed must have been over a hundred.

Suddenly the chief executioner took one of his knives which had a human skull upon the hilt, and holding it up, commanded silence.

Then spoke the Ocra Betea, who, rising from his stool, waved his hand across the veritable Golgotha, crying:

"Behold! Tremble! The King makes the great yam custom. The death-drum beats, and to the fetish we offer sacrifice. Who is so great as the King of all the Ashantis, and who is so powerful as the fetish? Yonder are the graves of the great kings, and the marks on yonder walls show the number of men who were sacrificed when their graves were watered. Listen! The mighty King Prempeh is about to sacrifice. To-day he sends five hundred men to the dark world as a thank offering for the harvest, and as an offering to the fetish to enable us to eat up our enemies, the whites. When our mighty King says war, we will arm against them, and their heads shall fill many baskets. Of a truth our lord Prempeh is the greatest monarch who has ever sat upon the stool. The earth quakes when he speaks, and his enemies are paralysed by fear. Betea has spoken."

Then the crowd set up a series of wild shrieks and yells, they gesticulated, fired guns indiscriminately, and danced wildly, while some of the enthusiasts pressing forward, dipped their hands into the blood already in the bowl, and besmeared themselves with it; and others, turning upon myself and my companion as we stood silent and trembling, heaped every insult upon us.

In a few moments, however, the crowd was driven back, and at a signal from the King the executions recommenced, until the smell of blood grew sickening, and the awful scene caused me to shake like an aspen.

I knew that nothing could save me from the hands of these demoniacal whitewashed executioners, and in a few moments I, a slave purchased like an ox for the slaughter, would be borne down over the bowl and decapitated.

I looked at Omar. His face was pale, but his lips were tightly set, although there was an expression of utter hopelessness upon his countenance.

The horror of that moment held me breathless.