CHAPTER XXXIII. THE HAREM SLAVE.

A Dozen times were we driven back by overwhelming numbers of Arabs, but as many times we dashed forward again, determined to strike a fatal, irrisistible blow at the power of the egotistical and fanatical chieftain whose depredations had earned for him the appelation of "The Pirate of the Niger." Every nation in Western Africa, save the dwellers in the mystic land of Mo, existed in daily fear of raids by his ruthless armed bands, who, travelling rapidly across desert and forest, devastated whole regions, seizing cattle, laying waste prosperous and fertile districts, burning towns and villages, and reducing their weaker neighbours to slavery. Indeed, no bodies of armed men throughout the whole of the great African continent, including even the Tuaregs, were so reckless in their attacks, or so fiendish in their wholesale butchery of those who resented the ruin and devastation of their homes. It was therefore scarcely surprising that this brigandish horde, whose power even European nations failed to break, should throw themselves into the conflict with reckless enthusiasm, and repel our attack by the exertion of every muscle.

In point of numbers we were much inferior; our superiority existed only in our arms. Their old-fashioned bronze field-pieces, flint-lock pistols and long-barrelled Arab guns, although deadly weapons in the hands of such expert shots, proved no match against such irresistible appliances as the Maxim, the Hotchkiss, or the modern English-made rifle. This fact very soon became apparent, for although the fierce battle raged for many hours, and Samory himself, in yellow robe, and mounted upon a snow-white stallion, gorgeously caparisoned, could be seen urging on his hordes to valiant deeds, we nevertheless everywhere made a firm stand at various points of vantage, and by no effort were they able to dislodge us.

When the sun rose, red and fiery through the veil of smoke, the increasing weakness of the defence was visibly demonstrated by the manner in which the entrance to the Kasbah was guarded. The great doors of iron were closed and barred securely, and on the walls the crimson fezes of the defenders showed in profusion, but presently Kona, as we drove back the soldiers of Al-Islâm almost for the hundredth time, shouted the order to storm the citadel. With one accord we made a mad, reckless rush an instant later, and carried on by the thousands of my comrades behind, I found myself slashing to right and left under the high, sun-blanched walls of the enormous fortress. Kona, appearing a giant even among his tall Dagombas, gave one the impression in those critical moments of a veritable demon, filled as he was with a mad excitement and knowing that upon the success of our assault depended the result of the expedition. Towering above his fellows, his long spear in hand, he seemed to lead a charmed existence, swaying to and fro among whistling bullets, whizzing arrows, flashing swords and whirring spears. His own weapon he dyed in the blood of his adversaries times without number, for where he struck he never failed to kill. His aim was unerring, and his courage that of a lion of his native forest.

In those furious moments I escaped death only by a miracle. As I dashed forward to seek shelter beneath the ponderous wall, a tall Arab, with long brown hairy arms, swung his curved sword high above his head and brought it down with such force that had I not dodged him just in time, he would have smashed my skull. Lowering my rifle quickly till its muzzle almost touched his flowing garments, I fired, but unfortunately the bullet passed beneath his arm-pit, and flattened itself against the wall. Again, muttering some fearful imprecation in Arabic, he raised his gleaming blade, and, unable to fire at such close quarters, I was then compelled to use my rifle to ward off his attack. For an instant we struggled desperately, when suddenly he gave his sword a rapid twist, jerking my weapon from my hands and leaving me unarmed at his mercy.

His features broadened into a brutal grin as, noticing me fumbling for my pistol, he again raised his razor-edged Moorish blade, and holding it at arm's length, gave one vigorous slash at me. Pressed forward towards him by men engaged in mortal conflict behind me, I could not evade him, and was about to receive the full force of what my adversary intended should be a fatal blow, when suddenly a savage spear struck him full in the throat, and stuck quivering there.

Instantly his sinewy arm fell, the heavy sword dropped from his nerveless fingers, and he stumbled backward and fell to earth like a log.

"Thou art safe, O Master!" a voice cried cheerily behind me, and turning, I saw that the man who had thrown his spear and saved my life was Kona.

Shouting an expression of thanks I bent, and, unable to recover my lost rifle in the frightful mêlée, snatched up the dead Arab's sword that had so nearly caused my death, then fought on by my deliverer's side. His wounds were many, for blood was flowing from cuts and gashes innumerable in his bare black flesh, yet he appeared insensible to pain, striving forward, gasping as he dealt each blow, determined to conquer.

The fight continued with unabated fury—the bloodshed was horrible. The open square before the gate of the Kasbah was transformed into a veritable slaughter-yard, the stones being slippery with blood, and passage rendered difficult by the corpses that lay piled everywhere. At last, however, while engaged in another warm corner, the shrill, awe-inspiring war cry of the Dagombas again sounded above the tumult, and turning, I saw that by some means our men had opened the great gate, and that they were pouring into the spacious courtyards that I so well remembered.

Our assault, though fiercely and savagely repelled, was at last successful. We were entering the stronghold of Samory, and had achieved a feat that the well-equipped expeditions of the French and English had failed to accomplish.

The Arabs during the next quarter of an hour struggled bravely against their adversity and fought with a dogged courage of which I had not believed them capable. Soon, however, finding themselves conquered, they cried for quarter. Had they known the peculiar temperament of the Dagombas and the soldiers of Mo, they would never thus have implored mercy. But they cried out, and some even sank on their knees in the blood of their dead comrades, uttering piteous appeals. But the Arabs of Samory had never shown mercy to the Dagombas or the people of Mo, and consequently our army, in the first flush of their victory, filled with the awful lust for blood, treated their cries with jeers, and as they advanced into court after court within the great Kasbah walls, they fell upon all they met, armed or unarmed, men or women, and massacred them where they stood.

The appeal shouted time after time by Kona to view our victory in temperate spirit and spare those who submitted, was disregarded by all in this wholesale savage butchery. The scene within the Arab chieftain's stronghold was, alas! far more horrible than any I had witnessed during the revolt in Mo. Guards, officials and slaves of Samory's household were indiscriminately put to the sword, some of the men being hunted into corners and speared by the Dagombas, while others were forced upon their knees by the soldiers of Mo and mercilessly decapitated. The door of the great harem, long ago reputed to contain a thousand inmates, including slaves, was burst open, and in those beautiful and luxuriant courts and chambers the whole of the women were butchered with a brutality quite as fiendish as any displayed by the Arabs themselves. The handsome favourites of Samory in their filmy garments of gold tissue and girdles of precious stones were dragged by their long tresses from their hiding places and literally hacked to pieces, their magnificent and costly jewels being torn from them and regarded as legitimate loot. Women's death-screams filled the great courts and corridors; their life-blood stained the pavements of polished jasper and bespattered the conquerors. The Dagombas, finding themselves inside this extensive abode of luxury, where beautiful fountains shot high into the morning sunlight, sweet-smelling flowers bloomed everywhere and sensuous odours from perfuming-pans hung heavily in the air, seemed suddenly transformed into a demoniac horde bent upon the most ruthless devastation. They remembered that times without number had the Sofas of Samory burnt their villages and towns, and carried hundreds of their tribesmen away as slaves; they were now seeking revenge for past wrongs.

As, nauseated by the sight of blood, I witnessed these awful atrocities, I reflected that the curse of Zomara, uttered solemnly by Omar when Samory had sold us to the slave-dealers, had at last fallen upon the Arab chieftain.

Omar had prophesied the downfall of Samory, and his utterance was now fulfilled.

Screams, piercing and heart-rending, sounded everywhere, mingled with the fierce war-shouts of our savage allies, as, time after time, some unfortunate woman in gorgeous garb and ablaze with valuable gems was discovered, dragged unceremoniously from her hiding-place to the great court wherein I stood, her many necklets ruthlessly torn from her white throat and a keen sword drawn across it as a butcher would calmly despatch a lamb. Then, when life had ebbed, her body would be cast into the great basin of the fountain, where hundreds of others had already been pitched.

In other parts of the Kasbah a similar massacre was proceeding, none of those found therein being allowed to escape; while an active search was everywhere in progress for Samory himself.

From where I stood I witnessed the breaking up of the Arab ruler's throne, and the tearing down of the great canopy of amaranth silk under which Samory had reclined when, with Omar, I had been brought before him. The crescent of solid gold that had surmounted it was handed to Kona, who broke it in half beneath his heel as sign of the completeness of his victory. Then, when the destruction of the seat of the brutal autocrat was complete, the débris with the torn silk, and the long strips of crimson cloth, whereon good counsels from the Korân were embroidered in Kufic characters of gold, that had formed a kind of frieze to the chamber, were carried out into the court by fifty willing hands, heaped up and there burnt.

While watching the flames leaping up consuming the wrecked remains of the royal seat of the powerful Arab ruler, a woman's scream, louder than the rest, caused me to look suddenly round at the latest victim of the Dagombas' thirst for vengeance, and I beheld in the clutches of half-a-dozen savages, a young woman, dragged as the others had been by her fair, unbound hair towards the spot where each had, in turn, been murdered. She was dressed in a rich, beautiful robe of bright yellow silk, embroidered with pale pink flowers, but her garments were bedraggled with water and blood, and her bleeding wrists and fingers showed with what heartless brutality her jewels had been torn from her by her pitiless captors. She struggled frantically to free herself, but without avail, and one of the savages, noticing a magnificent diamond bangle upon her ankle, bent, and tried to force it off.

Just at that moment, in endeavouring to twist herself free from their clutches, her fair face became turned towards me and her deep blue, terrified eyes for an instant met mine.

Next second I uttered a cry of recognition. Yes, there was no mistake about that flawless complexion, those handsome features or those wondrous eyes, the mysterious depths of which had enthralled me, as they had done Omar.

It was Liola!

With a bound I sprang forward, tearing at the knot of savages and shouting to them to release her. At first they only grinned hideously, no doubt thinking that I desired her as a slave, and as they had decided that all should die without exception, in order that their conquest should be rendered the more complete, they were in no way disposed to obey my command. At last I succeeded in arresting their progress, when the man who had attempted to wrench from her ankle the diamond ornament shook his long, keen knife threateningly at me, while the others yelled all kinds of imprecations. Not liking his fierce attitude, and knowing that in the heat of victory they were capable of turning upon friends who attempted to thwart them, I drew back, and as I did so he flung himself upon one knee and raised his knife over Liola's foot.

Instantly I saw his intention. He meant to hack off her foot in order to secure the bangle, a horrible proceeding that had been carried out more than once before my eyes within the past hour. There was, I knew, but one way to save her, therefore without hesitating I drew my revolver and fired at him point blank.

The ball pierced his breast. With an agonized cry he clutched for a moment wildly at the air, then fell back dead.

My action, as I fully expected it would, aroused the intense ire of his companions and all released Liola, now insensible, and sprang at me, their ready knives flashing in the sunlight. I was compelled to fly, and had it not been for Kona, who, standing some distance off watching the reduction of Samory's throne to ashes, took in the situation at a glance, sped in their direction, and ordered his men to stop and tell him the cause, I should undoubtedly have lost my life. As their head-man his word was law. Then, glancing at the inanimate form of Liola, who, having fainted, had been left lying on the blood-stained pavement, he recognized her as Goliba's daughter, and in a dozen words told his men that she was the betrothed of the young Naba of Mo, and that I, his friend, had saved her.

The savages, aghast at this statement, and recognizing how near they had been to murdering the beloved of the Naba Omar, rushed towards me penitent, urging that they might be forgiven, and declaring that their conduct, under the circumstances, was excusable. They had, they said, no idea that they would find in the harem of their enemy Samory the betrothed of Mo's ruler, and I also was compelled to admit myself quite as astounded as themselves. Therefore in brief words explanations and forgiveness were exchanged and I rushed across, and with the ready help of Kona and his men endeavoured to restore her to consciousness.

The dread of her horrible fate had caused her to faint, and it was a long time ere we could bring her back to the knowledge of her surroundings. Tenderly the Dagombas, who a few minutes before would have brutally murdered her, carried her into one of the small luxuriantly-furnished chambers of the harem, and at my request left me alone with her. Kona, though fierce as a wild beast in war, was tender-hearted as a child where undefended women were concerned, and would have remained, but as commander of the forces now engaged in sacking the palace many onerous duties devolved upon him. Therefore I was left alone with her.

Her eyes closed, her fair hair disarranged, her clothing torn and blood-stained, she lay upon a soft divan, pale and motionless as one dead. I chafed her tiny hands, and released her rich robe at the throat to give her air, wondering by what strange chain of circumstances she had come to be an inmate of the private apartments of our enemy Samory. At last, however, her breast heaved and fell slowly once or twice, and presently she opened her beautiful eyes, gazing up at me with a puzzled, half-frightened expression.

"Liola," I exclaimed softly, in the language of Mo. "Thou art with friends, have no further fear. The soldiers of thy lover Omar have wreaked a vengeance complete and terrible upon thy captor Samory."

"But the savages!" she gasped. "They will kill me as they massacred all the women."

"No, no, they will not," I assured her, placing my arm tenderly beneath her handsome head. "The savages are our Dagomba allies who, not knowing that thou wert a native of Mo, would have butchered thee like the rest."

"And thou didst save me?" she cried. "Yes, I remember, thou didst shoot dead the brute who would have cut off my foot to secure my diamond anklet. I owe my life to thee."

"Ah! do not speak of that," I cried. "Calm thyself and rest assured of thy safety, for thou shalt return with us to the land of thy fathers. Thou shalt, ere a moon has run its course, pillow thine head upon the shoulder of the man thou lovest, Omar, Naba of Mo."

She blushed deeply at my words, and her small white hand still smeared with blood, gripped my wrist. Her heart seemed too full for words, and in this manner she silently thanked me for rescuing her from the awful fate to which she had so nearly been hurried.

Soon she recovered from the shock sufficiently to sit up and chat. Together we listened to the roar of the excited multitude outside, and from the lattice window could see columns of dense black smoke rising from the city, where the fighting-men of Mo, in accordance with their instructions from Omar, having sacked the place, were now setting it on fire.

In answer to my eager questions as to her adventures after her seizure by the soldiers of the Great White Queen, she said:

"Yes. It is true they captured me, together with my girl slave, Wyona, and hurried me towards the palace. Wyona fought and bit like a tigress, and one of the men becoming infuriated, killed her. Just at that moment the attack was made upon us by the populace, and they, witnessing his action, tore him limb from limb. Then, in the fierce conflict that followed, I escaped from their clutches in the same manner as Omar and thyself. Knowing of the attack to be made upon the palace I fled for safety in the opposite direction, and remained in hiding throughout the night in the house of one of my kinswomen away towards the city-gate. At last the report spread that the people had taken the palace by assault, the Naya had been deposed, and Omar enthroned Naba in her stead. Then, feeling that safety was assured, I ventured forth, but ere I had gone far I met a body of strange fighting men. They were Arabs, and proved to be men from this stronghold of our enemy Samory. After a strenuous attempt to cross the city they had been repulsed by the people, leaving many dead, and in their retreat towards the city-gate they seized me and bore me away in triumph here."

"How long hast thou been in Koussan?"

"Twenty days ago we arrived, after fighting our way back and losing half our force in skirmishes with the hostile savages of the forest. I was brought here to Samory's harem as slave, attired in the garments I now wear, loaded with jewels torn from the body of one of his favourites, who, incurring his displeasure, had been promptly strangled by the chief of the negro eunuchs, and placed in an apartment with three other slaves to do my bidding, there to await such time as it should please my Arab captor to inspect me. I was contemplating death," she added, dropping her deep blue eyes. "If your attack upon the Kasbah had not been delivered I should most assuredly have killed myself to-day ere the going down of the sun."

"It was fortunate that I recognized thee, or thou wouldst have been hacked to pieces by the keen blades of our savage allies," I said.

"Take me hence," she urged panting. "I cannot bear to hear the shout of the victor and the despairing cry of the vanquished. It is horrible. Throughout the night we, in the women's quarters, have dreaded the fate awaiting us if the invaders, whom we thought were savages of the forest, should gain the mastery and enter the palace. From the high windows yonder we witnessed the fight, knowing that our lives depended upon its issue, and judge our dismay and despair when, soon after dawn, we saw the Arabs overwhelmed and the Kasbah fall into the hands of their conquerors. Many of my wretched companions killed themselves with their poignards rather than fall into the hands of the blacks, while the majority hid themselves only to be afterwards discovered and butchered. Ah, it is all terrible, terrible!"

"True," I answered. "Yet it is only revenge for the depredations and heartless atrocities committed by these people upon the dwellers in thy border lands. Even at this moment Samory hath a great expedition on the northern confines of Mo, making a vigorous attempt to invade thy country, so that he shall reign upon the Emerald Throne in the place of thy lover Omar."

"An expedition to invade Mo?" she cried surprised. "Hath Samory done this; is it his intention to cause Omar's overthrow?"

"Most assuredly it is," I answered. "The reason of our presence here in such force was to assault Koussan in the absence of its picked troops, twenty thousand of whom were we ascertained on their way northward, with the intention of forcing a passage through Aribanda and the Hombori Mountains into Mo. Niaro hath led our fighting-men to repel their attack, and he is accompanied by Omar and thy father, while we are here, under Kona's leadership, to punish Samory for his intrepidity."

Then she asked how Omar fared, and I explained how it had been believed that she had died, and that all were mourning for her.

"My slave Wyona must have been mistaken for me," she answered. "And naturally, as I had given her one of my left-off robes only the day before."

"Omar believeth thee dead. Thy presence in Mo will indeed bring happiness to his eyes, and gaiety to his heart," I exclaimed happily.

"Doth he still mourn for me?" she inquired artlessly. I knew she wanted to ask me many questions regarding her lover, but her modesty forbade it.

"Since the fatal night when thou wert lost joy hath never caused a smile to cross his countenance. Sleeping and waking he thinketh only of thee, revering thy memory, reflecting upon the happy moments spent at thy side, as one fondly remembers a pleasant dream or adventures in some fair paradise, yet ever sad in the knowledge that those blissful days can never return. His is an empty honour, a kingship devoid of all pleasure because thou art no longer his."

Her lips trembled slightly, and I thought her brilliant eyes became brighter for a moment because of an unshed tear.

"I am still his," she said slowly, with emphasis. "I am ready, nay anxious, to return to him. Thou hast saved me from death and from dishonour; truly thou art a worthy friend of Omar's, for by thy valiant deed alone thou restorest unto him the woman he loveth."

I urged her to utter no word of thanks, and pointing to the sky, rendered every moment more dark by the increasing volumes of smoke ascending from the city, said:

"See! Our men are busy preparing for the destruction of this palace that through many centuries hath been a centre of Mohammedan influence and oppression. Time doth not admit of thanks, for we both have much to do ere we start forth on our return to Mo, and——"

My words were interrupted by a terrific explosion in such close proximity to us that it caused us to jump, and was followed by a deafening crash of falling masonry. From the lattice we saw the high handsome minaret of the palace topple and fall amid a dense smoke and shower of stones. Our men had undermined it and blown it up.

Liola shuddered, glancing at me in alarm.

"Fear not," I said. "Ere we leave, the city of Koussan must be devastated and burned. Samory hath never given quarter, or shown mercy to his weaker neighbours, and we will show none. Besides, he held thee captive as he hath already held thy lover Omar and myself. He sold us to slavers that we might be sacrificed in Kumassi, therefore the curse of thy Crocodile-god Zomara placed upon him hath at last fallen. The flood-gates of vengeance now opened the hand of man cannot close."

The great court of the harem, deserted by the troops, had become filled with volumes of dense smoke, showing that fire had broken out somewhere within the palace, and ever and anon explosions of a more or less violent character told us that the hands of the destroyers were actually at work. The sack of the Kasbah was indeed complete.

The loot, of which there was an enormous quantity of considerable value, was being removed to a place of safety by a large body of men told off for the purpose. Although Samory was a fugitive, yet the treasures found within his private apartments were of no mean order, and ere noon had passed preparations were being made for its conveyance to Mo, the greater part of the city being already in flames. The fire roared and crackled, choking smoke-clouds obscured the sun, and the heat wafted up was stifling. All opposition to us had long ago ceased, but whenever an Arab was found secreted or a fugitive, he was shot down without mercy. To linger longer in the harem might, I judged, be dangerous on account of the place having been fired, therefore we went together out into the court, and stepping over the mutilated bodies of its beautiful prisoners, entered the chamber where Samory had held his court. Empty, dismantled and wrecked, its appearance showed plainly how the mighty monarch had fallen. Even the great bejewelled manuscript of the Korân, the Arab book of Everlasting Will, that had reposed upon its golden stand at the end of the fine, high-roofed chamber, had been torn up, for its leaves lay scattered about the pavement and after the jewels had been hastily dug from their settings, the covers of green velvet had been cast aside as worthless. Every seat or divan had been either broken or slashed by swords, every vessel or mirror smashed, every ornament damaged beyond repair.

Thinking it best to leave her, a woman, in care of a guard of our armed men, while I went forward, I made the suggestion, but she would not hear of it.

"No," she answered smiling. "I will remain ever at thy side, for beside thee I fear not. Thou art my rescuer, and my life is thine."

"But some of the sights we may witness are not such as a woman's eyes should behold," I answered.

"It mattereth not. That thou wilt allow me to accompany thee, is all I ask."

"Very well," I replied, laughing. "Thou art welcome. Come."

By my side she hurried through the chamber wherein had stood the throne, and thence through several handsome courts, wandering at last into another smaller chamber at the side of which I noticed an alcove with a huge Arab bed surrounded by quaint lattices, so dark that my gaze could not penetrate to its recesses.

As we passed, the movement of some object in the deep shadow beside the bed attracted my attention. Advancing quickly I detected the figure of a man, and, fearing a sudden dash by one of our lurking foes, I again drew my sword.

Liola, seeing this, gave vent to a little scream of alarm and placed her hand upon my arm in fear, but next second the fugitive, anticipating my intention to attack him, sprang suddenly forward into the light.

The bearded face, the fierce, flashing eyes, the thick lips and bushy brows were all familiar to me. Although he wore the white cotton garb of the meanest slave, I recognised him in an instant.

It was the great Arab chieftain Samory!