Chapter 35 - Ran Away to Sea by Mayne Reid
I remembered the advice of Brace, and submitted, with as good grace as I could, to the hospitalities of his black majesty. I drank a portion of his rum, and even appeared jolly! He seemed greatly pleased with my behaviour, and evidently esteemed me a good bargain; though the slave-captain had screwed him far above his original offer. His first bid had been a fair exchange—man for man, or man for boy—a black for a white, and he must have been strongly bent on the purchase to have given six to one!
What could he intend me for?—a slave to wait upon him? hand him his food when he should feel inclined to eat? his rum when he desired to drink? fan the mosquitoes off him when he was asleep? and amuse him when awake? Was this the sort of life for which he had designed me? or was he going to promote me to some higher employ? make me his private secretary or clerk? his prime minister, perhaps? marry me to one of his dark-skinned daughters? make a prince of me?
From the hospitable manner in which he began his treatment of me, I really had thought, that if I continued to please him, he would give me an easy life of it. I had heard of such cases, where white men had become the favourites of negro princes, and had been placed in offices of high trust; and, perhaps, such would have been my destiny, had I remained with King Dingo Bingo.
But even had I been assured of the best of treatment—even had I been promised the highest office in his kingdom—the throne itself, with the handsomest of his daughters for my queen—I should have held on to my intention of running away from him all the same, and returning to the barque. It was certainly no Elysium to fly to—perhaps from the fire into the frying-pan; but still there was the hope that my life on board the Pandora would not be of long continuance, and even there, under the protection of Brace, they had of late treated me less cruelly.
As for King Dingo Bingo, I felt a loathing in his company that I cannot describe. I felt a presentiment of some terrible evil, and I was resolved, if I did not succeed in reaching the barque, to run away from him all the same and try my fortune in the woods. Yes; notwithstanding its lions and other fierce brutes, I was determined to escape to the forest and live as I best might, or die if I could not live.
There was a thought in my mind. I had heard them talk of the English factory farther up the coast—fifty miles farther. I might succeed in getting there. An Englishman was its chief.
True, they said he was a friend of King Dingo—a partner in fact—and from what had transpired I had reason to believe that this was but too true. Still he was an Englishman. Surely he would not give me up—surely he dared not. I thought, too, of the cruiser. She would protect, she would not give me up; but, on the contrary, would have blown his black majesty to the skies for making such a demand. If I could only make known my situation—but how was that to be done? Impossible! By the morrow’s sun she would be he longer on the coast. She would be gone in pursuit of the Pandora—perhaps within another hour!
I was loathing the presence of the negro king, who appeared trying, in his rude manner, to be agreeable. He plied me with rum, and I pretended to drink it. I could not understand his talk, though a few English words, and those of the most vulgar in our language, were familiar enough after my voyage in the Pandora. But his majesty was by this time so drunk that even his own people could with difficulty understand him; and every moment he was yielding more and more to the potent spirit.
I joyed at observing this—it would help my purpose. I joyed to see him stagger over the floor, and still more when he stumbled against a sort of couch-bed and fell heavily upon it.
The next moment he was sound asleep—a deep, drunken sleep. His snore was music to my ears—though it resembled the dying snort of a prize ox.
At this moment I heard across the river the clacking of the windlass, and the rough rasping of the anchor chain as it was drawn through the iron ring of the hawse-hole.
Most of the royal attendants were out upon the bank to witness the departure of the barque, just visible through the dim twilight.
I waited a few minutes longer, lest I should set forth too soon, and, therefore, be pursued and overtaken before I could get down to the mouth of the river. I knew that the barque would move but slowly—the stream was narrow and curved in several places, and therefore she could not use her sails. She would drop down by the force of the current, and I could easily keep up with her.
The attendants of the king were in no way suspicious of my intentions. They observed that I appeared well pleased with my new situation. No doubt most of them envied me my good fortune, and it is probable I was looked upon as the “new favourite.” It was not likely I should run away from such splendid prospects—not likely indeed! Such an idea never entered the mind of one of the sable gentlemen who surrounded me; and as soon as his majesty fell asleep, I was left free to go about wherever I pleased. Just then it pleased me to skulk backward behind the great barracoon, and a little further still into the thick woods beyond. For this point I took a diagonal line that led me back to the river bank again—only at a considerable distance below the “factory”—and, having now got beyond earshot of the negro crew, and altogether out of their sight, I advanced as rapidly down the bank as the brushwood would permit me.