The Rape of Venice (27 page)

At length Kobo, now decidedly drunk, called a halt to the festivities. With a rolling gait he escorted his guests to their hut, then staggered away among his equally, tipsy warriors. Even so, Roger feared that they might yet lose their lives through treachery, or by some relative of the Witch Doctor's seeking to revenge him while they slept; so he arranged to share watches for the rest of the night with Bodkin, and took the first himself.

As silence gradually settled over the village, he told himself that they were very lucky to be alive, but he could not help wondering a little grimly what other perils fate had in store for them, and reflecting on their very small chance of ever again setting foot in England.

His fears of a treacherous attack proved groundless. Next morning the village slept late but, soon after rousing, a group of shy, frightened women brought them fruit, drink and flowers. When they had eaten, a tall warrior with a headband and a single ostrich plume rising from it took them again to Kobo, who was once more seated on his throne of skulls.

The Chief pointed in turn at the drawing on the ground that Roger had made the night before, at the tall warrior, and at Roger's pistol. But Roger had no intention of giving up the pistol yet. Shaking his head, he pointed in turn at the drawing, the pistol and the warrior, conveying that he would give the weapon to the man only when they reached the town.

For some minutes, Kobo scowled and kept repeating his gestures, but each time Roger shook his head; so at length the hulking negro gave in and beckoned up a group of his people who were standing some way off. The group consisted of six more warriors and four women. Each of the women held the end of one of a pair of poles, between the middle sections of which were plaited rushes forming the seat of a backless carrying chair.

Kobo signed to Roger to take the seat, but he, greatly relieved that Clarissa would not have to make the journey on foot, gave her his hand and settled her in it. His act called forth looks of puzzled disapproval, but ignoring them he indicated that they were now ready to start. For a moment the Chief rested his heavy hand on Roger's shoulder. He did the same to that warrior with the single ostrich plume, and repeated the word ‘Immu' three times; so they took that to be the man's
name. Then he nodded his befeathered head, and ‘Immu' raising his spear aloft, led the way by a main path through the huts out of the village.

For four days they trekked through jungles and across wide stretches of open ground covered with coarse scrub. The going was hard, for the jungle paths were tortuous, and at time obstructed by fallen trees, steep gullies and small rivers. Their progress was difficult to estimate but Roger judged it to be from twelve to fifteen miles a day, and he could tell from the sun that they were moving roughly in a north-westerly direction.

From time to time Immu sent one of his warriors as a runner to inform the Chief of the next village of their approach; so that when they arrived in it they were provided with a meal and huts in which to sleep either for the night or during the hottest hours of the day. At every village they entered, the entire population turned out to crowd about them, eyes goggling with curiosity, and, as they always arrived semi-exhausted from a long trudge in the damp heat, this proved particularly trying; but Immu generally managed to drive the people off after a while, presumably by telling them that Roger was a powerful Witch Doctor, and they were then able to relax in the grateful shade of one of the huts.

On the morning of the fifth day, they came out of a belt of forest on high ground to see a magnificent panorama spread before them. A gentle slope some six miles long led down to the sea. The slope, which formed a deep belt right along the coast, was almost entirely covered by plantations from which came more strongly than ever the spicy smell of cloves. Beyond them the sun sparkled on an azure sea dotted with small coral atolls, and in the hazy distance another coastline could be seen. As they were facing west, Roger had no doubt that the far shore was the coast of Africa, and that Bill Bodkin had been right in his belief that it was upon the fabulous Isle of Cloves that they had been cast ashore.

But it was not upon the coast that their eyes were riveted. In the very centre of it there stood a town. It had battlemented walls above which rose several large buildings with domes and turrets, and beyond them a big ship with all sail set was tacking out across the bay.

Immu made it clear that he and his party would go no farther; so Roger carried out his part of the bargain. First he showed him how the pistol worked, then gave it to him with
half the powder, two flints, and six of the dozen bullets, which were all that he had with him. The farewells could be only by smiles and gestures. Five minutes later the negro warriors and carrier women had disappeared along the jungle track. Then, although the hottest hours of the day were approaching, Roger, Clarissa and Bodkin were so eager to reach the town that they at once set off down hill towards it.

The sun's rays were so intense that they were forced to rest every half-mile or so in the shade of palms and, even then, the six-mile walk proved most fatiguing. But they derived one benefit from making the journey in the midday hours; no one was working in the plantations, so it was not until they were covering the last mile that they attracted the attention of the natives.

Once that happened, a crowd quickly gathered, but it was of a very different type from those which had surrounded them in the villages. These people were considerably lighter in colour, most of them had straight hair, good noses and better-formed features and, except for the children, they all wore some form of loose garment. Yet they showed nearly as much excitement and curiosity as had the negroes, as they pranced along beside the three strangers, calling to one another and pointing at Clarissa's pale gold hair.

Dusty, perspiring and footsore, they at last reached a great gate set between two towers in the wall of the town. The sight of the approaching crowd had brought out from it a guard with spears. Their officer wore a round brass helmet which rose to a sharp spike on top and had pieces of chain-mail dangling from its rim on either side to protect his ears and cheeks.

He spoke to them in what they took to be Arabic, and Roger tried out his Persian on him, but neither understood the other. Roger then tried Latin, and the smatterings he had of Greek and Spanish, but all proved equally useless. With a shrug the officer ordered his men to put them in the gate-house and, as soon as they were inside it, the door was slammed upon them.

It was a stone apartment in the base of one of the towers that flanked the gate; its floor was a little below ground-level and it was unfurnished except for a rough wooden table. After the heat and glare of the sun they were glad of the cool semi-darkness, and sank wearily down on a stone bench that ran along one wall; but this was not the sort of reception they had hoped for and, as soon as they had recovered a little from their
fatigue, they began to speculate on how long it would be until they were taken before the Portuguese Governor.

Over two hours elapsed and they started up from a fitful doze when the door opened and the officer came in. He was followed by a short, very fat, man, but fat in quite a different way from Kobo, for the negro Chief's bulk had been largely due to huge muscles, whereas this man gave the impression, even though he was wearing flowering robes, of being soft, and when he spoke it was in a high falsetto. Although Roger had never met a eunuch, he felt sure the fat man was one; but all that concerned him was that he had spoken in Persian. Thanking God for the hours he had spent learning that language while in the
Minerva
, he introduced himself and the others. In response, the eunuch said he was called Khunsa Bajazet.

Roger then gave a brief account of their misadventures and asked to be taken to the European quarter of the town.

Bajazet replied that there was no such quarter; upon which Roger said, ‘Am I not right in supposing this to be the Isle of Cloves, and that on the island there is a Portuguese trading station?'

At that the eunuch began to laugh, and his several chins quivered like a jelly. When he had done laughing, he piped: ‘Indeed it is the Isle of Cloves, and this is the city of Zanzibar; but there are no Portuguese here. We drove them out over sixty years ago.'

Endeavouring to conceal his sudden alarm at this news, Roger asked, ‘Then who rules here now?'

‘His Highness the Vali Abdul ben Mazuri,' came the response. ‘He is Viceroy for the Sultan of Muscat, who by Allah's grace is the Sovereign Lord of all this part of the world.' As the eunuch pronounced the name of Allah, he bowed; then he added, ‘Come to the light, all of you, so that I can see you better.'

A gesture with which he accompanied his words conveyed their meaning to Clarissa and Bodkin; so all three of them accompanied him to the door. There he turned and, with little pig's eyes encased in rolls of fat, surveyed each of them critically in turn. Pointing to Roger's sword, and the gold embroidered belt from which it hung, he said:

‘It seems that in spite of your rags you are a rich man; so you may be of some value to us.' Then stretching out a fat hand he took Clarissa by the arm, half turned her and, taking the ends of her fair hair between his fingers, gently fluffed it out.

As she drew swiftly away, Roger said in a carefully controlled voice, ‘Doubtless, Sir, you mean no harm; but in our country to touch a lady so is considered an act of rudeness.'

Bajazet shrugged his sloping shoulders and replied with a sneer, ‘But this, Infidel, is not your country. It is the Isle of Cloves; and cloves are not the only thing we export from it. The greater part of our wealth comes from the sale of slaves. But I'll have no need to export you. For you three Roumis I'll get a fine price here.'

Turning to the officer he put into his hand a small canvas bag from which there came the clink of coin, then he waddled out into the street. The officer signed to the others to follow and shouted an order to his men. As Roger and Bodkin emerged into the daylight, the guards fell upon them. Taken by surprise they had no chance to resist, even if there had been anything to gain by doing so. Their weapons were taken from them and their wrists were bound.

Meanwhile the eunuch had been helped into a litter. Clarissa was swiftly lifted into it beside him and its curtains were drawn. Roger and Bodkin were attached to it by the cords that tied their wrists and, when it moved off, two of the armed guards followed with spears at the ready to prick them should they try to break away or dally.

The little procession wound its way through narrow, cobbled streets thronged with people of every shade from coal-black to pale coffee. The negroes were mostly naked to the waist, but many of the lighter skinned Arabs, Indians and Persians were clad in handsome robes of striped cotton, wool and silk. There were many donkeys, mostly heavy-laden with goods, others carrying men and women. All the women were in shapeless garments and wore the veil. Nearly everyone paused to stare at the prisoners, some shouted abuse and now and then an urchin threw a piece of garbage at them before darting off into an alley.

After a slow progress of a quarter of an hour, they turned up a steep slope and at its top went through a tall gateway where more guards, all wearing the pointed brass helmets, stood aside to let them pass. Entering a wide court, they crossed it and, from the doorway of a building on its far side, several servants ran out. Some of them helped the eunuch to alight; others, on his orders, took charge of the prisoners. They were hurried down a short passage and locked into a small empty cell-like room.

As soon as they were alone, Clarissa asked what the eunuch had said, and what was to become of them. Roger was so distressed that he had not the heart to tell her outright but, after a while, he decided that it would be no kindness to allow their harsh face to be sprung upon her as a surprise; so he broke it to her and Bodkin as gently as he could that the town was a Mohammedan stronghold, and that they were to be sold into slavery.

The eunuch's rough treatment of them had to some extent prepared Clarissa for ill-tidings but, when she grasped to the full the awful implications of what Roger was saying, she burst into tears, and there was no way in which he could comfort her.

Presently some of the eunuch's servants returned, untied their hands and set before them bowls of water to wash in and of fruits to stay their hunger and thirst. Silently they cleaned themselves up as well as they could and ate a few of the fruits; then, in tongue-tied misery, they settled down again on the floor with their backs against the wall, to await further developments.

In vain Roger racked his brain for a way out of this situation which, faced frankly, held grimmer prospects for them than a sudden death; for they were threatened not only with temporary degradation and hardship, but with a life sentence. Had they been captured by Barbary pirates from Morocco, Algeria or Tunis, they might, sooner or later, have escaped across the Mediterranean; but here, thousands of miles from any Christian country, they were as far removed from sanctuary as though they had been transported to another planet. Month after month, and for as many years as they escaped fatal accident or disease, they must labour under the blistering equatorial sun upon such tasks as were set them, and submit to beatings and all other shames that might be put upon them.

All he could do was to strive to recall everything that Droopy Ned had told him about the Mohammedan religion, and what he had learned of Eastern customs while studying Persian on the voyage out; so that should an opportunity arise he could use them to win the good will of the master to whom he could only hope the eunuch would sell all three of them together.

Darkness fell and about an hour afterwards, Bajazet came to the cell with servants carrying torches. The eunuch was in a most evil temper and did not disguise the reason for it.
Roughly ordering them to get up he said to Roger: