With Airship and Submarine Part 17

"And they are not the only people who have died in torment since your return. Many of your own people have suffered at your word. Is it not so?"

"It is so," answered the king. "They were rebellious subjects; so they perished."

"How knew you that they were rebellious?" demanded von Schalckenberg.

"My witch-doctors told me so. Is that not enough?" retorted M'Bongwele.

"And how knew the witch-doctors that they were rebellious?" inquired the professor.

"They found it out through their magic; even as you, through your magic, found out that I had returned to my people," answered the king.

"Are those witch-doctors present? If so, let them stand forth,"

exclaimed the professor.

For a s.p.a.ce of two or three minutes there was no direct reply to this challenge, but merely a subdued commotion among the a.s.sembled mult.i.tude of warriors. Then the professor, growing impatient, called to Lobelalatutu.

"Are the witch-doctors present, Lobelalatutu?"

"Nay, Great Spirit, they are not present. Doubtless they are to be found in their huts," answered the chief, saluting.

"Then, take men with you to those huts, find the witch-doctors, bind them with thongs, and bring them forth to judgment," commanded von Schalckenberg.

A few minutes of dead silence now followed, at the end of which there arose, among the more distant huts, outcries and sounds of commotion, and presently the chief and his party reappeared, leading forth ten old and grizzled men of most villainously cunning and repulsive appearance, whose hands were bound behind them. These were brought to the front and ranged in line by the side of the king.

The professor looked at them intently for a full minute, they returning his look with an insolent glare of defiance. Then he said--

"Which of you is the chief of the witch-doctors?"

"I, even I, M'Pusa, am the chief witch-doctor. What want ye with me, white man?" answered the most hideously repulsive-looking individual of the party, sending a look of concentrated hatred and vindictiveness upward at the professor.

"It is charged against you that you have cruelly and maliciously incited the man M'Bongwele--who falsely calls himself 'king'--to condemn many people to suffer death by torture, under the pretence that they were conspiring against him, knowing all the while that your accusations were false. What explanation or excuse have you to offer for your wickedness?" demanded the professor, sternly.

The man pondered for a moment, as though considering what answer he should make. At length he looked up, and said--

"Why should I make excuse? The men were my enemies, and I used such power as I possessed to destroy them."

"It is enough," said von Schalckenberg.

Then, addressing the great a.s.semblage before him, he continued--

"Men of the Makolo, ye have heard the questions that I have put to these two men, and the answers that they have given to those questions. They have acknowledged that the charges brought against them are true. They have taken many lives, doomed many to die in lingering torment for the mere gratification of their own personal enmity and their love of cruelty. Out of their own mouths are they judged and condemned; they have misused their power, and therefore is it taken from them. They have wantonly taken the lives of others, therefore are their own lives forfeit. The sentence pa.s.sed upon them is that they die a shameful and ignominious death. Take them, therefore, fasten strong ropes about their necks, and hang them both from the great branch of yonder tree until they be dead."

Dead! The word touched M'Bongwele and stirred him as could no other word in his own or any other language. He? Dead? And by the hands of others? How many of his unresisting subjects had he condemned to suffer death--the death of acute lingering, long-drawn-out, seemingly interminable suffering? And how he had laughed with ferocious glee when he had succeeded in making some of them--not many, only one or two occasionally--quail at the prospect of what lay before them! But he had never dreamed of a day when he himself should be doomed to suffer the ignominy of public execution. How should he? Was he not the king? and was his word not the law? Who should dare to raise a hand against him?

The idea seemed to him preposterous, grotesque, an absurdity, until he glanced upward and saw those set, stern white faces gazing down upon him with eyes in which he read the truth that his doom was fixed, immutable, inexorable. Involuntarily he shuddered, and glanced wildly about him as though looking for a way of escape. Would his own people stand tamely by and see him, their king, perish at the word of these mysterious, terrible strangers? Or would a single one of them dare to lay sacrilegious hands upon him in obedience to the order of these strangers? With the half-formed hope that generations of iron discipline and unquestioning obedience to the king's will might yet avail to protect him in the moment of his utmost need, his glance searched face after face. In vain! He had allowed his tyranny to carry him so far that at length there was scarce a man among those present who could say with certainty that his own life would not be the next demanded to satisfy some savage whim of the king. There were not twenty among all those hundreds who would raise a hand to save him! Too late he saw the full depth of his rash, headstrong, criminal folly, and to what straits it had led him; and, suddenly s.n.a.t.c.hing a spear from the hand of one of his astonished and unwary guards, he strove to drive its point into his own heart. But the owner of the spear recovered himself in a flash, and, seizing the blade of the weapon in his bare hand, he twisted it upward with such strength that the slender wooden shaft snapped, leaving the head in his hand and the innocuous shaft in that of M'Bongwele. At the same instant half a dozen men flung themselves upon the king, and in a trice his hands were drawn behind him, and securely bound. Then, from somewhere, two long thongs or ropes of twisted raw-hide were produced and quickly knotted round the necks of the two condemned men, and in a tense, breathless silence they were led away to the fatal tree.

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

THE KING'S NECKLACE.

With the return of Lobelalatutu from his gruesome task, and while the bodies of M'Bongwele and M'Pusa still swung from the tree, the professor turned to his friends and said--

"Having disposed of one king, the onus now rests upon us of appointing another. The question consequently arises: What is to govern us in the somewhat delicate task of choosing a suitable man?"

"Yes," agreed Sir Reginald; "and it is a somewhat difficult question to answer: very much too difficult to answer offhand. We want a man--"

"Excuse me for interrupting you, old chap," broke in Lethbridge; "but I should like to offer a suggestion, based upon my knowledge of the peculiarities of the savage mind, as acquired in various out-of-the-way corners of the globe. In the light of what this chief, Lobelalatutu, has told us to-day, I am of opinion that we made a rather serious mistake when, on the occasion of our last visit here, we appointed Seketulo as king without consulting the wishes of the other chiefs. I would therefore suggest that we instruct the chiefs to hold a pow-wow to-night for the purpose of deciding upon, and submitting to us to-morrow, the names of such individuals as they consider suitable for the position. What say you, Professor? You, too, have had some experience with natives; what do you think of my plan?"

"I think it excellent in every way," answered the professor, heartily; "so excellent, indeed, that I very strongly support it."

"All right," agreed Sir Reginald; "I can see no possible objection to the scheme. What do you say, Colonel, and you--Hillo! what has become of Mildmay?"

"It would not very profoundly surprise me if it should be found that he is below, doing his best to entertain the ladies," observed Lethbridge, with a grin. "And, if so, there is really no need to disturb him; he is sure to agree to anything that we may decide upon. What think _you of_ our plan, Colonel?"

"Well, really, I have had so little experience in matters of the kind, that I do not feel competent to express an opinion. But since my very excellent friend, von Schalckenberg, so thoroughly approves of it, I am certain that it must be a good one," answered Sziszkinski.

"Very good, then; that is settled. Will you tell those fellows down there, Professor?" said Sir Reginald.

Von Schalckenberg did so, and then dismissed the people to their huts, commanding the chief, Lobelalatutu, however, to ascend to the deck again for a few minutes, as they had one or two further questions to put to him.

"And now," remarked the professor, as the chief joined them, "our next business, I take it, is to discover who were those unfortunate white people who died under such barbarous circ.u.mstances, to amuse M'Bongwele and set his jealous fears at rest."

"Certainly," agreed Sir Reginald. "It is our manifest duty to do so.

And, if we can identify any of them, it will also be our painful duty to make public the particulars of their most miserable fate, and, if possible, communicate with their relatives; also to despatch to those relatives any relics that they may have left behind them. Ask Lobelalatutu if he happens to know what became of the poor souls'

belongings."

Von Schalckenberg put the question, and learned in reply that whatever may have belonged to the unhappy party would undoubtedly be found in the king's palace.

"Of course," remarked the professor, "we might have guessed as much!

Well, is there anything more that we wish to ask our black friend?"

"Ask him whether any portion of the wreck still exists, and, if so, where it is to be found," suggested Sir Reginald.

The professor and Lobelalatutu conversed together for a few minutes, and then the former, turning to his companion, said--

"The chief tells me that the wreck has disappeared, but that he can point out to us the spot where it lay. I think we ought to examine it, do not you?"

"Undoubtedly," agreed Sir Reginald. "We may perhaps be able to go over and take a look at it to-morrow, after this matter of the choice of a new king is settled. Meanwhile, there goes the luncheon-bell. After lunch we might give the 'palace' an overhaul, and see what we can find of interest there."

So it was arranged, and Lobelalatutu then received his dismissal.

In accordance with Sir Reginald's suggestion, he, the professor, Lethbridge, and Colonel Sziszkinski quietly left the s.h.i.+p that same afternoon, about three o'clock, to inst.i.tute a search in the palace for any relics of the s.h.i.+pwrecked party that M'Bongwele might have preserved. Mildmay very willingly agreed to remain on board the s.h.i.+p to keep the ladies company, and see, generally, that nothing went amiss with them.

But before they left the s.h.i.+p, von Schalckenberg handed to each of the party a small box, about half the size of this book.

"Our experiences in the forest, the other day, when we were lost there,"

said he, "suggested to me the importance of providing some means of communicating with the s.h.i.+p--and with each other, if need be--under similar circ.u.mstances, and the outcome of my cogitations upon the subject is these little boxes, which are all precisely alike."