Robert Michael Ballantyne – The Complete Collection

Chapter 57

But to return to our point--the legal traders. In consequence of the Sultan's dominions lying partly on an island and partly on the mainland, his domestic institution necessitates boats, and in order to distinguish between his boats and the pirates, there is a particular season fixed in which he may carry his slaves by sea from one part of his dominions to another; and each boat is furnished with papers which prove it to be a "legal trader." This is the point on which the grand fallacy of our interference hinges. The "domestic institution" would be amply supplied by about 4000 slaves a year. The so-called legal traders are simply legalised deceivers, who transport not fewer than 30,000 slaves a year! It must be borne in mind that these 30,000 represent only a portion--the Zanzibar portion--of the great African slave-trade. From the Portuguese settlements to the south, and from the north by way of Egypt, the export of n*****s as slaves is larger. It is estimated that the total number of human beings enslaved on the east and north-east coast of Africa is about 70,000 a year. As all authorities agree in the statement that, at the lowest estimate, only one out of every five captured survives to go into slavery, this number represents a loss to Africa of 350,000 human beings a year. They leave Zanzibar with full cargoes continually, with far more than is required for what we may term home-consumption. Nevertheless, correct papers are furnished to them by the Sultan, which protects them from British cruisers within the prescribed limits, namely, between Cape Dalgado and Lamoo, a line of coast about 1500 miles in extent. But it is easy for them to evade the cruisers in these wide seas and extensive coasts, and the value of Black Ivory is so great that the loss of a few is but a small matter. On reaching the northern limits the legal traders become pirates. They run to the northward, and take their chance of being captured by cruisers.

The reason of all this is very obvious. The Sultan receives nearly half a sovereign a head for each slave imported into Zanzibar, and our Governments, in time past, have allowed themselves to entertain the belief, that, by treaty, the Sultan could be induced to destroy this the chief source of his revenue!

Surely it is not too much to say, that Great Britain ought to enter into no treaty whatever in regard to slavery, excepting such as shall provide for the absolute, total, and immediate extirpation thereof by whatsoever name called .

Besides these two classes of slavers,--the open, professional pirates, and the sneaking, deceiving "domestic" slavers,--there are the slave-smugglers. They are men who profess to be, and actually are, legal traders in ivory, gum, copal, and other produce of Africa. These fellows manage to smuggle two or three slaves each voyage to the Black Ivory markets, under pretence that they form part of the crew of their dhows. It is exceedingly difficult, almost impossible, for the officers of our cruisers to convict these smugglers--to distinguish between slaves and crews, consequently immense numbers of slaves are carried off to the northern ports in this manner. Sometimes these dhows carry Arab or other passengers, and when there are so many slaves on board that it would be obviously absurd to pretend that they formed part of the crew, the owner dresses the poor wretches up in the habiliments that come most readily to hand, and passes them off as the wives or servants of these passengers. Any one might see at a glance that the stupid, silent, timid-looking creatures, who have had almost every human element beaten out of them, are nothing of the sort, but there is no means of proving them other than they are represented to be. If an interpreter were to ask them they would be ready to swear anything that their owner had commanded; hence the cruisers are deceived in every way--in many ways besides those now mentioned--and our philanthropic intentions are utterly thwarted; for the rescuing and setting free of 1000 or 2000 n*****s a year out of the 30,000 annually exported, is not an adequate result for our great expense in keeping a squadron on the coast, especially when we consider that hundreds, probably thousands, of slaves perish amid horrible sufferings caused by the efforts of the man-stealers to avoid our cruisers. These would probably not lose their lives, and the entire body of slaves would suffer less, if we did not interfere at all.

From this we do not argue that non-interference would be best, but that as our present system of repression does not effectively accomplish what is aimed at, it ought to be changed. What the change should be, many wise and able men have stated. Their opinion we cannot quote here, but one thing taught to us by past experience is clear, we cannot cure the slave-trade by merely limiting it. Our motto in regard to slavery ought to be-- Total and immediate extinction everywhere .

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

STRONG MEASURES LEAD TO UNEXPECTED DISCOVERIES.

"I'm terribly worried and perplexed," said Lieutenant Lindsay one afternoon to Midshipman Midgley, as they were creeping along the coast in the neighbourhood of Cape Dalgado.

"Why so?" inquired the middy.

"Because I can learn nothing whatever about the movements of Marizano," replied the Lieutenant. "I have not spoken to you about this man hitherto, because--because--that is to say--the fact is, it wasn't worth while, seeing that you know no more about him than I do, perhaps not so much. But I can't help thinking that we might have learned something about him by this time, only our interpreter is such an unmitigated ass, he seems to understand nothing--to pick up nothing."

"Indeed!" exclaimed the midshipman; "I'm surprised to hear you say so, because I heard Suliman whispering last night with that half-caste fellow whom we captured along with the other n*****s, and I am confident that he mentioned the name of Marizano several times."

"Did he? Well now, the rascal invariably looks quite blank when I mention Marizano's name, and shakes his head, as if he had never heard of it before."

"Couldn't you intimidate him into disgorging a little of his knowledge?" suggested Midgley, with an arch look.

"I have thought of that," replied Lindsay, with a frown. "Come, it's not a bad idea; I'll try! Hallo! Suliman, come aft, I want you."

Lieutenant Lindsay was one of those men who are apt to surprise people by the precipitancy of their actions. He was not, indeed, hasty; but when his mind was made up he was not slow in proceeding to action. It was so on the present occasion, to the consternation of Suliman, who had hitherto conceived him to be rather a soft easy-going man.

"Suliman," he said, in a low but remarkably firm tone of voice, "you know more about Marizano than you choose to tell me. Now," he continued, gazing into the Arab's cold grey eyes, while he pulled a revolver from his coat-pocket and c****d it, "I intend to make you tell me all you know about him, or to blow your brains out."

He moved the pistol gently as he spoke, and placed his forefinger on the trigger.

"I not know," began Suliman, who evidently did not believe him to be quite in earnest; but before the words had well left his lips the drum of his left ear was almost split by the report of the pistol, and a part of his turban was blown away.

"You don't know? very well," said Lindsay, recocking the pistol, and placing the cold muzzle of it against the Arab's yellow nose.

This was too much for Suliman. He grew pale, and suddenly fell on his knees.

"Oh! stop! no--no! not fire! me tell you 'bout 'im."

"Good, get up and do so," said the Lieutenant, uncocking the revolver, and returning it to his pocket; "and be sure that you tell me all, else your life won't be worth the value of the damaged turban on your head."

With a good deal of trepidation the alarmed interpreter thereupon gave Lindsay all the information he possessed in regard to the slaver, which amounted to this, that he had gone to Kilwa, where he had collected a band of slaves sufficient to fill a large dhow, with which he intended, in two days more, to sail, in company with a fleet of slavers, for the north.

"Does he intend to touch at Zanzibar?" inquired Lindsay.

"Me tink no," replied the interpreter; "got many pritty garls--go straight for Persia."

On hearing this the Lieutenant put the cutter about, and sailed out to sea in search of the `Firefly,' which he knew could not at that time be at any great distance from the shore.

He found her sooner than he had expected; and, to his immense astonishment as well as joy, one of the first persons he beheld on stepping over the side of his ship was Azinte.

"You have captured Marizano, sir, I see," he said to Captain Romer.

"Not the scoundrel himself, but one of his dhows," replied the Captain. "He had started for the northern ports with two heavily-laden vessels. We discovered him five days ago, and, fortunately, just beyond the protected water, so that he was a fair and lawful prize. The first of his dhows, being farthest out from shore, we captured, but the other, commanded by himself, succeeded in running ashore, and he escaped; with nearly all his slaves--only a few of the women and children being drowned in the surf. And now, as our cargo of poor wretches is pretty large, I shall run for the Seychelles. After landing them I shall return as fast as possible, to intercept a few more of these pirates."

"To the Seychelles!" muttered the Lieutenant to himself as he went below, with an expression on his countenance something between surprise and despair.

Poor Lindsay! His mind was so taken up with, and confused by, the constant and obtrusive presence of the Senhorina Maraquita that the particular turn which affairs had taken had not occurred to him, although that turn was quite natural, and by no means improbable. Marizano, with Azinte on board of one of his piratical dhows, was proceeding to the north. Captain Romer, with his war-steamer, was on the look-out for piratical dhows. What more natural than that the Captain should fall in with the pirate? But Lieutenant Lindsay's mind had been so filled with Maraquita that it seemed to be, for the time, incapable of holding more than one other idea--that idea was the fulfilment of Maraquita's commands to obtain information as to her lost Azinte. To this he had of late devoted all his powers, happy in the thought that it fell in with and formed part of his duty, to his Queen and country, as well as to the "Queen of his soul." To rescue Azinte from Marizano seemed to the bold Lieutenant an easy enough matter; but to rescue her from his own Captain, and send her back into slavery! "Ass! that I am," he exclaimed, "not to have thought of this before. Of course she can never be returned to Maraquita, and small comfort it will be to the Senhorina to be told that her favourite is free in the Seychelles Islands, and utterly beyond her reach, unless she chooses to go there and stay with her."

Overwhelmed with disgust at his own stupidity, and at the utter impossibility of doing anything to mend matters, the unfortunate Lieutenant sat down to think, and the result of his thinking was that he resolved at all events to look well after Azinte, and see that she should be cared for on her arrival at the Seychelles.

Among the poor creatures who had been rescued from Marizano's dhow were nearly a hundred children, in such a deplorable condition that small hopes were entertained of their reaching the island alive. Their young lives, however, proved to be tenacious. Experienced though their hardy rescuers were in rough and tumble work, they had no conception what these poor creatures had already gone through, and, therefore, formed a mistaken estimate of their powers of endurance. Eighty-three of them reached the Seychelles alive. They were placed under the care of a warm-hearted missionary, who spared no pains for their restoration to health; but despite his utmost efforts, forty of these eventually died-- their little frames had been whipped, and starved, and tried to such an extent, that recovery was impossible.