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seemed likely, yet where the seat of that nation lay I could
not guess.
They looked upon the whites as their inferiors, and treated
us accordingly. They had a literature of their own, and
many of the men, even the common soldiers, were omnivorous
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r r
readers. Every two weeks a dust-covered trooper would trot
his jaded mount into the post and deliver a bulging sack of
mail at headquarters. The next day he would be away again
upon a fresh horse toward the south, carrying the soldiers'
letters to friends in the far off land of mystery from
whence they all had come.
Troops, sometimes mounted and sometimes afoot, left the post
daily for what I assumed to be patrol duty. I judged the
little force of a thousand men were detailed here to
maintain the authority of a distant government in a
conquered country. Later, I learned that my surmise was
correct, and this was but one of a great chain of similar
posts that dotted the new frontier of the black nation into
whose hands I had fallen.
Slowly I learned their tongue, so that I could understand
what was said before me, and make myself understood. I had
seen from the first that I was being treated as a slave--
that all whites that fell into the hands of the blacks were
thus treated.
Almost daily new prisoners were brought in, and about three
weeks after I was brought in to the post a troop of cavalry
came from the south to relieve one of the troops stationed
there. There was great jubilation in the encampment after
the arrival of the newcomers, old friendships were renewed
and new ones made. But the happiest men were those of the
troop that was to be relieved.
The next morning they started away, and as they were forced
upon the parade ground we prisoners were marched from our
quarters and lined up before them. A couple of long chains
were brought, with rings in the links every few feet. At
first I could not guess the purpose of these chains. But I
was soon to learn.
A couple of soldiers snapped the first ring around the neck
of a powerful white slave, and one by one the rest of us
were herded to our places, and the work of shackling us neck
to neck commenced.
The colonel stood watching the procedure. Presently his
eyes fell upon me, and he spoke to a young officer at his
side. The latter stepped toward me and motioned me to
follow him. I did so, and was led back to the colonel.
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r r
By this time I could understand a few words of their strange
language, and when the colonel asked me if I would prefer to
remain at the post as his body servant, I signified my
willingness as emphatically as possible, for I had seen
enough of the brutality of the common soldiers toward their
white slaves to have no desire to start out upon a march of
unknown length, chained by the neck, and driven on by the
great whips that a score of the soldiers carried to
accelerate the speed of their charges.
About three hundred prisoners who had been housed in six
prisons at the post marched out of the gates that morning,
toward what fate and what future I could not guess. Neither
had the poor devils themselves more than the most vague
conception of what lay in store for them, except that they
were going elsewhere to continue in the slavery that they
had known since their capture by their black conquerors--a
slavery that was to continue until death released them.
My position was altered at the post. From working about the
headquarters office, I was transferred to the colonel's
living quarters. I had greater freedom, and no longer slept
in one of the prisons, but had a little room to myself off
the kitchen of the colonel's log house.
My master was always kind to me, and under him I rapidly
learned the language of my captors, and much concerning them
that had been a mystery to me before. His name was Abu
Belik. He was a colonel in the cavalry of Abyssinia, a
country of which I do not remember ever hearing, but which
Colonel Belik assured me is the oldest civilized country in
the world.
Colonel Belik was born in Adis Abeba, the capital of the
empire, and until recently had been in command of the
emperor's palace guard. Jealousy and the ambition and
intrigue of another officer had lost him the favor of his
emperor, and he had been detailed to this frontier post as a
mark of his sovereign's displeasure.
Some fifty years before, the young emperor, Menelek XIV, was
ambitious. He knew that a great world lay across the waters
far to the north of his capital. Once he had crossed the
desert and looked out upon the blue sea that was the
northern boundary of his dominions.
There lay another world to conquer. Menelek busied himself
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r r
with the building of a great fleet, though his people were
not a maritime race. His army crossed into Europe. It met
with little resistance, and for fifty years his soldiers had
been pushing his boundaries farther and farther toward the
north.
"The yellow men from the east and north are contesting our
rights here now," said the colonel, "but we shall win--we
shall conquer the world, carrying Christianity to all the
benighted heathen of Europe, and Asia as well."
"You are a Christian people?" I asked.
He looked at me in surprise, nodding his head affirmatively.
"I am a Christian," I said. "My people are the most
powerful on earth."
He smiled, and shook his head indulgently, as a father to a
child who sets up his childish judgment against that of his
elders.
Then I set out to prove my point. I told him of our cities,
of our army, of our great navy. He came right back at me
asking for figures, and when he was done I had to admit that
only in our navy were we numerically superior.
Menelek XIV is the undisputed ruler of all the continent of
Africa, of all of ancient Europe except the British Isles,
Scandinavia, and eastern Russia, and has large possessions
and prosperous colonies in what once were Arabia and Turkey
in Asia.
He has a standing army of ten million men, and his people
possess slaves--white slaves--to the number of ten or
fifteen million.
Colonel Belik was much surprised, however, upon his part to
learn of the great nation which lay across the ocean, and
when he found that I was a naval officer, he was inclined to
accord me even greater consideration than formerly. It was
difficult for him to believe my assertion that there were [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]