CHAPTER I.

In a few moments the little European flotilla was rounding the Ras-el-Khartoum, the junction of the White and Blue Niles, and very soon it passed the three large mimosas, called usually the "tree," the rendezvous for all boats leaving for the voyage up the White Nile or its affluents. The banks of the river here and for some miles farther on present a most monotonous appearance—low, flat banks as far as the eye can see, often flooded and resembling a sea rather than a river, with here and there a clump of acacias. In the distance can be discerned the desert with its sandy undulations. From the bed of the river snags and dead stumps of trees raise their withered heads, whilst aquatic plants glide slowly down the stream and look like floating islets of verdure. Clouds of mosquitoes swarm on this moving vegetation and appear so thoroughly satisfied with their habitation that they forget to attack the European traveller.

The captain of the steamer which towed the flotilla was a young Egyptian officer, educated in Paris, a very gentlemanly and clever man. At starting he had begged Madame de Guéran and her companions to come on board his ship. "In a few days," he said, "you will leave me, for you will go up the Gazelle River whilst I shall have to proceed alone on my journey up the White Nile as far as Gondokoro. Give me, then, as long as you can, the pleasure of your society."

The whole party acceded to this invitation, and joined the "Khedive," that being the name of the steamer. Most of their time was passed on the poop, and the conversation frequently turned on the slave-trade, which the young officer had for two years, under the command of Sir Samuel Baker, endeavoured to put down.

"Alas!" he said, "our efforts have been well nigh futile. For one cargo of slaves released by us ten have escaped, and General Baker was worn out, during his four years' of command, in the struggle against the natives of the country, whom the slave-merchants, Aboo-Saoud, the most powerful of all amongst them, incited to oppose him."

One evening, as the Europeans and their host were chatting in some such fashion as we have described, an acrid, fetid stench, more like the smell of a charnel-house or a wild beasts' den than, anything else, was wafted by the wind towards the "Khedive," and unexpectedly saluted the nostrils of her passengers.

"This is awful," said Delange, "these banks are enough to breed a pestilence."

"No," said the Captain, "this foul stench comes from that large boat you see coming down the river towards us. If I am not mistaken I shall find on board her some living arguments in support of what I have just been telling you about the slave trade and our powerlessness to put an end to it."

The officer, whilst saying this, got up and directed the engines to be stopped. A boat was at the same time lowered and pulled towards the stranger with an order for her to heave to.

No notice was taken of the command, and the boat, borne onwards by the strength of the rapid current and the favourable wind, continued on her course, the "Khedive" being unable to bar her passage. On the contrary, the Captain prudently got out of the way with his flotilla, but as soon as the sailing boat had passed he fired a gun as a second notice to stop, and this was at once answered by the lowering of her huge sail, those on board recognizing the fact that they were not strong enough to make any show of continued resistance.

"The sky is beautifully clear, and the moon will soon rise from behind that leafy screen of mimosas," said the Captain to his guests. "Would you like to come on board that boat with me? I have every reason to believe that we shall find something in her which will repay us for our trouble."

The offer was accepted, and, a few moments afterwards, a couple of boats were pulled alongside the starboard gangway of the steamer. Ten well-armed sailors took their place in the first, and in the other the Captain, Madame de Guéran, Miss Poles, and their three companions seated themselves.

Five minutes sufficed to reach the stranger. Contrary to expectation there was no attempt at a parley, nor was any opposition offered to this nocturnal visit. So far, indeed, was this from being the case that a line was thrown out to the boats to make them fast to the vessel's side.

The Egyptian officer, followed by his sailors and the European travellers, had scarcely climbed up the side, when the Captain, or reis, a man of about forty, in Mussulman costume, advanced towards them. He spoke in Turkish, and addressed himself to the Commander of the "Khedive," whose uniform bespoke his rank.

"As soon as I understood your orders," said he, in a low voice and with a smile on his thin parched lips, "I hastened to obey them. You have, no doubt, some despatches to give me for Khartoum, which I shall reach in two days if the wind continues favourably."

"You are not going to Khartoum, where you would get into trouble," replied the Commander of the "Khedive." "You reckon upon heaving to at some point along the banks where you can discharge your cargo of slaves, whom you will afterwards forward by land, westwards by Kordofan, or eastwards by Sennaar, to some market or other, either in the interior or on the coast."

"My cargo of slaves, sir? What are you talking about?" exclaimed the Mussulman, raising his eyes to heaven as if to summon it to bear witness to his veracity, "I am a straightforward trader, and I am on my way back from the Grazelle River with a cargo of ivory from the Southern provinces."

"Where is your cargo?" asked the officer.

"Here are a few samples?" replied the Turk, pointing to a number of elephants' tusks which were strung up along the mast.

"You have made a dangerous trip solely for ivory, have you?" was the Egyptian's reply. "I know you and your kindred spirits too well to be taken in by any such tale as that. Where have you hidden your human merchandize? Answer."

"Nowhere, I assure you, sir. You may search the ship if you like."

"That is exactly what I am going to do."

"When you please."

The Egyptian officer was beginning to feel non-plussed. In vain he looked around him, he could only discover about eight or ten men, rather a villainous-looking lot truly, doing odd jobs about the ship.

In the meantime, the stench, which had first become noticeable about half an hour previously, appeared now to increase in intensity every moment, and whiffs of hot, one might almost say putrified, air surged up without intermission from somewhere or other. Whence could possibly come these foul exhalations, this suffocating heat, which seemed to emanate from some cribb'd, cabined, and confined human herd? If the vessel had been a slaver in the Indian Ocean or the Red Sea, there would not have been any need for hesitation. The removal of the hatches would have at once exposed to view two or three hundred blacks, chained along the side of the hold, or stowed away in the centre like bales of cotton or hogsheads of sugar. But the large boat, on board which they were, drew but little water, and she had not depth enough for either a hold or a lower deck.

Fortunately, the sailors of the "Khedive," were whiling away the time by making a tour of inspection on their own behalf, and some of them, who had made their way forwards, took it into their heads to remove some very suspicious looking sacks of grain, thereby uncovering a trap-door which they set to work to raise.

As soon as the men on board, who had up to this time remained remarkably indifferent and impassive, saw what their Egyptian colleagues were about, they came forward and endeavoured to prevent them from satisfying their curiosity. A hot argument ensued, and the attention of the European party was attracted by the wordy tumult. They at once hastened to join the sailors, and, summoning the reis, ordered him to have the trap raised. But the fellow, though previously obsequious and pliant enough, suddenly put on an arrogant air and refused to give the required orders, his crew, at the same time, taking up a menacing attitude.

"All right," said the Commander of the "Khedive," "I expected this, and have provided for the emergency."

So saying, he put his silver whistle to his lips, and at the shrill, prolonged call, the Egyptian steamer, which had been awaiting the signal, was set in motion and came near. The warning was enough, and the Captain, followed by his crew, withdrew aft.

The trap was then raised, and a glimpse was caught of a huge black, seething, writhing, swarming hole. It was but a glimpse, for those who looked in were glad to draw back, half stifled by the heat and stench which escaped from the pit.

At once hands, arms, shoulders, heads appeared through the various openings, and laboured gasps were heard from surcharged breasts, eagerly drinking in the pure air. Sighs and stifled cries from the belly of the ship added to the general discordance.

"Come along!" exclaimed M. de Morin, "let us rescue these poor creatures."

He, his companions, and the Egyptians approached the trap and set to work to haul up all the arms, shoulders, and heads within their reach, seizing hold of them, and dragging them out with such good-will that in a few minutes a score of slaves, more or less suffocated, were lying on the deck, able at last to breathe. But the newly-opened den contained other victims, who must be saved if, indeed, help had not arrived too late. A sailor handed a torch to MM. de Morin and Périères, and the two friends were courageous enough to descend into the abyss.

There, in a space about fifteen metres long, the whole length of the boat, and five wide, in a sort of gallery, where a man even sitting down had to lower his head, in a kind of double-bottomed box, were a hundred human creatures, boys, girls, and women, crammed together, huddled, heaped up pell-mell, welded, as it were, into one another.

"Now, then!" called out M. de. Morin, who was anxious to get on deck again. "Stir yourselves, and get out of this!"

But the poor wretches did not stir. They were not quite so numerous as they had been a moment before, a breath of air had reached them— they did not ask for more—and they called to mind the threat that was held over them when they were shut up in that den—their persecutors had sworn that they would never open the living tomb if their victims uttered a single cry, or drew attention to the boat.

It is owing to the dread instilled into these poor people, ground down by misery and want, and, above all, is it owing to this hideous hiding-place on board their vessels, that the slave dealers continue to carry on, in spite of Baker, their nefarious trade, and sail, unsuspected, past the very stations organized for their discovery. As a rule, their slaves remain on deck night and day, but as soon as a station is neared, or a man-of-war is signalled in the distance, the wretches are made to go below at once into the confined space we have described. There they are hermetically enclosed, there they are immured, not to be released until all danger has disappeared. An opening here and there in the vessel's side, just above the water-mark and too small to be seen, enables the inmates to struggle against suffocation for, perhaps, an hour. That limit passed, the deaths are about twenty a minute, the strongest, those who need a larger quantum of air for their spacious lungs, being the first to succumb. The weak and ailing alone exist for any length of time, and so, at the end of a couple of hours, there is no longer any hurry to open the trap, for out of it would only come worthless, valueless slaves.

But if the openings, of which we have spoken, are not large enough to prevent suffocation, they still allow the escape of the miasma produced by this compressed, over-heated human mass. The wind had borne this stench towards the Egyptian vessel, and thus, by a mere accident, one of the countless devices of these dealers in human flesh was found out.

It was necessary to employ force to get the slaves to emerge from their den, for they were under the impression that if they went on deck they would be massacred. In fact, they were running a great risk, the Mussulman Captain and his ten men having taken advantage of the attention of the Europeans being devoted to the rescue of the slaves, to construct a barricade aft.

They had rolled together three barrels of powder, and they declared positively that if they were to be ruined, if their slaves were taken away, they would blow up the boat and everybody on board.