Midnight was still an hour in advance, when the dull air seemed filled with a deep and prolonged roar, mingled with a peculiar kind of vibration.
Tom started to his feet. A fresh recollection of his early days had struck him.
“A lion! a lion!” he shouted.
In vain Dick tried to repress him; but he repeated—
“A lion! a lion!”
Dick Sands seized his cutlass, and, unable any longer to control his wrath, he rushed to the spot where he had left Harris lying.
The man was gone, and his horse with him!
All the suspicions that had been so long pent up within Dick’s mind now shaped themselves into actual reality. A flood of light had broken in upon him. Now he was convinced, only too certainly, that it was not the coast of America at all upon which the schooner had been cast ashore! it was not Easter Island that had been sighted far away in the west! the compass had completely deceived him; he was satisfied now that the strong currents had carried them quite round Cape Horn, and that they had really entered the Atlantic. No wonder that quinquinas, caoutchouc, and other South American products, had failed to be seen. This was neither the Bolivian pampas nor the plateau of Atacama. They were giraffes, not ostriches, that had vanished down the glade; they were elephants that had trodden down the underwood; they were hippopotamuses that were lurking by the river; it was indeed the dreaded tsetse that Cousin Benedict had so triumphantly discovered; and, last of all, it was a lion’s roar that had disturbed the silence of the forest. That chain, that knife, those forks, were unquestionably the instruments of slave-dealers; and what could those mutilated hands be, except the relics of their ill-fated victims?
Harris and Negoro must be in a conspiracy!
It was with terrible anguish that Dick gnashed his teeth and muttered—
“Yes, it is too true; we are in Africa! in equatorial Africa! in the land of slavery! in the very haunt of slave-drivers!”
Part II
I
The Dark Continent
The “slave-trade” is an expression that ought never to have found its way into any human language. After being long practised at a large profit by such European nations as had possessions beyond the seas, this abominable traffic has now for many years been ostensibly forbidden; yet even in the enlightenment of this nineteenth century, it is still largely carried on, especially in Central Africa, inasmuch as there are several states, professedly Christian, whose signatures have never been affixed to the deed of abolition.
Incredible as it should seem, this barter of human beings still exists, and for the due comprehension of the second part of Dick Sands’ story it must be borne in mind, that for the purpose of supplying certain colonies with slaves, there continue to be prosecuted such barbarous “manhunts” as threaten almost to lay waste an entire continent with blood, fire, and pillage.
The nefarious traffic as far as regards negroes does not appear to have arisen until the fifteenth century. The following are said to be the circumstances under which it had its origin. After being banished from Spain, the Mussulmans crossed the straits of Gibraltar and took refuge upon the shores of Africa, but the Portuguese who then occupied that portion of the coast persecuted the fugitives with the utmost severity, and having captured them in large numbers, sent them as prisoners into Portugal. They were thus the first nucleus of any African slaves that entered Western Europe since the commencement of the Christian era. The majority, however, of these Mussulmans were members of wealthy families, who were prepared to pay almost any amount of money for their release; but no ransom was exorbitant enough to tempt the Portuguese to surrender them; more precious than gold were the strong arms that should work the resources of their young and rising colonies. Thus baulked in their purpose of effecting a direct ransom of their captured relatives, the Mussulman families next submitted a proposition for exchanging them for a larger number of African negroes, whom it would be quite easy to procure. The Portuguese, to whom the proposal was in every way advantageous, eagerly accepted the offer; and in this way the slave-trade was originated in Europe.
By the end of the sixteenth century this odious traffic had become permanently established; in principle it contained nothing repugnant to the semi-barbarous thought and customs then existing; all the great states recognized it as the most effectual means of colonizing the islands of the New World, especially as slaves of negro blood, well acclimatized to tropical heat, were able to survive where white men must have perished by thousands. The transport of slaves to the American colonies was consequently regularly effected by vessels specially built for that purpose, and large depots for this branch of commerce were established at various points of the African coast. The “goods” cost comparatively little in production, and the profits were enormous.
Yet, after all, however indispensable it might be to complete the foundation of the transatlantic colonies, there was nothing to justify this shameful barter of human flesh and blood, and the voice of philanthropy began to be heard in protestation, calling upon all European governments, in the name of mercy and common humanity, to decree the abolition of the trade at once.
In 1751, the Quakers put themselves at the head of the abolitionist movement in North America, that very land where, a hundred years later, the war of secession burst forth,
