“A drop of a white man’s blood!” suggested Negoro, glancing at Alvez.
“Yes, yes; kill a white man,” assented Moené Loonga, his ferocious instincts all aroused by the proposition.
“There is a white man here,” said Alvez, “who has killed my agent. He must be punished for his act.”
“Send him to King Masongo!” cried the king; “Masongo and the Assuas will cut him up and eat him alive.”
Only too true it is that cannibalism is still openly practised in certain provinces of Central Africa. Livingstone records that the Manyuemas not only eat men killed in war, but even buy slaves for that purpose; it is said to be the avowal of these Manyuemas that “human flesh is slightly salt, and requires no seasoning.” Cameron relates how in the dominions of Moené Booga dead bodies were soaked for a few days in running water as a preparation for their being devoured; and Stanley found traces of a widely-spread cannibalism amongst the inhabitants of Ukusu.
But however horrible might be the manner of death proposed by Moené Loonga, it did not at all suit Negoro’s purpose to let Dick Sands out of his clutches.
“The white man is here,” he said to the king; “it is here he has committed his offence, and here he should be punished.”
“If you will,” replied Moené Loonga; “only I must have firewater; a drop of firewater for every drop of the white man’s blood.”
“Yes, you shall have the firewater,” assented Alvez, “and what is more, you shall have it all alight. We will give your majesty a bowl of blazing punch.”
The thought had struck Alvez, and he was himself delighted with the idea, that he would set the spirit in flames. Moené Loonga had complained that the “firewater” did not justify its name as it ought, and Alvez hoped that perhaps, administered in this new form, it might revivify the deadened membranes of the palate of the king.
Moené Loonga did not conceal his satisfaction. Wives and courtiers alike were full of anticipation. They had all drunk brandy, but they had not drunk brandy alight. And not only was their thirst for alcohol to be satisfied; their thirst for blood was likewise to be indulged; and when it is remembered how, even amongst the civilized, drunkenness reduces a man below the level of a brute, it may be imagined to what barbarous cruelties Dick Sands was likely to be exposed. The idea of torturing a white man was not altogether repugnant to the coloured blood of either Alvez or Coïmbra, while with Negoro the spirit of vengeance had completely overpowered all feeling of compunction.
Night, without any intervening twilight, was soon drawing on, and the contemplated display could hardly fail to be effective. The programme for the evening consisted of two parts; first, the blazing punch-bowl; then the torture, culminating in an execution.
The destined victim was still closely confined in his dark and dreary dungeon; all the slaves, whether sold or not, had been driven back to the barracks, and the chitoka was cleared of everyone except the slave-dealers, the havildars, and the soldiers, who hoped, by favour of the king, to have a share of the flaming punch.
Alvez did not long delay the proceedings. He ordered a huge cauldron, capable of containing more than twenty gallons, to be placed in the centre of the marketplace. Into this were emptied several casks of highly-rectified spirit, of a very inferior quality, to which was added a supply of cinnamon and other spices, no ingredient being omitted which was likely to give a pungency to suit the savage palate.
The whole royal retinue formed a circle round the king. Fascinated by the sight of the spirit, Moené Loonga came reeling up to the edge of the punch-bowl, and seemed ready to plunge himself head foremost into it. Alvez held him back, at the same time placing a lucifer in his hand.
“Set it alight!” cried the slave-dealer, grinning slyly as he spoke.
The king applied the match to the surface of the spirit. The effect was instantaneous. High above the edge of the bowl the blue flame rose and curled. To give intensity to the process Alvez had added a sprinkling of salt to the mixture, and this caused the fire to cast upon the faces of all around that lurid glare which is generally associated with apparitions of ghosts and phantoms. Half intoxicated already, the negroes yelled and gesticulated; and joining hands, they performed a fiendish dance around their monarch. Alvez stood and stirred the spirit with an enormous metal ladle, attached to a pole, and as the flames rose yet higher and higher they seemed to throw a more and more unearthly glamour over the apelike forms that circled in their wild career.
Moené Loonga, in his eagerness, soon seized the ladle from the slave-dealer’s hands, plunged it deep into the bowl, and bringing it up again full of the blazing punch, raised it to his lips.
A horrible shriek brought the dancers to a sudden standstill. By a kind of spontaneous combustion, the king had taken fire internally; though it was a fire that emitted little heat, it was nonetheless intense and consuming. In an instant one of the ministers in attendance ran to the king’s assistance, but he, almost as much alcoholized as his master, caught fire as well, and soon both monarch and minister lay writhing on the ground in unutterable agony. Not a soul was able to lend a helping hand. Alvez and Negoro were at a loss what to do; the courtiers dared not expose themselves to so terrible a fate; the women had all fled in alarm, and Coïmbra, awakened to the conviction of the inflammability of his own condition, had rapidly decamped.
To say the truth, it was impossible to do anything; water would have proved unavailing to quench the pale blue flame that hovered over the prostrate forms, every tissue of which was so thoroughly impregnated with spirit, that
