The Cruise of the Midge. Michael Scott

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СКАЧАТЬ have made himself almost sure of a fine evening, yet the present was an exception, and we had every appearance of a thunderstorm.

      All nature seemed hushed; the thick clouds that arose in the east, sailed along on the usual current of the trade-wind with their edges as well defined as if it had been a dark screen gradually shoving up and across the arch of the blue empyrean; this gloomy canopy crept on and on, and as it overlapped us and stole down the western horizon, every thing assumed a deep dusky purple hue.

      In the sudden darkness, the fires glanced bright and red on board of three war-canoes, that had now been suddenly advanced down the river in the shape of a triangle, the headmost being within a mile of us. Presently, the sable curtain descended within a very few degrees of the western horizon, until there was only a small streak of bright golden sky between it and the line of the land; in the centre of which the glorious sun, now near his setting, shot his level beams of blood-red light over the river and its banks, and the trees that grew on them, gilding the dark sides of the canoes; and as he sank, his last rays flashed up into the black arch overhead, until the dark masses of cloud glowed like crimson.

      This soon faded—the clouds gradually sinking in the west, until, as if their scope had been expended, they lifted from the eastern horizon majestically slow—like a magnificent curtain drawn up in order to disclose the glorious moon, which now, preceded by her gemlike forerunner the evening star, that sparkled bright and clear on the fringe of the ascending cloud, rose above the low swampy banks, like a diamond on the skirt of a sable velvet mantle.

      Her disk, when she first appeared, was red and dim, until she attained a considerable altitude, when, having struggled through the pestilential effluvia that hovered over the river, she began to sail through her liquid track in all her splendour—pale, but oh, how crystal clear!—driving, like a queen, the dark vapours before her.

      As the night wore on, the congregation of canoes became thicker, and presently something like a raft floated down to within three quarters of a mile of us, accompanied by five large boats, full of people.

      It was clearly distinguishable, from a bright halo of luminous smoke that hovered over it, proceeding from a fire that every now and then blazed up on board. By the time the raft was anchored, the evening breeze came strong down the river, wafting towards us the sounds of African drums, blended with dismal yells, as of captives, and loud fierce shouts.

      I directed my glass towards the name, that was flashing fitfully, as if tar or rosin, or some other equally inflammable substance, had been suddenly cast into it.

      "What can that be?" said I, to young De Walden, who was also spying away at the same object, close to where I stood.

      "Really," said the very handsome boy, "I cannot well tell, but I will call Serjeant Quacco, sir. He knows all the practices of the savages hereabouts."

      "No, no," rejoined I; "never mind—never mind; but what can they be doing there on the raft? I see two uprights about five feet asunder, and judging from the dusky figures that are cruising about them, and the fire that is kindled beneath, as it were between them, they should be about eight feet high above the raft on which they are rigged. What are they after now? Two fellows sitting on men's shoulders, are fixing a cross piece, or transom, on the top of the uprights—now they are lashing it to them tightly with some sort of rope—ah, they descend, and the fire seems to have gone out, for every thing is dark again."

      All in the neighbourhood of the raft was now undistinguishable, but small red fires began to burn steadily in the three advanced canoes.

      "What next?" said Sprawl.

      "Oh, I suppose, having set their piquets for the night, we are safe." And I took the glass from my eye, and banged the joints of it one into another, when De Walden spoke.

      "Please look again, sir—please look again." I did so. The gibbet sort of erection that I had been inspecting, was now lit up by a sudden glare of bright crimson flame. The dark figures, and the bows and sides of the attendant canoes, and the beams of the gallows-looking machine itself, were all tinged with a blood-red light, and presently the sound of the Eboe drums and flutes was borne down on the night-wind with startling distinctness, and louder than before, drowning the snoring of the toads, and chir-chir-chirring, and wheetle-wheetling of the numberless noisy insects that floated off from the bank on either side of us.

      "What is that—do you see that, Master de Walden?" said I, as a dark struggling figure seemed to be transferred by force from one of the canoes that showed a light into a smaller one. De Walden could not tell—and the small skiff into which, whatever it was, it had been transhipped, gradually slid away, apparently in the direction of the raft, into the impervious darkness that brooded over the river, above the three advanced canoes with the watch-fires.

      I was about resigning the glass once more, when I noticed the raft again suddenly illuminated, and a great bustle among the people on board. Presently a naked human being was dragged under the gallows, and one arm immediately hoisted up, and fastened by cords to one of the angles—a black figure, who had perched himself astride on the cross beam, evincing great activity on the occasion.

      For some purpose that I could not divine, the fire was now carried by a group of savages from the foremost part of the raft, that is, from the end of it next us, to the opposite extremity beyond the gibbet, the immediate effect of which was to throw off the latter, and the figure suspended on it, as well as the persons of the people who crowded round, in high relief against the illuminated night damps lit up by the fire, that hung as a bright curtain or background beyond it. In a few seconds, the other arm was drawn up to the opposite corner: and—my blood curdles as I write it—we could now make out that a fellow-creature was suspended by the wrists from the corners of the gibbet, directly under the centre of the beam, as if the sufferer had been stretched on the cross.

      The fire increased in intenseness—the noise of the long drums, and the yells of the negroes, came down stronger and stronger; and although I could notice two assistants holding the legs of the suspended figure, yet its struggles seemed to be superhuman, and once or twice I said to young De Walden, "Heaven help me—did you hear nothing?"

      "Nothing particular, sir, beyond the infernal howling and drum-beating of these monsters."

      A pause—then another terrible convulsion of the suspended victim, as it struggled to and fro with the dark figures that clung to its lower limbs like demons.

      "There—heard you nothing now?"

      "Yes, sir—oh, yes," gasped my young ally—"such a yell!"

      "Oh, may my ears never tingle to such another!" groaned I; and as I spoke, the assistants let go their hold on the suspended victim, when—Heaven have mercy on us! horror on horror—one of the lower limbs had been extracted, or cut out from the socket at the hip joint. The struggles of the mutilated carcass continued. Quacco, hearing his name mentioned by the young midshipman, was now alongside of me. I handed him the glass, which it was some time before he could manage. At length, having got the focus, he took a long, long look—he held his breath.

      "What is it?" said I, "what dreadful scene is this? For Heaven's sake, serjeant, tell me what is going on yonder?"

      He puffed out his breath like a porpoise, and then answered me as coolly as possible, as if it had been no strange sight to him. "Fetish, massa—grand fetish dem make—such fetish as dem make before dem go fight wid one enemy."

      "But what was the figure we saw hoisted up on the gibbet-looking apparatus just now?" said I.

      "Can't tell," СКАЧАТЬ