What A Shame
Of Him To Tell In That Way." Without Appearing To Know, Or Rather
To Hear, The By-
Play that was going on, I now said to Baraka,
"How is it this man has got one of my
Wires, for I told you not
to touch or unpack them during my absence?" To which he coolly
replied, in face of such evidence, "It is not one of your wires;
I never gave away one of yours; there are lots more wires besides
yours in the country. The man tells a falsehood; he had the wire
before, but now, seeing your cloth open, wants to exchange it."
"If that is the case," I said, taking things easy, "how is it you
have opened my loads and scattered the wires about in the tent?"
"Oh, that was to take care of them; for I thought, if they were
left outside all night with the rest of the property, some one
would steal them, and I should get the blame of it."
Further parley was useless; for, though both my wires and cloths
were short, still it was better not to kick up a row, when I had
so much to do to keep all my men in good temper for the journey.
Baraka then, wishing to beguile me, as he thought he could do,
into believing him a wonderful man for both pluck and honesty,
said he had had many battles to fight with the men since I had
been gone to Kaze, for there were two strong parties in the camp;
those who, during the late rebellion at Zanzibar, had belonged to
the Arabs that sided with Sultan Majid, and were royalists, and
those who, having belonged to the rebellious Arabs, were on the
opposite side. The battle commenced, he stated, by the one side
abusing the other for their deeds during that rebellion, the
rebels in this sort of contest proving themselves the stronger.
But he, heading the royalist party, soon reduced them to order,
though only for a short while, as from that point they turned
round to open mutiny for more rations; and some of the rebels
tried to kill him, which, he said, they would have done had he
not settled the matter by buying some cows for them. It was on
this account he had been obliged to open my loads. And now he
had told me the case, he hoped I would forgive him if he had done
wrong. Now, the real facts of the case were these - though I did
not find them out at the time: - Baraka had bought some slaves
with my effects, and he had had a fight with some of my men
because they tampered with his temporary wife - a princess he had
picked up in Phunze. To obtain her hand he had given ten
necklaces of MY beads to her mother, and had agreed to the
condition that he should keep the girl during the journey; and
after it was over, and he took her home, he would, if his wife
pleased him, give her mother ten necklaces more.
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