As The Court Messengers, However, Objected To Our Going In
Detachments, I Told Bombay To Wait For The Rest, And Hurry On To
Overtake Me.
Whilst lingering on the way, every minute expecting
to see my men, the Wazinza, who had also received orders to seize
the same officer, passed me, going to the place of attack, and,
at the same time, I heard my men firing in a direction exactly
opposite to the palace.
I now saw I had been duped, and returned
to my hut to see the issue. The boys had deceived us all.
Bombay, tricked on the plea of their taking him by a short cut to
the palace, suddenly found himself with all the men opposite the
fenced gardens that had to be taken - the establishment of the
recusant officer, - and the boys, knowing how eager all blacks are
to loot, said, "Now, then, at the houses; seize all you can,
sparing nothing - men, women, or children, mbugus or cowries, all
alike - for it is the order of the king;" and in an instant my men
surrounded the place, fired their guns, and rushed upon the
inmates. One was speared forcing his way through the fence, but
the rest were taken and brought triumphantly into my camp. It
formed a strange sight in the establishment of an English
gentleman, to see my men flushed with the excitement of their
spoils, staggering under loads of mbugu, or leading children,
mothers, goats, and dogs off in triumph to their respective huts.
Bombay alone, of all my men, obeyed my orders, touching nothing;
and when remonstrated with for having lead the men, he said he
could not help it - the boys had deceived him in the same way as
they had tricked me.
It was now necessary that I should take some critical step in
African diplomacy; so, after ordering all the seizures to be
given up to Maula on behalf of the king, and threatening to
discharge any of my men who dared retain one item of the
property, I shut the door of my hut to do penance for two days,
giving orders that nobody but my cook Ilmas, not even Bombay,
should come near me; for the king had caused my men to sin - had
disgraced their red cloth - and had inflicted on me a greater
insult than I could bear. I was ashamed to show my face. Just
as the door was closed, other pages from the king brought the
Whitworth rifle to be cleaned, and demanded an admittance; but no
one dared approach me, and they went on their way again.
6th. - I still continued to do penance. Bombay, by my orders,
issued from within, prepared for a visit to the king, to tell him
all that had happened yesterday, and also to ascertain if the
orders for sending my men on a plundering mission had really
emanated from himself, when the bothering pages came again,
bringing a gun and knife to be mended.
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