While This Was Enacting, I Happened To Be In My Hut; Thus I Was Not An
Eye-Witness.
About an hour later, I called some of my men to assist me
in cleaning some rifles.
Hardly had we commenced, when three shots were
fired within a hundred paces of my hut. My men exclaimed, "They have
shot the Abid (native)!" "What native?" I inquired. They then related
the story I have just described. Brutal as these bloodthirsty villains
were, I could hardly believe in so cold-blooded a murder. I immediately
sent my people and the boy Saat to verify it; they returned with the
report that the wretched father was sitting on the ground, bound to a
tree, dead; shot by three balls.
I must do Ibrahim the justice to explain that he was not in the camp;
had he been present, this murder would not have been committed, as he
scrupulously avoided any such acts in my vicinity. A few days later, a
girl about sixteen, and her mother, who were slaves, were missing; they
had escaped. The hue and cry was at once raised. Ibrahimawa, the
"Sinbad" of Bornu, who had himself been a slave, was the most
indefatigable slave-hunter. He and a party at once started upon the
tracks of the fugitives. They did not return until the following day;
but where was the runaway who could escape from so true a bloodhound?
The young girl and her mother were led into camp tied together by the
neck, and were immediately condemned to be hanged. I happened to be
present, as, knowing the whole affair, I had been anxiously awaiting the
result. I took this opportunity of explaining to the Turks that I would
use any force to prevent such an act, and that I would report the names
of all those to the Egyptian authorities who should commit any murder
that I could prove; neither would I permit the two captives to be
flogged - they were accordingly pardoned. [It will be observed that at
this period of the expedition I had acquired an extraordinary influence
over the people, that enabled me to exert an authority which saved the
lives of many unfortunate creatures who would otherwise have been
victims.]
There was among the slaves a woman who had been captured in the attack
upon Fowooka. This woman I have already mentioned as having a very
beautiful boy, who at the time of the capture was a little more than a
year old.
So determined was her character, that she had run away five times with
her child, but on every occasion she had been recaptured, after having
suffered much by hunger and thirst in endeavouring to find her way back
to Unyoro through the uninhabited wilderness between Shooa and Karuma.
On the last occasion of her capture, the Turks had decided upon her
being incorrigible, therefore she had received 144 blows with the
coorbatch (hippopotamus whip), and had been sold separately from her
child to the party belonging to Mahommed Wat-el-Mek.
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