The African Son

Samuel's agreement with Forrester had cost him much over the last twenty some years. Yet his fate was far better than that of any slave held in that peculiar institution of the South. He had lost count of the days of his captivity from the time that he was captured by the Mashona people and sold to the Portuguese slave traders of the territory of the Mozambique Company. He believed in his heart that the Mashona were a little people who trembled in fear at the very thought of being face to face with such mighty Zulu warriors as the Matabele. The Mashona would run in a wild scramble to get away from his slashing assegai. These Mashona knew that there was never a safe place for them to be if chased by one of the warriors of the mighty Matabele if they were caught stealing cattle or up to any other sort of mischief. But he, this prince of Africa, had been young and filled with foolish pride at the time of his capture. He had been tricked into chasing a low born Mashona stealer of cattle, because in his mind's eye he could only see the thief’s blood dripping from his wide flat bladed assegai when he captured that unhappy thief. He thrilled to the chase as he dashed after the fleeing Mashona that he had found stealing cattle. He knew that this cowardly man running over the hill was especially stupid because he was so near the kraal of his would be victim. The young Zulu could feel the delight of knowing that this thief would soon be impaled and then slashed open by his razor sharp weapon. This thief’s death would be yet another reminder to the Mashona not to show such disrespect to a much more noble people by their feeble attempts to steal Matabele cattle. His feet met the ground with speed and power. His legs sprang under him eating up the ground across which the thief had sped wildly yet without hope of escape. In fact, the wretched thief seemed to be slowing in his flight from the certain fate that would be his coward's reward. No warrior had the endurance of a Matabele Zulu. These mighty warriors could run all day and fight thousands to extermination. Samuel ran after the slowing Mashona over the hill and right into a large ambush by a mob of Mashona armed, not to kill, but to capture him with clubs and nets. The man he had chased turned on him. Now backed up by dozens of his own kind, the Mashona man showed courage and smiled. That did not last long. The Matabele youth leapt into the air and cut the man's heart in two with one lightning fast slashing motion of his terrible wide bladed weapon. Turning with the speed of a leopard, he sliced into another man. Then he turned and caught another smartly under the ribs, and then he felt as if he had been struck by a mountain. All was darkness. The Mashona did not kill this young prince. The Portuguese would pay well for the well built boy of sixteen years. They would pay with silver coins. The darkness in the young Matabele Zulu's head must have lasted a very long time. When he awoke, he attempted to move, but he discovered that he was bound both by his arms and feet. There was a horrible pain in his head, and because the bonds were so tight, there was pain in his limbs. The pain in his head throbbed like a war drum. As he grew more aware of himself, his body began to report back to him its full story of agony. His ribs ached from a bad kicking. Blood was dried about his face. He could feel it caked and encrusted onto his skin as he tried to move his facial muscles. His body was badly bruised, and for the first time in his entire life, he felt real and unspecified fear. Why had he not been killed? What was this strange abduction all about? Then as he became more awake, he became sensible to the fact that there were others there around and about him. There was the rank odor of confined humanity all about him. He could not tell how many people were there penned in with him, nor could he tell even if, like himself, they were also bound. He did not know what peoples they might be. As he became more accustomed to the darkness, he could sense that there was some movement just outside the enclosure where he and the others lay bound in the darkness. This was the first time he saw Forrester through a space scratched out of the earth by some earlier hand under the barred door of the enclosure. The white man was trussed up over a huge log and positioned to be whipped. Forrester appeared to be frightened and fighting back tears. Another voice rang out in English which was a language of which the young Matabele had knowledge. ''Steal my goods will you, you scurvy son of a sea cook! I'll have the hide off you me bucko.'' ''Only ten stripes Manning,'' called out a man who seemed to be in charge of the white gang here. ''Yes Sir Captain Whitehouse. It don't seem right though,'' replied the man with the whip who had some lesser authority. Another man stood by as well. He was a large and tall man with a badly scarred face. ''Damn his eyes, we are not many. We'll need him for the voyage home. Now give him ten and be done with it,'' bellowed the captain. ''And be quick about it. There is a lot to do yet.'' The cow hide whip arose and fell ten times on the man's naked flesh. Each time it fell with an awful crack. The mate, Manning, knew his business, and he exacted awful pain with each well directed blow. Forrester had taken his punishment like a man thought the Matabele Zulu prince. The tears never came. That was to his credit the warrior thought. That was now a long time ago and a world away. Other thoughts had run through his mind back during that hot and tortured night which was one of his last in Africa. Dark questions and old stories of people having been taken away by white strangers never to be seen again ran through his young warrior's mind. Very few of the Matabele had so disappeared, but stories were told by the fire when the old men had sat in conversation and the narration's of their history. Such was the fierceness of the Matabele that they were least often the ones taken away by slave traders to that far away place from which nobody ever returned. For that reason the Matabele men commanded a great price in the slave market. He had heard of slaving parties of Africans who lived near the coast of the great ocean, where the white men were living and trading in forts in their villages. They were trading for other African men, women, and children from tribes other than their own. The Portuguese, in turn, had forts and great boats there in which Africans were taken to places so far away that the end of the world must have been nearby. He knew of the British in far away Capetown. He had heard many stories of that place.