The Great White Queen: A Tale of Treasure and Treason

The havoc caused was appalling. Half our barricade was blown completely away, and besides killing and maiming dozens of our comrades, it shattered several houses close by, and its force sent me down flat upon my back. Instantly I struggled to my feet, and finding myself uninjured save for a severe laceration of the hand, glanced round seeking my two friends. But they were not there!

The shell had set part of the barricade on fire, and already the flames were rising high, lighting up the terrible, lurid scene. Again I bent to my Maxim and recommenced firing, but as I did so another shell, only too well directed, struck the opposite end of our defences, and instantly a disaster resulted similar to the first, while a house at the same moment fell with a terrible crash, burying several unfortunate fellows beneath its débris.

Instantly I saw that our defences were partially demolished, and as shell after shell fell in rapid succession in our vicinity and exploded, our gallant defenders, still determined to prove victors, rushed up the hill to try conclusions with the Naya's troops. It was a wild, mad dash, and I found myself carried forward in the onrush of several thousand excited men. Meeting the remnant of the cavalry we fought with savage ferocity, alternately being beaten and beating. I had lost Omar, Kona and Goliba, half fearing that they had been blown to atoms by the shell, nevertheless the courage of my comrades never failed, although gaining the top of the hill and defeating the cavalry by sheer force of numbers, they were driven back again at the point of the bayonet, while from the ruins of the palace-gate a steady rifle fire was poured upon us at the same time.

Half-way down the hill we made a gallant stand, but again were compelled to fall back in disorder. Soon we were driven from the main thoroughfare into the minor streets, refuging in and fighting from the houses, whilst our foe steadily and angrily pursued and closed in upon us, dislodging us from our shelters and leaving few loop-holes for escape.

The carnage was awful; quarter was refused. It seemed as though our hope was a forlorn one; the general and ruthless massacre ordered by the Great White Queen had actually begun!

The loss of our barricade paralysed us. Yet we could hear the roar and tumult, and seeing the reflection of fires in other parts of the city, only hoped that our comrades there were holding their own valiantly as we had struggled to do. Ever and anon loud explosions sounded above the thunder of artillery, and it became apparent that the royal troops were engaged in blowing up any defences they could not take by assault.

From where I had sought shelter behind a high wall with a lattice window through which I continually discharged my rifle into the roadway, I saw massacres within walls and without. The troops had poured down upon us in absolutely overwhelming numbers, and no resistance by our weakened force could now save us. One fact alone reassured me and gave me courage. In the bright red glare shed by the flames from a burning building, among a party who made a sally from the opposite house I caught a momentary glance of the lithe, active figure of Omar, fighting desperately against a body of the Naya's infantry and leading on his comrades with loud shouts of encouragement.

"Do your duty, men!" he gasped. "Let not your enemies crush you!"

But the mêlée was awful. Once again our partisans were driven back, and the street was strewn with bodies in frightful array, left where they fell, uncovered, unattended.

The thick black cloud of smoke which hung over the City in the Clouds and on either side of it obscured the rising dawn and intensified the horrors of the awful drama. Fires raged in every direction, making the air hot; it was close through the smoke cloud above and the absence of wind, fœtid with the odour of human blood that lay in pools in every street and splashed upon the houses. The sight was majestic, terrible, never-to-be-forgotten; in the midst of it the terror and stupefaction were almost beyond human endurance. On all sides were heard the roar of flames, the breaking of timbers and the crashing in of roofs and walls. Fire and sword reigned throughout the magnificent capital of Mo; its people were being swept into eternity with a relentless brutality that was absolutely fiendish.

Into the hearts of the survivors of the gallant force who had so readily constructed our barricade and so valiantly defended it, despair had entered. There was now no hope for the success of our cause. The forces of tyranny, oppression and misrule were fast proving the victors, and in that fearful indiscriminate shooting down of men, women and children that was proceeding, all knew that sooner or later they must fall victims.

I had seen nothing of Kona or Goliba since the wrecking of our barricade, but Omar, I was gratified to observe, was stationed at a window of the opposite house from which he directed well-aimed shots at those below. A body of fully five hundred infantry were besieging the house wherein a large number of our comrades had taken shelter, determined to put them to the sword; yet so desperate was the resistance that they found it impossible to enter, and many were killed in their futile endeavours. At length I noticed that while the main body covered the movements of several of their companions the latter were preparing a mine by which to blow it up. With the half-dozen men beside me we kept up a galling fire upon them, but all in vain. The mine was laid; only a spark was required to blow the place into the air.

Knowing that if such a catastrophe were accomplished we, too, must suffer being in such close proximity to it, we waited breathlessly, unable to escape from the vicinity of the deadly spot.

Suddenly, as one man, more fearless than the others, bent to fire the mine, the soldiers, with one accord, rushed back, and scarce daring to breathe I waited, fearing each second to see the house and its garrison shattered to fragments and myself receive the full force of the explosive.

But at that instant, even as I watched, a loud exultant shout broke upon my ear, and looking I saw approaching from the opposite end of the street a great crowd of people rushing forward, firing rapidly as they came.

They were our comrades. Their shouts were shouts of victory!

"Kill them!" they cried. "Let not one escape. They have killed our brothers; let us have revenge! The Naya shall die, and Omar shall be our Naba!"

The man bending over the explosive sprang back in fear without having applied the fatal spark, and his companions, taken thus completely by surprise, stood amazed at this sudden appearance of so large a body of the populace. But the rifles of the latter in a few seconds had laid low several of their number, and then, making a stand, they lowered their weapons. A loud word of command sounded, and as if from one weapon a volley was fired full upon the victorious people. For a few moments its deadly effect checked their progress, but an instant later they resumed their onward rush, and ere a second volley could be fired they had flung themselves upon their opponents, killing them with bayonet, sword and pistol.

Their rush was in too great a force to be withstood. As in other parts of the city, so here, they compelled the troops to fly before them, and shot them down as they sped back up the hill towards the great stronghold.

In those few fateful minutes the tables had suddenly been turned. While we, fighting hard in that hot corner, had imagined that we had lost, our comrades in other parts of the city had won a magnificent victory, and had come to our rescue at the eleventh hour.

Truly it was everywhere a fierce and bloody fight.

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE FIGHT FOR THE EMERALD THRONE

Thrown into utter confusion by the great press of people well armed and determined, the soldiers, who had fought so desperately, and who intended to blow up the house that Omar and his companions had made their stronghold, fled precipitately up the hill, but so rapid and heavy was the firing, that few, if any, got out of the street alive.

On seeing the chances thus suddenly turned in our favour we poured forth into the street again, and joining our forces with those of our rescuers, rushed with them into the main thoroughfare leading to the palace, scrambling over the débris of our barricade and the heaps of bodies that blocked our passage. A hurried question, addressed to a man rushing along at my side, elicited glad tidings. So fiercely had the people fought that the troops sent out to quell the rising had been utterly routed everywhere, while many of the regiments had turned in our favour and had actually held several of the barricades, winning brilliant victories.

"It is yonder, at the palace, where the resistance will be greatest," the man cried excitedly, blood streaming from a ghastly wound on his brow. "But our cause is good. The Naya shall die!"

"To the Palace!" screamed the infuriated mob. "To the Palace!"

And forward the frantic dash was made at redoubled pace until we came to the pile of fallen masonry, which had, a few hours ago, been the great impregnable gateway that closed each day at sunset, and opened not till sunrise, save for the Great White Queen herself.

Here the place seemed undefended until we came close up to it, when without warning we were met with a withering rifle fire that laid low dozens of our comrades. The man who had been so enthusiastic a moment before and who had told me of our successes, was struck full in the breast by a ball and fell against me dead.

For a moment only did we hold back. Dawn was spreading now, but the heavy black smoke obscured the struggling daylight. Suddenly there sounded just at my rear Omar's well-known voice, crying:

"Forward! Forward, my brethren. I, Omar, your prince, lead you into the palace of my father. To-day there commenceth a new and brighter era for our beloved land. Falter not, but end the struggle valiantly as ye have commenced it. Forward!"

His words sent a sudden patriotic thrill through the great concourse of armed men, who instantly sprang forward, and regardless of the blazing lines of rifles before them climbed the ruins and engaged the defenders hand to hand. It was a brilliant dash and could only have been accomplished by the courage inspired by Omar's words, for the odds were once more against us, and the rapid fire from behind the ruins played the most frightful havoc in our ranks. In the midst of the crowd I clambered up, sword in hand, over the huge masses of masonry and rubbish, and springing to earth on the other side, alighted in a corner where the picked guards of the Naya were making a last desperate stand.

At first the struggle had been a hand-to-hand one, but they had retreated, and were now firing heavy volleys that effectively kept us at bay.

Almost at the same moment as I sprang down I heard behind me fiendish yells and the clambering of many feet. In an instant I recognised it as the savage war cry of the Dagombas, and next second a hundred half-naked blacks, looking veritable fiends in the red glare, swept down headlong to the spot where I stood and, headed by Kona brandishing his spear, dashed straight upon the defenders. The effect of this was to cause the others to spring forward as reinforcements, and quicker than the time occupied in relating it, this position, an exceedingly strong one, fell into our hands. So infuriated were the Dagombas by the excesses committed by the soldiery in various parts of the city, that they vented their savage wrath upon the defenders until the butchery became awful, and I doubt whether a single man escaped.

The soldiers holding the next court, seeing this disaster, placed, ere we could prevent them, two field-pieces behind the closed gate wherein holes had been hacked, and with the walls crowded with men with rifles they began to pour upon us a deadly hail of shot and shell. Once, for a moment only, Niaro, the provincial governor I had met at Goliba's, fought beside me, but after exchanging a few breathless words we became again separated. Little time elapsed ere one and all understood that to remain long under this galling fire of the palace guards would mean death to us, therefore it required no further incentive than an appeal from Omar to cause us to storm the entrance to the court.

"Well done, friends," he shouted. "We have broken down the first defence. Come, let us sweep away the remainder, but spare the life of the Naya. Remember I am her son. Again, forward! Zomara giveth strength to your hands and courage to your hearts. Use them for the purpose he hath bestowed them upon you."

In the forward movement in response to these loudly-uttered words fearful cries of rage and despair mingled with hoarse shouts of the vanquished. Rifles flashed everywhere in the faint morning light, bullets kept up a singing chorus above our heads, and about me, in the frightful tumult, gleamed naked blood-stained blades. At first the guards, like those in the outer court, made a desperate resistance, but soon they showed signs of weakness, and I could distinguish in the faint grey dawn how gradually we were driving them back, slowly gaining the entrance to the court, which, I remembered, was a very large and beautiful one with cool colonnades, handsome fountains and beautiful flowering trees of a kind I had never seen in England.

At last, after a fierce struggle, in which the defenders very nearly succeeded in driving us out or slaughtering us where we stood, the field-pieces were silenced, a charge of explosive was successfully placed beneath the gate and a loud roar followed that shook every stone in that colossal pile.

The ponderous door was shattered and the defenders disorganised by the suddenness of the disaster. Almost before they were aware of it we had poured in among them. Then the slaughter was renewed, and the scenes witnessed on every hand frightful to behold.

Kona and his black followers fought like demons, spearing the soldiers right and left, always in the van of the fray. Omar and Kona were apparently sharing the direction of the attack, for sometimes I heard the voice of one raised, giving orders, and sometimes the other. But, however irregular the mode of proceeding might have been from a military standpoint, success was ours, for half an hour later the two inner courts, strenuously defended by the Naya's body guard, were taken, and judging from the fact that the firing outside had become desultory it seemed as though hostilities in the streets had practically ceased.

At this juncture some man, a tall, powerful fellow who was distinguishing himself by his valiant deeds, told me that the military down in the city, finding the populace so strong, had, after a most terrific fight, at last ceased all opposition and declared in favour of the Prince Omar. This, we afterwards discovered, was the actual truth. The carnage in the streets had, however, been appalling, before this step had been resolved upon, but when once the declaration had been made, the remnants of the Naya's army were, at the orders of the leaders of the people, marched without the city wall on the opposite side to the great cliff, and there halted to await the progress of events.

Meanwhile, we were still hewing our way, inch by inch, towards the centre of the palace of the Great White Queen. So desperate was the conflict that the perspiration rolled from us in great beads, and many of my comrades fell from sheer exhaustion, and were trampled to death beneath the feet of the wildly-excited throng.

Soon, driving back the final ring of defenders, and shooting them down to the last man, we dashed across the central court, where the polished marble paving ran with blood, and battering down the great gilded doors, that fell with a loud crash, gained our goal, entering the spacious Hall of Audience, in the centre of which, upon its raised daïs, under the great gilded dome, stood the historic Emerald Throne.

The magnificent hall was deserted. The bloodshed had been frightful. The courts were heaped with dead and dying. Several chairs were lying overturned, as if the courtiers and slaves had left hastily, and even across the seat of royalty one of the Naya's rich bejewelled robes of state had been hastily flung down. This, snatched up by one of the Dagombas, was tossed away into the crowd, who gleefully tore it to shreds as sign that the power of the dreaded Naya was for ever broken.

To the exultant shouts of a thousand wild, blood-bespattered people, the great hall echoed again and again. The faint light showed too plainly at what terrible cost the victory had been won. Their clothes were torn, their faces were blackened by powder, from their superficial wounds blood was oozing, while the more serious consequences of sword-cuts and gun-shots had been hastily bound by shreds of garments. Flushed by their victory, they were a strange, forbidding-looking rabble. Yet they were our partisans; a peaceful, law-abiding people who had been oppressed by a tyrannical rule and long ripe for revolt, they had seized this opportunity to break the power of the cruel-hearted woman who was unworthy to hold sway upon that historic throne.

"Let us seek the Naya! She shall not escape! Let us avenge the deaths of our fathers and children!" were the cries raised when they found the Hall of Audience deserted. Apparently they had expected to find the Great White Queen seated there, awaiting them, and their chagrin was intense at finding her already a fugitive.

"She dare not face us!" they screamed. "All tyrants are cowards. Kill her! Let us kill her!"

But Goliba, whom I was gratified to see present and unharmed, sprang upon the daïs, and waving his arms, cried:

"Rather let us first place our valiant young prince upon the Emerald Throne. Let him be appointed our ruler; then let us seek to place the Naya in captivity."

"No," they cried excitedly. "Kill her!"