And I worked out a cinch scheme for the gold ledge. As the slave of Kk-Kk I had to assist her in feedin’ the ants. Every night I had to bring up some of the fruit. Kk-Kk wouldn’t let me feed it to ’em. It was the custom of the tribe that only the daughter of the chief could feed the ants. But I got close enough to find out a lot.
Those ants were trained. Kk-Kk could walk among ’em an’ they took no notice of her. She was the one who fed ’em. The old goldsmith could walk through ’em whenever he wanted to, an’ they didn’t pay any attention to him. They’d been trained that way. But nobody else could cross the deadline. Let any one else come closer than that an’ they’d swarm out an’ get started with their sickenin’ business. Once they’d started there was no gettin’ away.
I saw ’em at work a couple of times in the next week. They always managed to get behind the man at the gold ledge. Then they closed in on him. No matter how fast he ran they’d swarm up his legs as he went through ’em. Enough would get on him so he couldn’t go far, an’ there was always a solid formation of two-inch ants swarmin’ behind, ready to finish the work.
But they fed ’em only one meal a day, in the afternoon. I got to figgerin’ what would happen if there should be two feeders. They couldn’t tell which was the official feeder, an’ they’d been trained to let the official feeder go to the gold ledge.
I knew where they kept the pile of dried fruits that the ants liked so well. An’ I started goin’ out to the ant pile just before daybreak an’ givin’ ’em a breakfast. I’d take out a little of the fruit so there wouldn’t be any crumbs left by the time the goldsmith came to work.
At first I could see the ants were suspicious, but they ate the fruit. There was one long, woolly fellow that seemed to be the big boss, an’ he reported to a glossy-backed ant that was a king or queen or somethin’. I got to be good friends with the boss. He’d come an’ eat outa my hand. Then he’d go back an’ wave his feelers at the king or queen, whichever it was, an’ finally, the old boy, or old girl, got so it was all right. There was nothin’ to it. I was jake a million, one of the regular guys. I could tell by a hundred little things, the way they waved their feelers, the way they came for the food. Oh, I got to know ’em pretty well.
All of this time Kk-Kk was teachin’ me things about the life an’ customs of the tribe. I could see she was friendly. She’d had to learn the language of the goldsmith, so that if anything should happen to him she could educate another one as soon as the tribe captured him.
For the tribe I didn’t have no particular love. You should have seen ’em in some of their devil-devil dances, or seen ’em in the full moon when they gave a banquet to their cousins, the monkeys. Nope, I figured that anything I could do to the tribe was somethin’ well done. But for Kk-Kk I had different feelin’s, an’ I could see that she had different feelin’s for me.
An’ all this time the monkey-man was jealous. He was in love with Kk-Kk, an’ he wanted to buy her. In that country the woman didn’t have anything to say about who she married, or whether she was wife No. 1 or No. 50. A man got his wives by buyin’ ’em, and he could have as many as he could buy an’ keep.
After a coupla weeks I commenced taking the gold. At first I just got closer an’ closer to the deadline. I can yet feel the cold sweat there was on me the first time I crossed it. But the ants figgered I was a regular guy, part of the gang. They never said a word. Finally, I walked right up to the ledge, watchin’ the ground behind me like a hawk. Then I scooped out some o’ the crumbly quartz and worked the gold out of it. After that it was easy.
I didn’t take much at any one time, because I didn’t want the goldsmith to miss anything. I wasn’t any hog. Ninety pounds I wanted, an’ ninety pounds was all I was goin’ to take, but I wasn’t a fool. I was goin’ to take it a little at a time.
Chapter 4
A Fanti Raid
Then came the night of the big fight.
I was asleep, wrapped up in my skin robes, not because of the cold, because the nights are warm an’ steamy down there, but to keep out as much of the damp as I could, an’ to shut out the night insects that liked my soft, white skin.
There came a yell from a sentry up the pass, an’ then a lot o’ whoopin’ an’ then all hell broke loose.
There was a little moon, an’ by the light o’ that moon I could see things happenin’.
Our warriors came boilin’ outa their huts. One thing, they didn’t have to dress. All a guy had to do was grab a spear an’ shield, or climb up a tree with a bow an’ arrow, an’ that was all there was to it. He was dressed an’ ready for business.
They evidently had the thing all rehearsed, ’cause some of ’em guarded the trail with spears, an’ used thick shields to ward off the poisoned arrows, an’ others swarmed up in the trees an’ shot little poisoned arrows into the thick of the mass of men that were runnin’ down the trail.
It was a funny fight. There wasn’t any bangin’ of firearms, but there was a lot o’ yellin’, an’ in between yells could be heard the whispers of the arrows as they flitted through the night.
After a while I could see that our men were gettin’ the worst of it. I was just a slave, an’ when a fight started the women watched the slaves to see they didn’t make a break for liberty, or start attackin’ our boys from the rear.
Maybe I’d like to escape plenty, but I wanted to do it my own way, an’ stickin’ a spear in the back o’ one of our boys didn’t seem the way to do it. Then again, I wouldn’t be any better off after I had escaped. My white skin would make trouble for me with the others. I wasn’t the same as the other slaves, most of whom were Fantis anyway. They could make a break an’ be among friends. If I made a hop I’d be outa the fryin’ pan an’ in the fire.
But I wasn’t used to bein’ a spectator on the side lines when there was fight goin’ on. So I took a look at the situation.
When the alarm came in, the fire watchers had piled a lot of fagots on the big blaze, an’ all the fight was goin’ on by what light came from the fire. The fagots had burned off in the center an’ there was a lot of flaming ends, fire on one side, stick on the other.
I whispers a few words to Kk-Kk, an’ then we charged the fire, pickin’ out the sticks, whirlin’ ’em an’ throwin’ ’em into the mass o’ savages that was borin’ into our men.
She’d said somethin’ to the slaves, an’ they was all lined up, throwin’ sticks too. They wasn’t throwin’ as wholeheartedly as Kk-Kk an’ me was; but they was throwin’ em, an’ together we managed to keep the air full of brands.
It was a weird sight, those burnin’ embers whirlin’ an’ spiralin’ through the air, over the heads of our boys, an’ plumb into the middle o’ the Fanti outfit.
I seen that I’d missed a bet at that, though, because we was really tearin’ the fire to pieces, an’ it was goin’ to get dark in a few minutes with the blaze all bein’ thrown into the air that way.
One of our warriors had collected himself a poisoned arrow, an’ he was sprawled out, shield an’ spear lyin’ aside of him. The arrows were whisperin’ around pretty lively, an’ I seen a couple of our slave fellows crumple up in a heap. That shield looked good to me, an’ while I was reachin’ for it, I got to wonderin’ why not take the spear too. There wasn’t anybody to tell me not to, so I grabbed ’em both, an’ then I charged into the melee.
Them savages fought more or less silent after the first rush. There was plenty of yells, but they were individual, isolated yells, not no steady war cries. I’d picked a good time to strut my stuff, because there was more or less of a lull when I started my charge.