They had gone through their
apprenticeship amongst these African inlands as officers of the Congo
Free State; they had been divorced from that service with something of
suddenness; and a purist might have held that the severance of their
ties was complicated with something very near akin to piracy. I know
that they had been abominably oppressed; I know that Kettle chose
running away with his steamer to the alternative of handcuffs and
disgrace, and a possible hanging to follow; but there was no getting
over the fact that the stern-wheeler was Free State property, and that
these two had alienated it to their own uses.
The black crew of the launch and the black soldiers on board, some
seventy head all told, they had little trouble in dragooning into
obedience. The Central African native never troubles himself much about
niceties of loyalty, and as the sway of the Congo Free State (or "Buli
Matdi," as it is named by the woolly aboriginal), had been brutally
tyrannous, the change of allegiance had worried them little. Besides,
they had been in contact with Captain Kettle before, and knew him to be
that admirable thing, a Man, and worthy of being served; while Clay,
whom they also knew, amused them with his banjo, and held powerful
_ju-ju_ in the shape of drugs; and so they went blithely enough where
they were led or driven, and described themselves as soldiers or slaves,
whichever word happened to come handiest.
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