I had this story from one who had no business to tell it to
me, or to any other. I may credit the seductive influence
of an old vintage upon the narrator for the beginning of it,
and my own skeptical incredulity during the days that followed
for the balance of the strange tale.
When my convivial host discovered that he had told me so
much, and that I was prone to doubtfulness, his foolish pride
assumed the task the old vintage had commenced, and so he
unearthed written evidence in the form of musty manuscript,
and dry official records of the British Colonial Office to support
many of the salient features of his remarkable narrative.
I do not say the story is true, for I did not witness the
happenings which it portrays, but the fact that in the telling
of it to you I have taken fictitious names for the principal
characters quite sufficiently evidences the sincerity of my own
belief that it /may/ be true.
The yellow, mildewed pages of the diary of a man long dead, and
the records of the Colonial Office dovetail perfectly with the
narrative of my convivial host, and so I give you the story as
I painstakingly pieced it out from these several various agencies.
If you do not find it credible you will at least be as one
with me in acknowledging that it is unique, remarkable, and
interesting.
From the records of the Colonial Office and from the dead
man's diary we learn that a certain young English nobleman,
whom we shall call John Clayton, Lord Greystoke, was
commissioned to make a peculiarly delicate investigation of
conditions in a British West Coast African Colony from whose
simple native inhabitants another European power was
known to be recruiting soldiers for its native army, which it
used solely for the forcible collection of rubber and ivory
from the savage tribes along the Congo and the Aruwimi.
The natives of the British Colony complained that many of
their young men were enticed away through the medium of
fair and glowing promises, but that few if any ever returned
to their families.
The Englishmen in Africa went even further, saying that
these poor blacks were held in virtual slavery, since after
their terms of enlistment expired their ignorance was imposed
upon by their white officers, and they were told that they had
yet several years to serve.
And so the Colonial Office appointed John Clayton to a new
post in British West Africa, but his confidential instructions
centered on a thorough investigation of the unfair treatment
of black British subjects by the officers of a friendly
European power. Why he was sent, is, however, of little moment
to this story, for he never made an investigation, nor,
in fact, did he ever reach his destination.
Clayton was the type of Englishman that one likes best to
associate with the noblest monuments of historic achievement
upon a thousand victorious battlefields--a strong, virile man
--mentally, morally, and physically.
In stature he was above the average height; his eyes were
gray, his features regular and strong; his carriage that of
perfect, robust health influenced by his years of army training.
Political ambition had caused him to seek transference
from the army to the Colonial Office and so we find him, still
young, entrusted with a delicate and important commission in
the service of the Queen.
When he received this appointment he was both elated and
appalled. The preferment seemed to him in the nature of a
well-merited reward for painstaking and intelligent service,
and as a stepping stone to posts of greater importance and
responsibility; but, on the other hand, he had been married to
the Hon. Alice Rutherford for scarce a three months, and it
was the thought of taking this fair young girl into the dangers
and isolation of tropical Africa that appalled him.
For her sake he would have refused the appointment, but she
would not have it so. Instead she insisted that he accept,
and, indeed, take her with him.
There were mothers and brothers and sisters, and aunts
and cousins to express various opinions on the subject, but as
to what they severally advised history is silent.
We know only that on a bright May morning in 1888,
John, Lord Greystoke, and Lady Alice sailed from Dover on
their way to Africa.
A month later they arrived at Freetown where they chartered
a small sailing vessel, the Fuwalda, which was to bear
them to their final destination.
And here John, Lord Greystoke, and Lady Alice, his wife,
vanished from the eyes and from the knowledge of men.
Two months after they weighed anchor and cleared from
the port of Freetown a half dozen British war vessels were
scouring the south Atlantic for trace of them or their little
vessel, and it was almost immediately that the wreckage was
found upon the shores of St. Helena which convinced the
world that the Fuwalda had gone down with all on board,
and hence the search was stopped ere it had scarce begun;
though hope lingered in longing hearts for many years.
The Fuwalda, a barkentine of about one hundred tons,
was a vessel of the type often seen in coastwise trade
in the far southern Atlantic, their crews composed of
the offscourings of the sea--unhanged murderers and
cutthroats of every race and every nation.
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