By Sheer Pluck: A Tale of the Ashanti War, G. A. Henty [100 books to read in a lifetime .TXT] 📗

soon recovered consciousness, and, being carried to the camp, his leg was amputated below the knee, and he was soon afterwards taken down to the coast.

It had been known that there were alligators in the river, a young one about a yard long having been captured and tied up like a dog in the camp, with a string round its neck. But it was thought that the noise of building the bridge, and the movement on the banks, would have driven them away. After this incident bathing was for the most part abandoned.

The affair made Frank a great favorite in the naval brigade, and of a night he would, after dinner, generally repair there, and sit by the great bonfires, which the tars kept up, and listen to the jovial choruses which they raised around them.

Two days after the arrival of Sir Garnet, an ambassador came down from the king with a letter, inquiring indignantly why the English had attacked the Ashanti troops, and why they had advanced to the Prah. An opportunity was taken to impress him with the nature of the English arms. A Gatling gun was placed on the river bank, and its fire directed upon the surface, and the fountain of water which rose as the steady stream of bullets struck its surface astonished, and evidently filled with awe, the Ashanti ambassador. On the following day this emissary took his departure for Coomassie with a letter to the king.

On the 12th the messengers returned with an unsatisfactory answer to Sir Garnet's letter; they brought with them Mr. Kuhne, one of the German missionaries. He said that it was reported in Coomassie that twenty thousand out of the forty thousand Ashantis who had crossed the Prah had died. It is probable that this was exaggerated, but Mr. Kuhne had counted two hundred and seventy-six men carrying boxes containing the bones of chiefs and leading men. As these would have fared better than the common herd they would have suffered less from famine and dysentery. The army had for the most part broken up into small parties and gone to their villages. The wrath of the king was great, and all the chiefs who accompanied the army had been fined and otherwise punished. Mr. Kuhne said that when Sir Garnet's letter arrived, the question of peace or war had been hotly contested at a council. The chiefs who had been in the late expedition were unanimous in deprecating any further attempt to contend with the white man. Those who had remained at home, and who knew nothing of the white man's arms, or white man's valor, were for war rather than surrender.

Mr. Kuhne was unable to form any opinion what the final determination would be. The German missionary had no doubt been restored as a sort of peace offering. He was in a bad state of health, and as his brother and his brother's wife were among the captives, the Ashanti monarch calculated that anxiety for the fate of his relatives would induce him to argue as strongly as possible in favor of peace.

Frank left the camp on the Prah some days before the arrival of the white troops, having moved forward with the scouts under Lord Gifford, to whom his knowledge of the country and language proved very valuable. The scouts did their work well. The Ashantis were in considerable numbers, but fell back gradually without fighting. Russell's regiment were in support, and they pressed forward until they neared the foot of the Adansee Hills. On the 16th Rait's artillery and Wood's regiment were to advance with two hundred men of the 2d West Indians. The Naval Brigade, the Rifle Brigade, the 42d, and a hundred men of the 23d would be up on the Prah on the 17th.

News came down that fresh portents had happened at Coomassie. The word signifies the town under the tree, the town being so called because its founder sat under a broad tree, surrounded by his warriors, while he laid out the plan of the future town. The marketplace was situated round the tree, which became the great fetish tree of the town, under which human sacrifices were offered. On the 6th, the day upon which Sir Garnet sent his ultimatum to the king, a bird of ill omen was seen to perch upon it, and half an hour afterwards a tornado sprang up and the fetish tree was levelled to the ground. This caused an immense sensation in Coomassie, which was heightened when Sir Garnet's letter arrived, and proved to be dated upon the day upon which the fetish tree had fallen.

The Adansee Hills are very steep and covered with trees, but without undergrowth. It had been supposed that the Ashantis would make their first stand here. Lord Gifford led the way up with the scouts, Russell's regiment following behind. Frank accompanied Major Russell. When Gifford neared the crest a priest came forward with five or six supporters and shouted to him to go back, for that five thousand men were waiting there to destroy them. Gifford paused for a moment to allow Russell with his regiment to come within supporting distance, and then made a rush with his scouts for the crest. It was found deserted, the priest and his followers having fled hastily, when they found that neither curses nor the imaginary force availed to prevent the British from advancing.

The Adansee Hills are about six hundred feet high. Between them and the Prah the country was once thick with towns and villages inhabited by the Assins. These people, however, were so harassed by the Ashantis that they were forced to abandon their country and settle in the British protectorate south of the Prah.

Had the Adansee Hills been held by European troops the position would have been extremely strong. A hill if clear of trees is of immense advantage to men armed with rifles and supported by artillery, but to men armed only with guns carrying slugs a distance of fifty yards, the advantage is not marked, especially when, as is the case with the Ashantis, they always fire high. The crest of the hill was very narrow, indeed a mere saddle, with some eight or ten yards only of level ground between the steep descents on either side. From this point the scouts perceived the first town in the territory of the King of Adansee, one of the five great kings of Ashanti. The scouts and Russell's regiment halted on the top of the hill, and the next morning the scouts went out skirmishing towards Queesa. The war drum could be heard beating in the town, but no opposition was offered. It was not, however, considered prudent to push beyond the foot of the hill until more troops came up. The scouts therefore contented themselves with keeping guard, while for the next four days Russell's men and the engineers labored incessantly, as they had done all the way from the Prah, in making the road over the hill practicable.

During this time the scouts often pushed up close to Queesa, and reported that the soldiers and population were fast deserting the town. On the fifth day it was found to be totally deserted, and Major Russell moved the headquarters of his regiment down into it. The white officers were much surprised with the structure of the huts of this place, which was exactly similar to that of those of Coomassie, with their red clay, their alcoved bed places, and their little courts one behind the other. Major Russell established himself in the chief's palace, which was exactly like the other houses except that the alcoves were very lofty, and their roofs supported by pillars. These, with their red paint, their arabesque adornments, and their quaint character, gave the courtyard the precise appearance of an Egyptian temple.

The question whether the Ashantis would or would not fight was still eagerly debated. Upon the one hand it was urged that if the Ashantis had meant to attack us they