Hence there was great agitation all over the country, and it did not escape Robur that everybody was on the move.
Long lines of Dahomians were hurrying along the roads from the country into the capital, Abomey.
Well kept roads radiating among vast plains clothed with giant trees, immense fields of manioc, magnificent forests of palms, cocoa-trees, mimosas, orange-trees, mango-trees--such was the country whose perfumes mounted to the "Albatross," while many parrots and cardinals swarmed among the trees.
The engineer, leaning over the rail, seemed deep in thought, and exchanged but a few words with Tom Turner.
It did not look as though the "Albatross" had attracted the attention of those moving masses, which were often invisible under the impenetrable roof of trees.
This was doubtless due to her keeping at a good altitude amid a bank of light cloud.
About eleven o'clock in the morning the capital was sighted, surrounded by its walls, defended by a fosse measuring twelve miles round, with wide, regular streets on the flat plain, and a large square on the northern side occupied by the king's palace.
This huge collection of buildings is commanded by a terrace not far from the place of sacrifice.
During the festival days it is from this high terrace that they throw the prisoners tied up in wicker baskets, and it can be imagined with what fury these unhappy wretches are cut in pieces.
In one of the courtyards which divide the king's palace there were drawn up four thousand warriors, one of the contigents of the royal army--and not the least courageous one.
If it is doubtful if there are any Amazons an the river of that name, there is no doubt of there being Amazons at Dahomey.
Some have a blue shirt with a blue or red scarf, with white-and-blue striped trousers and a white cap; others, the elephant-huntresses, have a heavy carbine, a short-bladed dagger, and two antelope horns fixed to their heads by a band of iron. The artillery-women have a blue-and-red tunic, and, as weapons, blunderbusses and old cast cannons; and another brigade, consisting of vestal virgins, pure as Diana, have blue tunics and white trousers.
If we add to these Amazons, five or six thousand men in cotton drawers and shirts, with a knotted tuft to increase their stature, we shall have passed in review the Dahomian army.
Abomey on this day was deserted.
The soveriegn, the royal family, the masculine and feminine army, and the population had all gone out of the capital to a vast plain a few miles away surrounded by magnificent forests.
On this plain the recognition of the new king was to take place.
Here it was that thousands of prisoners taken during recent razzias were to be immolated in his honor.
It was about two o'clock when the
"Albatross" arrived over the plain and began to descend among the clouds which still hid her from the Dahomians.
There were sixteen thousand people at least come from all parts of the kingdom, from Whydah, and Kerapay, and Ardrah, and Tombory, and the most distant villages.
The new king--a sturdy fellow named Bou-Nadi--some five-and-twenty years old, was seated on a hillock shaded by a group of wide-branched trees.
Before him stood his male army, his Amazons, and his people.
At the foot of the mound fifty musicians were playing on their barbarous instruments, elephants' tusks giving forth a husky note, deerskin drums, calabashes, guitars, bells struck with an iron clapper, and bamboo flutes, whose shrill whistle was heard over all.
Every other second came discharges of guns and blunderbusses, discharges of cannons with the carriages jumping so as to imperil the lives of the artillery-women, and a general uproar so intense that even the thunder would be unheard amidst it.
In one corner of the plain, under a guard of soldiers, were grouped the prisoners destined to accompany the defunct king into the other world.
At the obsequies of Ghozo, the father of Bahadou, his son had dispatched three thousand, and Bou-Nadi could not do less than his predecessor.
For an hour there was a series of discourses, harangues, palavers and dances, executed not only by professionals, but by the Amazons, who displayed much martial grace.
But the time for the hecatomb was approaching.
Robur, who knew the customs of Dahomey, did not lose sight of the men, women, and children reserved for butchery.
The minghan was standing at the foot of the hillock.
He was brandishing his executioner's sword, with its curved blade surmounted by a metal bird, whose weight rendered the cut more certain.
This time he was not alone.
He could not have performed the task.
Near him were grouped a hundred executioners, all accustomed to cut off heads at one blow.
The
"Albatross" came slowly down in an oblique direction.
Soon she emerged from the bed of clouds which hid her till she was within three hundred feet of the ground, and for the first time she was visible from below.
Contrary to what had hitherto happened, the savages saw in her a celestial being come to render homage to King Baha-dou.
The enthusiasm was indescribable, the shouts were interminable, the prayers were terrific--prayers addressed to this supernatural hippogriff, which "had doubtless come to" take the king's body to the higher regions of the Dahomian heaven.
And now the first head fell under the minghan's sword, and the prisoners were led up in hundreds before the horrible executioners.
Suddenly a gun was fired from the "Albatross."
The minister of justice fell dead on his face!
"Well aimed, Tom!" said Robur,
His comrades, armed as he was, stood ready to fire when the order was given.
But a change came over the crowd below.
They had understood. The winged monster was not a friendly spirit, it was a hostile spirit.
And after the fall of the minghan loud shouts for revenge arose on all sides.
Almost immediately a fusillade resounded over the plain.
These menaces did not prevent the
"Albatross" from descending boldly to within a hundred and fifty feet of the ground.