CHAPTER 6

In the violet shadow of his square hut inside the compound, squatted Zalu Zako. The lips and nose were nearer to the Aryan delicacy than the negroid bluntness; for the Wongolo, like the Wahima, are a mixed Bantu-Somali race. In colour his skin had the red of bronze rather than the blue of the negro, and the planes of his moulded chest were as light as the worn ivory bracelets upon his polished limbs. Broad in the shoulders he had almost the slender hips of a young girl and his carriage was as balanced as a dancer's.

From a group of small round huts behind his square hut, where dwelt his two wives, concubines and slaves, came the clutter of voices. A distant drum throbbed gently on the hot air. Away in the cool green of the banana plantation rose the crooning chant of the unmarried girls and slaves bringing water from the river.

Apparently Zalu Zako was absorbed in the movements of a diminutive chicken scratching in the soil. The omen of the goat was occupying his mind: that and the death of his grandfather, MFunya MPopo. There was no sense of grief, for he was not a woman. Now, at the beginning of his warrior's career, he had not any desire for divine honours and celibacy. No man had. Yet Zalu Zako no more dreamed of questioning the necessity than of spitting in the face of an enemy. Always had the first born male of his family been doomed to the kingly office. There was never a second born male, for it was not meet that a god should have paternal brothers. The wives of his youth and his concubines could have as many children as they could bear; but according to the law, did he select the chief wife from whom should spring the one regal son only when he had become heir apparent; for then was he not already half divine, being so near the sacred enclosure up on the hill?

The choice of that chief wife was free as there were no royal families in the sense of divine descent save the direct male line of the King-God. But the mind of Zalu Zako dwelt more upon his personal career. The life of a warrior was frequently short and that of a god even briefer. MFunya MPopo had reigned but twenty moons; MKoffo, so said the elders, had reigned for full two hundred moons; but then he had been a mighty magician.

With a harsh squawk a brilliant scarlet and blue bird with an enormous yellow bill perched on the palisade of the compound. Immediately the young man forgot his musing and rose, calling for his spear. A stocky man, coal black, with a fuzzy tuft of a beard, came out of the hut. From the slave Zalu Zako took a broad-bladed spear with a short haft. Watching to see that the bird was still sitting on the fence as he passed out of the compound, he set off rapidly through the village and into the banana plantations in search of a wart hog which had been rooting up one of his fields of sweet potatoes. Just as he came within sight of them a black field rat sprang out of the grass in his path, glanced round at him, and disappeared. The young man's steps slackened, for he knew that the black rat had spoiled the luck which the banana eater had portended. Scarcely troubling to glance around the field, he diverged across at an angle making for a break in the jungle where he knew was the trail of the boar. But he grunted contemptuously as he examined the last spoor, which was at least half a day old. Of course the hog would not be there.

He bethought himself of another field where sometimes came buck. But there was no game. The black rat again! Yet if one waited long enough a good omen might appear. As he squatted beneath a banana plant to take snuff came a squawk and the banana eater—for it appeared to be the same one—alighted on a frond near to him. Zalu Zako waited. Leisurely and cautiously he arose. The bird peered at him. Zalu Zako passed and left the banana eater still sitting there. He felt the weight of his spear tentatively, for a double omen of luck must mean big game: possibly an eland or a leopard.

He circled right round the outskirts of the plantation. But he saw no signs. As he began to make the big circle again the shadows were lengthening appreciably. Passing by the ford of the small river, which was swollen from the rains, he heard a group of young girls chattering on the river bank as they filled their gourds. He paused to test which way the wind was blowing in order to avoid going down wind where the sound of their voices would scare away any game.

But as he turned to move on he caught a glimpse of a figure mounting the incline. The motion was as lithe as a young giraffe; the legs were as straight as spears and as supple as a kiboko; the moulded hips swayed rhythmically like a banana frond in the breeze; the fluted arch of her back swelled proudly upwards to the resilient shoulders; and an arm as slender as a lizard's tail steadied the gourd upon a small black head set upon a neck like a sapling. The dappled shadows of a tree played hide and seek upon the tiny hills that were her firm young breasts, upon the smoothness of her torso of light bronze. As he gazed her face came into view in speaking to a comrade just beneath. An errant shaft of sunlight glinted the pearl of teeth, glowed the tiny nose and blued the whites of eyes which were as soft as any antelope.

Zalu Zako clicked the syllable that means astonishment.

"Wait there, O Bayakala," she called, "for I have to do the making of mighty magic with the spirits of the wood."

"Eh, eh!" responded one of those left by the water edge, "a girl of the hut thatch hath nought to do with spirits of the wood for their bellies are as big as a pregnant woman!"

The young girl laughed and her notes seemed to Zalu Zako like the dripping of water upon a river rock.

"Thou knowest less than the Baroto bird who as everybody knows is the spirit of one!"

"'Tis more than thou wilt ever be!" retorted the rival beneath.

"Ehh! Ehh!" exclaimed the girl at the sneer, "thy girdle is rotted long since with juice!"

"And thine," shouted the insulted one, who was old for a spinster, "wilt rot with the dryness!"

"Tscch! It is dry for the lord whom I will conquer with magic such as thou hast never dreamed on, O Bayakala!"

"And who is he for whom thou makest magic, O daughter of the hut thatch?" demanded Zalu Zako, stepping from the shelter of the tree.

"Ehh!" ejaculated Bakuma. "I—we do but tickle the fronds (jest), O Chief!"

The only sign of her nervousness was the slight swaying of the gourd of water upon her head as she turned up her eyes to the young chief who regarded her slowly. She edged away. He moved a pace in front of her. She clutched at the amulet around her neck as she turned her eyes and said:

"The cooking fires are low, O Chief, and need be tended."

"Thy breasts are like unto small anthills," he said, "and thy belly is as smooth as yonder river rock."

"Thy tongue is sweeter than the honey of the kinglan tree."

"Thy voice is softer than the muted lyre and thy nose is formed of two petals of an orchid."

"Thy praise is more refreshing than the morning dew to a thirsty flower."

"And by thy figure am I made more drunken than by the wine of the Soka palm."

For a full minute they stood, a study in light bronze against the dappled green foliage. The shrill chatter of the other girls approaching startled Bakuma into action. She swayed to one side.

"The spirits of the cooking pot cry aloud for me, O Chief."

"Who is thy father, little one?" he demanded.

"I am Bakuma, the daughter of Bakala, O Chief."

"There has been a veil before my eyes that I have not seen thee before."

"The mountains see not the tiny brooks amid the mighty forests," murmured Bakuma and sped up the path.

Zalu Zako stood motionless watching her form melt into the green, and as he turned towards the river he met Bayakala and the other women who shrank aside from the path to allow the Son of the Snake to pass in silence. Yet at the ford he paused. He had forgotten the omen of the banana eater and the purpose for which he had come.

As Bakuma sped along in a gliding lope the amulet swayed rhythmically to the whispered praises of the power of Marufa, mixed with ardent prayers to the spirits to provide the fat goat with which to propitiate the spirit of the woods; for had not the love charm already manifested its wondrous power? As she hastened through the banana plantation she could not resist diverging a little in the direction of the magician's hut. As she passed, she saw him seated on the threshold of the compound gathering inspiration from his favourite wall. But Marufa observed her demeanour, and being something of a student of men, he deducted that the charm had already begun to work.

Marufa, as all successful men, had a strain of luck. Before the shadows had crept a hand's breadth came MYalu, indignant and exasperated. The three tusks had been paid and the footprint obtained; but he had discovered that it was no easy matter to procure the other ingredients which he suspected the wizard had known well and intended as a means to extract more ivory. After the ceremonious greetings he protested that the task given was almost impossible to execute. Marufa remained imperturbably interested in his wall.

"But as thou knowest," insisted MYalu, "the hair and the toe-nail and the spittle of the Son of the Snake are more than difficult to obtain. Does a man so carelessly render himself unto his enemies, and he the Son of the Snake? None save one of his household could purloin a single hair. Even this morning was his hair shaved and the remnants, as thou knowest well, deposited in the temple with him who was his father."

"The hair, the toe-nail, and the spittle," mumbled the old man, "must I have for such mighty magic."

"Ehh!" snorted MYalu, "with a man of the clay, but with one who is half divine, the Son of the Snake! Ehh!"

"The bow is useless without the arrows," mumbled the old man.

"Tsch. 'Tis a mighty hunter that hath not the arrows for his bow," sneered MYalu.

"Verily," retorted Marufa disinterestedly, "and still more a mighty man who cannot do his own hunting!"

"No warrior hath been purified more frequently than I," boasted MYalu, referring to the ceremony incumbent upon those who have taken life to appease the ghosts of the slain.

"The spirits obey not the crowing of a cockerel," reminded Marufa.

"Tsch!" For a while both sat silent, MYalu gloomily watching a hen.

"Aie! Aie!" he lamented at last, "what is there that I may do, for indeed she hath caught my soul in a trap. Aie! Aie!"

"If the hunter cannot make arrows, he may buy them," remarked Marufa, who had been patiently waiting for this state of mind.

"Eh! The bowstring hath been costly but the arrows! Aie! Aie! What would'st thou?"

"The rich man payeth in his kind. Four tusks of fine grain."

"Eh! Eh!"

"Maybe there are others whose hands are not withered."

"Others than the Son of the Snake?" demanded MYalu quickly.

"Who knows? There are more fools than chickens," muttered the old man.

MYalu stared disconsolately at the distant bananas. Perhaps, he reflected, it would be cheaper to pay the price the girl's uncle demanded, yet—— MYalu had bought other wives whose unimpassioned charms had quickly staled. His soul, as he put it, had indeed been tempted into a trap by Bakuma; for he wished only that she should desire him as he desired her. Yet was he angry. Love seemed to be a costly business. Marufa tapped out snuff and sniffed delicately with the air of a connoisseur devoting himself to the pleasure of the moment. Replacing the cork of twisted leaves he stirred as if to rise.

"Canst thou procure then the nail and the hairs that are asked by the spirits?" inquired MYalu sulkily.

"All things are possible to the son of MTungo," asserted Marufa. "Four tusks, and these things are found; but of fine grain, for the others were old and coarse."

"Ehh! How wilt thou procure these things?" demanded MYalu sceptically.

"The ways of the wise are not the ways of fools."

"The tusks are thine," said MYalu reluctantly, "if thou wilt tell me how thou wilt procure them."

"Thy words are like unto the vomit of a dog," muttered the old man.

"But how? My heart is not bound in clay."

"Tch!" clicked Marufa contemptuously. "Every fool must needs see the spoor of the god which he cannot read. I have spoken." MYalu regarded the old wizard incredulously. "Tch! Send the four tusks as we have agreed and so shall it be. Begone!"

Slowly MYalu rose, made his greeting, and departed more impressed than ever that the old man was a mighty magician.

During the hour when the soul is small and dwells timidly around the feet Marufa dozed in the cool of his hut; but later when it spread boldly out was he squatted once more in his favourite seat at the entrance to the compound, taking snuff and contemplating. The shadows grew from violet to blue; the small hens pecked for worms with avidity and the goats scratched with vigour in the cool. Patiently Marufa sat. At length that for which he had waited with a sound though primitive knowledge of psychology, came to pass. Bakuma appeared, apprehensive, but with yet an abandon which sang her happiness. Beside Marufa she sat so as to avoid the shadow of one foot protruding beyond that of the fence.

"O great and mighty magician," she began eagerly, after the formal greetings. "Indeed all that thou hast said hath come to pass. Thy charm is infallible."

"Ugh!" grunted Marufa unconcernedly.

"All that my heart desireth hath already begun to be. I thank thee."

"Ugh!"

"O mighty son of MTungo, what must I now do?"

"Thou knowest," mumbled Marufa, fumbling for the snuff case.

"Aie! Aie! but I have no fat goat!" cried Bakuma, who had hoped fatuously that the wizard would have forgotten. "I, a girl of the hut thatch, how should I have a goat?" Marufa tapped snuff as if no romance were in the making. Bakuma's bright eyes, sharpened by the proximity of the promise of her love, watched the old man keenly. "Listen, O great and mighty son of MTungo, to whom all things are known, who canst accomplish all that thou desireth, Bayakala, my cousin, hath a goat, but it is old and skinny. Perhaps——"

"In the nostrils of the spirits," asserted Marufa instantly, "all odours are the same except that of the fat goat whom they love."

"Aie! then am I undone, for no fat goat have I!" wailed Bakuma. "Know I not one who hath a goat who would smile on me, a girl of the hut thatch."

"Ugh!"

Bakuma regarded him imploringly, but Marufa's gaze was fixed upon the wall as if his mind were turned to matters of more importance.

"O mighty wizard, what must I do?" implored Bakuma desperately.

"Ugh!"

After a prolonged contemplation, said Marufa: "If thou canst get no goat, then is there another path by which thou mayest accomplish thy end."

"Eh!"

"But it is very difficult."

"By my cord, will I do all that thou canst bid me to do!" swore Bakuma in anxious haste.

"Ugh! This path is more certain of success for the will of the spirits are oftentimes chary of their favours."

"O mighty one!" breathed Bakuma, as he paused tantalisingly.

"But the matter is exceedingly difficult—and dangerous."

"If the flower hath no sun hath it ever lived?"

"As even thou shouldst know," mumbled Marufa, more casually than ever, "he who possesses a part of the soul may do magic thereon."

"Aye! Aye!"

"Bring me then of the nail parings one, of his hairs one, and of his spittle. Then may I do magic thereon which he cannot resist."

"O mighty magician!" gasped Bakuma, appalled at the difficulty and the danger of the task.

"That path is sure. There is no other."

"Eh! … But if they of thy craft should know then am I doomed!"

"There is no other."

Torn between her love and the dread of the penalty incurred by the sacrilege of the theft of the parts of one who might any day be King-God, Bakuma stared distraught.

"Were not my words white? Hath not the love charm thou hast already had done even as I did say?"

"O mighty one!"

"But that is only as the goat to the leopard. The trap must be dug—or the scent of the bait will be blown."

"Ehh!" gasped Bakuma, in desperation, "by my twin soul which dwells beneath the banana plant, will I do it!"



CHAPTER 7

Gerald Birnier had flattered himself that he was a philosopher with a sense of humour, fairly well developed by ten years' wandering about Central Africa, but deep emotions submerge such cherished qualities.

The presence of the photograph was explicable by several surmises: zu Pfeiffer might have met Lucille at Washington, Paris, or Berlin: she might have given him the photograph or he might have bought it, or even stolen it. But—the signature "a toi, Lucille"! There lay the sting which maddened Birnier and strangled reason, the fact at which his mind yawed futilely.

So great had been the shock that the arrest had seemed but a secondary matter in accord with the insanity of zu Pfeiffer's statement that he was engaged to Lucille. The affair had been so sudden that for some time he could progress no farther in an attempt to think than a gasp, pawing mentally at an intangible substance which eluded him like a child's small hand trying to grasp a toy balloon. Sense of reality appeared to have been dissolved. He had followed the sergeant across the square meekly without realising what was happening, and when he had been placed in a whitewashed room at the back of the native guard house which served as a jail, he sat down upon a chair, too bewildered to comprehend where he was. That "a toi, Lucille" rang like the clanging in a belfry, drowning the sound of other thoughts.

By the light of a hurricane lamp he regarded the soldiers bringing in an old camp bed with indifference. When they had gone he began to pace up and down the small room frantically trying to gain control. To the first prompting of a logical reason for the whole affair he did not dare to listen. The disrupting cause was the complete inability to explain the familiar signature. To his Anglo-Saxonised mind, bred in the strict code of the south, tutoyer was only permissible to dogs, inferiors, most intimate relations and lovers. He was far too unbalanced to see the humour as he solemnly announced that certainly zu Pfeiffer was not a dog, nor in the social code an inferior; he was not a relation; therefore.… His mind baulked and raced into incoherence.

A point of view which added false premises, as well as his attitude to those two little words, was the consciousness that many would consider that he had not treated his wife as a husband should do. This possibility had never occurred to him before, so that it came with disproportionate emphasis.

As a young man he had been too absorbed in his profession to be a lady's man; and of love he had reckoned little until he had met the Lucille Charltrain with whom half the world was in love. And she doubtless, like many a spoiled beauty, was a little piqued that the professor did not join the throng of her courtiers. In Birnier's mind there had ever been associated with love the fear that the woman would demand too much, that no woman could understand that a man's profession must of necessity come before all things. Lucille was the first woman whom he had met who really seemed to understand this point of view, as she, too, was devoted to her art. This had grown to be the biggest bond and attraction between them. Most men wished to make of love a nuisance, as Lucille once put it. So the good-looking professor had won the beauty. They were married on the mutual understanding that each should pursue their respective professions. Shortly afterwards Birnier was offered a special mission to go to Africa for the purpose of studying the customs and superstitions of the natives. Lucille had consented, forbidden, relented, and laughed.

So Lucille sang from musical height to height and her husband sped from depth to depth in the seas of human fatuity. Whenever he took a furlough he went, of course, straight to her, wheresoever she was, in Berlin, New York, or Paris. To Birnier the situation was ideal. He had never dreamed of any other woman. Indeed the tracts of his mind were so filled with statistics of anthropology and Lucille that there was little or no room for any one else. The delight and satisfaction in Birnier's mind were so sincere that he never had dreamed of questioning whether Lucille's point of view had remained the same. But now?

That "a toi" stung and baited him into the unprecedented realisation that after all women had been known to change their opinions. Perhaps pride had prevented her from ever openly demanding other ways. Lucille was young and beautiful, courted and flattered on every hand. Perhaps he had been wrong to leave her for years at a stretch. Of her loyalty he had had no doubt, but for the first time in his marital life the professor's profound knowledge of human nature was shot like a spot-light on to his own affairs. Yet his erudition did not in the least relieve him from the laws of emotional reaction.

Perhaps in an emotional moment.… That knowledge of the frailties of genus homo was too deep for comfort in such actuation.

"A toi, Lucille! A toi, Lucille!" rang and echoed as he paced that room, striving for control.… And—and—why else should zu Pfeiffer have gone crazy?—why had he exclaimed: "Das ist der Schweinhuend"? The husband, of course, whom he wanted out of the way, and he had immediately seized the opportunity to secure that end, seemingly indifferent to consequences—symptomatic of the state of "being in love."

Around and about, about and around a field of weeds which had sprung from that seed "a toi," had paced the professor all night. When the green was creeping through the high barred window, Sergeant Schneider had brought to him some coffee and biscuits. Birnier had drunk the coffee thirstily, and as the sergeant had no English nor French, had tried in broken German to extract some information. But the sergeant had merely grunted and retired. At seven he had returned again and escorted Birnier to the Court House. He returned from the mock trial a little more in touch with reality, and more impressed with the malignity of zu Pfeiffer. Yet the gratuitous insults, the laboured farce of the registering of an alleged Swiss trader, Birnier saw through, and was relieved, for it argued that zu Pfeiffer's intention was to make Lucille a widow. No other reason could account for the homicidal intentions displayed.

At the glow of dawn next day he was aroused by the big corporal who ordered him out. The tone of the man's voice naturally stimulated a violent reaction. But Birnier realised that his sole chance lay in controlling himself to accept stoically whatever treatment was offered; for he saw instantly that any protest or indignation would be interpreted as insubordination and possibly be made an excuse to shoot him down.

Outside in the grey light he saw under the guard of six native soldiers, the five others of his party. Mungongo, his personal "boy," cried out at the sight of him, asking what was the meaning of these strange happenings. Before Birnier could reply, the big corporal struck the man savagely with a kiboko, bidding him to be silent. In spite of his resolution, the reaction made Birnier turn angrily upon the soldier, who deliberately repeated the order, and struck the white man across the face. As Birnier raised his fist the man lowered his bayonet and grinned, adding, apparently for the benefit of his men, that now the white would learn what it was to be a slave.

Furiously Birnier looked around for Sergeant Schneider: but no white man was in sight.… He turned to Mungongo and said quickly: "Take no heed. Do as they bid thee for the moment."

"Be silent!" shouted the corporal, but as he raised his kiboko, Birnier looked him quietly straight in the eyes. The black hand was lowered; the man turned away, ordering the party in general to march.

Dishevelled and without any camp equipment, Birnier began to march as the blood of the sky paled to orange. At the bottom of the great parade ground he turned in time to see the relieving guard falling in behind the Court House. For one moment he hesitated whether to put all to the test by refusing to go; but a significant gesture with the ever ready rifle of the corporal signified that he would not be given a chance. Humiliated, he obeyed. But just beyond the last hut, waiting by the path, was a group of women loaded with the soldiers' gear; and beside them were some carriers bearing his green tent and apparently all his equipment. The sight cheered him a little. He attempted to find immediate consolation in the idea that the savagery of the corporal might possibly abate when they were away from the neighbourhood of the inciting agent, whom he was sure was zu Pfeiffer.

Leading the caravan was a soldier; next to him came Birnier and behind him was another soldier, after whom walked Mungongo and the four other prisoners, with a soldier between each; and then the corporal, strutting portentously important within easy shooting distance of the white man. The carriers and women brought up the rear.

The path led for some miles through the dreary swamp following the course of the small bayou, crossing and recrossing small streams swollen with the rains, through which the white man was forced to wade to his hips. For the first mile Birnier was so angry and humiliated that he dared not catch the troubled eyes of Mungongo. But by force of will he attained a reasonable plane of philosophic resignation, temporary at least, and smiled at the boy, who grinned back like a tickled child. At any rate, soliloquised Birnier, he had at least one man upon whom he could rely.

At the head of the bayou they reached higher ground and the path zigzagged through dense jungle thick with fan palms. The longer Birnier pondered upon the situation the nearer he came towards the conclusion that he had better make his escape as soon as possible, or he would never have the chance. Rather by the uneasy glances of Mungongo, who dared not speak, did he guess that they had left the regular trail to the coast. What their destination was he could not imagine. Probably, he thought grimly, to make an end of the whole party and return to the camp. Yet why trouble to travel so far? And another good reason to hasten an escape was that, although for the moment he was in good health, a few days of exposure would subject him to fever and consequent weakness.

Now and again the theme "a toi" would return like the refrain of a song to which he found himself keeping step; but the words sometimes became meaningless; for in the merciful way that nature has, the impulse of self-preservation so occupied his mind that he had scarcely leisure to worry over marital troubles.

At the end of about two hours, when the heat of the sun was beginning to be felt severely, the corporal called a halt in the shade of a great baobab. Birnier sat down with his back against the bole. Alongside him squatted the corporal deliberately and called to the women for a gourd of juwala. There is a certain acid odour which native beer has that is particularly irritating to a dry palate. The corporal drank deep, sighed with satisfaction and set the gourd beside him almost touching the feet of the white. Involuntarily Birnier swallowed. The corporal saw and grinned. Birnier understood and turned his back to the man. Immediately the corporal arose and lowering his bayonet until it pricked the sleeve of Birnier's coat, ordered him to get up. In the knowledge that he would be instantly shot by the others if he attempted to resist, he had perforce to obey.

Outside the shade of the great tree, in the full glare of the sun, was the white man compelled to sit while the black corporal, with the rifle ready across his knee, drank deep and handed the gourd to his fellows. Again Birnier turned his back to him. But he began to realise faintly what treatment he would receive before the end came and an intimate knowledge of native ingenuity made him feel physically sick.

Half an hour later they were on the march again. The path became rugged and difficult, passing through thorny ground, following burbling watercourses of rough stones. To make the going more trying Birnier wore light moccasins intended for camp use instead of his high field boots. Once when a long thorn penetrated the flank of his shoe he stopped to extract it. The corporal shouted at him; the soldier behind called him unmentionable names in the dialect and pushed him with his foot. The insult and the heat of the sun maddened him. He leaped to his feet. The corporal raised his gun promptly and jeered. For a moment Birnier stood trembling with passion; then he closed his eyes as if to shut out sight and sound and limped forward, fighting with himself.

With natives had Birnier always been able to negotiate, to live, and to quarrel when necessary, on terms of amity; but this black "swine," as he termed him in his wrath, prinked out in a masquerade of a white man's clothes.… He jammed his heel down savagely upon the thorn to divert the southern passion. After all it was not the man's fault but zu Pfeiffer's. Put a white man in a uniform and he becomes a beast; put a nigger in a uniform and he becomes a devil, Birnier forced himself to reflect.

The sun grew incandescent. The heat and the flies quickened his thirst. He plodded on, stumbling over the stones, sagging heavily in sandy patches. They had left the comparative shelter of the jungle and were crossing a flat plain approaching, he judged, to a river bed. The carriers, he noted, had lagged behind. Soon they must halt. Even the fiend of a corporal would not fatigue himself too much for the sake of tormenting a white man.

Then a new idea was added to the plagues. He had tasted nothing save the coffee, canned beef, and native bread which had been given him for dinner on the previous evening. The corporal had manifested his conception of humour by refusing him beer and water on the march; was he going to torment him by starvation as well as by thirst? And if torture were reserved for him by that grinning black brute, then he knew what would be the end that awaited him.

Within an hour they came to a river about forty yards broad, a swollen rushing torrent. There was no village as he had expected. The corporal halted. Birnier slid down the bank and thrust his muzzle into the flood. There was torture in the restraint not to drink too much. He clambered up the slope to find the corporal grinning at him. He turned his back and lay down. There was no shade; only short scrub and grass. Small sand flies buzzed and stung. He heard the gurgle of the corporal's military water-bottle. But this time the sting was extracted; his belly was moist.

Birnier stretched out, shielding from the glare the little that he could with his hands. Faint echoes of "a toi" strolled across his field of consciousness. He observed the apparently stoical indifference of Mungongo squatted a few feet from him, a soldier sprawling between them; but he cursed because investigations had taught him that that "stoical" should usually be read as "bovinity," as he had termed it; and he smiled dismally at the ancient story that so well illustrated the point, of the peasant who expressed his occupation through the long winter hours as "sometimes we sits and thinks but mostly we just sits."

Mungongo "just sits," he repeated, and envied him. Yet in that heat and hunger, waiting for his savage captor to wreak some new fancy upon him, so saturated with philosophic interest in life was Birnier, that he wandered off into a meditation upon the mechanical fatuity of human conduct; illustrating his reflections by his own actions when stirred by emotion. "The loaded gun may be as wise as Solomon was reputed to be," he remarked beneath his hands, "but all the same when some one pulls the trigger the damn thing goes off," and sat up to confront the muzzle of the corporal's rifle, who was ordering him to get up. Birnier rose. But to the savage's amazement, he smiled.

The corporal backed away.

"Ah, my friend," remarked Birnier blandly in English. "You've lost, for I have found that which was lost!"

The corporal scowled and bade him to follow. Birnier obeyed but he felt that he was obliging the man. The carriers had arrived and the green tent was pitched, invitingly cool against the grey flood of the river. He followed the corporal gladly, but at ten feet from his tent, beside a thorn bush four feet tall which spread in a fan shape, he was bidden to sit. For the moment, newly arrived from his philosophic dreams, he did not comprehend.

"But that is my tent!" he said in Kiswahili.

"Sit down!" commanded the corporal, grinning. "The white seller of slaves sits in the place of the slave, but his owner dwells in the place of the blessed."

"O God!" remarked Birnier as he bumped his head against black reality.



CHAPTER 8

Bakuma sat in the shade of the reed fence preparing the evening meal of boiled bananas. From her slender neck swung the precious amulet at which, as if to reassure herself of its safety, she clutched occasionally. Her half-sister, who had not yet passed through the initiation at maturity, sprawled upon her belly in the dwindling rays of the sun, scratching her woolly head. Beyond her were two slaves tending a fire beneath two large calabashes, preparatory to the brewing of banana beer, which had of course to be done by the chief widow, Bakuma's half-sister's mother.

The mind of Bakuma was occupied by percepts of the charms of Zalu Zako; particularly as memorised on that afternoon by the river when the effect of the love charm had begun to work. These memories, as sweet as they would have been to any maid, were shot with gay colours by the words of the wizard; for he had assured her that with the toe-nail and hair to work magic upon, Zalu Zako would be bewitched by her charms for all time. And she had obtained them! She could have gotten the goat, not a skinny goat as described under the inhibiting influence of a wild hope that the wizard would relent. Her cousin, smarting under the reproaches of her husband, had such a goat, fat as goats in Wongolo go, and she was eager to exchange it or anything for an infallible charm against sterility. Bakuma feared to part with the charm, yet the matter was pressing; immediately she was the wife of Zalu Zako she would be in a position to purchase all the charms in the village.

But difficult to obtain as they were, for as everybody knows no man leaves portions of himself around that may fall into the hands of an enemy to work magic upon, least of all a rich man, "half divine," she had obtained some nail parings and one hair. With that charm against sterility, the only thing of value Bakuma possessed, had she bribed a concubine of Zalu Zako's household to steal the ingredients required from the hut thatch where they had been hidden after the official shaving and paring following the ceremony of his father, pending their removal to the sacred precincts of the temple.

Above her passion for Zalu Zako was her natural feminine appreciation of a good match. The Son of the Snake was far better from a woman's point of view than union with a successful wizard. In the event of the death of the King-God, Kawa Kendi, the wives of his son and successor, although denied to him, were accorded special privileges; and upon his demise these royal wives retained their home upon the hill which had become his tomb. Moreover, as Bakuma knew well, now that Zalu Zako was heir-apparent, he must choose the principal wife who would for her life remain paramount in the household, avoiding the dread of every ageing woman that her husband would take unto him another wife younger and more supple.

The one mosquito in paradise was the fear that as soon as her uncle, her father's brother to whom she belonged by inheritance, learned the august personage who desired her, he would raise the price to a prohibitive figure; for he was mean as well as stupid and lazy, wherefore he had few goods, and although Zalu Zako was a rich man she knew that any man save a fool loves to drive a good bargain if only to prove his astuteness. Therefore was another imperative necessity to procure every means of magic and charm to fan the flame of her lover's desires.

Yet always flashed a bright-hued lizard in the sun of her joy when she imagined herself installed as the chief wife in the household of Zalu Zako, an unassailable position as long as she had one male child; the practical mistress of his first two wives as well as the retinue of slaves.

Bazila, the younger wife, Bakuma knew well; the favourite and haughty, covered with the most expensive amulets against every ill and black magic, she was overfond of sneering at young girls of the hut thatch whose charms had not yet netted a victim.

"Ehh!" gasped Bakuma and flashed her teeth as she rolled the warm leaves around the sticky mess, "then will the scent of my body be more bitter than the flower of the fish-faced cactus!"

And so through the night did Bakuma nibble at anticipatory joys as she lay upon her reed mat on the slightly raised dais of the floor which was her bed, watching the smoke of the fire in the middle of the hut lose itself in the shadows of the roof, and listening in the hope of hearing some voice of the spirits whom Marufa was to invoke on her behalf. Save for the occasional bleating of a goat and once the harsh scream of the Baroto bird, which made her heart contract, for it is a bad omen, the night was still. However, at the hour of the monkey Bakuma arose to replenish the fire. As the western star was melting in the warm green she left the compound. On the outskirts of the village the tall figure of MYalu appeared from the shadows of the plantation.

"Greeting, daughter of Bakala," said he, his eyes greedily devouring her.

"Greeting, O Chief!" returned Bakuma, as she politely stepped to one side to avoid standing on the vague shadow of the chief.

"The fawn seeks the pastures early," remarked MYalu.

"Before the breath of the sun the grass is sweeter," retorted Bakuma, edging away.

"Aye," remarked MYalu, with a hungry glint in his eyes, "thou art eager to slake thy thirst? But in the valley will no buck walk this day!"

"Ehh!" gasped Bakuma, recollecting instantly the omen of the Baroto bird heard that night. "What meanest thou?"

"Maybe the soul of him hath wandered and been caught in a trap or maybe——" He paused to watch her closely—"maybe an enemy hath made magic upon the parts of him."

"Ehh!" Bakuma started nervously.

MYalu smiled and touched her upon the shoulder.

"Thy flesh is cooler than the dew."

"Nay, nay, O Chief, thou hast not tied my girdle," she protested, as she backed away from him, her eyes wide like a terrified deer's.

"Nay, but will I untie it soon," he retorted.

But as he stepped towards her she turned and fled. As MYalu watched her running as swiftly as a pookoo into the plantation he grinned and called out: "Even now is the cooling draught steaming in the breath of the Unmentionable One! But the goblet shall hold a sweeter draught for me!"

"Aie! Aie-e!" wailed Bakuma, her heart beating furiously, "what devil hath bewitched me! O, that father of many goats hath betrayed me! Aie! Aie-e! O, the cry of the Baroto bird! Aie! Aie-e!"

And when Bakuma, distraught with terror by the menace that she had only procured the nail paring and hair to give her lover into the hands of the false magician who, of course, had been bought by MYalu, arrived at the "pastures" by the river, as MYalu had foretold, no buck walked there.

The sun spilled blue shadows on the village from the sacred hill where another scene was being enacted, and it was not as imagined by the amorous MYalu.

In the council house, which was within the outer fence and before the sacred enclosure, was in progress a meeting of the doctors. In the door of the enclosure squatted Kawa Kendi, with Kingata Mata in attendance tending the royal fires. Before him, in front of their fellows, were seated Bakahenzie and Marufa in full dress of green feathers and the scarlet plume. The left side of the idol, which was so set that the shadow never fell upon the entrance to the compound, was gilded by the sun; the mouth grinned in one corner, one eye was closed in shadow, seemingly like a prodigious wink.

To the thrumming of the sacred band Bakahenzie was rocking himself to and fro mumbling incantations. Kawa Kendi squatted immobile, but the others swayed and grunted softly in rhythm. Then on a sudden did Bakahenzie lift up his head and cry in a great voice. The drums ceased and the body of witch-doctors remained motionless, expectant. Bakahenzie dropped his head and began to chant:

"Behold! I have heard the voice of the trees Crying softly by night! Lo! the soul of the plant is in labour! As a woman with child! Behold! is she not to break forth? For she crieth for aid. Unless she be heard the infant will slip! The fruit will not be! The plants will not break! The milk will be sour! The beer will be green! Women will not bear! Our spears will be blunt! Our magic will wane! And He will be wroth!"

"Eh! Ah! … Eh! Ah! … Eh! Ah! … Eh! Ah! … Eh! Ah! …" grunted the chorus of the doctors. Then chanted Marufa:

"Lo! I have slept and been that which I must! Preying swiftly by night! Behold! I have bloodied my fangs in the throat Of a mighty bull eland! Blood succoured the earth and upsprang a plant! Which panted for blood! The sap of the plant is the soul of the tree! Take heed to the thirst Of Him who first was! Who lusts for a maid! Full breasted, soft thighed! Supple, bow arched! Clean blooded and strong! Whose name is forbid! Whose name is a sin!"

"Who hath stolen the name?" screamed Bakahenzie, leaping to his feet. "Who is she that hath stolen the name?"

"Eh! Ahh! … Eh! Ahh! … Eh! Ahh! … Eh! Ahh! … Eh! Ahh! …"

As the drums throbbed swifter Bakahenzie began to shuffle in a stooping posture as if he were snuffing a trail. To the continuous grunting he continued this dance for fully a quarter of an hour. Then stopping abruptly in front of the king he screamed:

"Let her be bidden To come to the feast! Let her be oiled! Let her be shaved! Let her come dancing! Let her be joyful! Let her be decked! Let her be glad! Lips of the groom Thirst for her mouth! Let her be drunken To bear his sweet weight! That the crops will be full! That the cattle grow fat Wives will throw men! Spears will slice foes!"

He sank suddenly upon his haunches. The drums ceased. A slave appeared bearing a pure white kid. Kingata Mata took the animal and held it before Kawa Kendi, who muttered a long incantation over it and cut the throat with a spear head. Then to Marufa was the bleeding carcass carried and while still alive he slit open the belly, smeared the liquid over his chest and right arm, and tore out the guts. The corpse was removed. Marufa, working only with the enchanted arm, turned the entrails over and about, peering closely.

There was silence. The shadows grew in depth. From the village came an occasional bleat and the voice of a distant girl chanting.

After a prolonged and studious search, Marufa caught up and wrapt round his neck an intestine. As he rose, the group of witch-doctors broke out into a mighty groaning. Marufa speeded across the small clearing and kneeled before Kawa Kendi. Through the bloody necklet he whispered two syllables: "kuma."

The groaning ceased as suddenly as it had commenced. Kawa Kendi cried out in a loud voice:

"The bride is found!"

Instantly the drums began a furious beat. A mighty shout rose from all assembled and they fell to the chest and belly grunting: "Eh! Ahh! … Eh! Ahh! …" as Bakahenzie and Marufa began to dance the dance of thanksgiving.

Bakuma had been doomed to be the victim for the Feast of the Harvest Festival, to be sacrificed in the orgy as the Bride of the Spirit of the Banana, because Marufa had discovered by divination that two syllables of her name were those of the secret name which only the King-God knew, of the Unmentionable One, the Usakuma.



CHAPTER 9

Before the green tent strutted a sentry as pompously as if he were on duty before the Kommandant's bungalow. Inside, sprawling in a camp chair, was the corporal, in blue striped pyjamas, smoking a cigarette. Upon the floor crouched one of his women with a safety razor stuck in her woolly thatch, opening a can of beef. On the camp table were a bottle of brandy which had had its neck knocked off, a shaving mirror and an open tin of cigarettes. Squatting on the bed was another woman in field boots, cleaning up a can of salmon with one finger. The rest of the tent was a litter of broken cases, bottles, cans and papers.

Ten yards away under the thorn shrub, lay Birnier, and near to him were Mungongo and the others. Mungongo's regard shuttled between this scene in the tent and the white man with a mingled expression of terror and amazement: terror at the temerity of the corporal in treating a white in such a manner and incredulous bewilderment that the white did not immediately strike them all dead. But the others, more sophisticated to the white man's ways, were solely occupied in envying the corporal's debauch.

The mauve shadows turned to blue as they lengthened. The clouds of small flies thinned and their ranks began to be refilled by the mosquitoes. Birnier lay with his back to the tent with a fly switch of grass, but he watched the doings of the corporal covertly. The corporal and his women had been drinking a good deal of the brandy and now he was supplying generous quantities to his men. Once he had come out to jeer. Birnier had taken no notice, nor even of the kick implanted by one of his own field boots on the foot of the woman. Already there was a bloodshot glint in the corporal's yellow eyes and a pronounced uncertainty in his movements. Whether the man had had any particular instructions regarding the manner of his death Birnier did not know until he became loquacious and took to shouting insults at his white prisoner. The great white chief had given the white man to him as a slave, he yelled, and now he was going to take him home with him. This idea seemed to tickle him vastly and also his women, who giggled and applauded as the corporal began to describe what obscene acts they would make their white dog perform every day, what they would give him to eat, how he should be made to dance.

They grew noisier and the women began to sing lewd songs. The soldiers too revealed signs of their frequent potations. Soon the whole crowd would go mad, Birnier knew, and sooner or later collapse, which would give him a chance to escape, unless they chained him, or, what was far more probable, they decided to bait him to death during an orgy. What they would probably do to him was unthinkable. Somehow he must find a way out by self-destruction. Even should he escape, he would be unarmed and without food, and there was every possibility that they would trail and overtake him in the morning. He was lame and footsore; also he was weak from want of food. Once, when despoiling his chop boxes, the corporal had contemptuously thrown him a half eaten tin of sardines and a cigarette. He let the cigarette lie. Nourishment he must have; and so after an inward struggle he had eaten it, having to claw out the fish like a monkey, while the big black and his women sprawled and laughed.

The soldiers, except the one on sentry who still paced a trifle erratically, were grouped on their haunches around the fire in front of the tent on the threshold of which the corporal presided with as much pomposity as if he were the great Mogul, all drinking and smoking and eating. Now and again the women would screech insults over their heads at the white; and once the corporal threw an empty bottle at him, evoking a gale of applause. The women began the belly dance, crooning while the men accompanied with the rhythmic grunt, which ever leads to hysterical exaltation.

The sun was dipping. They might come for him at any moment. He watched the sentry and contemplated making a rush, taking a venture on the man's bad aim and unsteady hand. They would not follow him far in the dark for dread of the spirits that walk by night. The only alternative to suicide was the river, in flood and full of crocodiles, a slender chance. He determined to try it. He considered making the attempt then. But the darker the better; they would more easily miss. At any risk he must never let them get their hands upon him. He drew himself together, flexing his limbs for a leap and a rush, anxiously observing the chanting crowd around the fire in the sunset glow.

The leashes of discipline were fraying. The sentry still plodded up and down, but with a rolling eye for his companions. The working of his mind was revealed when he walked round tying knots in the long grass which, as every Munyamwezi knows, is a sure method to prevent a prisoner's escape; then he halted in front of Birnier, grinned, and pointed to the fire; evidently he knew or had heard that an orgy was coming. The man stood and watched him. Fearful that the fellow was about to drag him over or suggest that the victim be seized, if only in order to release him from his irksome duty, Birnier snatched up the cigarette lying in the grass and asked for a light to distract the man's attention. The sentry shook his head and pointed to the fire. Hastily Birnier searched his pockets for a match; recollected that he had used the last, and took out a small tin box of wax vestas wrapped in oiled silk which he kept as a reserve in a special pouch of his belt. In the very act of striking the match Birnier ejaculated: "God!"

"Nini?" demanded the sentry.

"I burned myself," returned Birnier.

"Nothing to what you will soon!" retorted the nigger, grinning, made an obscene suggestion and swaggered across to the fire.

Birnier cursed his own stupidity as he thought swiftly. If Mungongo and the others ran at the same time the numbers would confuse the soldiers the more. He spoke across to Mungongo in the Wongolo dialect, hoping that the Munyamwezi would not understand.

"Let thy heart be like unto the bullet of my big gun, and obey me! When I throw up in the air this cigarette, thou shalt run and plunge into the river, but not into the depth; lie hidden in the reeds of the bank until thou shalt hear a frog croak thrice and then once. Come out and go to the frog, and be not afraid, for thou shalt see me in the spirit form. Dost understand?"

"Truly, my master!"

"Tell the washenzie that they also obey or shall my spirit eat them up as it shall these children of dung!"

"Truly, master!"

Birnier glanced at the horizon. The shadows had melted into the violet twilight, which in equatorial Africa is almost as short as the snuffing of a candle. The stars were popping out. Dusky forms were circling round the yellow of the fire which threw pale flickers on the figure of Corporal Inyira, revealing the beginning of the hysterical gleam in the yellows of his eyes as, reverting to habit, he squatted on his haunches in the chair. They might make a rush for the victims at any moment. The sentry, excitement overcoming discipline, was, rifle still in hand, dancing round the outskirts of the throng.

Birnier threw the cigarette towards Mungongo. As he dived round the thorn bush he heard the rustle of movement and the "boy's" gasped exclamation to the others. The bank of the river was not fifteen yards away. On the brink Birnier crouched and listened. He heard a splash a little to the right, which was Mungongo or one of the others literally obeying his instructions.

The mosquitoes buzzed and stung in clouds. A cricket shrilled persistently above the chorus of the frogs and the throb of the hand-drum and the chanting. The sentry had not yet discovered the flight; he was probably drunker than Birnier had guessed. By raising himself on his hands he could see the gleam of the fire and the inverted V of the tent through the scrub. He hesitated whether to begin operations immediately or wait until after they had discovered the flight and were further intoxicated. Yet the excitement of the loss of the prisoner might sober them a little, Birnier reflected. No, it did not matter even if they were completely sober. The spirits of the night would be perhaps more real to them then than when they were drugged by alcohol. Yet he would wait. They might come as far as the river with lanterns and should he be compelled to take to the water he would have to take the risk of crocodiles seizing him. Almost had he begun to curse the askaris for being so slow, when a rifle cracked and a bullet hummed over his head.

He scrambled hastily down the bank, thinking for a moment that he had been spotted. But it must have been a random shot. The chanting ceased. A hoarse shout from the sentry was echoed by uproar from the others.

Birnier crawled up the bank cautiously and peered. He could not see well, for one eye was nearly closed by mosquito bites, but he could make out vague forms passing and repassing across the glow of the fire. Lights glimmered. Amid shouts and yells, figures began to advance towards the river. Whether the water was deep or shallow he could not know; only could he make out in the sheen of the stars a dark patch of reed or bushes for some yards. He slid down the slope as noiselessly as possible, although the pursuers were making noise enough to scare all the spirits in Africa. He sank to his chest, standing on stones. He waded out a little, buried his head and shoulders behind a half-submerged bush, and remained still.

For some time he could only hear the shouts and yells. He kept the water up to his chin and continuously splashed his face in the endeavour to slacken the efforts of the mosquitoes. The cries approached. He saw men outlined against the stars and then some gleams of lanterns. Something stirred ponderously near to him. It might be a crocodile, but he dared not move. The figures seemed to stay on the top of the bank for hours. He remained rigid, expecting a swirl of water and teeth.

Suddenly a spurt of flame shot out above him and was followed by a fusillade of shots in the direction of up river. Had they spotted Mungongo or were they merely letting drive at a bush or the spirits in general? The latter was most probable. The water swirled near to him. All his will power was required not to leap frantically for the bank. Yet a crocodile would be far more merciful than those black devils. Again a swirl and something passed close to him at high speed. Probably an otter scared by the firing; at any rate it was not a crocodile. The lights and figures on the bank disappeared.

Shots rang out again, and were followed by a wild outburst of yelling. Birnier began to wade for the bank, continually splashing water at the mosquitoes which were so thick that they reminded him of the bayou Lafourche in far-off Louisiana. Crouching, he waited on the edge of the bank to listen. The corporal might have had enough sense to post men in the grass. Yet he might be too fuddled to think of that, and no native would willingly stay there in the dark, unless under white discipline. Voices still muttered, but they sounded as if from the camp. Had they given him up for the night, relying on the chance that if he had not been taken by a crocodile they could trail him in the morning? Probably.

Birnier squatted in the water, ready to plunge back, until he was sure they were in camp. Then as cautiously he crawled up the bank. Through the scrub with his uninjured eye he could make out the figures around the yellow of the fire which had gone down considerably. Now what would they do? He could hear the mumble of the corporal's voice. Would they be sufficiently sobered to be ready for the chase in the morning? Birnier did not think so with that case of brandy there; the corporal would not, at all events. There was a scream of pain and the chatter of women's voices.

Was the corporal punishing the sentry for having let the prisoners escape, or were they beginning to fight among themselves? The latter was improbable, as non-commissioned officers are usually chosen from petty chiefs and the men under them, as far as possible, from their own village. Had they captured Mungongo or one of the others? Birnier listened again. Another scream was stoppered to a groan.

"Devils!" muttered Birnier. Lying flat to watch the grass and shrub tops against the stars, he gave the frog croaks arranged, at intervals of ten seconds. About five minutes later he saw some grass tops quiver unnaturally. He croaked again. Came a whisper:

"Is it thee, Infunyana?" (a name given in reference to Birnier's gold fillings).

"Aye." A dark form glided towards him. "Where are the other men?"

"I know not. I told them as thou hadst told me to do. When thou didst give the sign, I fled and plunged into the river."

"Thou wast not frightened of the crocodiles?"

"Nay; for I have a mighty charm against all river beasts, enchanted by Bakahenzie, the greatest of magicians."

"Ehh!" commented Birnier, contorting his swollen lips in the dark, "would that I had such an one! Thinkest thou that the men did as they were bidden?"

"Who knows what is in the heart of a goat?" returned Mungongo contemptuously, for they were of another tribe.

"Ah, listen!"

The mutter of the hand-drum grew swifter as a high tenor chanted to the accompaniment of the abdominal grunting and the laryngeal shrilling:

"We have come from afar from the Place of the waters! From the place where dwells the mighty Eater-of-Men! Hard was the road as the hills of Kilimanjaro! Hot was the sun as the wrath of Inyira the bold! The son of Banyala! Ough! … Ough! E-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-h!

But strong are we still as the trunk of an elephant! For have we not walked in the shade of a great chief! Blacker and fiercer than the male rhinoceros! Swifter and more terrible than the mother of whelps? The son of Banyala! Ough! … Ough! E-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-h!

What hath he given us to tickle our spears? A dainty white dog whose meat is so tender! Fattened and groomed by the Eater-of-Men! A gift from the great Chief to his ally and friend. The son of Banyala! Ough! … Ough! E-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-h!

We will tickle his white flesh with the tongue of our spears! Our women shall pluck out his hair and his manhood! He shall dance to our liking in the midst of the fire! His girl screams for mercy shall lave hungry ears of ——! The son of Banyala! Ough! … Ough! E-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-h!

Great was the gift of the great Eater-of-Men! A white slave so sleek to dance the dance of the ants! Eh! We'll slit up his nostrils and pull out his hairs! A white slave and four black ones to wait on one great chief! The son of Banyala! Ough! … Ough! E-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-h!

"Those children of folly have not obeyed," whispered Birnier. "The time is come.… Wait here for me, O Mungongo. I go to take my spirit form. When I return be not afraid!"

"Truly," answered Mungongo, as Birnier crawled away and down the bank. By the water's edge he swiftly stripped himself to his moccasins and taking out the wax vestas, damped each precious one and carefully rubbed lines over his face and body, endeavouring to get the most distinctive phosphorescent effect around the eyes. Leaving his clothes he crawled back to Mungongo.

"Ehh!" exclaimed Mungongo in a muffled scream when he saw the glowing apparition. Birnier heard the rustle of grass. As the boy stood up to run he leaped and pulled him down savagely.

"Be quiet, thou fool!" he whispered. "It is I. Be silent!"

"Eh! Eh!" gasped Mungongo, who was trembling violently.

"If thou dost not be quiet will I tie up thy heart," threatened Birnier.

Mungongo continued to quiver, but he remained passive.

"Eh! Eh!" he gasped, "truly thou art a more mighty magician than Bakahenzie."

"Be quiet!"

The drums and the song were still going and the chant had become more obscene.

"Follow me!" whispered Birnier, when Mungongo was more reassured.

They made a detour. As they drew near they could hear muffled screams and groans beneath the howl of the chorus and song. The mighty son of Banyala and his merry men were so engrossed in the orgy that Birnier could have walked right up to the fire before anyone would have seen him. But he would not take any unnecessary risk. Leaving Mungongo outside he crawled under the back flap of the tent. Crouched there he paused. The tent was empty; for all were engaged in the dance. His two shot-guns and two light rifles were stacked in the corner and the big express which the corporal had appropriated, leaned against the tent door behind the chair. He glanced hurriedly around for ammunition, but he could not see any open, and he had left his belt of cartridges with his clothes. Outside the men and women were circling in contrary directions, each with a spear, a knife or a firebrand in hand, around the fire beside which, trussed like bundles of faggots, were the four servants, their feet singeing on the outside hot ashes.

For a second Birnier hesitated. He could not know whether any of the guns was loaded. The fire was of glowing embers which did not throw much light into the tent. Swiftly Birnier rose and glided into his own chair in the deep shadow of the tent flap. Then summoning all his nerve he uttered a yell and began to shout the first song which he could recollect:

"Hurrah! Hurrahhhhhhh! It is the Jubileeeee! Hurrah! Hurrah! the flag that set you free!"

The native minstrel stopped in the middle of his chant; the whole shuffling, grunting crowd was petrified in as many different poses. Birnier leaped to his feet waving his arms wildly, yelling:

"Thus we sang the chor-uss from Atlanta to the Sea-aa! As we …"

But before he had gotten to "Georgia," only the prostrate forms around the fire had not fled.



CHAPTER 10

On the morning of Birnier's departure there was much movement in Ingonya station. Every sign of preparation for the expedition had been carefully concealed while a stranger was in the vicinity. Trumpets blared importantly. On the great parade ground companies were formed, long lines of rigid, ebon figures, down which strolled zu Pfeiffer inspecting personally kits and rifles. Afterwards they were drawn up before the flag-pole. In an address zu Pfeiffer informed them that they served under a greater Bwana than he, the greatest Bwana in the countries of the white or the black, who was the son of Ngai (an uncertain term meaning "son of God" or the "son of nobody"); that the flag they bore, the brother of the big one upon the pole, was so powerful in magic that none could withstand it, the Totem of the Bwana Mkubwa Kuba. No wives were allowed for black or white, and he himself set them the example; for they were embarking on a war expedition to take a country which they knew was full of ivory, cattle and women.

The row upon row of eyes in black faces bulged, as from the mass came the long grunt of assent and allegiance. The three white sergeants barked at their various companies, which wheeled into column formation and marched past zu Pfeiffer beneath the flag in review order, their alignment and precision a credit to their drill masters. Down below the fort on the mouth of the bayou Sergeant Ludwig superintended the overhauling of the steam-launch, and a native sergeant and a file of men overseered lines of carriers bearing white men's provisions, the bulk of which was zu Pfeiffer's personal supplies. Around the launch was a flotilla of native canoes in charge of a small crowd of nude Kavirondo paddlers, jabbering at the prospect of a war expedition.

Most of the day zu Pfeiffer spent in the orderly room going over documents and giving detailed instructions to the grizzled Sergeant Schneider, who was to take over the station with fifty of the least competent men, pending the arrival of an officer, which again would depend upon the success of the expedition. In zu Pfeiffer's manner was evident the controlled excitement of a boy on the eve of a house match, and indeed for him it was the game for which he was bred and lived, "das Kriegspiel." Perpetually his long fingers caressed the sentry moustaches; an unusual glitter was in his blue eyes.

The personality of Birnier had been apparently wiped from his mind as a spoor in the sand by rain; indeed in addition to the competing excitement of the expedition, the previous night's alcoholic and sentimental debauch had served to exhaust the emotions stimulated by jealousy. To him had appeared an obstruction in his emotional life in the shape of the husband of the woman whom he adored; therefore, according to his nature and training, he had endeavoured to remove that obstacle as swiftly and as efficiently as possible. Superlative confidence in himself, reflected in his pride of family and nationality, the apotheosis of which was the Kaiser, enabled him to devote all his energies to the business in hand, never doubting that his interpretation of native psychology would ensure the extinction of his adversary.

Beyond the mere joy of the game of war was present the fundamental impulse to win the approval of the All Highest by gaining another place in the sun as well as the half-suppressed conviction that such a distinction would naturally further his suit in love. In the orbit of these two poles revolved the life actions of zu Pfeiffer.

That evening zu Pfeiffer dined as leisurely and as sumptuously as usual; drank his port and smoked his cigar while his servants packed the last of his kitchen battery. Then at the first green of the moon he gave the order to march.

The three companies of askaris fell in, marched down to the bayou and embarked without fuss or confusion, each group under a non-commissioned officer to the appointed canoe.

The launch laboured busily out of the bayou past misty reed-girt islands into the indolent waters of the great lake, dragging after her the fleet of forty odd canoes. A cigar under the awning of the tiny poop suggested a great firefly in the blue shadows, where lounged zu Pfeiffer with his favourite brandy and seltzer at his elbow.

Resembling an enormous water-fowl leading a strange black brood, the launch towed the flotilla through the night. A war chant pulsed like a fevered heart as the moon upon her back lazily chased the stars into the dawn upon her way to her home in the Mountains of the Moon, to be in turn extinguished by a furious sun. And all that day, while incandescent heat tried to boil illimitable waters, the strange fowl waddled on with her noxious brood. Huddled in the cramped canoes the soldiers slept and snuffed and sang, to which zu Pfeiffer contentedly listened beneath the awning. Three times grey walls of falling water enveloped them, sending frantic black hands to bailing. Once more the moon made the skies to laugh. When the sun had played his part of a flaming Nemesis, a fringe grew upon the horizon like the stubble upon a white man's chin.

Zu Pfeiffer had calculated to arrive at the village of Timballa just within the river at sundown. The headman came down to the strand to meet them. Immediately he was seized, and the soldiers, as joyous and as mischievous as children released from school, surrounded the village.

Sitting in full uniform upon the poop of the launch, together with the two sergeants, zu Pfeiffer held a shauri and demanded sufficient paddlers to man his forty canoes. The headman, to whom all white men were alike, thought they were British and hastened to proffer his services, promising that the Bwana should have the men within two days. Zu Pfeiffer curtly ordered him to procure them before the sun was overhead on the next day; and to insure that he was obeyed, detained him as hostage and forbade any man to pass his line of pickets around the village. The old man protested that they had not sufficient men in the village, but zu Pfeiffer's spies had afforded him practically correct information. He gave the headman the right to send a number of messengers, each accompanied by a soldier, to the neighbouring villages and promised him fifty lashes and to rase his village, if the paddlers were not forthcoming.

Solely because he wished to give his men time to recover from their stiffness did he not insist upon starting that night upon the river trip. As a good commander he considered his men from every point of view of efficiency. They loved him. He was a warrior chief as they understood such to be; carefully he fostered their warrior pride; never were they ordered to work at menial offices, to fetch or to carry; only to drill and to fight; his punishments were ferocious, but he gave them liberty in pillage and rape. Eh! but the Eater-of-Men was a mighty chief! and of his name they boasted to every man.

With foresight he had demanded twice as many men as he needed, knowing that the panic-stricken chief would round up the halt, the blind, and the sick. By an hour after the stipulated time they were assembled in the village, a motley crew. Those of the most powerful physique he selected to man the soldiers' canoes, and the next in competency he allotted to the baggage canoes.

They started immediately. They made about two and a half miles an hour, for although the river was swollen it was sluggish and slow streamed, tortuous. Each canoe load of soldiers was made responsible for the paddlers and the speed was set by zu Pfeiffer in a large canoe with Sakamata as guide. Never had those paddlers driven canoes so speedily and persistently. At sundown they halted in a convenient bend where there was no village near; pickets were set on the bank and no other man allowed to land, no lights and no talking. They were ordered to rest.

At the first glint of the moon they started again. The canoes were hauled by the aid of the soldiers over the slight rapids which divided the river into pools in the dry season. Throughout the night the misty forest and swamp slipped by to the perpetual rhythm of the paddles. About the hour of the monkey a hippopotamus charged the flotilla and upset two boats. Zu Pfeiffer forbade any shooting, nor would he permit the expedition a moment's delay to pick up the occupants. Just as they heard the distant crowing of cocks from the village for which they were bound, four paddlers collapsed. The soldiers, acting on their own initiative, threw them overboard to swim if they could, and took the paddles themselves. Afterwards they were thrashed for disobedience to orders in having given a possible chance for one of the men to escape to warn the Wongolo. At an hour after sunrise they arrived at the village. The majority of the paddlers were so exhausted that they dropped in the canoes and had to be thrown ashore, where they lay inert, their backs, bloody with the urgent bayonet pricks, caking in the sun.

Beyond this point the river was not navigable, but the village was upon the Wongolo border and within two days or fifteen hours' continuous march of MFunya MPopo's (as zu Pfeiffer knew it). Zu Pfeiffer adopted the same tactics to procure porters. But to the chief, in case he should require his services again, he gave an extravagant present and left bales of cloth for the carriers upon their return. Zu Pfeiffer and Sergeant Ludwig travelled in machilas (hammocks) each with a crew of six; the soldiers carried nothing save their rifles, double cartridge belts, a day's rations; the pick of the carriers bore ammunition and the two Nordenfeldts and two pom-poms slung upon poles, and the chop boxes; the men's blankets and the heavy stuff were to follow more slowly under Sergeant Schultz and fifty men. The country between this village and MFunya MPopo's was mostly forest and very sparsely inhabited, which afforded some shade and concealment, and lessened the risk of a warning being given.

The expedition started at noon. The carriers were kept on the native shuffling lope by the aid of attentions from the askaris. Two unfortunate small villages which lay on the line of march were surrounded and the inhabitants massacred. Twenty porters collapsed; they were bayoneted to prevent any chance of a successful ruse in escaping to give the alarm, and their loads given to relay men brought for that purpose. The column halted at sundown. The men ate their rations, but the carriers were too exhausted to eat; they drank water and lay prostrate. According to Sakamata they were within two hands' breadth of the moon of Kawa Kendi's.

In full uniform of white, girded with sword and revolver, zu Pfeiffer ate, drank, and smoked cigars until the forest roof was patterned against the cold pallor of the moon. Then, after giving final instructions to Sergeant Ludwig and the various native non-commissioned officers, he ordered the jabbering men to march, with the carriers staggering on at the point of the bayonet.



CHAPTER 11

The doom pronounced by the Council of Witch-Doctors was to Bakuma and all concerned as a Bull of Excommunication in mediaeval Europe. MYalu was the one who exhibited the most emotion. Had he not paid seven tusks of good ivory to have the object of his passion placed under the most terrible tabu? Against Marufa, who had seemingly betrayed him, was his anger directed. But the rage of MYalu was tempered with fear. A man had not merely to kill an enemy: he had also to appease his justly wrathful ghost; and who knew what the disembodied spirit of the most powerful magician in the land, save Bakahenzie, could do! Moreover, no other wizard would give him absolution in the form of the magic of purification. A chief though he be; he dared not slay a magician. He sought Marufa and found him as usual squatting on his threshold contemplating infinity in a mud wall. He saluted Marufa politely, choking back words of bitter recrimination, for if he even offended him, the wizard might cast a spell upon him instantly. Marufa returned the greeting as courteously as ever. When at length MYalu reproachfully reminded him of the seven tusks which he had paid apparently to secure his love's terrible fate, Marufa replied uninterestedly:

"I have done that for which thou hast paid."

"What man buyeth a bride for another?" retorted MYalu.

"When I did make magic upon 'the things' did I place in the power of the spirits the owner. Behold, hath not the owner of 'the things' been accursed?"

"Ehh!" gasped MYalu. "But how may that be? Didst thou not thyself take the paring and the hair?"

"I bade the One who is tabu to bring them that he might be bewitched to her girdle. She thought to deceive me by bringing that which was of herself."

"E—eh!" muttered MYalu, impressed at the awful effect of deceiving a wizard. Marufa continued to stare. MYalu meditated ruefully.

"But the tusks," murmured MYalu at length dismally.

"It is not I who have two tongues," responded Marufa indifferently.

And with that MYalu had to rest content. Marufa indeed had no interest at all in the passions of Zalu Zako, MYalu and Bakuma. Merely the time had come for the witch-doctors to choose the victim for the Harvest Festival: Bakuma was young and good looking, a dainty morsel that should please the taste of the officiating doctors, and her owner and uncle was a man of no importance: so accordingly he had made known the sin of her name through the divination.

In the solitude of his own hut upon the hill Zalu Zako sat and pondered sulkily. His young and fierce temper was stimulated and the seed of rebellion against the domination of the priesthood was quickened by the fate of his new love; although the masonic secrets of the craft were denied to him, he, as son of the royal house, was suspicious of the powers of the Unmentionable One and the priesthood, as many an one had been before him; yet in spite of that the verdict was absolute, for he was too crushed by terror of the consequences to permit of any hope of annulling it.

The fiat not only doomed Bakuma to a terrible death at the third blooming of the moon, but from that very instant the tabu came into force; for being thus accursed by the possession of two sounds of the sacred name, she was deemed unholy. Her half-sisters and their mother, with whom Bakuma shared the hut, fled to another and were exorcised by the wizard, which, as everybody knows, is an expensive ceremony; gourds and pots, spoons and utensils of all sorts, were left to the sole use of the unclean one and would be burned upon her demise. A magic line was drawn around the hut out of which the soul of the girl as she slept could not escape to bewitch anybody. Neither her name nor anything that had been hers would be ever mentioned again; any word of a household article or any thing or beast which had one syllable of the name "Bakuma" was changed, lest the user be accursed and bewitched.

For the whole day, in this isolation, sat the girl Bakuma, Marufa's useless love charm clutched in her hand, as bewildered as if the earth had suddenly turned inside out under this fact so stupendous and stupefying. She did not weep. She squatted in the door, her eyes staring with the glazed inquiring expression of a dying gazelle, a bronze question to Fate. At the feeding time her mother threw her bananas into the circle. Bakuma looked at them as they flopped near to her as if she did not realize what they were. She made no stir to cook or prepare them. The cool twilight came and passed like a blue breath. Above the insectile chorus of the night beneath the crystal stars came the faint thrumming of a drum from MKoffo's hill. The sound of music and dancing reminded Bakuma of her ambitious dreams. She could neither weep nor wail; she merely emitted a faint gasping sound. But her mind began to work jerkily, yet more fluently. Visions of the form of Zalu Zako were weaved and spun in the darkness: the lithe walk of him, the haughty carriage of the head. Slowly greened the sky until the banana fronds were etched in sepia against the swollen moon. The dismal croak of the Baroto bird shattered the black cocoon of Bakuma's mind.

"Aie-eee! the foul bird of my despair!" she wailed, and at last wept. Then she rose and flitted like some green ghost into the plantation and across to the place of water where her lover had first spoken her sweet, recking naught in her mist of despair of spirits of the night nor of the breaking of the magic circle. The moon spattered the squatted form with blue spangles and turned the falling tears to quivering opals. Bakuma broke into wild lament.

"The black Goat hath cried three times in my hut! My soul hath wandered and been caught in a trap! Aieeeeeeeeeee!

A wizard hath stolen a hair from my head! The beak of Baroto pecketh my gall! Aieeeeeeeeeee!

A rival hath lain in wait for my love! She hath slain my bird in the nest of his breast! Aieeeeeeeeeee!

A porcupine dwells in the place of my heart! The bird of my soul is fluttering faint! Aieeeeeeeeeee!

An ember of fire hath entered my mouth! The milk of my breasts is curdled to-night! Aieeeeeeeeeee!

The strings of my bosom are tied with fine knots! My belly is void! My nipples are dead! Aieeeeeeeeeee!

A monkey hath bitten the back of my tongue! Hath stolen my breath to make magic by night! Aieeeeeeeeeee!

The blood in my veins hath turned to sour porridge! My throat is choked up by the sudd of the Lake! Aieeeeeeeeeee!

A grey forest rat hath swallowed my heart! My thighs have been scratched by a poisonous thorn! Aieeeeeeeeeee!"

As the last quiver of the wail blended with the anthem of the forest came from a figure squatted above the ford of the river, his spear a blue flame in the moonlight, an answer:

"My love hath been taken by a greater than I! Her flesh will be tasted by a hungrier mouth! Her flesh which is sweeter than honey and wine! Her flesh which is softer than a newly born kid! Ough! My spear is bent!

My love hath been taken by a greater than I! Her breasts will be pillowed by a much broader chest! Her breasts which do swell like a tender young gourd! Her breasts which are as firm as the meat of the plum! Ough! My spear is bent!"

And answered Bakuma's wail:

"Aieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"

"My love hath been taken by a greater than I! Her chines will be gripped by a far fiercer hand! Her chines which are smoother than elephants' tusks! Her chines which are as plump as the breast of a fowl! Ough! My spear is bent! Aieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

My love hath been taken by a greater than I! Her eyes will be touched by longer fingers than mine! Her eyes which are like unto moons veiled by rain! Her eyes which are like the starlit river at dawn! Ough! My spear is bent! Aieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

My love hath been taken by a greater than I! Her scent will be drunk by nostrils broader than mine! Her scent which is pungent and sweet like the smoke! Her scent which slakes thirst more than driest of beer! Ough! My spear is bent! Aieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

My love hath been taken by a greater than I! Her breath will be sipped by a thirstier throat! Her breath which is hotter than the flame of a fire! Her breath which makes more drunken than enemies' blood! Ough! My spear is bent! Aieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

My love hath been taken by a greater than I! Her voice will be heard by ears mightier than mine! Her voice which is like unto burbling beer! Her voice which is gentler than the rustle of fronds! Ough! My spear is bent! Aieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"

A slight breeze stirred gently the trees. The crickets shrilled their perpetual chorus. A crocodile flopped in the river. Dogs yapped from a village down the river. Again Bakuma lifted up her voice:

"Mightier than elephants was the tread of my man! Keener than a leopard was the flash of his eye! Stronger than an oak tree was the strength of his arm! Swifter than lightning was the stroke of his spear! Enemies died!

Taller than the wine palm was the height of my man! Broader than the temple was the span of his chest! More graceful than antelope was the carriage of him! More slender than saplings was the build of his legs! Women lamented!