Chapter 10

[pg 119]Chapter 10On 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[pg 120]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 ofBirnierhad 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,[pg 121]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.[pg 122]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[pg 123]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.[pg 124]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[pg 125]of the carriers bore ammunition and the twoNordenfeldtsand 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.[pg 126]Chapter 11The doom pronounced by the Council of Witch-Doctors was to Bakuma and all concerned as a Bull of Excommunication in mediæval 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.[pg 127]“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[pg 128]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[pg 129]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![pg 130]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![pg 131]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![pg 132]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!Sweeter than warm honey was the scent of my man!Whiter than a spear flash was the gleam of his teeth!Fiercer than scorpions was the grip of his hand!Smooth and like stone was——”[pg 133]A gale of yells and shots destroyed the song of Bakuma like a foot crushing a flower.Zalu Zako leaped to his feet and stood for a moment listening intently. Across the river some strange beast spat spears of red flames. A little farther down another beast coughed violently like a hippopotamus. The sky seemed falling. Such volumes of sound he had never heard before.As he raced with the speed of a koodoo through the plantation he saw the glow of fire ahead and heard the moan of some terrible monster near him. He leaped five feet in the air as the world appeared to crack in half beside him. He felt a sting like a brand of fire in his shoulder, but he ran on towards the village from whence fled dim figures on all sides amid shouts and screams and wailing.Several huts were already blazing. The leviathan coughed and moaned again and once more the earth seemed to crash to pieces near him. Appalled and bewildered, choking with rage, he reached the outer enclosure where his fellow warriors were shouting and yelling that the white gods were attacking. Bakahenzie, gun in hand, was bidding them charge they knew not what. Then out of the clutter of the village broke line upon line of yelling figures clothed in uniform. Screaming the battle-cry, the warriors charged, led by Zalu Zako, Bakahenzie, and Kawa Kendi, who in the excitement had dashed from the enclosure. Howls and yells were drowned in the spiteful crackle and cough. Warriors were mown like weeds under a sickle. Scarce a hundred scrambled inside the enclosure at the rallying call from Bakahenzie.Again came a short rush of those uniformed figures;[pg 134]again scarlet spears pierced the green moonlight like a hailstorm; small red flames rippled in a line resembling a forest fire as the soldiers charged through and over the palisade. Hand to hand was the fighting, spear and sword against bayonet and rifle around the idol, the askaris outyelling the warriors. The temple was on fire. In the light of the flames they saw a tall figure in white with a glow of fire in his mouth and magic eyes upon his hands, eyes which flashed rays of scarlet and blue as he cut and hacked at the base of the idol.…“Tarum hath come!”screamed some one, and as the cry was taken up, the Unmentionable One tottered and crashed to the ground.They fled, Zalu Zako, Bakahenzie and those that were left.[pg 135]Chapter 12The village of Yagonyana, the son of Zahilazaan, was situated some five days’ march to the north-west of Kawa Kendi’s, in open cattle country near the fringe of the forest. Here were gathered nearly every witch-doctor and warrior of the tribe. Most of the women, children, and slaves had been sent still farther to the west, driving the cattle before them.Bakahenzie, Zalu Zako, Marufa, and all those warriors who had escaped from the massacre by zu Pfeiffer were distinguished from their brethren by circles of yellow earth around each left eye, and each right breast and arm was smeared with red, which is part of the ceremony of magic purification for those who have slain, lest, as is well known, the ghost of the dead wreak their wrath upon their slayers.The affairs of the tribe were in a parlous state. The netting of the tabu had been tangled by the death of the King-God, Kawa Kendi, and the unprecedented act of the overthrow of the idol. Kawa Kendi’s body, which had not been recovered so that the doctors could release his unhappy soul, might be used to make more magic against the tribe.For three weeks there had been much discussion among the doctors, the chiefs, and the people. Opinions were at variance; no two men could agree.[pg 136]Lesser wizards, who before had been content with the perquisites of the smaller offices, were now made drunken by the insecurity of Bakahenzie’s position. Each of the doctors, seeing a chance to prove his superior merit and win Bakahenzie’s post as chief doctor, had busily made magic to destroy the usurper, and each and every one provided a different reason for the failure thereof. Every day came news of the doings of the white god with eyes upon his hands, of shootings and floggings, of the burning of the village including the idol, the temple, and the sacred tombs of MFunya MPopo, of MKoffo, of MZrakombinyana, and other kings before them.The council of the craft could not even decide whether Zalu Zako was to be King-God or not. Bakahenzie, whose interest lay in supporting the dynasty of the present royal family, maintained that he should be anointed forthwith. But with the downfall of the idol and his own impotence to make successful magic, Bakahenzie’s prestige had been badly shaken; no longer dared he issue dicta autocratically. As ever, political ambition tore patriotism to shreds.Marufa, former close ally of Bakahenzie, but lacking his active principle, continued to mutter incantations most impressively by himself, waiting cautiously to see which side of the river the arrow fell. Bakahenzie became seriously alarmed at the growth of Yabolo’s faction and the indifference of Marufa. He knew well that submission would entail the loss of his post as well as his worldly goods; and he was aware that all men knew that his most potent and strenuous magic had failed as utterly as that of the youngest novice[pg 137]in the craft. His only chance to retrieve a portion of his lost reputation was to invent a more plausible excuse for failure than any other doctor had done. He did.Although he did not know that Bakuma had broken the magic circle of her own volition, he had the shrewd imagination to suggest that she had either fled with the other women during the attack or that, even if she had stayed, the askaris would have taken her from the hut. Therefore did he demand an assembly of the craft and chiefs. One of the reasons, if not the reason, of Bakahenzie’s success, as of other witch-doctors before, such as Savonarola, had been a faculty, inspired by, or derived from, hysterical epilepsy, of working himself up at will into a state of convulsion without actual loss of consciousness and the spectacular exhibition of foam, which no other sorcerer had been able to simulate so successfully. Therefore Bakahenzie invoked the great Tarum (apotheosis of ancestors’ spirits) who, through the convulsed body, did proclaim that the disaster had been caused by the breaking of the magic circle by one whose name was accursed; and that only could the magic of Bakahenzie be made potent, and the consequent overthrow of the Eyes-in-the-hands be assured, by the sacrifice of the victim to her destiny as the Bride of the Banana.Marufa, appreciating the shrewdness of this move, immediately abandoned his incantations to reassume his allegiance to the cause of Bakahenzie. The prophecy was hailed by nearly every one as a most timely excuse for the failure of magic in general. The miraculous recall of the Unmentionable One now seemed so easy of accomplishment through the[pg 138]person of Bakuma that many of those who had sided with Yabolo deserted him, foreseeing the renewed ascendancy of Bakahenzie and fearing his wrath.Yabolo, however, made an attempt to recover the lost adherents by protesting that the Moon of the Harvest Festival had not yet come, and that therefore victory could not be obtained until two more moons had waned. But MYalu saw that by submitting to the new god he might be able to have removed the tabu upon Bakuma—all things were possible to one who had overthrown the Unmentionable One—and thus obtain her by the price of submission; also he might possibly recover his wealth of ivory abandoned after the massacre. Therefore did he with his people go over to the Yabolo faction.Uproar and confusion ensued. Bakahenzie recovered from his trance with unprecedented rapidity and even did not require to be told what the spirit of Tarum had said through his lips. The tribe was split into fiercer factions than ever. They argued and screamed and cursed. Bakahenzie had lost the hold over them; for as the god, of which he was the sponsor, was dead, his credit had gone too. He dared no longer to remove a troublesome brother or chief by magic. His only hope was to restore the god: so to that end he declared that Zalu Zako must be anointed King-God. Uproar arose once more. But Bakahenzie’s purpose had been served; he had diverted their attention from the subject of submission.From time to time came terrified runners with horrific stories of the burning of villages, of massacre[pg 139]and rapine. Bakahenzie, determined not to yield, secretly dispatched a slave to Eyes-in-the-hands with an arrow which is a sign of war; Yabolo, whose mind ran in the same tracts, sent a banana which is a sign of peace. In the meantime factions grew and multiplied. One chief counselled his followers to take their cattle and women and seek to conquer another tribe to the south-west; another wished to go west. But each and every follower began to bargain with his chief for disproportionate rewards for service. Two chiefs and five hundred men started to the south-west, but they returned because they had met in their path the skeleton of a slain elephant, which is, as everybody knows, a sure sign of disaster.Bakahenzie sent runners far and wide to discover Bakuma. As she could not be found he concluded that she had been killed or taken as a slave and urged the warriors to fight. Zalu Zako immediately desired the anointing to be delayed in order that he should not be debarred from fighting. Bakahenzie, none too sure of his authority, was compelled to acquiesce. Marufa, observing that the arrow was still in the air, took to his non-committal incantations again. Bakahenzie strove to keep the warriors and chiefs occupied by dissension until the result of his challenge to battle should mature. Yabolo, equally perturbed for his influence, did exactly the same with the banana in view.Yabolo and MYalu contemplated going in to make submission, but the former wished to negotiate through Sakamata for the best terms, although he tried to persuade MYalu to go; but MYalu was suspicious and would not do so without Yabolo. But at the hour of[pg 140]the monkey one morning came a terrified goatherd crying news that cut the tangled threads of their intrigues as a sword cuts a goat’s throat. The white god, Eyes-in-the-hands, was within an arrow’s flight of the village of Yagonyana.Consternation ensued. The village and the temporary camp of grass huts buzzed and hummed. Zalu Zako dashed out, sword and spear in hand, and in the glow of the awakened fires harangued the warriors, urged that they should make a swift detour through the forest and attack the white man as he entered the village. Bakahenzie supported this plan of campaign. MYalu, stung by the recollection of the loss of many tusks to the invader, incontinently abandoned Yabolo and pressed for a frontal attack. Yabolo contended that they send an envoy to make terms, but not very insistently. In spite of the assurance of Sakamata, he was suspicious of the new god’s gentle ways. Marufa, the wise, collected those of his household who had remained with him, and quietly made his way to the forest.But Zalu Zako’s martial spirit was overcome by the clamour of those who would flee before worse befell, crying that the white god, Eyes-in-the-hands, would eat them all up with the terrible monsters who coughed flames and death; others screeched that the uniformed devils were spirits of the night and therefore invincible; for always they came in the dark. So they hesitated, shouted and argued. Then came a scout screaming that the enemy was upon them, corroborated by a vicious cough.A pom-pom shell landed in the midst of the crowded village. Zalu Zako, Bakahenzie and their small[pg 141]following were nearly swept away in the rush of five thousand odd warriors in flight. From the forest they watched with awestruck eyes the burning of the village.[pg 142]Chapter 13On the morning on which zu Pfeiffer burned the village of Yagonyana, Birnier was encamped upon the southern boundary of Wongolo. By his“coup de superstition”had he recovered all his equipment except several bottles of brandy, some canned goods and two and a half pairs of pyjamas; also the field boots. The noble Inyira, son of Banyala, and his merry men never attempted to recapture their prisoners; no one save the Eater-of-Men in person could have persuaded them to return to that camp even had they had their rifles.After Birnier had dressed his own foot and the charred feet of his men, had had a good drink and a better meal, he had sought to address the balance of his mind through a medium designed for the cure of melancholy, but efficacious for many other ills,The Anatomy of Melancholy. He opened the one big volume which had been his companion throughout his travels at a page marked at haphazard by an ivory paper knife with the American flag upon the flat hilt, an early gift from Lucille, and began to read the remarks of Robert Burton of quaintly glorious memory upon the source of his late adventure.“Those which are jealous, most part, if they be not otherwise relieved, proceed from suspicion to hatred, from hatred to frenzy, madness, injury, murder[pg 143]and despair … Amestris, Xerxes’s wife, because she found her husband’s cloak in Masista’s house, cut off Masista’s wife’s paps and gave them to the dogs, flayed her besides and cut off her ears, lips, tongue, and slit the nose of Artaynta, her daughter.”“Cheerful lady! She ought to have been zu Pfeiffer’s wife,”commented Birnier and went to sleep.Birnier arose feeling rational enough to reconsider his position. The recollection of the signature on the photograph now failed to stimulate the emotional reaction as once it had done. The experience through which he had passed had had a beneficial effect in breaking or disconnecting the train of suggestive images. At first in the recess of his mind had lurked the desire to abandon everything, to rush straight to Lucille to demand an explanation. Now the rising sun of reason cast quite different shadows upon the incident. The high light was the fact that should he do so he would be sacrificing his mission for what might prove to be ridiculous. As his mind contemplated the subject the echo of“à toi, Lucille”tended to carry a high note, but this he vented by writing a long letter to Lucille recounting the facts and frankly admitting that he had been sufficiently insane with jealousy to“go up in the air.”Once or twice he ceased to write and gazed anxiously into the glare as his imagination suggested the long period of waiting for an answer, wondering whether the echo of that cursed“à toi”might not become unbearably shrill. He became a little more sentimental towards the end of the letter, remarking that perhaps he had been wrong in deserting her for so long and emphasising[pg 144]the rather ridiculous point that he was aware that he was not a young man. However, he let it remain, and at the first opportunity sent off the letter by runner to the nearest station in Uganda, together with an order for certain goods to be sent to a village on the Wongolo border.Although still inclined to be emotional over the photograph, Birnier did not waste any energy over vindictive thoughts upon zu Pfeiffer, whom he philosophically regarded as irresponsible for his actions, inasmuch as he had been made that way just as any savage. He had gotten out of the toils set for him, so why should he spend time and trouble in seeking revenge which would merely consist in reporting the incident through a British station to Washington, who would open up interminable polite correspondence with the German Embassy, who would again write prodigious letters to the Colonial Minister in Berlin, who would… Ludicrous! No; he would not permit zu Pfeiffer to interfere with his plans. He would continue straight to Wongolo instead of investigating the Kivu country, where zu Pfeiffer might perhaps have another opportunity to cause more trouble. Accordingly he negotiated with the nearest village for carriers and set out, striking due west, thus approaching the Wongolo territory towards the southern boundary.The people to the south of the Wongolo country was an inferior race, whom the Wongolo periodically raided to replenish their slaves. These Wamongo were split up into several petty chiefdoms, usually at war with one another. They had no defined theology. For they had not progressed beyond the stage of magic[pg 145]as far as any concept of religion, that is of praying for intercession to any power greater than themselves; whereas the mental state of the Wongolo was half-way between magic and religion, mixing and confusing the two as exemplified in the Rain-making ceremony of employing magic and alternately invoking the god and threatening him with dire penalties if he did not behave. There seemed to be no royal family or clan of the Wamongo; chiefs changed constantly as one more powerful for the moment arose; the wizards did not appear to have any political power, acting as general physicians and confining their efforts apparently to simple magic for the growing of corn, the curing of the evil eye and wounds. They were terrified of the Wongolo, much to Mungongo’s pride, who never let slip an opportunity of swaggering and bruiting abroad the fame of his master as the greatest of magicians the world had ever seen. Never was he tired of relating to a grunting audience the terrible sight and effect of his master’s transposition into a spirit. The yarn lost nothing in the telling.Progress was slow. Every afternoon, as regular as the sun set, clouds of sepia sailed up from the west to clothe the world in a grey deluge of falling water. Fortunately they were travelling up a watershed so that there were no large rivers to cross. As they approached the Wongolo border rumours began of a white god with eyes upon his hands and live fire in his mouth who, so said the delighted Wamongo, had entirely eaten up the hated Wongolo. They seemed prepared to accept Birnier, when suggesting that he should make magic for them to conquer the Wongolo, as another terrible white god, and were accordingly[pg 146]polite. But Mungongo, vastly indignant, denied the story; according to him, no power on earth could have subdued his race, except perhaps the mighty Moonspirit (the name he had bestowed upon Birnier).But when Birnier arrived at the first village of the Wongolo the absence of warriors corroborated the wild tales they had heard. The inhabitants of old men, boys and women surrounded the camp to gaze in awestruck curiosity at the white whom they believed to be the brother of the Eyes-in-the-hands. This calumny Mungongo strenuously gainsaid, and anew recounted the marvellous feats of magic of Moonspirit who could, he assured his compatriots, eat up Eyes-in-the-hands as easily as a crocodile would swallow a goat. Yet in spite of their terror they insisted that Birnier must go through the ceremony of purification incumbent upon all strangers in order to exorcise the evil influence of their eyes and souls; also the customary present must be sent to the king and his august permission to enter awaited, although no man knew where he was since the capital had been burned. Mungongo waxed furious. He informed them that Moonspirit was a friend of the Son-of-the-Snake, and moreover had before been in the country; that if they vexed Moonspirit he would enchant the whole village so that no man could move hand or foot. No matter, said they, that was the rule and must be done. They were impressed but obstinate.From the description of this destroying god, who was the colour of a stripped banana and tall as a palm tree, had fire in his mouth and eyes upon his hands—it was some time before he could recognise the“eyes”—and[pg 147]whose companions were devils strangely clothed, dragging horrific monsters who spat earthquakes, Birnier had no difficulty in recognising zu Pfeiffer, and recollected the significant pumping at dinner regarding the Wongolo country. However he had renounced any idea of revenge, but the discovery of friend zu Pfeiffer as the terrifying god amused him: quickened a desire to overset the gentleman’s plans. He smiled with a slight hardening of the line about his mouth as he began to consider what might be done.As far as he could estimate by recalling the size of the native barracks at Fort Ingonya, he reckoned that zu Pfeiffer could not possibly have more than three hundred men, unless he had been reinforced from the east. Roughly he calculated that the Wongolo ought to be able to put about ten thousand warriors in the field. That number under any sort of leadership, even though they were only armed with spears and swords, should wipe out the three hundred, in spite of the discipline and two or three machine-guns, by sheer weight of numbers. But, from what he had already heard, zu Pfeiffer had evidently caught them unprepared, wiped out a mass and secured a supernatural effect by destroying the idol. He remembered his talk on das Volkliches and his comment that zu Pfeiffer was unusually well informed upon the psychology of the native mind.During two days disputing in the native manner news came in of freshmassacres, adding to the general terror. He sent for the headman and with him held a long shauri. The result was that the old fellow conceived the wonderful idea, already suggested by his lesser brethren, of enlisting the services of this white[pg 148]man, reputed to be a most marvellous magician, in their protection.Then having had his wits sharpened by his own originality and a sheath knife, the headman promptly discovered that the ceremony of exorcism could not be performed because the local wizard had departed with every ounce of magic for the front. Still there were obstinate and fearful persons who wished that Birnier should send a message to the king and wait until he had the permission. Another two days were lost until this objection was overcome by certain presents of“bafta,”destined for the king, being handed over to the village.On the week’s march across Wongolo, Mungongo triumphantly held spellbound audiences at every village through which they passed. As they neared the site of the City of the Snake, where they heard zu Pfeiffer was encamped, they encountered deserted villages. When they came upon the smouldering embers of one Birnier consented to turn aside from the regular trail in order to pass to the west of Kawa Kendi’s where, so the natives said, were Zalu Zako and Bakahenzie.Beyond a belt of forest was open rolling country. They came to a village of five huts where dwelt some herdsmen, although most of the cattle had been driven westwards. Mungongo, seeking at Birnier’s suggestion for some one who had actually been present at the village when zu Pfeiffer attacked, discovered a young girl who had escaped. He brought the daughter of Bakala into the presence of Moonspirit still pathetically clutching the amulet which Marufa had sold her. But from Bakuma, who had fled to the[pg 149]forest at the first assault and afterwards to this herdsmen’s village where the fact of the tabu would not yet have penetrated, Birnier could interpret little of value. Of the whereabouts of Zalu Zako she knew no more than the peasants. She remembered Infunyana, as he had been called on his previous visit to the City of the Snake, and to her it seemed that a god had descended from the blue sky personally to aid her. So utterly incomprehensible and terrifying had the attack appeared that unconsciously the inevitability of her doom was shaken; if such things could happen, she felt rather than thought, then who could say what else was possible? She asked permission to travel with Moonspirit. Birnier, who knew from her dress, or lack of it, that she was unmarried, smiled as he wondered whether she was seeking her lover.Throughout their journey they had not met a single warrior; but as they neared the place of the king they began to meet groups of them. At the sight of the first headdress Bakuma bolted into the grass, nor did she reappear until after they had gone. Later she came to Birnier and asked permission to hide within his tent when the warriors appeared, and to his question began to explain the fate to which she had been doomed. Naturally this account of the Marriage of the Bride of the Banana at the Harvest Festival was of value as well as of interest to Birnier, from whom it had been concealed when in the country before. He cross-questioned her and made notes; but Bakuma could give him practically no details of what actually happened, a secret well guarded by the craft.They looked downcast, these warriors, and were doubtful what to do on meeting another white.[pg 150]Many had never before seen a white man and were inclined to bestow upon Moonspirit all the attributes which they had given to Eyes-in-the-hands. Eh! said they, Eyes-in-the-hands is a more powerful god than the Unmentionable One, for has he not eaten him up? Eyes-in-the-hands has imprisoned the thunder and the lightning in a bag which he looses at will. Who could withstand him? Had they better not submit before his wrath had eaten them all up? E-eh! man cannot fight with a god, as any fool knows.They were returning to their homes to make pilgrimage to the new god, to propitiate him with oxen and with ivory lest worse befall. However they knew where Zalu Zako was hidden, also the wizards whose magic was as a drop of water in a fire. Mungongo did not fail to relate the marvels of Moonspirit which he had seen with his own eyes, he and those with him. The warriors listened without being in the least impressed. That, said they, was merely woman’s magic to what Eyes-in-the-hands could do! Aie-e! had not they fallen dead in masses at the cough of one of his monster spirits! Aie-e! had not the look of him burned up the Unmentionable One as a straw in a fire! Therefore was he not greater than the god? Aie-e! was he not burning their villages at will! Aie-e, brothers, they must hasten to appease the wrath of so terrible a god!Birnier saw that it was useless to attempt to argue with them. Zu Pfeiffer, with his shrewd stroke at the kernel of their faith in the symbol of the idol, had established a kind of godhead; and by his ferocious massacres had thoroughly cowed them. However[pg 151]Birnier secured one man to guide him to where Zalu Zako, the witch-doctors and those who remained with him, were in hiding.On the fringe of the dense forest they camped. The warrior guide went to acquaint Zalu Zako of their approach, else otherwise the sight of a white might provoke an attempt at massacre or flight. On the third day the man returned bearing greetings from Zalu Zako personally who remembered well Infunyana, the only white man whom he had ever met.For two days, on a faint trail, in a steamy heat pulsing with chromatic birds and lizards, they journeyed through the forest, the skirts of the vast Ituri whose deepest recess is the home of the pygmy. One early forenoon they were halted by the warrior in apparently trackless jungle and bidden to camp. Mungongo was indignant, but protest was useless as the man refused to conduct them any farther, saying that Zalu Zako would come to them. So the carriers cut a circle and built a zareba and the messenger was swallowed by the green wall bearing presents of two rifles.

[pg 119]Chapter 10On 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[pg 120]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 ofBirnierhad 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,[pg 121]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.[pg 122]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[pg 123]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.[pg 124]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[pg 125]of the carriers bore ammunition and the twoNordenfeldtsand 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.[pg 126]Chapter 11The doom pronounced by the Council of Witch-Doctors was to Bakuma and all concerned as a Bull of Excommunication in mediæval 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.[pg 127]“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[pg 128]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[pg 129]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![pg 130]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![pg 131]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![pg 132]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!Sweeter than warm honey was the scent of my man!Whiter than a spear flash was the gleam of his teeth!Fiercer than scorpions was the grip of his hand!Smooth and like stone was——”[pg 133]A gale of yells and shots destroyed the song of Bakuma like a foot crushing a flower.Zalu Zako leaped to his feet and stood for a moment listening intently. Across the river some strange beast spat spears of red flames. A little farther down another beast coughed violently like a hippopotamus. The sky seemed falling. Such volumes of sound he had never heard before.As he raced with the speed of a koodoo through the plantation he saw the glow of fire ahead and heard the moan of some terrible monster near him. He leaped five feet in the air as the world appeared to crack in half beside him. He felt a sting like a brand of fire in his shoulder, but he ran on towards the village from whence fled dim figures on all sides amid shouts and screams and wailing.Several huts were already blazing. The leviathan coughed and moaned again and once more the earth seemed to crash to pieces near him. Appalled and bewildered, choking with rage, he reached the outer enclosure where his fellow warriors were shouting and yelling that the white gods were attacking. Bakahenzie, gun in hand, was bidding them charge they knew not what. Then out of the clutter of the village broke line upon line of yelling figures clothed in uniform. Screaming the battle-cry, the warriors charged, led by Zalu Zako, Bakahenzie, and Kawa Kendi, who in the excitement had dashed from the enclosure. Howls and yells were drowned in the spiteful crackle and cough. Warriors were mown like weeds under a sickle. Scarce a hundred scrambled inside the enclosure at the rallying call from Bakahenzie.Again came a short rush of those uniformed figures;[pg 134]again scarlet spears pierced the green moonlight like a hailstorm; small red flames rippled in a line resembling a forest fire as the soldiers charged through and over the palisade. Hand to hand was the fighting, spear and sword against bayonet and rifle around the idol, the askaris outyelling the warriors. The temple was on fire. In the light of the flames they saw a tall figure in white with a glow of fire in his mouth and magic eyes upon his hands, eyes which flashed rays of scarlet and blue as he cut and hacked at the base of the idol.…“Tarum hath come!”screamed some one, and as the cry was taken up, the Unmentionable One tottered and crashed to the ground.They fled, Zalu Zako, Bakahenzie and those that were left.[pg 135]Chapter 12The village of Yagonyana, the son of Zahilazaan, was situated some five days’ march to the north-west of Kawa Kendi’s, in open cattle country near the fringe of the forest. Here were gathered nearly every witch-doctor and warrior of the tribe. Most of the women, children, and slaves had been sent still farther to the west, driving the cattle before them.Bakahenzie, Zalu Zako, Marufa, and all those warriors who had escaped from the massacre by zu Pfeiffer were distinguished from their brethren by circles of yellow earth around each left eye, and each right breast and arm was smeared with red, which is part of the ceremony of magic purification for those who have slain, lest, as is well known, the ghost of the dead wreak their wrath upon their slayers.The affairs of the tribe were in a parlous state. The netting of the tabu had been tangled by the death of the King-God, Kawa Kendi, and the unprecedented act of the overthrow of the idol. Kawa Kendi’s body, which had not been recovered so that the doctors could release his unhappy soul, might be used to make more magic against the tribe.For three weeks there had been much discussion among the doctors, the chiefs, and the people. Opinions were at variance; no two men could agree.[pg 136]Lesser wizards, who before had been content with the perquisites of the smaller offices, were now made drunken by the insecurity of Bakahenzie’s position. Each of the doctors, seeing a chance to prove his superior merit and win Bakahenzie’s post as chief doctor, had busily made magic to destroy the usurper, and each and every one provided a different reason for the failure thereof. Every day came news of the doings of the white god with eyes upon his hands, of shootings and floggings, of the burning of the village including the idol, the temple, and the sacred tombs of MFunya MPopo, of MKoffo, of MZrakombinyana, and other kings before them.The council of the craft could not even decide whether Zalu Zako was to be King-God or not. Bakahenzie, whose interest lay in supporting the dynasty of the present royal family, maintained that he should be anointed forthwith. But with the downfall of the idol and his own impotence to make successful magic, Bakahenzie’s prestige had been badly shaken; no longer dared he issue dicta autocratically. As ever, political ambition tore patriotism to shreds.Marufa, former close ally of Bakahenzie, but lacking his active principle, continued to mutter incantations most impressively by himself, waiting cautiously to see which side of the river the arrow fell. Bakahenzie became seriously alarmed at the growth of Yabolo’s faction and the indifference of Marufa. He knew well that submission would entail the loss of his post as well as his worldly goods; and he was aware that all men knew that his most potent and strenuous magic had failed as utterly as that of the youngest novice[pg 137]in the craft. His only chance to retrieve a portion of his lost reputation was to invent a more plausible excuse for failure than any other doctor had done. He did.Although he did not know that Bakuma had broken the magic circle of her own volition, he had the shrewd imagination to suggest that she had either fled with the other women during the attack or that, even if she had stayed, the askaris would have taken her from the hut. Therefore did he demand an assembly of the craft and chiefs. One of the reasons, if not the reason, of Bakahenzie’s success, as of other witch-doctors before, such as Savonarola, had been a faculty, inspired by, or derived from, hysterical epilepsy, of working himself up at will into a state of convulsion without actual loss of consciousness and the spectacular exhibition of foam, which no other sorcerer had been able to simulate so successfully. Therefore Bakahenzie invoked the great Tarum (apotheosis of ancestors’ spirits) who, through the convulsed body, did proclaim that the disaster had been caused by the breaking of the magic circle by one whose name was accursed; and that only could the magic of Bakahenzie be made potent, and the consequent overthrow of the Eyes-in-the-hands be assured, by the sacrifice of the victim to her destiny as the Bride of the Banana.Marufa, appreciating the shrewdness of this move, immediately abandoned his incantations to reassume his allegiance to the cause of Bakahenzie. The prophecy was hailed by nearly every one as a most timely excuse for the failure of magic in general. The miraculous recall of the Unmentionable One now seemed so easy of accomplishment through the[pg 138]person of Bakuma that many of those who had sided with Yabolo deserted him, foreseeing the renewed ascendancy of Bakahenzie and fearing his wrath.Yabolo, however, made an attempt to recover the lost adherents by protesting that the Moon of the Harvest Festival had not yet come, and that therefore victory could not be obtained until two more moons had waned. But MYalu saw that by submitting to the new god he might be able to have removed the tabu upon Bakuma—all things were possible to one who had overthrown the Unmentionable One—and thus obtain her by the price of submission; also he might possibly recover his wealth of ivory abandoned after the massacre. Therefore did he with his people go over to the Yabolo faction.Uproar and confusion ensued. Bakahenzie recovered from his trance with unprecedented rapidity and even did not require to be told what the spirit of Tarum had said through his lips. The tribe was split into fiercer factions than ever. They argued and screamed and cursed. Bakahenzie had lost the hold over them; for as the god, of which he was the sponsor, was dead, his credit had gone too. He dared no longer to remove a troublesome brother or chief by magic. His only hope was to restore the god: so to that end he declared that Zalu Zako must be anointed King-God. Uproar arose once more. But Bakahenzie’s purpose had been served; he had diverted their attention from the subject of submission.From time to time came terrified runners with horrific stories of the burning of villages, of massacre[pg 139]and rapine. Bakahenzie, determined not to yield, secretly dispatched a slave to Eyes-in-the-hands with an arrow which is a sign of war; Yabolo, whose mind ran in the same tracts, sent a banana which is a sign of peace. In the meantime factions grew and multiplied. One chief counselled his followers to take their cattle and women and seek to conquer another tribe to the south-west; another wished to go west. But each and every follower began to bargain with his chief for disproportionate rewards for service. Two chiefs and five hundred men started to the south-west, but they returned because they had met in their path the skeleton of a slain elephant, which is, as everybody knows, a sure sign of disaster.Bakahenzie sent runners far and wide to discover Bakuma. As she could not be found he concluded that she had been killed or taken as a slave and urged the warriors to fight. Zalu Zako immediately desired the anointing to be delayed in order that he should not be debarred from fighting. Bakahenzie, none too sure of his authority, was compelled to acquiesce. Marufa, observing that the arrow was still in the air, took to his non-committal incantations again. Bakahenzie strove to keep the warriors and chiefs occupied by dissension until the result of his challenge to battle should mature. Yabolo, equally perturbed for his influence, did exactly the same with the banana in view.Yabolo and MYalu contemplated going in to make submission, but the former wished to negotiate through Sakamata for the best terms, although he tried to persuade MYalu to go; but MYalu was suspicious and would not do so without Yabolo. But at the hour of[pg 140]the monkey one morning came a terrified goatherd crying news that cut the tangled threads of their intrigues as a sword cuts a goat’s throat. The white god, Eyes-in-the-hands, was within an arrow’s flight of the village of Yagonyana.Consternation ensued. The village and the temporary camp of grass huts buzzed and hummed. Zalu Zako dashed out, sword and spear in hand, and in the glow of the awakened fires harangued the warriors, urged that they should make a swift detour through the forest and attack the white man as he entered the village. Bakahenzie supported this plan of campaign. MYalu, stung by the recollection of the loss of many tusks to the invader, incontinently abandoned Yabolo and pressed for a frontal attack. Yabolo contended that they send an envoy to make terms, but not very insistently. In spite of the assurance of Sakamata, he was suspicious of the new god’s gentle ways. Marufa, the wise, collected those of his household who had remained with him, and quietly made his way to the forest.But Zalu Zako’s martial spirit was overcome by the clamour of those who would flee before worse befell, crying that the white god, Eyes-in-the-hands, would eat them all up with the terrible monsters who coughed flames and death; others screeched that the uniformed devils were spirits of the night and therefore invincible; for always they came in the dark. So they hesitated, shouted and argued. Then came a scout screaming that the enemy was upon them, corroborated by a vicious cough.A pom-pom shell landed in the midst of the crowded village. Zalu Zako, Bakahenzie and their small[pg 141]following were nearly swept away in the rush of five thousand odd warriors in flight. From the forest they watched with awestruck eyes the burning of the village.[pg 142]Chapter 13On the morning on which zu Pfeiffer burned the village of Yagonyana, Birnier was encamped upon the southern boundary of Wongolo. By his“coup de superstition”had he recovered all his equipment except several bottles of brandy, some canned goods and two and a half pairs of pyjamas; also the field boots. The noble Inyira, son of Banyala, and his merry men never attempted to recapture their prisoners; no one save the Eater-of-Men in person could have persuaded them to return to that camp even had they had their rifles.After Birnier had dressed his own foot and the charred feet of his men, had had a good drink and a better meal, he had sought to address the balance of his mind through a medium designed for the cure of melancholy, but efficacious for many other ills,The Anatomy of Melancholy. He opened the one big volume which had been his companion throughout his travels at a page marked at haphazard by an ivory paper knife with the American flag upon the flat hilt, an early gift from Lucille, and began to read the remarks of Robert Burton of quaintly glorious memory upon the source of his late adventure.“Those which are jealous, most part, if they be not otherwise relieved, proceed from suspicion to hatred, from hatred to frenzy, madness, injury, murder[pg 143]and despair … Amestris, Xerxes’s wife, because she found her husband’s cloak in Masista’s house, cut off Masista’s wife’s paps and gave them to the dogs, flayed her besides and cut off her ears, lips, tongue, and slit the nose of Artaynta, her daughter.”“Cheerful lady! She ought to have been zu Pfeiffer’s wife,”commented Birnier and went to sleep.Birnier arose feeling rational enough to reconsider his position. The recollection of the signature on the photograph now failed to stimulate the emotional reaction as once it had done. The experience through which he had passed had had a beneficial effect in breaking or disconnecting the train of suggestive images. At first in the recess of his mind had lurked the desire to abandon everything, to rush straight to Lucille to demand an explanation. Now the rising sun of reason cast quite different shadows upon the incident. The high light was the fact that should he do so he would be sacrificing his mission for what might prove to be ridiculous. As his mind contemplated the subject the echo of“à toi, Lucille”tended to carry a high note, but this he vented by writing a long letter to Lucille recounting the facts and frankly admitting that he had been sufficiently insane with jealousy to“go up in the air.”Once or twice he ceased to write and gazed anxiously into the glare as his imagination suggested the long period of waiting for an answer, wondering whether the echo of that cursed“à toi”might not become unbearably shrill. He became a little more sentimental towards the end of the letter, remarking that perhaps he had been wrong in deserting her for so long and emphasising[pg 144]the rather ridiculous point that he was aware that he was not a young man. However, he let it remain, and at the first opportunity sent off the letter by runner to the nearest station in Uganda, together with an order for certain goods to be sent to a village on the Wongolo border.Although still inclined to be emotional over the photograph, Birnier did not waste any energy over vindictive thoughts upon zu Pfeiffer, whom he philosophically regarded as irresponsible for his actions, inasmuch as he had been made that way just as any savage. He had gotten out of the toils set for him, so why should he spend time and trouble in seeking revenge which would merely consist in reporting the incident through a British station to Washington, who would open up interminable polite correspondence with the German Embassy, who would again write prodigious letters to the Colonial Minister in Berlin, who would… Ludicrous! No; he would not permit zu Pfeiffer to interfere with his plans. He would continue straight to Wongolo instead of investigating the Kivu country, where zu Pfeiffer might perhaps have another opportunity to cause more trouble. Accordingly he negotiated with the nearest village for carriers and set out, striking due west, thus approaching the Wongolo territory towards the southern boundary.The people to the south of the Wongolo country was an inferior race, whom the Wongolo periodically raided to replenish their slaves. These Wamongo were split up into several petty chiefdoms, usually at war with one another. They had no defined theology. For they had not progressed beyond the stage of magic[pg 145]as far as any concept of religion, that is of praying for intercession to any power greater than themselves; whereas the mental state of the Wongolo was half-way between magic and religion, mixing and confusing the two as exemplified in the Rain-making ceremony of employing magic and alternately invoking the god and threatening him with dire penalties if he did not behave. There seemed to be no royal family or clan of the Wamongo; chiefs changed constantly as one more powerful for the moment arose; the wizards did not appear to have any political power, acting as general physicians and confining their efforts apparently to simple magic for the growing of corn, the curing of the evil eye and wounds. They were terrified of the Wongolo, much to Mungongo’s pride, who never let slip an opportunity of swaggering and bruiting abroad the fame of his master as the greatest of magicians the world had ever seen. Never was he tired of relating to a grunting audience the terrible sight and effect of his master’s transposition into a spirit. The yarn lost nothing in the telling.Progress was slow. Every afternoon, as regular as the sun set, clouds of sepia sailed up from the west to clothe the world in a grey deluge of falling water. Fortunately they were travelling up a watershed so that there were no large rivers to cross. As they approached the Wongolo border rumours began of a white god with eyes upon his hands and live fire in his mouth who, so said the delighted Wamongo, had entirely eaten up the hated Wongolo. They seemed prepared to accept Birnier, when suggesting that he should make magic for them to conquer the Wongolo, as another terrible white god, and were accordingly[pg 146]polite. But Mungongo, vastly indignant, denied the story; according to him, no power on earth could have subdued his race, except perhaps the mighty Moonspirit (the name he had bestowed upon Birnier).But when Birnier arrived at the first village of the Wongolo the absence of warriors corroborated the wild tales they had heard. The inhabitants of old men, boys and women surrounded the camp to gaze in awestruck curiosity at the white whom they believed to be the brother of the Eyes-in-the-hands. This calumny Mungongo strenuously gainsaid, and anew recounted the marvellous feats of magic of Moonspirit who could, he assured his compatriots, eat up Eyes-in-the-hands as easily as a crocodile would swallow a goat. Yet in spite of their terror they insisted that Birnier must go through the ceremony of purification incumbent upon all strangers in order to exorcise the evil influence of their eyes and souls; also the customary present must be sent to the king and his august permission to enter awaited, although no man knew where he was since the capital had been burned. Mungongo waxed furious. He informed them that Moonspirit was a friend of the Son-of-the-Snake, and moreover had before been in the country; that if they vexed Moonspirit he would enchant the whole village so that no man could move hand or foot. No matter, said they, that was the rule and must be done. They were impressed but obstinate.From the description of this destroying god, who was the colour of a stripped banana and tall as a palm tree, had fire in his mouth and eyes upon his hands—it was some time before he could recognise the“eyes”—and[pg 147]whose companions were devils strangely clothed, dragging horrific monsters who spat earthquakes, Birnier had no difficulty in recognising zu Pfeiffer, and recollected the significant pumping at dinner regarding the Wongolo country. However he had renounced any idea of revenge, but the discovery of friend zu Pfeiffer as the terrifying god amused him: quickened a desire to overset the gentleman’s plans. He smiled with a slight hardening of the line about his mouth as he began to consider what might be done.As far as he could estimate by recalling the size of the native barracks at Fort Ingonya, he reckoned that zu Pfeiffer could not possibly have more than three hundred men, unless he had been reinforced from the east. Roughly he calculated that the Wongolo ought to be able to put about ten thousand warriors in the field. That number under any sort of leadership, even though they were only armed with spears and swords, should wipe out the three hundred, in spite of the discipline and two or three machine-guns, by sheer weight of numbers. But, from what he had already heard, zu Pfeiffer had evidently caught them unprepared, wiped out a mass and secured a supernatural effect by destroying the idol. He remembered his talk on das Volkliches and his comment that zu Pfeiffer was unusually well informed upon the psychology of the native mind.During two days disputing in the native manner news came in of freshmassacres, adding to the general terror. He sent for the headman and with him held a long shauri. The result was that the old fellow conceived the wonderful idea, already suggested by his lesser brethren, of enlisting the services of this white[pg 148]man, reputed to be a most marvellous magician, in their protection.Then having had his wits sharpened by his own originality and a sheath knife, the headman promptly discovered that the ceremony of exorcism could not be performed because the local wizard had departed with every ounce of magic for the front. Still there were obstinate and fearful persons who wished that Birnier should send a message to the king and wait until he had the permission. Another two days were lost until this objection was overcome by certain presents of“bafta,”destined for the king, being handed over to the village.On the week’s march across Wongolo, Mungongo triumphantly held spellbound audiences at every village through which they passed. As they neared the site of the City of the Snake, where they heard zu Pfeiffer was encamped, they encountered deserted villages. When they came upon the smouldering embers of one Birnier consented to turn aside from the regular trail in order to pass to the west of Kawa Kendi’s where, so the natives said, were Zalu Zako and Bakahenzie.Beyond a belt of forest was open rolling country. They came to a village of five huts where dwelt some herdsmen, although most of the cattle had been driven westwards. Mungongo, seeking at Birnier’s suggestion for some one who had actually been present at the village when zu Pfeiffer attacked, discovered a young girl who had escaped. He brought the daughter of Bakala into the presence of Moonspirit still pathetically clutching the amulet which Marufa had sold her. But from Bakuma, who had fled to the[pg 149]forest at the first assault and afterwards to this herdsmen’s village where the fact of the tabu would not yet have penetrated, Birnier could interpret little of value. Of the whereabouts of Zalu Zako she knew no more than the peasants. She remembered Infunyana, as he had been called on his previous visit to the City of the Snake, and to her it seemed that a god had descended from the blue sky personally to aid her. So utterly incomprehensible and terrifying had the attack appeared that unconsciously the inevitability of her doom was shaken; if such things could happen, she felt rather than thought, then who could say what else was possible? She asked permission to travel with Moonspirit. Birnier, who knew from her dress, or lack of it, that she was unmarried, smiled as he wondered whether she was seeking her lover.Throughout their journey they had not met a single warrior; but as they neared the place of the king they began to meet groups of them. At the sight of the first headdress Bakuma bolted into the grass, nor did she reappear until after they had gone. Later she came to Birnier and asked permission to hide within his tent when the warriors appeared, and to his question began to explain the fate to which she had been doomed. Naturally this account of the Marriage of the Bride of the Banana at the Harvest Festival was of value as well as of interest to Birnier, from whom it had been concealed when in the country before. He cross-questioned her and made notes; but Bakuma could give him practically no details of what actually happened, a secret well guarded by the craft.They looked downcast, these warriors, and were doubtful what to do on meeting another white.[pg 150]Many had never before seen a white man and were inclined to bestow upon Moonspirit all the attributes which they had given to Eyes-in-the-hands. Eh! said they, Eyes-in-the-hands is a more powerful god than the Unmentionable One, for has he not eaten him up? Eyes-in-the-hands has imprisoned the thunder and the lightning in a bag which he looses at will. Who could withstand him? Had they better not submit before his wrath had eaten them all up? E-eh! man cannot fight with a god, as any fool knows.They were returning to their homes to make pilgrimage to the new god, to propitiate him with oxen and with ivory lest worse befall. However they knew where Zalu Zako was hidden, also the wizards whose magic was as a drop of water in a fire. Mungongo did not fail to relate the marvels of Moonspirit which he had seen with his own eyes, he and those with him. The warriors listened without being in the least impressed. That, said they, was merely woman’s magic to what Eyes-in-the-hands could do! Aie-e! had not they fallen dead in masses at the cough of one of his monster spirits! Aie-e! had not the look of him burned up the Unmentionable One as a straw in a fire! Therefore was he not greater than the god? Aie-e! was he not burning their villages at will! Aie-e, brothers, they must hasten to appease the wrath of so terrible a god!Birnier saw that it was useless to attempt to argue with them. Zu Pfeiffer, with his shrewd stroke at the kernel of their faith in the symbol of the idol, had established a kind of godhead; and by his ferocious massacres had thoroughly cowed them. However[pg 151]Birnier secured one man to guide him to where Zalu Zako, the witch-doctors and those who remained with him, were in hiding.On the fringe of the dense forest they camped. The warrior guide went to acquaint Zalu Zako of their approach, else otherwise the sight of a white might provoke an attempt at massacre or flight. On the third day the man returned bearing greetings from Zalu Zako personally who remembered well Infunyana, the only white man whom he had ever met.For two days, on a faint trail, in a steamy heat pulsing with chromatic birds and lizards, they journeyed through the forest, the skirts of the vast Ituri whose deepest recess is the home of the pygmy. One early forenoon they were halted by the warrior in apparently trackless jungle and bidden to camp. Mungongo was indignant, but protest was useless as the man refused to conduct them any farther, saying that Zalu Zako would come to them. So the carriers cut a circle and built a zareba and the messenger was swallowed by the green wall bearing presents of two rifles.

[pg 119]Chapter 10On 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[pg 120]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 ofBirnierhad 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,[pg 121]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.[pg 122]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[pg 123]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.[pg 124]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[pg 125]of the carriers bore ammunition and the twoNordenfeldtsand 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.

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[pg 120]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 ofBirnierhad 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,[pg 121]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.[pg 122]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[pg 123]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[pg 125]of the carriers bore ammunition and the twoNordenfeldtsand 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.

[pg 126]Chapter 11The doom pronounced by the Council of Witch-Doctors was to Bakuma and all concerned as a Bull of Excommunication in mediæval 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.[pg 127]“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[pg 128]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[pg 129]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![pg 130]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![pg 131]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![pg 132]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!Sweeter than warm honey was the scent of my man!Whiter than a spear flash was the gleam of his teeth!Fiercer than scorpions was the grip of his hand!Smooth and like stone was——”[pg 133]A gale of yells and shots destroyed the song of Bakuma like a foot crushing a flower.Zalu Zako leaped to his feet and stood for a moment listening intently. Across the river some strange beast spat spears of red flames. A little farther down another beast coughed violently like a hippopotamus. The sky seemed falling. Such volumes of sound he had never heard before.As he raced with the speed of a koodoo through the plantation he saw the glow of fire ahead and heard the moan of some terrible monster near him. He leaped five feet in the air as the world appeared to crack in half beside him. He felt a sting like a brand of fire in his shoulder, but he ran on towards the village from whence fled dim figures on all sides amid shouts and screams and wailing.Several huts were already blazing. The leviathan coughed and moaned again and once more the earth seemed to crash to pieces near him. Appalled and bewildered, choking with rage, he reached the outer enclosure where his fellow warriors were shouting and yelling that the white gods were attacking. Bakahenzie, gun in hand, was bidding them charge they knew not what. Then out of the clutter of the village broke line upon line of yelling figures clothed in uniform. Screaming the battle-cry, the warriors charged, led by Zalu Zako, Bakahenzie, and Kawa Kendi, who in the excitement had dashed from the enclosure. Howls and yells were drowned in the spiteful crackle and cough. Warriors were mown like weeds under a sickle. Scarce a hundred scrambled inside the enclosure at the rallying call from Bakahenzie.Again came a short rush of those uniformed figures;[pg 134]again scarlet spears pierced the green moonlight like a hailstorm; small red flames rippled in a line resembling a forest fire as the soldiers charged through and over the palisade. Hand to hand was the fighting, spear and sword against bayonet and rifle around the idol, the askaris outyelling the warriors. The temple was on fire. In the light of the flames they saw a tall figure in white with a glow of fire in his mouth and magic eyes upon his hands, eyes which flashed rays of scarlet and blue as he cut and hacked at the base of the idol.…“Tarum hath come!”screamed some one, and as the cry was taken up, the Unmentionable One tottered and crashed to the ground.They fled, Zalu Zako, Bakahenzie and those that were left.

The doom pronounced by the Council of Witch-Doctors was to Bakuma and all concerned as a Bull of Excommunication in mediæval 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[pg 128]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[pg 129]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!

“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 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 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!

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!

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!

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!

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!

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!”

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 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!”

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!”

“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 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 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 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![pg 132]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 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!”

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!

“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!

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!

Sweeter than warm honey was the scent of my man!Whiter than a spear flash was the gleam of his teeth!Fiercer than scorpions was the grip of his hand!Smooth and like stone was——”

Sweeter than warm honey was the scent of my man!

Whiter than a spear flash was the gleam of his teeth!

Fiercer than scorpions was the grip of his hand!

Smooth and like stone was——”

A gale of yells and shots destroyed the song of Bakuma like a foot crushing a flower.

Zalu Zako leaped to his feet and stood for a moment listening intently. Across the river some strange beast spat spears of red flames. A little farther down another beast coughed violently like a hippopotamus. The sky seemed falling. Such volumes of sound he had never heard before.

As he raced with the speed of a koodoo through the plantation he saw the glow of fire ahead and heard the moan of some terrible monster near him. He leaped five feet in the air as the world appeared to crack in half beside him. He felt a sting like a brand of fire in his shoulder, but he ran on towards the village from whence fled dim figures on all sides amid shouts and screams and wailing.

Several huts were already blazing. The leviathan coughed and moaned again and once more the earth seemed to crash to pieces near him. Appalled and bewildered, choking with rage, he reached the outer enclosure where his fellow warriors were shouting and yelling that the white gods were attacking. Bakahenzie, gun in hand, was bidding them charge they knew not what. Then out of the clutter of the village broke line upon line of yelling figures clothed in uniform. Screaming the battle-cry, the warriors charged, led by Zalu Zako, Bakahenzie, and Kawa Kendi, who in the excitement had dashed from the enclosure. Howls and yells were drowned in the spiteful crackle and cough. Warriors were mown like weeds under a sickle. Scarce a hundred scrambled inside the enclosure at the rallying call from Bakahenzie.

Again came a short rush of those uniformed figures;[pg 134]again scarlet spears pierced the green moonlight like a hailstorm; small red flames rippled in a line resembling a forest fire as the soldiers charged through and over the palisade. Hand to hand was the fighting, spear and sword against bayonet and rifle around the idol, the askaris outyelling the warriors. The temple was on fire. In the light of the flames they saw a tall figure in white with a glow of fire in his mouth and magic eyes upon his hands, eyes which flashed rays of scarlet and blue as he cut and hacked at the base of the idol.…

“Tarum hath come!”screamed some one, and as the cry was taken up, the Unmentionable One tottered and crashed to the ground.

They fled, Zalu Zako, Bakahenzie and those that were left.

[pg 135]Chapter 12The village of Yagonyana, the son of Zahilazaan, was situated some five days’ march to the north-west of Kawa Kendi’s, in open cattle country near the fringe of the forest. Here were gathered nearly every witch-doctor and warrior of the tribe. Most of the women, children, and slaves had been sent still farther to the west, driving the cattle before them.Bakahenzie, Zalu Zako, Marufa, and all those warriors who had escaped from the massacre by zu Pfeiffer were distinguished from their brethren by circles of yellow earth around each left eye, and each right breast and arm was smeared with red, which is part of the ceremony of magic purification for those who have slain, lest, as is well known, the ghost of the dead wreak their wrath upon their slayers.The affairs of the tribe were in a parlous state. The netting of the tabu had been tangled by the death of the King-God, Kawa Kendi, and the unprecedented act of the overthrow of the idol. Kawa Kendi’s body, which had not been recovered so that the doctors could release his unhappy soul, might be used to make more magic against the tribe.For three weeks there had been much discussion among the doctors, the chiefs, and the people. Opinions were at variance; no two men could agree.[pg 136]Lesser wizards, who before had been content with the perquisites of the smaller offices, were now made drunken by the insecurity of Bakahenzie’s position. Each of the doctors, seeing a chance to prove his superior merit and win Bakahenzie’s post as chief doctor, had busily made magic to destroy the usurper, and each and every one provided a different reason for the failure thereof. Every day came news of the doings of the white god with eyes upon his hands, of shootings and floggings, of the burning of the village including the idol, the temple, and the sacred tombs of MFunya MPopo, of MKoffo, of MZrakombinyana, and other kings before them.The council of the craft could not even decide whether Zalu Zako was to be King-God or not. Bakahenzie, whose interest lay in supporting the dynasty of the present royal family, maintained that he should be anointed forthwith. But with the downfall of the idol and his own impotence to make successful magic, Bakahenzie’s prestige had been badly shaken; no longer dared he issue dicta autocratically. As ever, political ambition tore patriotism to shreds.Marufa, former close ally of Bakahenzie, but lacking his active principle, continued to mutter incantations most impressively by himself, waiting cautiously to see which side of the river the arrow fell. Bakahenzie became seriously alarmed at the growth of Yabolo’s faction and the indifference of Marufa. He knew well that submission would entail the loss of his post as well as his worldly goods; and he was aware that all men knew that his most potent and strenuous magic had failed as utterly as that of the youngest novice[pg 137]in the craft. His only chance to retrieve a portion of his lost reputation was to invent a more plausible excuse for failure than any other doctor had done. He did.Although he did not know that Bakuma had broken the magic circle of her own volition, he had the shrewd imagination to suggest that she had either fled with the other women during the attack or that, even if she had stayed, the askaris would have taken her from the hut. Therefore did he demand an assembly of the craft and chiefs. One of the reasons, if not the reason, of Bakahenzie’s success, as of other witch-doctors before, such as Savonarola, had been a faculty, inspired by, or derived from, hysterical epilepsy, of working himself up at will into a state of convulsion without actual loss of consciousness and the spectacular exhibition of foam, which no other sorcerer had been able to simulate so successfully. Therefore Bakahenzie invoked the great Tarum (apotheosis of ancestors’ spirits) who, through the convulsed body, did proclaim that the disaster had been caused by the breaking of the magic circle by one whose name was accursed; and that only could the magic of Bakahenzie be made potent, and the consequent overthrow of the Eyes-in-the-hands be assured, by the sacrifice of the victim to her destiny as the Bride of the Banana.Marufa, appreciating the shrewdness of this move, immediately abandoned his incantations to reassume his allegiance to the cause of Bakahenzie. The prophecy was hailed by nearly every one as a most timely excuse for the failure of magic in general. The miraculous recall of the Unmentionable One now seemed so easy of accomplishment through the[pg 138]person of Bakuma that many of those who had sided with Yabolo deserted him, foreseeing the renewed ascendancy of Bakahenzie and fearing his wrath.Yabolo, however, made an attempt to recover the lost adherents by protesting that the Moon of the Harvest Festival had not yet come, and that therefore victory could not be obtained until two more moons had waned. But MYalu saw that by submitting to the new god he might be able to have removed the tabu upon Bakuma—all things were possible to one who had overthrown the Unmentionable One—and thus obtain her by the price of submission; also he might possibly recover his wealth of ivory abandoned after the massacre. Therefore did he with his people go over to the Yabolo faction.Uproar and confusion ensued. Bakahenzie recovered from his trance with unprecedented rapidity and even did not require to be told what the spirit of Tarum had said through his lips. The tribe was split into fiercer factions than ever. They argued and screamed and cursed. Bakahenzie had lost the hold over them; for as the god, of which he was the sponsor, was dead, his credit had gone too. He dared no longer to remove a troublesome brother or chief by magic. His only hope was to restore the god: so to that end he declared that Zalu Zako must be anointed King-God. Uproar arose once more. But Bakahenzie’s purpose had been served; he had diverted their attention from the subject of submission.From time to time came terrified runners with horrific stories of the burning of villages, of massacre[pg 139]and rapine. Bakahenzie, determined not to yield, secretly dispatched a slave to Eyes-in-the-hands with an arrow which is a sign of war; Yabolo, whose mind ran in the same tracts, sent a banana which is a sign of peace. In the meantime factions grew and multiplied. One chief counselled his followers to take their cattle and women and seek to conquer another tribe to the south-west; another wished to go west. But each and every follower began to bargain with his chief for disproportionate rewards for service. Two chiefs and five hundred men started to the south-west, but they returned because they had met in their path the skeleton of a slain elephant, which is, as everybody knows, a sure sign of disaster.Bakahenzie sent runners far and wide to discover Bakuma. As she could not be found he concluded that she had been killed or taken as a slave and urged the warriors to fight. Zalu Zako immediately desired the anointing to be delayed in order that he should not be debarred from fighting. Bakahenzie, none too sure of his authority, was compelled to acquiesce. Marufa, observing that the arrow was still in the air, took to his non-committal incantations again. Bakahenzie strove to keep the warriors and chiefs occupied by dissension until the result of his challenge to battle should mature. Yabolo, equally perturbed for his influence, did exactly the same with the banana in view.Yabolo and MYalu contemplated going in to make submission, but the former wished to negotiate through Sakamata for the best terms, although he tried to persuade MYalu to go; but MYalu was suspicious and would not do so without Yabolo. But at the hour of[pg 140]the monkey one morning came a terrified goatherd crying news that cut the tangled threads of their intrigues as a sword cuts a goat’s throat. The white god, Eyes-in-the-hands, was within an arrow’s flight of the village of Yagonyana.Consternation ensued. The village and the temporary camp of grass huts buzzed and hummed. Zalu Zako dashed out, sword and spear in hand, and in the glow of the awakened fires harangued the warriors, urged that they should make a swift detour through the forest and attack the white man as he entered the village. Bakahenzie supported this plan of campaign. MYalu, stung by the recollection of the loss of many tusks to the invader, incontinently abandoned Yabolo and pressed for a frontal attack. Yabolo contended that they send an envoy to make terms, but not very insistently. In spite of the assurance of Sakamata, he was suspicious of the new god’s gentle ways. Marufa, the wise, collected those of his household who had remained with him, and quietly made his way to the forest.But Zalu Zako’s martial spirit was overcome by the clamour of those who would flee before worse befell, crying that the white god, Eyes-in-the-hands, would eat them all up with the terrible monsters who coughed flames and death; others screeched that the uniformed devils were spirits of the night and therefore invincible; for always they came in the dark. So they hesitated, shouted and argued. Then came a scout screaming that the enemy was upon them, corroborated by a vicious cough.A pom-pom shell landed in the midst of the crowded village. Zalu Zako, Bakahenzie and their small[pg 141]following were nearly swept away in the rush of five thousand odd warriors in flight. From the forest they watched with awestruck eyes the burning of the village.

The village of Yagonyana, the son of Zahilazaan, was situated some five days’ march to the north-west of Kawa Kendi’s, in open cattle country near the fringe of the forest. Here were gathered nearly every witch-doctor and warrior of the tribe. Most of the women, children, and slaves had been sent still farther to the west, driving the cattle before them.

Bakahenzie, Zalu Zako, Marufa, and all those warriors who had escaped from the massacre by zu Pfeiffer were distinguished from their brethren by circles of yellow earth around each left eye, and each right breast and arm was smeared with red, which is part of the ceremony of magic purification for those who have slain, lest, as is well known, the ghost of the dead wreak their wrath upon their slayers.

The affairs of the tribe were in a parlous state. The netting of the tabu had been tangled by the death of the King-God, Kawa Kendi, and the unprecedented act of the overthrow of the idol. Kawa Kendi’s body, which had not been recovered so that the doctors could release his unhappy soul, might be used to make more magic against the tribe.

For three weeks there had been much discussion among the doctors, the chiefs, and the people. Opinions were at variance; no two men could agree.[pg 136]Lesser wizards, who before had been content with the perquisites of the smaller offices, were now made drunken by the insecurity of Bakahenzie’s position. Each of the doctors, seeing a chance to prove his superior merit and win Bakahenzie’s post as chief doctor, had busily made magic to destroy the usurper, and each and every one provided a different reason for the failure thereof. Every day came news of the doings of the white god with eyes upon his hands, of shootings and floggings, of the burning of the village including the idol, the temple, and the sacred tombs of MFunya MPopo, of MKoffo, of MZrakombinyana, and other kings before them.

The council of the craft could not even decide whether Zalu Zako was to be King-God or not. Bakahenzie, whose interest lay in supporting the dynasty of the present royal family, maintained that he should be anointed forthwith. But with the downfall of the idol and his own impotence to make successful magic, Bakahenzie’s prestige had been badly shaken; no longer dared he issue dicta autocratically. As ever, political ambition tore patriotism to shreds.

Marufa, former close ally of Bakahenzie, but lacking his active principle, continued to mutter incantations most impressively by himself, waiting cautiously to see which side of the river the arrow fell. Bakahenzie became seriously alarmed at the growth of Yabolo’s faction and the indifference of Marufa. He knew well that submission would entail the loss of his post as well as his worldly goods; and he was aware that all men knew that his most potent and strenuous magic had failed as utterly as that of the youngest novice[pg 137]in the craft. His only chance to retrieve a portion of his lost reputation was to invent a more plausible excuse for failure than any other doctor had done. He did.

Although he did not know that Bakuma had broken the magic circle of her own volition, he had the shrewd imagination to suggest that she had either fled with the other women during the attack or that, even if she had stayed, the askaris would have taken her from the hut. Therefore did he demand an assembly of the craft and chiefs. One of the reasons, if not the reason, of Bakahenzie’s success, as of other witch-doctors before, such as Savonarola, had been a faculty, inspired by, or derived from, hysterical epilepsy, of working himself up at will into a state of convulsion without actual loss of consciousness and the spectacular exhibition of foam, which no other sorcerer had been able to simulate so successfully. Therefore Bakahenzie invoked the great Tarum (apotheosis of ancestors’ spirits) who, through the convulsed body, did proclaim that the disaster had been caused by the breaking of the magic circle by one whose name was accursed; and that only could the magic of Bakahenzie be made potent, and the consequent overthrow of the Eyes-in-the-hands be assured, by the sacrifice of the victim to her destiny as the Bride of the Banana.

Marufa, appreciating the shrewdness of this move, immediately abandoned his incantations to reassume his allegiance to the cause of Bakahenzie. The prophecy was hailed by nearly every one as a most timely excuse for the failure of magic in general. The miraculous recall of the Unmentionable One now seemed so easy of accomplishment through the[pg 138]person of Bakuma that many of those who had sided with Yabolo deserted him, foreseeing the renewed ascendancy of Bakahenzie and fearing his wrath.

Yabolo, however, made an attempt to recover the lost adherents by protesting that the Moon of the Harvest Festival had not yet come, and that therefore victory could not be obtained until two more moons had waned. But MYalu saw that by submitting to the new god he might be able to have removed the tabu upon Bakuma—all things were possible to one who had overthrown the Unmentionable One—and thus obtain her by the price of submission; also he might possibly recover his wealth of ivory abandoned after the massacre. Therefore did he with his people go over to the Yabolo faction.

Uproar and confusion ensued. Bakahenzie recovered from his trance with unprecedented rapidity and even did not require to be told what the spirit of Tarum had said through his lips. The tribe was split into fiercer factions than ever. They argued and screamed and cursed. Bakahenzie had lost the hold over them; for as the god, of which he was the sponsor, was dead, his credit had gone too. He dared no longer to remove a troublesome brother or chief by magic. His only hope was to restore the god: so to that end he declared that Zalu Zako must be anointed King-God. Uproar arose once more. But Bakahenzie’s purpose had been served; he had diverted their attention from the subject of submission.

From time to time came terrified runners with horrific stories of the burning of villages, of massacre[pg 139]and rapine. Bakahenzie, determined not to yield, secretly dispatched a slave to Eyes-in-the-hands with an arrow which is a sign of war; Yabolo, whose mind ran in the same tracts, sent a banana which is a sign of peace. In the meantime factions grew and multiplied. One chief counselled his followers to take their cattle and women and seek to conquer another tribe to the south-west; another wished to go west. But each and every follower began to bargain with his chief for disproportionate rewards for service. Two chiefs and five hundred men started to the south-west, but they returned because they had met in their path the skeleton of a slain elephant, which is, as everybody knows, a sure sign of disaster.

Bakahenzie sent runners far and wide to discover Bakuma. As she could not be found he concluded that she had been killed or taken as a slave and urged the warriors to fight. Zalu Zako immediately desired the anointing to be delayed in order that he should not be debarred from fighting. Bakahenzie, none too sure of his authority, was compelled to acquiesce. Marufa, observing that the arrow was still in the air, took to his non-committal incantations again. Bakahenzie strove to keep the warriors and chiefs occupied by dissension until the result of his challenge to battle should mature. Yabolo, equally perturbed for his influence, did exactly the same with the banana in view.

Yabolo and MYalu contemplated going in to make submission, but the former wished to negotiate through Sakamata for the best terms, although he tried to persuade MYalu to go; but MYalu was suspicious and would not do so without Yabolo. But at the hour of[pg 140]the monkey one morning came a terrified goatherd crying news that cut the tangled threads of their intrigues as a sword cuts a goat’s throat. The white god, Eyes-in-the-hands, was within an arrow’s flight of the village of Yagonyana.

Consternation ensued. The village and the temporary camp of grass huts buzzed and hummed. Zalu Zako dashed out, sword and spear in hand, and in the glow of the awakened fires harangued the warriors, urged that they should make a swift detour through the forest and attack the white man as he entered the village. Bakahenzie supported this plan of campaign. MYalu, stung by the recollection of the loss of many tusks to the invader, incontinently abandoned Yabolo and pressed for a frontal attack. Yabolo contended that they send an envoy to make terms, but not very insistently. In spite of the assurance of Sakamata, he was suspicious of the new god’s gentle ways. Marufa, the wise, collected those of his household who had remained with him, and quietly made his way to the forest.

But Zalu Zako’s martial spirit was overcome by the clamour of those who would flee before worse befell, crying that the white god, Eyes-in-the-hands, would eat them all up with the terrible monsters who coughed flames and death; others screeched that the uniformed devils were spirits of the night and therefore invincible; for always they came in the dark. So they hesitated, shouted and argued. Then came a scout screaming that the enemy was upon them, corroborated by a vicious cough.

A pom-pom shell landed in the midst of the crowded village. Zalu Zako, Bakahenzie and their small[pg 141]following were nearly swept away in the rush of five thousand odd warriors in flight. From the forest they watched with awestruck eyes the burning of the village.

[pg 142]Chapter 13On the morning on which zu Pfeiffer burned the village of Yagonyana, Birnier was encamped upon the southern boundary of Wongolo. By his“coup de superstition”had he recovered all his equipment except several bottles of brandy, some canned goods and two and a half pairs of pyjamas; also the field boots. The noble Inyira, son of Banyala, and his merry men never attempted to recapture their prisoners; no one save the Eater-of-Men in person could have persuaded them to return to that camp even had they had their rifles.After Birnier had dressed his own foot and the charred feet of his men, had had a good drink and a better meal, he had sought to address the balance of his mind through a medium designed for the cure of melancholy, but efficacious for many other ills,The Anatomy of Melancholy. He opened the one big volume which had been his companion throughout his travels at a page marked at haphazard by an ivory paper knife with the American flag upon the flat hilt, an early gift from Lucille, and began to read the remarks of Robert Burton of quaintly glorious memory upon the source of his late adventure.“Those which are jealous, most part, if they be not otherwise relieved, proceed from suspicion to hatred, from hatred to frenzy, madness, injury, murder[pg 143]and despair … Amestris, Xerxes’s wife, because she found her husband’s cloak in Masista’s house, cut off Masista’s wife’s paps and gave them to the dogs, flayed her besides and cut off her ears, lips, tongue, and slit the nose of Artaynta, her daughter.”“Cheerful lady! She ought to have been zu Pfeiffer’s wife,”commented Birnier and went to sleep.Birnier arose feeling rational enough to reconsider his position. The recollection of the signature on the photograph now failed to stimulate the emotional reaction as once it had done. The experience through which he had passed had had a beneficial effect in breaking or disconnecting the train of suggestive images. At first in the recess of his mind had lurked the desire to abandon everything, to rush straight to Lucille to demand an explanation. Now the rising sun of reason cast quite different shadows upon the incident. The high light was the fact that should he do so he would be sacrificing his mission for what might prove to be ridiculous. As his mind contemplated the subject the echo of“à toi, Lucille”tended to carry a high note, but this he vented by writing a long letter to Lucille recounting the facts and frankly admitting that he had been sufficiently insane with jealousy to“go up in the air.”Once or twice he ceased to write and gazed anxiously into the glare as his imagination suggested the long period of waiting for an answer, wondering whether the echo of that cursed“à toi”might not become unbearably shrill. He became a little more sentimental towards the end of the letter, remarking that perhaps he had been wrong in deserting her for so long and emphasising[pg 144]the rather ridiculous point that he was aware that he was not a young man. However, he let it remain, and at the first opportunity sent off the letter by runner to the nearest station in Uganda, together with an order for certain goods to be sent to a village on the Wongolo border.Although still inclined to be emotional over the photograph, Birnier did not waste any energy over vindictive thoughts upon zu Pfeiffer, whom he philosophically regarded as irresponsible for his actions, inasmuch as he had been made that way just as any savage. He had gotten out of the toils set for him, so why should he spend time and trouble in seeking revenge which would merely consist in reporting the incident through a British station to Washington, who would open up interminable polite correspondence with the German Embassy, who would again write prodigious letters to the Colonial Minister in Berlin, who would… Ludicrous! No; he would not permit zu Pfeiffer to interfere with his plans. He would continue straight to Wongolo instead of investigating the Kivu country, where zu Pfeiffer might perhaps have another opportunity to cause more trouble. Accordingly he negotiated with the nearest village for carriers and set out, striking due west, thus approaching the Wongolo territory towards the southern boundary.The people to the south of the Wongolo country was an inferior race, whom the Wongolo periodically raided to replenish their slaves. These Wamongo were split up into several petty chiefdoms, usually at war with one another. They had no defined theology. For they had not progressed beyond the stage of magic[pg 145]as far as any concept of religion, that is of praying for intercession to any power greater than themselves; whereas the mental state of the Wongolo was half-way between magic and religion, mixing and confusing the two as exemplified in the Rain-making ceremony of employing magic and alternately invoking the god and threatening him with dire penalties if he did not behave. There seemed to be no royal family or clan of the Wamongo; chiefs changed constantly as one more powerful for the moment arose; the wizards did not appear to have any political power, acting as general physicians and confining their efforts apparently to simple magic for the growing of corn, the curing of the evil eye and wounds. They were terrified of the Wongolo, much to Mungongo’s pride, who never let slip an opportunity of swaggering and bruiting abroad the fame of his master as the greatest of magicians the world had ever seen. Never was he tired of relating to a grunting audience the terrible sight and effect of his master’s transposition into a spirit. The yarn lost nothing in the telling.Progress was slow. Every afternoon, as regular as the sun set, clouds of sepia sailed up from the west to clothe the world in a grey deluge of falling water. Fortunately they were travelling up a watershed so that there were no large rivers to cross. As they approached the Wongolo border rumours began of a white god with eyes upon his hands and live fire in his mouth who, so said the delighted Wamongo, had entirely eaten up the hated Wongolo. They seemed prepared to accept Birnier, when suggesting that he should make magic for them to conquer the Wongolo, as another terrible white god, and were accordingly[pg 146]polite. But Mungongo, vastly indignant, denied the story; according to him, no power on earth could have subdued his race, except perhaps the mighty Moonspirit (the name he had bestowed upon Birnier).But when Birnier arrived at the first village of the Wongolo the absence of warriors corroborated the wild tales they had heard. The inhabitants of old men, boys and women surrounded the camp to gaze in awestruck curiosity at the white whom they believed to be the brother of the Eyes-in-the-hands. This calumny Mungongo strenuously gainsaid, and anew recounted the marvellous feats of magic of Moonspirit who could, he assured his compatriots, eat up Eyes-in-the-hands as easily as a crocodile would swallow a goat. Yet in spite of their terror they insisted that Birnier must go through the ceremony of purification incumbent upon all strangers in order to exorcise the evil influence of their eyes and souls; also the customary present must be sent to the king and his august permission to enter awaited, although no man knew where he was since the capital had been burned. Mungongo waxed furious. He informed them that Moonspirit was a friend of the Son-of-the-Snake, and moreover had before been in the country; that if they vexed Moonspirit he would enchant the whole village so that no man could move hand or foot. No matter, said they, that was the rule and must be done. They were impressed but obstinate.From the description of this destroying god, who was the colour of a stripped banana and tall as a palm tree, had fire in his mouth and eyes upon his hands—it was some time before he could recognise the“eyes”—and[pg 147]whose companions were devils strangely clothed, dragging horrific monsters who spat earthquakes, Birnier had no difficulty in recognising zu Pfeiffer, and recollected the significant pumping at dinner regarding the Wongolo country. However he had renounced any idea of revenge, but the discovery of friend zu Pfeiffer as the terrifying god amused him: quickened a desire to overset the gentleman’s plans. He smiled with a slight hardening of the line about his mouth as he began to consider what might be done.As far as he could estimate by recalling the size of the native barracks at Fort Ingonya, he reckoned that zu Pfeiffer could not possibly have more than three hundred men, unless he had been reinforced from the east. Roughly he calculated that the Wongolo ought to be able to put about ten thousand warriors in the field. That number under any sort of leadership, even though they were only armed with spears and swords, should wipe out the three hundred, in spite of the discipline and two or three machine-guns, by sheer weight of numbers. But, from what he had already heard, zu Pfeiffer had evidently caught them unprepared, wiped out a mass and secured a supernatural effect by destroying the idol. He remembered his talk on das Volkliches and his comment that zu Pfeiffer was unusually well informed upon the psychology of the native mind.During two days disputing in the native manner news came in of freshmassacres, adding to the general terror. He sent for the headman and with him held a long shauri. The result was that the old fellow conceived the wonderful idea, already suggested by his lesser brethren, of enlisting the services of this white[pg 148]man, reputed to be a most marvellous magician, in their protection.Then having had his wits sharpened by his own originality and a sheath knife, the headman promptly discovered that the ceremony of exorcism could not be performed because the local wizard had departed with every ounce of magic for the front. Still there were obstinate and fearful persons who wished that Birnier should send a message to the king and wait until he had the permission. Another two days were lost until this objection was overcome by certain presents of“bafta,”destined for the king, being handed over to the village.On the week’s march across Wongolo, Mungongo triumphantly held spellbound audiences at every village through which they passed. As they neared the site of the City of the Snake, where they heard zu Pfeiffer was encamped, they encountered deserted villages. When they came upon the smouldering embers of one Birnier consented to turn aside from the regular trail in order to pass to the west of Kawa Kendi’s where, so the natives said, were Zalu Zako and Bakahenzie.Beyond a belt of forest was open rolling country. They came to a village of five huts where dwelt some herdsmen, although most of the cattle had been driven westwards. Mungongo, seeking at Birnier’s suggestion for some one who had actually been present at the village when zu Pfeiffer attacked, discovered a young girl who had escaped. He brought the daughter of Bakala into the presence of Moonspirit still pathetically clutching the amulet which Marufa had sold her. But from Bakuma, who had fled to the[pg 149]forest at the first assault and afterwards to this herdsmen’s village where the fact of the tabu would not yet have penetrated, Birnier could interpret little of value. Of the whereabouts of Zalu Zako she knew no more than the peasants. She remembered Infunyana, as he had been called on his previous visit to the City of the Snake, and to her it seemed that a god had descended from the blue sky personally to aid her. So utterly incomprehensible and terrifying had the attack appeared that unconsciously the inevitability of her doom was shaken; if such things could happen, she felt rather than thought, then who could say what else was possible? She asked permission to travel with Moonspirit. Birnier, who knew from her dress, or lack of it, that she was unmarried, smiled as he wondered whether she was seeking her lover.Throughout their journey they had not met a single warrior; but as they neared the place of the king they began to meet groups of them. At the sight of the first headdress Bakuma bolted into the grass, nor did she reappear until after they had gone. Later she came to Birnier and asked permission to hide within his tent when the warriors appeared, and to his question began to explain the fate to which she had been doomed. Naturally this account of the Marriage of the Bride of the Banana at the Harvest Festival was of value as well as of interest to Birnier, from whom it had been concealed when in the country before. He cross-questioned her and made notes; but Bakuma could give him practically no details of what actually happened, a secret well guarded by the craft.They looked downcast, these warriors, and were doubtful what to do on meeting another white.[pg 150]Many had never before seen a white man and were inclined to bestow upon Moonspirit all the attributes which they had given to Eyes-in-the-hands. Eh! said they, Eyes-in-the-hands is a more powerful god than the Unmentionable One, for has he not eaten him up? Eyes-in-the-hands has imprisoned the thunder and the lightning in a bag which he looses at will. Who could withstand him? Had they better not submit before his wrath had eaten them all up? E-eh! man cannot fight with a god, as any fool knows.They were returning to their homes to make pilgrimage to the new god, to propitiate him with oxen and with ivory lest worse befall. However they knew where Zalu Zako was hidden, also the wizards whose magic was as a drop of water in a fire. Mungongo did not fail to relate the marvels of Moonspirit which he had seen with his own eyes, he and those with him. The warriors listened without being in the least impressed. That, said they, was merely woman’s magic to what Eyes-in-the-hands could do! Aie-e! had not they fallen dead in masses at the cough of one of his monster spirits! Aie-e! had not the look of him burned up the Unmentionable One as a straw in a fire! Therefore was he not greater than the god? Aie-e! was he not burning their villages at will! Aie-e, brothers, they must hasten to appease the wrath of so terrible a god!Birnier saw that it was useless to attempt to argue with them. Zu Pfeiffer, with his shrewd stroke at the kernel of their faith in the symbol of the idol, had established a kind of godhead; and by his ferocious massacres had thoroughly cowed them. However[pg 151]Birnier secured one man to guide him to where Zalu Zako, the witch-doctors and those who remained with him, were in hiding.On the fringe of the dense forest they camped. The warrior guide went to acquaint Zalu Zako of their approach, else otherwise the sight of a white might provoke an attempt at massacre or flight. On the third day the man returned bearing greetings from Zalu Zako personally who remembered well Infunyana, the only white man whom he had ever met.For two days, on a faint trail, in a steamy heat pulsing with chromatic birds and lizards, they journeyed through the forest, the skirts of the vast Ituri whose deepest recess is the home of the pygmy. One early forenoon they were halted by the warrior in apparently trackless jungle and bidden to camp. Mungongo was indignant, but protest was useless as the man refused to conduct them any farther, saying that Zalu Zako would come to them. So the carriers cut a circle and built a zareba and the messenger was swallowed by the green wall bearing presents of two rifles.

On the morning on which zu Pfeiffer burned the village of Yagonyana, Birnier was encamped upon the southern boundary of Wongolo. By his“coup de superstition”had he recovered all his equipment except several bottles of brandy, some canned goods and two and a half pairs of pyjamas; also the field boots. The noble Inyira, son of Banyala, and his merry men never attempted to recapture their prisoners; no one save the Eater-of-Men in person could have persuaded them to return to that camp even had they had their rifles.

After Birnier had dressed his own foot and the charred feet of his men, had had a good drink and a better meal, he had sought to address the balance of his mind through a medium designed for the cure of melancholy, but efficacious for many other ills,The Anatomy of Melancholy. He opened the one big volume which had been his companion throughout his travels at a page marked at haphazard by an ivory paper knife with the American flag upon the flat hilt, an early gift from Lucille, and began to read the remarks of Robert Burton of quaintly glorious memory upon the source of his late adventure.

“Those which are jealous, most part, if they be not otherwise relieved, proceed from suspicion to hatred, from hatred to frenzy, madness, injury, murder[pg 143]and despair … Amestris, Xerxes’s wife, because she found her husband’s cloak in Masista’s house, cut off Masista’s wife’s paps and gave them to the dogs, flayed her besides and cut off her ears, lips, tongue, and slit the nose of Artaynta, her daughter.”

“Cheerful lady! She ought to have been zu Pfeiffer’s wife,”commented Birnier and went to sleep.

Birnier arose feeling rational enough to reconsider his position. The recollection of the signature on the photograph now failed to stimulate the emotional reaction as once it had done. The experience through which he had passed had had a beneficial effect in breaking or disconnecting the train of suggestive images. At first in the recess of his mind had lurked the desire to abandon everything, to rush straight to Lucille to demand an explanation. Now the rising sun of reason cast quite different shadows upon the incident. The high light was the fact that should he do so he would be sacrificing his mission for what might prove to be ridiculous. As his mind contemplated the subject the echo of“à toi, Lucille”tended to carry a high note, but this he vented by writing a long letter to Lucille recounting the facts and frankly admitting that he had been sufficiently insane with jealousy to“go up in the air.”Once or twice he ceased to write and gazed anxiously into the glare as his imagination suggested the long period of waiting for an answer, wondering whether the echo of that cursed“à toi”might not become unbearably shrill. He became a little more sentimental towards the end of the letter, remarking that perhaps he had been wrong in deserting her for so long and emphasising[pg 144]the rather ridiculous point that he was aware that he was not a young man. However, he let it remain, and at the first opportunity sent off the letter by runner to the nearest station in Uganda, together with an order for certain goods to be sent to a village on the Wongolo border.

Although still inclined to be emotional over the photograph, Birnier did not waste any energy over vindictive thoughts upon zu Pfeiffer, whom he philosophically regarded as irresponsible for his actions, inasmuch as he had been made that way just as any savage. He had gotten out of the toils set for him, so why should he spend time and trouble in seeking revenge which would merely consist in reporting the incident through a British station to Washington, who would open up interminable polite correspondence with the German Embassy, who would again write prodigious letters to the Colonial Minister in Berlin, who would… Ludicrous! No; he would not permit zu Pfeiffer to interfere with his plans. He would continue straight to Wongolo instead of investigating the Kivu country, where zu Pfeiffer might perhaps have another opportunity to cause more trouble. Accordingly he negotiated with the nearest village for carriers and set out, striking due west, thus approaching the Wongolo territory towards the southern boundary.

The people to the south of the Wongolo country was an inferior race, whom the Wongolo periodically raided to replenish their slaves. These Wamongo were split up into several petty chiefdoms, usually at war with one another. They had no defined theology. For they had not progressed beyond the stage of magic[pg 145]as far as any concept of religion, that is of praying for intercession to any power greater than themselves; whereas the mental state of the Wongolo was half-way between magic and religion, mixing and confusing the two as exemplified in the Rain-making ceremony of employing magic and alternately invoking the god and threatening him with dire penalties if he did not behave. There seemed to be no royal family or clan of the Wamongo; chiefs changed constantly as one more powerful for the moment arose; the wizards did not appear to have any political power, acting as general physicians and confining their efforts apparently to simple magic for the growing of corn, the curing of the evil eye and wounds. They were terrified of the Wongolo, much to Mungongo’s pride, who never let slip an opportunity of swaggering and bruiting abroad the fame of his master as the greatest of magicians the world had ever seen. Never was he tired of relating to a grunting audience the terrible sight and effect of his master’s transposition into a spirit. The yarn lost nothing in the telling.

Progress was slow. Every afternoon, as regular as the sun set, clouds of sepia sailed up from the west to clothe the world in a grey deluge of falling water. Fortunately they were travelling up a watershed so that there were no large rivers to cross. As they approached the Wongolo border rumours began of a white god with eyes upon his hands and live fire in his mouth who, so said the delighted Wamongo, had entirely eaten up the hated Wongolo. They seemed prepared to accept Birnier, when suggesting that he should make magic for them to conquer the Wongolo, as another terrible white god, and were accordingly[pg 146]polite. But Mungongo, vastly indignant, denied the story; according to him, no power on earth could have subdued his race, except perhaps the mighty Moonspirit (the name he had bestowed upon Birnier).

But when Birnier arrived at the first village of the Wongolo the absence of warriors corroborated the wild tales they had heard. The inhabitants of old men, boys and women surrounded the camp to gaze in awestruck curiosity at the white whom they believed to be the brother of the Eyes-in-the-hands. This calumny Mungongo strenuously gainsaid, and anew recounted the marvellous feats of magic of Moonspirit who could, he assured his compatriots, eat up Eyes-in-the-hands as easily as a crocodile would swallow a goat. Yet in spite of their terror they insisted that Birnier must go through the ceremony of purification incumbent upon all strangers in order to exorcise the evil influence of their eyes and souls; also the customary present must be sent to the king and his august permission to enter awaited, although no man knew where he was since the capital had been burned. Mungongo waxed furious. He informed them that Moonspirit was a friend of the Son-of-the-Snake, and moreover had before been in the country; that if they vexed Moonspirit he would enchant the whole village so that no man could move hand or foot. No matter, said they, that was the rule and must be done. They were impressed but obstinate.

From the description of this destroying god, who was the colour of a stripped banana and tall as a palm tree, had fire in his mouth and eyes upon his hands—it was some time before he could recognise the“eyes”—and[pg 147]whose companions were devils strangely clothed, dragging horrific monsters who spat earthquakes, Birnier had no difficulty in recognising zu Pfeiffer, and recollected the significant pumping at dinner regarding the Wongolo country. However he had renounced any idea of revenge, but the discovery of friend zu Pfeiffer as the terrifying god amused him: quickened a desire to overset the gentleman’s plans. He smiled with a slight hardening of the line about his mouth as he began to consider what might be done.

As far as he could estimate by recalling the size of the native barracks at Fort Ingonya, he reckoned that zu Pfeiffer could not possibly have more than three hundred men, unless he had been reinforced from the east. Roughly he calculated that the Wongolo ought to be able to put about ten thousand warriors in the field. That number under any sort of leadership, even though they were only armed with spears and swords, should wipe out the three hundred, in spite of the discipline and two or three machine-guns, by sheer weight of numbers. But, from what he had already heard, zu Pfeiffer had evidently caught them unprepared, wiped out a mass and secured a supernatural effect by destroying the idol. He remembered his talk on das Volkliches and his comment that zu Pfeiffer was unusually well informed upon the psychology of the native mind.

During two days disputing in the native manner news came in of freshmassacres, adding to the general terror. He sent for the headman and with him held a long shauri. The result was that the old fellow conceived the wonderful idea, already suggested by his lesser brethren, of enlisting the services of this white[pg 148]man, reputed to be a most marvellous magician, in their protection.

Then having had his wits sharpened by his own originality and a sheath knife, the headman promptly discovered that the ceremony of exorcism could not be performed because the local wizard had departed with every ounce of magic for the front. Still there were obstinate and fearful persons who wished that Birnier should send a message to the king and wait until he had the permission. Another two days were lost until this objection was overcome by certain presents of“bafta,”destined for the king, being handed over to the village.

On the week’s march across Wongolo, Mungongo triumphantly held spellbound audiences at every village through which they passed. As they neared the site of the City of the Snake, where they heard zu Pfeiffer was encamped, they encountered deserted villages. When they came upon the smouldering embers of one Birnier consented to turn aside from the regular trail in order to pass to the west of Kawa Kendi’s where, so the natives said, were Zalu Zako and Bakahenzie.

Beyond a belt of forest was open rolling country. They came to a village of five huts where dwelt some herdsmen, although most of the cattle had been driven westwards. Mungongo, seeking at Birnier’s suggestion for some one who had actually been present at the village when zu Pfeiffer attacked, discovered a young girl who had escaped. He brought the daughter of Bakala into the presence of Moonspirit still pathetically clutching the amulet which Marufa had sold her. But from Bakuma, who had fled to the[pg 149]forest at the first assault and afterwards to this herdsmen’s village where the fact of the tabu would not yet have penetrated, Birnier could interpret little of value. Of the whereabouts of Zalu Zako she knew no more than the peasants. She remembered Infunyana, as he had been called on his previous visit to the City of the Snake, and to her it seemed that a god had descended from the blue sky personally to aid her. So utterly incomprehensible and terrifying had the attack appeared that unconsciously the inevitability of her doom was shaken; if such things could happen, she felt rather than thought, then who could say what else was possible? She asked permission to travel with Moonspirit. Birnier, who knew from her dress, or lack of it, that she was unmarried, smiled as he wondered whether she was seeking her lover.

Throughout their journey they had not met a single warrior; but as they neared the place of the king they began to meet groups of them. At the sight of the first headdress Bakuma bolted into the grass, nor did she reappear until after they had gone. Later she came to Birnier and asked permission to hide within his tent when the warriors appeared, and to his question began to explain the fate to which she had been doomed. Naturally this account of the Marriage of the Bride of the Banana at the Harvest Festival was of value as well as of interest to Birnier, from whom it had been concealed when in the country before. He cross-questioned her and made notes; but Bakuma could give him practically no details of what actually happened, a secret well guarded by the craft.

They looked downcast, these warriors, and were doubtful what to do on meeting another white.[pg 150]Many had never before seen a white man and were inclined to bestow upon Moonspirit all the attributes which they had given to Eyes-in-the-hands. Eh! said they, Eyes-in-the-hands is a more powerful god than the Unmentionable One, for has he not eaten him up? Eyes-in-the-hands has imprisoned the thunder and the lightning in a bag which he looses at will. Who could withstand him? Had they better not submit before his wrath had eaten them all up? E-eh! man cannot fight with a god, as any fool knows.

They were returning to their homes to make pilgrimage to the new god, to propitiate him with oxen and with ivory lest worse befall. However they knew where Zalu Zako was hidden, also the wizards whose magic was as a drop of water in a fire. Mungongo did not fail to relate the marvels of Moonspirit which he had seen with his own eyes, he and those with him. The warriors listened without being in the least impressed. That, said they, was merely woman’s magic to what Eyes-in-the-hands could do! Aie-e! had not they fallen dead in masses at the cough of one of his monster spirits! Aie-e! had not the look of him burned up the Unmentionable One as a straw in a fire! Therefore was he not greater than the god? Aie-e! was he not burning their villages at will! Aie-e, brothers, they must hasten to appease the wrath of so terrible a god!

Birnier saw that it was useless to attempt to argue with them. Zu Pfeiffer, with his shrewd stroke at the kernel of their faith in the symbol of the idol, had established a kind of godhead; and by his ferocious massacres had thoroughly cowed them. However[pg 151]Birnier secured one man to guide him to where Zalu Zako, the witch-doctors and those who remained with him, were in hiding.

On the fringe of the dense forest they camped. The warrior guide went to acquaint Zalu Zako of their approach, else otherwise the sight of a white might provoke an attempt at massacre or flight. On the third day the man returned bearing greetings from Zalu Zako personally who remembered well Infunyana, the only white man whom he had ever met.

For two days, on a faint trail, in a steamy heat pulsing with chromatic birds and lizards, they journeyed through the forest, the skirts of the vast Ituri whose deepest recess is the home of the pygmy. One early forenoon they were halted by the warrior in apparently trackless jungle and bidden to camp. Mungongo was indignant, but protest was useless as the man refused to conduct them any farther, saying that Zalu Zako would come to them. So the carriers cut a circle and built a zareba and the messenger was swallowed by the green wall bearing presents of two rifles.

Back to IndexNext