Chapter 14

[pg 152]Chapter 14About a mile from Birnier’s camp, through forest so dense that even the progress of a native clambering from trunk to trunk and over undergrowth ten feet deep was slow and tortuous, was the temporary village of Zalu Zako; some six or seven hundred huts of branches and creepers straggling over a wide area of ground which had been roughly cleared from undergrowth by a few slaves and women.The hut of Zalu Zako, as those of most of the bigger chiefs and wizards, was furnished with reeds upon the floor to avoid squatting actually in the green slime, and boasted a palisade run from tree to tree enclosing the huts of his two wives, women and slaves. Every morning the leader of a long line of slaves bringing supplies from the villages in the open, chanting softly the song of the march, entered the village through a mass of creepers which hung like a curtain of humid green. Many hundreds of warriors with their chiefs had deserted their king after the flight from Yagonyana’s village.In the mind of Zalu Zako was doubt and perplexity as in those of his people. All the accepted“laws”and“facts”of his world had been set at naught; it was as if buck lived in the rivers and fish ran roaring through the forests. Fear, curiosity, and resentment filled him. Sometimes it appeared that Eyes-in-the-hands[pg 153]had indeed proved to be a more powerful god than the Unmentionable One, of whom he was, or should have been, high priest and king; that he had eaten him up as they said; so perhaps the better course was to submit to this being invincible. Yet this very anarchy of his beliefs had released once more the passion for Bakuma whom he had renounced, the desire for whom had been inhibited by the sense of the inevitability of the mandate of the witch-doctors. Hereditary custom, which made him feel that it was incumbent upon him—a primitive sense of duty—to be king-god warred with this longing for Bakuma. The fact that he was not yet bound to celibacy quickened the seed of rebellion against the domination of the wizards. If he could escape the godhood then Bakuma was alive again. For to his mind a ban upon the personal ego was far stronger than any ban upon a second person.Chewing the cud of this sweet grass of hope squatted Zalu Zako one morning in the dignified solitude of his compound on the threshold of his hut. Opposite him sat the brother conspirator of Bakahenzie, Marufa, a brown shadow in comparison to the gleaming of the royal insignia of the ivory bangles. They sat silent, motionless, save for the occasional sparse movement of snuff taking. In the steamy heat a continual mutter and rustle persisted, punctuated by the harsh scream of a green parrot or the squawks of a troop of monkeys. In the faintly spattered sunlight percolating through the bowered roof vivid lizards rivalled in colour the rare finger of an orchid clinging to the great tree beside the hut. Through the humid air came the faint chant of carriers at the end of a journey; swelled[pg 154]louder and ceased. At the mutter of greeting near by Marufa grunted.“The beaten dog returns to nose in the garbage,”he mumbled.“Maybe he hath news of the doings,”commented Zalu Zako after a pause.“The young dog starts a buck in every tree stump,”returned Marufa.The mumble of voices in the hut of Yabolo near toZaluZako’s continued. Neither Zalu Zako nor Marufa knew other than that, after his downfall, Sakamata had retired to his native village on the southern boundary where the people, being laymen, had believed the excuse for his absence given by Sakamata that he had retired to the forest for one moon in the guise of his totem, the wart hog, which animal became accordingly tabu to their killing for that period. At length came a young slave from Yabolo who, after saluting, delivered a message from Yabolo requesting that Zalu Zako receive him and his relative, Sakamata, who had weighty news for him.Presently entered the recusant bearing signs of prosperity in the flowered print about his loins, the ancient cartridge pouch slung around his waist and a huge revolver of the pin-fire model dangling from a neck which appeared more tortoise-like than ever. Before Zalu Zako he squatted and after they had exchanged the usual hostages to hostility, Sakamata inquired most politely after the health of the Son-of-the-Snake, of his cattle and of his fortune, and last of all of his women. Sakamata, aware of the loss of prestige suffered by his old enemy, Bakahenzie, presented[pg 155]ZaluZako with a duplicate of the pin-fire revolver. Followed an equally extensive greeting to Marufa. Only when these ceremonies had been punctiliously performed did they begin to discuss the news.At first Sakamata proceeded to repeat the popular saying regarding the doings of Eyes-in-the-hands. Various chiefs had visited the fort of the white man bringing presents in their hands, terrified of what might happen, yet, according to Sakamata, their fears had been dispelled immediately; for the wise new god had received them as brothers and had made offerings to them as was the custom for strangers to do. It was true, he admitted in cross-examination, that whole villages had been put to the sword and burned; but, he demanded, was not that the way of a mighty warrior to those who resisted him?Moreover, continued Sakamata, to fight him was death. His magic was such that no man could prevail against him. Had any doctor yet succeeded in making successful magic against the Invincible One? His magic was terrible to behold. Spirits which were imprisoned in houses of trees (boxes) spoke and sang according to their tribe.“Clk!”commented Zalu Zako incredulously.“These words are as the wind in the trees at night speaking to girls,”commented Marufa slowly.“What man hath beheld those things with his own eyes?”Deliberately Sakamata tapped snuff, inhaled it with relish, meticulously, that not one grain was[pg 156]lost upon his white caterpillar moustache, and said indifferently:“Even he who sits before you.”“Eh!”Another point was scored. But both Zalu Zako and Marufa regarded him as one who, having had dealings with the devil and yet had emerged safely, was to be suspected of some ghastly pact. After a calculated pause Sakamata continued nonchalantly:“There is no magic like unto Eyes-in-the-hands, the Mighty One. A great fort hath he made upon the hill of thy grandfather (MFunya MPopo), O Zalu Zako, girded with a great palisade, around which walk everthered devils in uniform, each one of whom hath a gun with seven voices. And peering through that palisade, like a terrible black leopard from his lair, are the monster coughing devils. Eh! who are they who can withstand them?”“Eh!”echoed his audience with lively memories of the“coughing devils.”“And he hath a mighty hut made from the white man’s cloth of colour like to the forest full of things to make magic. Seated upon his chair like unto a man plucking bananas, the eyes upon his hands and in his head gleam so fiercely that water is made within a man. He who dares to look sees not only Eyes-in-the-hands, but his two souls, even as thou seest thine own two souls staring at thee with the frightened eyes that are thine!”“Ehh!”This time a genuine belly grunt was elicited, and even Marufa moved uneasily.“Thou hast been bewitched,”he added to mask his[pg 157]astonishment.“For a man may see his own soul in any pool, but never two souls!”“Even is it as I have told thee, O son of MTungo,”asserted Sakamata.Sakamata discovered the use of snuff again to be necessary. He watched covertly the repressed excitement in the eyes of Zalu Zako.“And what said the great magician unto thee?”Marufa demanded to cover his discomfort.“He spoke white words as a warrior should,”said Sakamata.“He gave words which told me that he was but a small wizard. He made my eyes to see the soul of a greater god than he, who was there and yet was not there; for at the touch of his magic hand with many eyes, behold! there were two more souls of the god which returned even as I looked.”“Ehh! A greater god than he?”demanded Zalu Zako, with a flicker of the white of his eyes.“Even as I have said, a greater god who is king of all the white man’s countries in the sea, who eats up those whom he pleases. Yet, even though he may bewitch with one of his eyes, did he speak softly to Yagombi, the son of Bagazaan, and Zalayan, the son of Kilmanyana, who were with me, bidding us to tell our brethren that if they would not acknowledge the true king that then he would eat us up, even as he ate up the Unmentionable One. But to those who would submit and make due tribute, would he protect in peace from the white men who, fleeing from the wrath of the great god, would soon come to eat up our country like the locusts.”“Eh! ehh! white men as the locusts!”[pg 158]“Thus he spoke and bade us to go forth and tell our brethren.”This was a wholly new notion and proportionally serious if true. But Marufa, recovering from the first shock, wrapped himself in his professional cloak of omniscient indifference as he recollected that Sakamata was an unfrocked priest of the craft. The group took snuff sternly until Sakamata, having accomplished his mission, deemed it wise to retire to allow the suggestive ideas to germinate. So gravely he arose and departed from the hut of Zalu Zako and went under the patronage of Yabolo to another compound where, to a group of the most disaffected chiefs, including MYalu, he repeated nearly word for word the same harangue.In the minds ofZalu Zakoand Marufa the report of Sakamata had been exceedingly disquieting. Marufa began to wonder whether he had not better make terms with the new god before worse came to the worst in the form of white men like locusts, a menace fraught with dire possibilities which were based upon the rumours which every native had heard of the ways of white men in bulk: to the Wongolo merely vague stories from the north of the conquest of the Sudan by the British. Marufa’s ambitions in the craft were almost submerged in the dread that, wizard though he was, he would have small chance of distinction and power among a race of wizards. To Zalu Zako, although the prospect of unlimited white men swooping upon them was terrifying, his semi-conscious mind was rather occupied with Bakuma than with affairs of state which seemed merely to exist to torment lovers. However he, too, was sufficiently impressed to consider seriously the[pg 159]advisability of submitting before it was too late; the motivating principle of the scheme was an idea which suggested that, in some indefinable way, such action might lead to the avoidance of the ban of godhood and thus to the reinstatement of Bakuma in the realm of possibilities.To Bakahenzie the report was more alarming than to the others, inasmuch as it appeared to portend the irretrievable loss of his power. He saw the effect upon their minds, the inclination to yield to the new conqueror, which, of course, would mean the last of his followers being swept away in the crowd like dry leaves in the wind. But more than the others he suspected the motives of Sakamata, the man whom he had unfrocked. Arguing in terms of his own mental processes he saw correctly enough that Sakamata was surely playing for himself, and guessed equally truly that Sakamata would get, or imagined that he would get, many rewards, political as well as in kind, for his services as jackal to the white man. But he listened and said no word for, or against, him. He was astute enough never to make a move until he had, or thought that he had, all the moves of the game worked out. Marufa was just as wily; he related the news given by Sakamata in a voice which gave no hint by tone or word what any of his opinions might be. Then, as they sat like graven images, supremely indifferent to the doings of Sakamata or aught else, entered the warrior bearing greetings from Birnier to Zalu Zako.Immediately Zalu Zako, to whose less skilled mind in intrigue this succession of world-shaking events was bewildering, feared that already the plague of[pg 160]white men like locusts had commenced. But when he learned that the white man was alone and was Infunyana, the only white man whom he had ever met, he perceived vaguely some remote prospect of achieving his desires. Almost eagerly, for a native, he commanded the messenger to summon the white man to his presence.To Bakahenzie the unexpected arrival of another white was an unforeseen potentiality of force which might be utilized to his own benefit; so thought Marufa, which was in effect exactly the same reaction as Zalu Zako’s. Therefore Bakahenzie immediately protested upon the ground that no stranger could be allowed to approach the Son-of-the-Snake, or even the village, who had not been purified according to custom. When Zalu Zako demurred he retorted:“Hath not one white man who was permitted to enter our country without the demon being exorcised wreaked disaster upon us? Wouldst thou then destroy us utterly?”Zalu Zako was silent. Much as he would have desired to browbeat Bakahenzie, much as his confidence in the powers of the chief witch-doctor had waned in his estimation, yet there remained sufficient to overawe him when the matter was put to a crucial test. Bakahenzie would, so he stated, go himself to see the new white man, thus unselfishly taking upon his person the whole risk of the lasting magic of a stranger unpurified. But Marufa had no intention of allowing Bakahenzie to obtain a monopoly of this possible new ally. Unlike Zalu Zako he was not burdened with awe and had confidence in his own magic to overcome[pg 161]any evil that Bakahenzie might seek to work against him. So when he announced that he would accompany Bakahenzie, that distressed wizard was too conscious of his dwindling prestige to object.[pg 162]Chapter 15Just after sun-up next morning as Birnier was seated at the door of his tent reading hisMelancholyand drinking his coffee, a startled“clk”caused him to glance round. He saw Bakuma rise suddenly from the fire and disappear. The next moment materialized out of the miasma of the morning the figures of Bakahenzie and Marufa, followed by a file of warriors.Portentously Bakahenzie stalked to the fire and squatted down without even a murmur to Mungongo busy with the breakfast. Bakahenzie remembered Infunyana very well, but nevertheless designedly Birnier ignored him in return. So they sat, the two wizards taking snuff with grave concern almost at the feet of the white who continued to smoke and to read.The sign boded ill, for the insistence upon the punctilious etiquette inferred that Bakahenzie was disposed to be suspicious, if not directly hostile. And indeed the warriors’ description of the magic of Moonspirit, vide Mungongo, had made Bakahenzie uneasy.After a full half-hour Bakahenzie, as if beaten in this solemn game, turned gravely and saluted the white. Birnier looked down from his chair with the affectation of just having noticed that some one was there. After a pause he returned the greeting, a little point which[pg 163]Bakahenzie thoroughly appreciated. Birnier had learned that according to Mungongo and the warrior, Zalu Zako had not yet been anointed king-god; therefore that Bakahenzie evidently intended to keep the young man in the background.After preliminaries, Birnier inquired after Zalu Zako and informed Bakahenzie that he had journeyed expressly to see him. Bakahenzie ignored the question and began to talk about Eyes-in-the-hands, demanding to know whether Birnier was his brother.“Nay,”said Birnier,“Eyes-in-the-hands is not of the same tribe as Moonspirit,”for he sedulously followed up the title which Mungongo had given him.“Eyes-in-the-hands comes from a country twelve moons distant from my country.”Marufa squatting beside him grunted; Bakahenzie took snuff nonchalantly as if he did not believe a word.“Eyes-in-the-hands is a mighty magician in his own country,”said Bakahenzie in the form of an assertion.“The magic of Eyes-in-the-hands to the magic of Moonspirit,”stated Birnier,“is as water to the beer of the banana.”“Eyes-in-the-hands,”remarked Bakahenzie indifferently,“hath magic to make the souls of man to be seen by all.”“Those are but the souls of the belly and body, but Moonspirit can enchant so that the spirit of the head of man be seen at night,”boasted Birnier, wondering what trick of zu Pfeiffer’s had produced the effect.“Eyes-in-the-hands,”insisted Bakahenzie,“hath[pg 164]a spirit in a piece of a tree which cries or laughs, sings or talks to his magic.”“Moonspirit,”retorted Birnier (thinking“Gramophone, but I can go one better, my friend”),“hath also a spirit in a piece of tree who will speak words of wisdom unto thee in thine own tongue, who will repeat that which is said unto him in thy tongue or in my tongue, who will speak words of wisdom even unto thee.”Bakahenzie seemed outmatched in the boasting tournament. He tapped snuff woodenly. Marufa scratched his skinny ribs thoughtfully. Then Bakahenzie remarked:“He that hath not been cleansed may not look upon the Son-of-the-Snake.”“He that hath not been anointed need have no fear of the evil eye.”“Hath not one who was not cleansed entered and cast evil upon the tribe?”demanded Bakahenzie.“If the fence is not strong the leopard will enter.”“If the leopard be not strong and swift indeed may he not be killed in the hut?”inquired Bakahenzie.“If a leopard and a wild-cat break in, then wilt thou not kill the leopard first?”“Even so,”retorted Bakahenzie;“then is water stronger than beer, even as the beer does reveal?”Birnier nearly smiled in recognition of the hit.“Nay, does not beer make the fool to talk foolishness? Dost thou then cast away the banana? Does not one[pg 165]talk foolishness also who is sick and yet discardeth good medicine, because he feareth to poison his belly?”“Even so,”said Bakahenzie obstinately,“does the sick man exorcise the good medicine lest an enemy hath made magic thereupon?”“Then,”said Birnier, whose only objection to the ceremony was the delay and the messiness,“let the good medicine be purified.”Bakahenzie grunted and covertly took stock of the tent and equipment visible. Upon the pile of cases stacked just inside the tent his eyes rested some time, but he would not make any inquiry. Marufa, too, was occupied in the same manner. Bakahenzie was recalling the previous meeting with Birnier in the village of MFunyaMPopo—of that day when Birnier had not made any attempt to impress the native mind with“magic”other than the ordinary“miracles”in the routine of a white man’s life.“When the Son-of-the-Snake,”inquired Birnier, who had learned as much of the hagiocracy as Mungongo knew,“hath taken up the Burden, wilt thou then drive Eyes-in-the-hands from the country?”Bakahenzie slowly withdrew his eyes from the fascinating case as far as Birnier’s booted foot.“Hast thou, white man, the magic twig that makes fire?”he demanded.“Even so.”Birnier took a box of matches from his pocket and struck one. Bakahenzie and Marufa watched him solemnly. Then a lean bronze hand was outstretched. Birnier gave him the box. Slowly and gravely Bakahenzie,[pg 166]the chief witch-doctor, extracted a match, turned it over and over, smelt it, tasted it, regarded it, and struck it on the top of the box. It was a safety match, so nothing happened. Birnier, without a vestige of a smile, instructed him to strike it only upon the black piece at the side. That impressed Bakahenzie and Marufa. The former tried again as directed and succeeded. Holding the match too near the head he burned the quick of the nail, but not a muscle quivered. He would not even admit that the white man’s devil stick had bitten him. But he was still more impressed.At a sign from Birnier, Mungongo brought from the tent a nickel-plated revolver and cartridges, which he placed at the feet of Bakahenzie without comment. Apparently Bakahenzie did not notice the action or the gift. He held out the matches to return to the white man. Birnier requested him to keep them. He wrapped up the box in his loin-cloth and fell to further contemplation of the cases. He was cogitating. The value of this white had suddenly increased. Evidently he could make small magic. Perhaps he could make as much big magic as Eyes-in-the-hands. Who knew? But then if that was so he could make greater magic than he, Bakahenzie, could. Bakahenzie saw that if Moonspirit were such a great magician he would be difficult or impossible to control. Naturally Bakahenzie could only understand his own motives in others. His problem now was to discover some means by which he could control Moonspirit, make of him a familiar to work to his own ends. Why was he so insistent upon seeing Zalu Zako? Bakahenzie became more and more suspicious. He saw[pg 167]another reason why the white man must be kept away from Zalu Zako. To refuse to purify him would give a valid excuse that he may not look upon the Son-of-the-Snake. But he did not wish to displease him; also Marufa could perform the purification.Again Birnier repeated the question regarding the overthrow of Eyes-in-the-hands. Bakahenzie took snuff, regarded the revolver lying at his feet idly, and deigned to reply.“When that which must be hath come to pass, then shall the children of the Snake eat up their enemies as a lizard eats flies.”“And what is that which must come to pass?”Bakahenzie sat silent awhile, slightly shocked at the directness of the question; then as if to humour the white man, he replied:“When the Bridegroom hath taken the Bride.”The ceremony of purification could not take place until the following day, because such things may not be hurried; and moreover, various potent charms had to be sent for to the native village. Meanwhile Bakahenzie squatted by the fire, contemplating the nickel-plated revolver and affairs of policy, and opposite him sat the meditative Marufa.From the hour of the monkey, Bakahenzie, unconscious of the small face and anxious eyes watching the camp from the tangle of green, was busy muttering spells over a calabash containing a magic concoction composed of the entrails of a white goat, certain herbs and the eyes of a black wild-cat. When the roof of the forest was a patterned ceiling against an incandescent glow, Birnier stripped to the waist, and submitted himself to the hands of the wizard who,[pg 168]after scattering the feathers of a scarlet parrot into the calabash, smeared the left breast, the forehead and the right arm of the white man, to the accompaniment of an incantation. These insignia and specifics he must not remove for three suns; nor could he be permitted to look upon the semi-divine Zalu Zako until whatever evil influence his foreign body might possess should have been exorcised by this powerful medicine.To sit around half nude in such heat was no arduous undertaking, but to sleep without rubbing off the concoction was another matter; also the odour thereof was not pleasing to the nostrils of a white man. But Birnier accomplished the feat by smoking excessively and by marking with a pencil the various nostrums recommended by the amiable Burton, many of which were hardly less disagreeable than Doctor Bakahenzie’s prescription.That worthy’s slaves had erected a hut for him nigh to the tent in the door of which he squatted, usually with Marufa beside him, throughout the day, with ever a contemplative eye upon his victim, an eye which Birnier was sure was eagerly seeking some excuse to plead that he had inadvertently rendered the magic impotent, and must accordingly have the ceremony repeated.Amused by the ridiculous sight he presented, plastered over with this filth, Birnier made Mungongo, whom he had taught to operate a camera, take a photograph of him, which would entertain Lucille, as well as be of scientific interest. Bakahenzie and Marufa watched this performance from the fire with amazement, for they imagined that the camera was some kind of[pg 169]gun. When they heard the click, they grunted as if expecting the white man to fall dead. Birnier of course knew the universal native belief in the picture being the soul, or one of the souls. He summoned Bakahenzie and Marufa and showed them a photograph which, after some difficulty, they recognised as Mungongo.“Eh,”grunted a warrior,“indeed is Mungongo the slave of the white man, for hath he not imprisoned his soul?”Mungongo laughed, yet he believed in the superstition as implicitly as any of his compatriots, for said he:“It is a wise man who hath that which is his always within his hand, even as Moonspirit hath the soul of his favourite wife with him always, so that she may not be unfaithful unto him.”“Eh, he is wiser than the Banana Eater!”grunted the warrior in admiration.Birnier’s training to control his features was strained in the effort not to express surprise. He could not imagine from what Mungongo had derived this astonishing statement, until he recollected that the boy had seen a photograph of Lucille among his papers.After this successful demonstration of his sophistication, Mungongo was anxious that Moonspirit give an exhibition of his magic to dumbfound the chief witch-doctor, desiring most ardently to work the gramophone, to operate which he had also learned. But on reflection, Birnier decided that it was not his policyto makehis thunder too cheap.Each evening as the last subtle violet quivered in the[pg 170]trees had Bakuma glided from the shelter of the undergrowth under the flap of Birnier’s tent, where she had lain until the first tint of dawn on the foliage of the forest. Birnier had wished her to leave for some village until Bakahenzie had left the camp, but Bakuma had frantically pleaded to remain, knowing that the craft was seeking her throughout the country since Bakahenzie’s latest interview with mighty Tarum.But upon the third day as Birnier was seated reading philosophically at his tent door, the inevitable happened. A loud outcry arose and from the tangle of creepers started the lithe figure of Bakuma, who darted past him into the tent. For a moment there was silence. But Birnier guessed what the matter was. Bakahenzie emerged from the wall of green and cried out in a loud voice. Instantly the warriors around leaped to their feet, and broke out into great clamour.Mungongo, busy with the cooking pots, rushed to Birnier’s side, gesticulating wildly. Inside the tent crouched Bakuma. Towards Birnier advanced Bakahenzie and the warriors, whose dilated eyes and spears in their hands betokened that Bakahenzie had stirred their deepest feelings of terror and murder. Birnier smoked placidly, neither stirring nor permitting a sign of their presence to cross his features.Mungongo, startled out of his confidence in Moonspirit, excitedly bade Bakuma go forth as Bakahenzie, stopping in front of the white man, broke into a harangue, bidding him to give up Bakuma whose sacrilege in breaking the magic circle, as he had said, had brought the terrible Eyes-in-the-hands upon them; that the welfare of the tribe depended upon[pg 171]her sacrifice to the angered Unmentionable One even as she had been doomed; and threatening that they would take the insolent white man, whose magic was as water, and sacrifice him as well, as was desired by the spirit of Tarum.The longer he spoke the more excited he grew. Motivated by the sudden conviction that the sacrifice of Bakuma, whose action he had foretold so successfully, and the slaughter of the white would really restore to him his repute and remove at the same time the problem of controlling a superior magician who threatened to become his rival, Bakahenzie began to work himself up into the necessary state of prophetic hysteria. Cowering against the camp-bed Bakuma whimpered with terror; Mungongo incoherently begged Moonspirit to give up the girl.Not a muscle moved upon Birnier’s face; nor even did his eyes turn in the direction of the menacing crowd who with uplifted spears joggled each other around Bakahenzie. Birnier knew that it was a supreme test of nerve; knew that any attempt to snatch a rifle or a movement of any sort, would precipitate action on their side. He had no intention of surrendering the girl to a hideous fate, and also he saw beyond the incident that if Bakahenzie were to triumph over him now, not only would his prestige with the natives be gone for ever, but that his fate would be surely sealed. Slowly, exaggeratedly, as if he were alone, he killed a mosquito upon his bare right breast and lighted his pipe anew.Bakahenzie advanced a step followed by the warriors. His voice had reached the falsetto timbre. Mungongo lost his head entirely and seizing Bakuma, began to[pg 172]drag her out of the tent. Birnier turned his head leisurely towards him. Said he very loudly:“It is not seemly to rape a woman in my presence, O Mungongo. Let her be, for I will buy thee one.”Mungongo ceased to pull at Bakuma’s arms and stared as if paralysed. Birnier saw the eyes switch in a terrified glance at the warriors behind him and heard Bakahenzie’s yell to kill.For one moment he thought that indeed the end had come. Before he could reach the rifle a dozen spears would be in his back. He sat motionless, theAnatomy of Melancholystill in his hand, and watched the gauge of Mungongo’s eyes. Bakahenzie’s voice rose to a screech. Suddenly Birnier wheeled round in his chair, snatched up the pencil and staring hard at them, began to sketch faces on the open page of the book.At the sight the warriors ceased their shuffling dance, were arrested with the spears in their hands in as many poses. Bakahenzie’s scream was stoppered as if by a hand upon his mouth. In the silence their heavy breathing rivalled the twitter and hum of the forest. Birnier sketched furiously, glaring portentously from the group to the paper. Bakahenzie took a step forward, a nervous step, and yelled,“Kill!”but his voice released those of the warriors. In one loud shout they cried:“He bewitches us! He bewitches us!”As Birnier bent his head to make another magic mark upon the magic book he heard the rush of feet.“They have fled!”squealed Mungongo, still clutching Bakuma.[pg 173]Birnier sighed and dropped his pencil as he glanced up. Bakahenzie and the warriors had disappeared, but by the fire squatted Marufa unconcernedly scratching his skinny ribs.[pg 174]Chapter 16Changed was the City of the Snake, the place of kings. Upon the site where had been the hive of huts wrapped in the green arms of the banana plantation, laboured under the incandescent sun gangs of prisoners under armed guards upon the building of larger huts laid out in streets, broad and geometrical, lined with correct ditches for drainage. Around the outskirts here and there remained charred posts.Upon the hill of MKoffo was a palisade enclosing the barracks of two companies of the askaris and two guns. No brown cones peeped like candle-snuffers above the sea of green fronds upon the hills of the tombs of kings, but from the sacred hill of Kawa Kendi commanding the approach to the valley rose, black against the sky, the triangle of the roof frame of a large bungalow; around the crown of the hill was a stout palisade through which grinned in the sun the muzzles of a Nordenfeldt and a pom-pom; and outside upon a levee strutted rigidly four sentries night and day, a perpetual reminder to the passer-by below of efficient vigilance.Within was a methodical formation of round huts dominated by a square one; at the far end, and in solitary grandeur beneath the Imperial flag upon a roughly-hewn flag-pole, was a green marquee tent, the temporary quarters of the Kommandant.[pg 175]Under the tent verandah at the rear where were his private quarters sat zu Pfeiffer with a towel tucked around his neck upon which was scattered inch-lengths of hair. Sergeant Schultz sheared deftly with clippers like a reaper in a field of corn. When he had completed the final trimming behind the ears, he stood aside with the air of an artist viewing his work.“Is that pleasing to your Excellence?”Zu Pfeiffer ran a hand around his skull.“Ya, that is better and cooler, sergeant.”With a professional air Schultz whisked around the Kommandant’s neck with a light brush, untucked the towel and brushed him down. As zu Pfeiffer rose Bakunjala appeared with a broom of small branches and a pan and proceeded to sweep the earthen floor. Schultz neatly folded up the towel, placed it on the chair, and stood at attention.“Is that all, Excellence?”“Ya, sergeant. Take a cigar.”“Thank you, Excellence!”The sergeant selected one, saluted and departed. Zu Pfeiffer lounged in a basket chair. The usual water bag and syphon were suspended at his elbow above sparklet and brandy bottles, and a box of cigars. Around him on the floor was a litter of papers, envelopes and documents. On his wrist sparkled the jewelled bracelet and between fingers, one of which bore the large diamond which had earned him his native name, was an official document bearing the Imperial Eagles.As he read he smiled and patted his left moustache approvingly. Officially the authorities would not[pg 176]comply with his request made before leaving Ingonya for two more companies of askaris with white non-commissioned officers and two more guns; but unofficially he was informed that they would be supplied later and that the authorities were pleased. He picked up a private letter and re-read it. Then he smiled again, a sneering twist remaining at the corner of the mouth. Always he was informed by sympathetic friends and an agency of the whereabouts and doings of Lucille. On the 1st of August she had been due at Wiesbaden.He threw the letter on the table with an irritable gesture and scowled as he drank. The arrival of the mail always brought vivid regrets for the glories and comforts he was missing by being condemned to war with“dirty swines of niggers.”That was part of the penalty he had had to pay for being a gentleman in a land of dollar grubbers, yet a matter to be written up against the account of Lucille, the entzückend Lucille. He must have been verrückt, he reflected savagely. The delicate lips softened in ludicrous contrast to the brutal outline of a cropped skull. The blare of a trumpet disturbed his reveries, reveries which were apt to rankle until among his satellites went the word that the Eater-of-men was possessed by the demon once more.After he had elegantly finished a small cup of café cognac and a cigarette, Sergeant Schultz strutted up, saluted, and at a nod from zu Pfeiffer handed a document to the Kommandant, a roster of the chiefs who had submitted with the approximate number of their followers. Officially there were five chiefs with some six thousand men who had nominally accepted[pg 177]the new ruler, each one of whom had to leave as hostage for his fidelity a son, who lived under guard in the village beneath the guns.Zu Pfeiffer needed the extra companies and white men to establish stations at various points with the object of gradually extending the sphere of military occupation. Zu Pfeiffer left nothing, as far as he could foresee, to chance; his maxim was to conserve his force to the utmost, to attain his objective at the least possible cost in men and material. The policy of terrorisation was based on the reasoning that eventually schrecklichkeit saved both the conqueror and the conquered bloodshed and trouble; for if the enemy were not so impressed with the fact that all resistance was utterly useless, he would resort to the sporadic risings which would entail more slaughter on both sides. Zu Pfeiffer, acting on the teachings of the German masters, sought to make war psychologically as well as militarily, economically as well as geographically. Hence his dramatic step in the overthrow of the idol in person, and the care with which he planned to impress each chief and native with his omnipotence and magic. This system of the application of political science as well as of military science, of course, was sound, save for a temperamental error: the lack of sufficient imagination to realize the unknown quantity of chance, the inevitable mistake of military scientists who are loath to admit the artist to their counsels, exemplified by men of genius, such as Napoleon and Leonardo da Vinci, who were both mathematicians and artists.In zu Pfeiffer’s case, as in others of his type, the motivating principle was not bourgeois greed of material[pg 178]gain for himself; gain he could afford to despise in his wealth; such would have been contrary to the code of a gentleman. While he had not hesitated for a moment to destroy his rival, Birnier, he would not touch with one finger any of his goods; for that reason had he given permission to the corporal to take Birnier’s equipment, so that he would not even be contaminated by the possession of them, a temperamental error again which had led to Birnier’s escape.The driving power in his caste and tribe was love of power to an excess masked with portentous solemnity under the cloak of benefiting this people and the peoples of the world; forcing them to have broad streets and sanitary arrangements, compelling them to laugh, to sing, and to be happy whether they would or no: an urge which is the curse of the world, the impulse to interfere in other folk’s affairs, to teach them, to make them to know the true God, the right way of living, the right way of doing everything from the rising of the first sun of consciousness to that happy crack of doom when our planet tries to enforce its orbit upon some other planet.Zu Pfeiffer pinched a cigar tip, lighted it meticulously and considered the roster.“Sergeant, this man—what’s the animal’s name? Kalomato—has his son surrendered himself?”“No, Excellence. The man says that he has fled the country.”“Where does he come from?”“The neighbourhood, Excellence.”“That means that his son is with the rebels?”[pg 179]“Probably not, Excellence. He is very young, they say.”“That does not matter. Sequester all the chief’s property. If he won’t give it up let the askaris deal with him. If that doesn’t work, have him shot.”“Excellence!”For such obstinate cases zu Pfeiffer had fallen upon the custom of serving two purposes by handing over the victim to the mercies of his askaris which whetted their sadistic appetites and usually secured the desired revelation of the whereabouts of the hidden ivory or other goods under the torture of the burning feet, and divers other ingenious methods. Of late this practice had proved so satisfactory that the mere threat was usually sufficient.“This man,”continued zu Pfeiffer tapping the roster with his long nail,“his son is here?”“Ja, Excellence.”“Has he paid the tithe due?”“No, Excellence. He refuses.”“Have the son shot.”“Excellence!”“Any report this morning?”“Ja, Excellence. A Wamungo spy brings news that a white man entered the country from the south.”“Description?”“They say he is a trader, Excellence, coming from the Kivu direction, but the savage cannot give any satisfactory description. It is the first white he has seen, he says.”“He won’t be the last!”snapped zu Pfeiffer with a twitch of the left sentry moustache.“Saunders,[pg 180]possibly. If so he should be here shortly to report. Well?”“The King and the few men left with him are in hiding, Excellence, in dense forest. They are demoralized and quarrel among themselves. Many are coming to surrender, for they say that you, Excellence, have eaten their god.”“Ach!”said zu Pfeiffer with satisfaction.“What did I tell you, sergeant?”“Your Excellence was correct in every respect.”“Um! Pity I can’t spare a company. That would settle them before they have a chance to reorganize. Ach, but they haven’t the sense, the animals, to do that.… Parade, sergeant.”Schultz saluted.“Ready, Excellence.”Zu Pfeiffer rose, took up his gold-mounted sjambok, and the two walked around the big marquee to the front where between the orderly lines of huts those askaris not on duty were drawn up for inspection. The sergeant barked. Bayonets flashed as they presented arms. Another bark and they ported arms. Zu Pfeiffer walked down the line inspecting buttons, bolts, and rifles as meticulously as he had lighted his cigar. The fifteenth barrel he thrust away petulantly and flicked the askari’s face with his sjambok. The muscles of the man’s face twitched as the blow came and the eyes bulged, but he did not flinch.“Twenty-five, sergeant!”“Excellence!”Zu Pfeiffer passed on. When the inspection was finished he stood rigidly smoking, coldly watching[pg 181]Schultz dismiss the men. Then he stalked down the hill with Schultz slightly in the rear, followed by a big black Munyamwezi sergeant-major, towards the opposite hill, of MKoffo. But at the bottom of where there were some half-constructed huts he paused.“The women, sergeant?”“The large hut, Excellence. Two hundred as ordered.”“No women of chiefs?”“No, Excellence. Those attending on the hostages are housed apart.”Zu Pfeiffer strode towards the hut indicated which stood near to the edge of a rased banana plantation. Two sentries without the fence presented arms stiffly and remained immobile. Within the compound were some sixty or more young girls, mostly having the black complexion of the slave type. The chattering and giggling ceased as the tall form of the dreaded Eyes-in-the-hands stood in the gate. A slight smile flirted his lips.From the deep violet of the hut interior darted a young girl into the sunlight. At the sight of the white men she poised on her toes, one foot forward and hands extended as if about to whirl into a dance, staring with the curiosity of a fawn.Tall for a native maid, the light bronze of her immature breasts revealed that she was of the Wongolo ruling caste. Around her slender neck was a circlet of bright blue beads. As zu Pfeiffer stiffened and stared she wheeled and fled into the hut.“Gott im Himmel!”he muttered.“The body of Lucille in Carmen!”“Who is that woman?”he demanded of Schultz.[pg 182]“I don’t know, Excellence,”replied the sergeant and spoke to the black sergeant-major.“She is the daughter of the chief Bamana, Excellence, visiting these other women. I will have her removed.”“I will not have the sense of caste abused,”said zu Pfeiffer, gazing into the hut.“That is not policy. Have her sent to the fort, sergeant, and placed under guard.”“Excellence!”Zu Pfeiffer swung on his heels and strode out and up the hill of MKoffo. The inspection was more hurried than usual that day. Then he returned to the hill of Kawa Kendi to hold court in the big marquee tent. After a lunch and a long siesta in the heat of the noonday he strolled around the village superintending the rasing of huts and the staking out of the new village which was to rise upon the ashes of the old one, a concrete example of the wisdom and power of the new lord, Eyes-in-the-hands.Under squads of askaris gangs of prisoners, criminal and political, bound by a light chain about each neck, laboured at clearing away charred stumps and debris, while other natives portered in saplings and loads of grass, each village which had submitted sending its allotted quota.Trumpets blared. The keepers of the coughing monsters made magical dances with their fire sticks up on the hill of Kawa Kendi. The black, white and red totem of the conqueror fluttered to earth like a wounded bird. Night closed like a black lid placed upon the steaming cauldron of the sun.After dinner zu Pfeiffer sat in his private tent at[pg 183]the rear of the marquee drinking brandy. Upon a camp table covered by a violet cloth was the portrait in the ivory frame at which he gazed as he smoked. The blue eyes and the feminine lips softened as sentimentally as any sex-starved Puritan virgin; perhaps not in spite of, but because of, a mediæval code as senseless as the native system of tabu, for natural emotions suppressed find an outlet in some form.From outside came the twitter and hum of the forest, the rhythm of frogs, the dim bleating of a goat and the distant wailing of the women’s death lament. Zu Pfeiffer drank and smoked and stared at the portrait in the ivory frame. Once he slapped irritably at a mosquito which had escaped the double net over the tent door. A wave of emotion seemed to well within him. He looked as if he were about to blubber as leaning over the table he peered intently at the pictured face and whispered:“Nur einmal noch möcht ich dich sehen,Und sinken vor dir aufs KnieUnd sterbend zu dir sprechen:‘Madam, ich liebe Sie!’ …“Lucille! … Ach, Lucille!”He drew himself back with a jerk, drank his brandy at a gulp and called angrily:“Bakunjala!”The flutter of sand preceded a gasped:“Bwana!”Zu Pfeiffer gave him an irritable command. Four[pg 184]minutes elapsed during which he gazed steadily at the portrait. He turned at the slither of feet. Bright blue beads glittered in the lamplight as the daughter of Bamana sank upon her heels.

[pg 152]Chapter 14About a mile from Birnier’s camp, through forest so dense that even the progress of a native clambering from trunk to trunk and over undergrowth ten feet deep was slow and tortuous, was the temporary village of Zalu Zako; some six or seven hundred huts of branches and creepers straggling over a wide area of ground which had been roughly cleared from undergrowth by a few slaves and women.The hut of Zalu Zako, as those of most of the bigger chiefs and wizards, was furnished with reeds upon the floor to avoid squatting actually in the green slime, and boasted a palisade run from tree to tree enclosing the huts of his two wives, women and slaves. Every morning the leader of a long line of slaves bringing supplies from the villages in the open, chanting softly the song of the march, entered the village through a mass of creepers which hung like a curtain of humid green. Many hundreds of warriors with their chiefs had deserted their king after the flight from Yagonyana’s village.In the mind of Zalu Zako was doubt and perplexity as in those of his people. All the accepted“laws”and“facts”of his world had been set at naught; it was as if buck lived in the rivers and fish ran roaring through the forests. Fear, curiosity, and resentment filled him. Sometimes it appeared that Eyes-in-the-hands[pg 153]had indeed proved to be a more powerful god than the Unmentionable One, of whom he was, or should have been, high priest and king; that he had eaten him up as they said; so perhaps the better course was to submit to this being invincible. Yet this very anarchy of his beliefs had released once more the passion for Bakuma whom he had renounced, the desire for whom had been inhibited by the sense of the inevitability of the mandate of the witch-doctors. Hereditary custom, which made him feel that it was incumbent upon him—a primitive sense of duty—to be king-god warred with this longing for Bakuma. The fact that he was not yet bound to celibacy quickened the seed of rebellion against the domination of the wizards. If he could escape the godhood then Bakuma was alive again. For to his mind a ban upon the personal ego was far stronger than any ban upon a second person.Chewing the cud of this sweet grass of hope squatted Zalu Zako one morning in the dignified solitude of his compound on the threshold of his hut. Opposite him sat the brother conspirator of Bakahenzie, Marufa, a brown shadow in comparison to the gleaming of the royal insignia of the ivory bangles. They sat silent, motionless, save for the occasional sparse movement of snuff taking. In the steamy heat a continual mutter and rustle persisted, punctuated by the harsh scream of a green parrot or the squawks of a troop of monkeys. In the faintly spattered sunlight percolating through the bowered roof vivid lizards rivalled in colour the rare finger of an orchid clinging to the great tree beside the hut. Through the humid air came the faint chant of carriers at the end of a journey; swelled[pg 154]louder and ceased. At the mutter of greeting near by Marufa grunted.“The beaten dog returns to nose in the garbage,”he mumbled.“Maybe he hath news of the doings,”commented Zalu Zako after a pause.“The young dog starts a buck in every tree stump,”returned Marufa.The mumble of voices in the hut of Yabolo near toZaluZako’s continued. Neither Zalu Zako nor Marufa knew other than that, after his downfall, Sakamata had retired to his native village on the southern boundary where the people, being laymen, had believed the excuse for his absence given by Sakamata that he had retired to the forest for one moon in the guise of his totem, the wart hog, which animal became accordingly tabu to their killing for that period. At length came a young slave from Yabolo who, after saluting, delivered a message from Yabolo requesting that Zalu Zako receive him and his relative, Sakamata, who had weighty news for him.Presently entered the recusant bearing signs of prosperity in the flowered print about his loins, the ancient cartridge pouch slung around his waist and a huge revolver of the pin-fire model dangling from a neck which appeared more tortoise-like than ever. Before Zalu Zako he squatted and after they had exchanged the usual hostages to hostility, Sakamata inquired most politely after the health of the Son-of-the-Snake, of his cattle and of his fortune, and last of all of his women. Sakamata, aware of the loss of prestige suffered by his old enemy, Bakahenzie, presented[pg 155]ZaluZako with a duplicate of the pin-fire revolver. Followed an equally extensive greeting to Marufa. Only when these ceremonies had been punctiliously performed did they begin to discuss the news.At first Sakamata proceeded to repeat the popular saying regarding the doings of Eyes-in-the-hands. Various chiefs had visited the fort of the white man bringing presents in their hands, terrified of what might happen, yet, according to Sakamata, their fears had been dispelled immediately; for the wise new god had received them as brothers and had made offerings to them as was the custom for strangers to do. It was true, he admitted in cross-examination, that whole villages had been put to the sword and burned; but, he demanded, was not that the way of a mighty warrior to those who resisted him?Moreover, continued Sakamata, to fight him was death. His magic was such that no man could prevail against him. Had any doctor yet succeeded in making successful magic against the Invincible One? His magic was terrible to behold. Spirits which were imprisoned in houses of trees (boxes) spoke and sang according to their tribe.“Clk!”commented Zalu Zako incredulously.“These words are as the wind in the trees at night speaking to girls,”commented Marufa slowly.“What man hath beheld those things with his own eyes?”Deliberately Sakamata tapped snuff, inhaled it with relish, meticulously, that not one grain was[pg 156]lost upon his white caterpillar moustache, and said indifferently:“Even he who sits before you.”“Eh!”Another point was scored. But both Zalu Zako and Marufa regarded him as one who, having had dealings with the devil and yet had emerged safely, was to be suspected of some ghastly pact. After a calculated pause Sakamata continued nonchalantly:“There is no magic like unto Eyes-in-the-hands, the Mighty One. A great fort hath he made upon the hill of thy grandfather (MFunya MPopo), O Zalu Zako, girded with a great palisade, around which walk everthered devils in uniform, each one of whom hath a gun with seven voices. And peering through that palisade, like a terrible black leopard from his lair, are the monster coughing devils. Eh! who are they who can withstand them?”“Eh!”echoed his audience with lively memories of the“coughing devils.”“And he hath a mighty hut made from the white man’s cloth of colour like to the forest full of things to make magic. Seated upon his chair like unto a man plucking bananas, the eyes upon his hands and in his head gleam so fiercely that water is made within a man. He who dares to look sees not only Eyes-in-the-hands, but his two souls, even as thou seest thine own two souls staring at thee with the frightened eyes that are thine!”“Ehh!”This time a genuine belly grunt was elicited, and even Marufa moved uneasily.“Thou hast been bewitched,”he added to mask his[pg 157]astonishment.“For a man may see his own soul in any pool, but never two souls!”“Even is it as I have told thee, O son of MTungo,”asserted Sakamata.Sakamata discovered the use of snuff again to be necessary. He watched covertly the repressed excitement in the eyes of Zalu Zako.“And what said the great magician unto thee?”Marufa demanded to cover his discomfort.“He spoke white words as a warrior should,”said Sakamata.“He gave words which told me that he was but a small wizard. He made my eyes to see the soul of a greater god than he, who was there and yet was not there; for at the touch of his magic hand with many eyes, behold! there were two more souls of the god which returned even as I looked.”“Ehh! A greater god than he?”demanded Zalu Zako, with a flicker of the white of his eyes.“Even as I have said, a greater god who is king of all the white man’s countries in the sea, who eats up those whom he pleases. Yet, even though he may bewitch with one of his eyes, did he speak softly to Yagombi, the son of Bagazaan, and Zalayan, the son of Kilmanyana, who were with me, bidding us to tell our brethren that if they would not acknowledge the true king that then he would eat us up, even as he ate up the Unmentionable One. But to those who would submit and make due tribute, would he protect in peace from the white men who, fleeing from the wrath of the great god, would soon come to eat up our country like the locusts.”“Eh! ehh! white men as the locusts!”[pg 158]“Thus he spoke and bade us to go forth and tell our brethren.”This was a wholly new notion and proportionally serious if true. But Marufa, recovering from the first shock, wrapped himself in his professional cloak of omniscient indifference as he recollected that Sakamata was an unfrocked priest of the craft. The group took snuff sternly until Sakamata, having accomplished his mission, deemed it wise to retire to allow the suggestive ideas to germinate. So gravely he arose and departed from the hut of Zalu Zako and went under the patronage of Yabolo to another compound where, to a group of the most disaffected chiefs, including MYalu, he repeated nearly word for word the same harangue.In the minds ofZalu Zakoand Marufa the report of Sakamata had been exceedingly disquieting. Marufa began to wonder whether he had not better make terms with the new god before worse came to the worst in the form of white men like locusts, a menace fraught with dire possibilities which were based upon the rumours which every native had heard of the ways of white men in bulk: to the Wongolo merely vague stories from the north of the conquest of the Sudan by the British. Marufa’s ambitions in the craft were almost submerged in the dread that, wizard though he was, he would have small chance of distinction and power among a race of wizards. To Zalu Zako, although the prospect of unlimited white men swooping upon them was terrifying, his semi-conscious mind was rather occupied with Bakuma than with affairs of state which seemed merely to exist to torment lovers. However he, too, was sufficiently impressed to consider seriously the[pg 159]advisability of submitting before it was too late; the motivating principle of the scheme was an idea which suggested that, in some indefinable way, such action might lead to the avoidance of the ban of godhood and thus to the reinstatement of Bakuma in the realm of possibilities.To Bakahenzie the report was more alarming than to the others, inasmuch as it appeared to portend the irretrievable loss of his power. He saw the effect upon their minds, the inclination to yield to the new conqueror, which, of course, would mean the last of his followers being swept away in the crowd like dry leaves in the wind. But more than the others he suspected the motives of Sakamata, the man whom he had unfrocked. Arguing in terms of his own mental processes he saw correctly enough that Sakamata was surely playing for himself, and guessed equally truly that Sakamata would get, or imagined that he would get, many rewards, political as well as in kind, for his services as jackal to the white man. But he listened and said no word for, or against, him. He was astute enough never to make a move until he had, or thought that he had, all the moves of the game worked out. Marufa was just as wily; he related the news given by Sakamata in a voice which gave no hint by tone or word what any of his opinions might be. Then, as they sat like graven images, supremely indifferent to the doings of Sakamata or aught else, entered the warrior bearing greetings from Birnier to Zalu Zako.Immediately Zalu Zako, to whose less skilled mind in intrigue this succession of world-shaking events was bewildering, feared that already the plague of[pg 160]white men like locusts had commenced. But when he learned that the white man was alone and was Infunyana, the only white man whom he had ever met, he perceived vaguely some remote prospect of achieving his desires. Almost eagerly, for a native, he commanded the messenger to summon the white man to his presence.To Bakahenzie the unexpected arrival of another white was an unforeseen potentiality of force which might be utilized to his own benefit; so thought Marufa, which was in effect exactly the same reaction as Zalu Zako’s. Therefore Bakahenzie immediately protested upon the ground that no stranger could be allowed to approach the Son-of-the-Snake, or even the village, who had not been purified according to custom. When Zalu Zako demurred he retorted:“Hath not one white man who was permitted to enter our country without the demon being exorcised wreaked disaster upon us? Wouldst thou then destroy us utterly?”Zalu Zako was silent. Much as he would have desired to browbeat Bakahenzie, much as his confidence in the powers of the chief witch-doctor had waned in his estimation, yet there remained sufficient to overawe him when the matter was put to a crucial test. Bakahenzie would, so he stated, go himself to see the new white man, thus unselfishly taking upon his person the whole risk of the lasting magic of a stranger unpurified. But Marufa had no intention of allowing Bakahenzie to obtain a monopoly of this possible new ally. Unlike Zalu Zako he was not burdened with awe and had confidence in his own magic to overcome[pg 161]any evil that Bakahenzie might seek to work against him. So when he announced that he would accompany Bakahenzie, that distressed wizard was too conscious of his dwindling prestige to object.[pg 162]Chapter 15Just after sun-up next morning as Birnier was seated at the door of his tent reading hisMelancholyand drinking his coffee, a startled“clk”caused him to glance round. He saw Bakuma rise suddenly from the fire and disappear. The next moment materialized out of the miasma of the morning the figures of Bakahenzie and Marufa, followed by a file of warriors.Portentously Bakahenzie stalked to the fire and squatted down without even a murmur to Mungongo busy with the breakfast. Bakahenzie remembered Infunyana very well, but nevertheless designedly Birnier ignored him in return. So they sat, the two wizards taking snuff with grave concern almost at the feet of the white who continued to smoke and to read.The sign boded ill, for the insistence upon the punctilious etiquette inferred that Bakahenzie was disposed to be suspicious, if not directly hostile. And indeed the warriors’ description of the magic of Moonspirit, vide Mungongo, had made Bakahenzie uneasy.After a full half-hour Bakahenzie, as if beaten in this solemn game, turned gravely and saluted the white. Birnier looked down from his chair with the affectation of just having noticed that some one was there. After a pause he returned the greeting, a little point which[pg 163]Bakahenzie thoroughly appreciated. Birnier had learned that according to Mungongo and the warrior, Zalu Zako had not yet been anointed king-god; therefore that Bakahenzie evidently intended to keep the young man in the background.After preliminaries, Birnier inquired after Zalu Zako and informed Bakahenzie that he had journeyed expressly to see him. Bakahenzie ignored the question and began to talk about Eyes-in-the-hands, demanding to know whether Birnier was his brother.“Nay,”said Birnier,“Eyes-in-the-hands is not of the same tribe as Moonspirit,”for he sedulously followed up the title which Mungongo had given him.“Eyes-in-the-hands comes from a country twelve moons distant from my country.”Marufa squatting beside him grunted; Bakahenzie took snuff nonchalantly as if he did not believe a word.“Eyes-in-the-hands is a mighty magician in his own country,”said Bakahenzie in the form of an assertion.“The magic of Eyes-in-the-hands to the magic of Moonspirit,”stated Birnier,“is as water to the beer of the banana.”“Eyes-in-the-hands,”remarked Bakahenzie indifferently,“hath magic to make the souls of man to be seen by all.”“Those are but the souls of the belly and body, but Moonspirit can enchant so that the spirit of the head of man be seen at night,”boasted Birnier, wondering what trick of zu Pfeiffer’s had produced the effect.“Eyes-in-the-hands,”insisted Bakahenzie,“hath[pg 164]a spirit in a piece of a tree which cries or laughs, sings or talks to his magic.”“Moonspirit,”retorted Birnier (thinking“Gramophone, but I can go one better, my friend”),“hath also a spirit in a piece of tree who will speak words of wisdom unto thee in thine own tongue, who will repeat that which is said unto him in thy tongue or in my tongue, who will speak words of wisdom even unto thee.”Bakahenzie seemed outmatched in the boasting tournament. He tapped snuff woodenly. Marufa scratched his skinny ribs thoughtfully. Then Bakahenzie remarked:“He that hath not been cleansed may not look upon the Son-of-the-Snake.”“He that hath not been anointed need have no fear of the evil eye.”“Hath not one who was not cleansed entered and cast evil upon the tribe?”demanded Bakahenzie.“If the fence is not strong the leopard will enter.”“If the leopard be not strong and swift indeed may he not be killed in the hut?”inquired Bakahenzie.“If a leopard and a wild-cat break in, then wilt thou not kill the leopard first?”“Even so,”retorted Bakahenzie;“then is water stronger than beer, even as the beer does reveal?”Birnier nearly smiled in recognition of the hit.“Nay, does not beer make the fool to talk foolishness? Dost thou then cast away the banana? Does not one[pg 165]talk foolishness also who is sick and yet discardeth good medicine, because he feareth to poison his belly?”“Even so,”said Bakahenzie obstinately,“does the sick man exorcise the good medicine lest an enemy hath made magic thereupon?”“Then,”said Birnier, whose only objection to the ceremony was the delay and the messiness,“let the good medicine be purified.”Bakahenzie grunted and covertly took stock of the tent and equipment visible. Upon the pile of cases stacked just inside the tent his eyes rested some time, but he would not make any inquiry. Marufa, too, was occupied in the same manner. Bakahenzie was recalling the previous meeting with Birnier in the village of MFunyaMPopo—of that day when Birnier had not made any attempt to impress the native mind with“magic”other than the ordinary“miracles”in the routine of a white man’s life.“When the Son-of-the-Snake,”inquired Birnier, who had learned as much of the hagiocracy as Mungongo knew,“hath taken up the Burden, wilt thou then drive Eyes-in-the-hands from the country?”Bakahenzie slowly withdrew his eyes from the fascinating case as far as Birnier’s booted foot.“Hast thou, white man, the magic twig that makes fire?”he demanded.“Even so.”Birnier took a box of matches from his pocket and struck one. Bakahenzie and Marufa watched him solemnly. Then a lean bronze hand was outstretched. Birnier gave him the box. Slowly and gravely Bakahenzie,[pg 166]the chief witch-doctor, extracted a match, turned it over and over, smelt it, tasted it, regarded it, and struck it on the top of the box. It was a safety match, so nothing happened. Birnier, without a vestige of a smile, instructed him to strike it only upon the black piece at the side. That impressed Bakahenzie and Marufa. The former tried again as directed and succeeded. Holding the match too near the head he burned the quick of the nail, but not a muscle quivered. He would not even admit that the white man’s devil stick had bitten him. But he was still more impressed.At a sign from Birnier, Mungongo brought from the tent a nickel-plated revolver and cartridges, which he placed at the feet of Bakahenzie without comment. Apparently Bakahenzie did not notice the action or the gift. He held out the matches to return to the white man. Birnier requested him to keep them. He wrapped up the box in his loin-cloth and fell to further contemplation of the cases. He was cogitating. The value of this white had suddenly increased. Evidently he could make small magic. Perhaps he could make as much big magic as Eyes-in-the-hands. Who knew? But then if that was so he could make greater magic than he, Bakahenzie, could. Bakahenzie saw that if Moonspirit were such a great magician he would be difficult or impossible to control. Naturally Bakahenzie could only understand his own motives in others. His problem now was to discover some means by which he could control Moonspirit, make of him a familiar to work to his own ends. Why was he so insistent upon seeing Zalu Zako? Bakahenzie became more and more suspicious. He saw[pg 167]another reason why the white man must be kept away from Zalu Zako. To refuse to purify him would give a valid excuse that he may not look upon the Son-of-the-Snake. But he did not wish to displease him; also Marufa could perform the purification.Again Birnier repeated the question regarding the overthrow of Eyes-in-the-hands. Bakahenzie took snuff, regarded the revolver lying at his feet idly, and deigned to reply.“When that which must be hath come to pass, then shall the children of the Snake eat up their enemies as a lizard eats flies.”“And what is that which must come to pass?”Bakahenzie sat silent awhile, slightly shocked at the directness of the question; then as if to humour the white man, he replied:“When the Bridegroom hath taken the Bride.”The ceremony of purification could not take place until the following day, because such things may not be hurried; and moreover, various potent charms had to be sent for to the native village. Meanwhile Bakahenzie squatted by the fire, contemplating the nickel-plated revolver and affairs of policy, and opposite him sat the meditative Marufa.From the hour of the monkey, Bakahenzie, unconscious of the small face and anxious eyes watching the camp from the tangle of green, was busy muttering spells over a calabash containing a magic concoction composed of the entrails of a white goat, certain herbs and the eyes of a black wild-cat. When the roof of the forest was a patterned ceiling against an incandescent glow, Birnier stripped to the waist, and submitted himself to the hands of the wizard who,[pg 168]after scattering the feathers of a scarlet parrot into the calabash, smeared the left breast, the forehead and the right arm of the white man, to the accompaniment of an incantation. These insignia and specifics he must not remove for three suns; nor could he be permitted to look upon the semi-divine Zalu Zako until whatever evil influence his foreign body might possess should have been exorcised by this powerful medicine.To sit around half nude in such heat was no arduous undertaking, but to sleep without rubbing off the concoction was another matter; also the odour thereof was not pleasing to the nostrils of a white man. But Birnier accomplished the feat by smoking excessively and by marking with a pencil the various nostrums recommended by the amiable Burton, many of which were hardly less disagreeable than Doctor Bakahenzie’s prescription.That worthy’s slaves had erected a hut for him nigh to the tent in the door of which he squatted, usually with Marufa beside him, throughout the day, with ever a contemplative eye upon his victim, an eye which Birnier was sure was eagerly seeking some excuse to plead that he had inadvertently rendered the magic impotent, and must accordingly have the ceremony repeated.Amused by the ridiculous sight he presented, plastered over with this filth, Birnier made Mungongo, whom he had taught to operate a camera, take a photograph of him, which would entertain Lucille, as well as be of scientific interest. Bakahenzie and Marufa watched this performance from the fire with amazement, for they imagined that the camera was some kind of[pg 169]gun. When they heard the click, they grunted as if expecting the white man to fall dead. Birnier of course knew the universal native belief in the picture being the soul, or one of the souls. He summoned Bakahenzie and Marufa and showed them a photograph which, after some difficulty, they recognised as Mungongo.“Eh,”grunted a warrior,“indeed is Mungongo the slave of the white man, for hath he not imprisoned his soul?”Mungongo laughed, yet he believed in the superstition as implicitly as any of his compatriots, for said he:“It is a wise man who hath that which is his always within his hand, even as Moonspirit hath the soul of his favourite wife with him always, so that she may not be unfaithful unto him.”“Eh, he is wiser than the Banana Eater!”grunted the warrior in admiration.Birnier’s training to control his features was strained in the effort not to express surprise. He could not imagine from what Mungongo had derived this astonishing statement, until he recollected that the boy had seen a photograph of Lucille among his papers.After this successful demonstration of his sophistication, Mungongo was anxious that Moonspirit give an exhibition of his magic to dumbfound the chief witch-doctor, desiring most ardently to work the gramophone, to operate which he had also learned. But on reflection, Birnier decided that it was not his policyto makehis thunder too cheap.Each evening as the last subtle violet quivered in the[pg 170]trees had Bakuma glided from the shelter of the undergrowth under the flap of Birnier’s tent, where she had lain until the first tint of dawn on the foliage of the forest. Birnier had wished her to leave for some village until Bakahenzie had left the camp, but Bakuma had frantically pleaded to remain, knowing that the craft was seeking her throughout the country since Bakahenzie’s latest interview with mighty Tarum.But upon the third day as Birnier was seated reading philosophically at his tent door, the inevitable happened. A loud outcry arose and from the tangle of creepers started the lithe figure of Bakuma, who darted past him into the tent. For a moment there was silence. But Birnier guessed what the matter was. Bakahenzie emerged from the wall of green and cried out in a loud voice. Instantly the warriors around leaped to their feet, and broke out into great clamour.Mungongo, busy with the cooking pots, rushed to Birnier’s side, gesticulating wildly. Inside the tent crouched Bakuma. Towards Birnier advanced Bakahenzie and the warriors, whose dilated eyes and spears in their hands betokened that Bakahenzie had stirred their deepest feelings of terror and murder. Birnier smoked placidly, neither stirring nor permitting a sign of their presence to cross his features.Mungongo, startled out of his confidence in Moonspirit, excitedly bade Bakuma go forth as Bakahenzie, stopping in front of the white man, broke into a harangue, bidding him to give up Bakuma whose sacrilege in breaking the magic circle, as he had said, had brought the terrible Eyes-in-the-hands upon them; that the welfare of the tribe depended upon[pg 171]her sacrifice to the angered Unmentionable One even as she had been doomed; and threatening that they would take the insolent white man, whose magic was as water, and sacrifice him as well, as was desired by the spirit of Tarum.The longer he spoke the more excited he grew. Motivated by the sudden conviction that the sacrifice of Bakuma, whose action he had foretold so successfully, and the slaughter of the white would really restore to him his repute and remove at the same time the problem of controlling a superior magician who threatened to become his rival, Bakahenzie began to work himself up into the necessary state of prophetic hysteria. Cowering against the camp-bed Bakuma whimpered with terror; Mungongo incoherently begged Moonspirit to give up the girl.Not a muscle moved upon Birnier’s face; nor even did his eyes turn in the direction of the menacing crowd who with uplifted spears joggled each other around Bakahenzie. Birnier knew that it was a supreme test of nerve; knew that any attempt to snatch a rifle or a movement of any sort, would precipitate action on their side. He had no intention of surrendering the girl to a hideous fate, and also he saw beyond the incident that if Bakahenzie were to triumph over him now, not only would his prestige with the natives be gone for ever, but that his fate would be surely sealed. Slowly, exaggeratedly, as if he were alone, he killed a mosquito upon his bare right breast and lighted his pipe anew.Bakahenzie advanced a step followed by the warriors. His voice had reached the falsetto timbre. Mungongo lost his head entirely and seizing Bakuma, began to[pg 172]drag her out of the tent. Birnier turned his head leisurely towards him. Said he very loudly:“It is not seemly to rape a woman in my presence, O Mungongo. Let her be, for I will buy thee one.”Mungongo ceased to pull at Bakuma’s arms and stared as if paralysed. Birnier saw the eyes switch in a terrified glance at the warriors behind him and heard Bakahenzie’s yell to kill.For one moment he thought that indeed the end had come. Before he could reach the rifle a dozen spears would be in his back. He sat motionless, theAnatomy of Melancholystill in his hand, and watched the gauge of Mungongo’s eyes. Bakahenzie’s voice rose to a screech. Suddenly Birnier wheeled round in his chair, snatched up the pencil and staring hard at them, began to sketch faces on the open page of the book.At the sight the warriors ceased their shuffling dance, were arrested with the spears in their hands in as many poses. Bakahenzie’s scream was stoppered as if by a hand upon his mouth. In the silence their heavy breathing rivalled the twitter and hum of the forest. Birnier sketched furiously, glaring portentously from the group to the paper. Bakahenzie took a step forward, a nervous step, and yelled,“Kill!”but his voice released those of the warriors. In one loud shout they cried:“He bewitches us! He bewitches us!”As Birnier bent his head to make another magic mark upon the magic book he heard the rush of feet.“They have fled!”squealed Mungongo, still clutching Bakuma.[pg 173]Birnier sighed and dropped his pencil as he glanced up. Bakahenzie and the warriors had disappeared, but by the fire squatted Marufa unconcernedly scratching his skinny ribs.[pg 174]Chapter 16Changed was the City of the Snake, the place of kings. Upon the site where had been the hive of huts wrapped in the green arms of the banana plantation, laboured under the incandescent sun gangs of prisoners under armed guards upon the building of larger huts laid out in streets, broad and geometrical, lined with correct ditches for drainage. Around the outskirts here and there remained charred posts.Upon the hill of MKoffo was a palisade enclosing the barracks of two companies of the askaris and two guns. No brown cones peeped like candle-snuffers above the sea of green fronds upon the hills of the tombs of kings, but from the sacred hill of Kawa Kendi commanding the approach to the valley rose, black against the sky, the triangle of the roof frame of a large bungalow; around the crown of the hill was a stout palisade through which grinned in the sun the muzzles of a Nordenfeldt and a pom-pom; and outside upon a levee strutted rigidly four sentries night and day, a perpetual reminder to the passer-by below of efficient vigilance.Within was a methodical formation of round huts dominated by a square one; at the far end, and in solitary grandeur beneath the Imperial flag upon a roughly-hewn flag-pole, was a green marquee tent, the temporary quarters of the Kommandant.[pg 175]Under the tent verandah at the rear where were his private quarters sat zu Pfeiffer with a towel tucked around his neck upon which was scattered inch-lengths of hair. Sergeant Schultz sheared deftly with clippers like a reaper in a field of corn. When he had completed the final trimming behind the ears, he stood aside with the air of an artist viewing his work.“Is that pleasing to your Excellence?”Zu Pfeiffer ran a hand around his skull.“Ya, that is better and cooler, sergeant.”With a professional air Schultz whisked around the Kommandant’s neck with a light brush, untucked the towel and brushed him down. As zu Pfeiffer rose Bakunjala appeared with a broom of small branches and a pan and proceeded to sweep the earthen floor. Schultz neatly folded up the towel, placed it on the chair, and stood at attention.“Is that all, Excellence?”“Ya, sergeant. Take a cigar.”“Thank you, Excellence!”The sergeant selected one, saluted and departed. Zu Pfeiffer lounged in a basket chair. The usual water bag and syphon were suspended at his elbow above sparklet and brandy bottles, and a box of cigars. Around him on the floor was a litter of papers, envelopes and documents. On his wrist sparkled the jewelled bracelet and between fingers, one of which bore the large diamond which had earned him his native name, was an official document bearing the Imperial Eagles.As he read he smiled and patted his left moustache approvingly. Officially the authorities would not[pg 176]comply with his request made before leaving Ingonya for two more companies of askaris with white non-commissioned officers and two more guns; but unofficially he was informed that they would be supplied later and that the authorities were pleased. He picked up a private letter and re-read it. Then he smiled again, a sneering twist remaining at the corner of the mouth. Always he was informed by sympathetic friends and an agency of the whereabouts and doings of Lucille. On the 1st of August she had been due at Wiesbaden.He threw the letter on the table with an irritable gesture and scowled as he drank. The arrival of the mail always brought vivid regrets for the glories and comforts he was missing by being condemned to war with“dirty swines of niggers.”That was part of the penalty he had had to pay for being a gentleman in a land of dollar grubbers, yet a matter to be written up against the account of Lucille, the entzückend Lucille. He must have been verrückt, he reflected savagely. The delicate lips softened in ludicrous contrast to the brutal outline of a cropped skull. The blare of a trumpet disturbed his reveries, reveries which were apt to rankle until among his satellites went the word that the Eater-of-men was possessed by the demon once more.After he had elegantly finished a small cup of café cognac and a cigarette, Sergeant Schultz strutted up, saluted, and at a nod from zu Pfeiffer handed a document to the Kommandant, a roster of the chiefs who had submitted with the approximate number of their followers. Officially there were five chiefs with some six thousand men who had nominally accepted[pg 177]the new ruler, each one of whom had to leave as hostage for his fidelity a son, who lived under guard in the village beneath the guns.Zu Pfeiffer needed the extra companies and white men to establish stations at various points with the object of gradually extending the sphere of military occupation. Zu Pfeiffer left nothing, as far as he could foresee, to chance; his maxim was to conserve his force to the utmost, to attain his objective at the least possible cost in men and material. The policy of terrorisation was based on the reasoning that eventually schrecklichkeit saved both the conqueror and the conquered bloodshed and trouble; for if the enemy were not so impressed with the fact that all resistance was utterly useless, he would resort to the sporadic risings which would entail more slaughter on both sides. Zu Pfeiffer, acting on the teachings of the German masters, sought to make war psychologically as well as militarily, economically as well as geographically. Hence his dramatic step in the overthrow of the idol in person, and the care with which he planned to impress each chief and native with his omnipotence and magic. This system of the application of political science as well as of military science, of course, was sound, save for a temperamental error: the lack of sufficient imagination to realize the unknown quantity of chance, the inevitable mistake of military scientists who are loath to admit the artist to their counsels, exemplified by men of genius, such as Napoleon and Leonardo da Vinci, who were both mathematicians and artists.In zu Pfeiffer’s case, as in others of his type, the motivating principle was not bourgeois greed of material[pg 178]gain for himself; gain he could afford to despise in his wealth; such would have been contrary to the code of a gentleman. While he had not hesitated for a moment to destroy his rival, Birnier, he would not touch with one finger any of his goods; for that reason had he given permission to the corporal to take Birnier’s equipment, so that he would not even be contaminated by the possession of them, a temperamental error again which had led to Birnier’s escape.The driving power in his caste and tribe was love of power to an excess masked with portentous solemnity under the cloak of benefiting this people and the peoples of the world; forcing them to have broad streets and sanitary arrangements, compelling them to laugh, to sing, and to be happy whether they would or no: an urge which is the curse of the world, the impulse to interfere in other folk’s affairs, to teach them, to make them to know the true God, the right way of living, the right way of doing everything from the rising of the first sun of consciousness to that happy crack of doom when our planet tries to enforce its orbit upon some other planet.Zu Pfeiffer pinched a cigar tip, lighted it meticulously and considered the roster.“Sergeant, this man—what’s the animal’s name? Kalomato—has his son surrendered himself?”“No, Excellence. The man says that he has fled the country.”“Where does he come from?”“The neighbourhood, Excellence.”“That means that his son is with the rebels?”[pg 179]“Probably not, Excellence. He is very young, they say.”“That does not matter. Sequester all the chief’s property. If he won’t give it up let the askaris deal with him. If that doesn’t work, have him shot.”“Excellence!”For such obstinate cases zu Pfeiffer had fallen upon the custom of serving two purposes by handing over the victim to the mercies of his askaris which whetted their sadistic appetites and usually secured the desired revelation of the whereabouts of the hidden ivory or other goods under the torture of the burning feet, and divers other ingenious methods. Of late this practice had proved so satisfactory that the mere threat was usually sufficient.“This man,”continued zu Pfeiffer tapping the roster with his long nail,“his son is here?”“Ja, Excellence.”“Has he paid the tithe due?”“No, Excellence. He refuses.”“Have the son shot.”“Excellence!”“Any report this morning?”“Ja, Excellence. A Wamungo spy brings news that a white man entered the country from the south.”“Description?”“They say he is a trader, Excellence, coming from the Kivu direction, but the savage cannot give any satisfactory description. It is the first white he has seen, he says.”“He won’t be the last!”snapped zu Pfeiffer with a twitch of the left sentry moustache.“Saunders,[pg 180]possibly. If so he should be here shortly to report. Well?”“The King and the few men left with him are in hiding, Excellence, in dense forest. They are demoralized and quarrel among themselves. Many are coming to surrender, for they say that you, Excellence, have eaten their god.”“Ach!”said zu Pfeiffer with satisfaction.“What did I tell you, sergeant?”“Your Excellence was correct in every respect.”“Um! Pity I can’t spare a company. That would settle them before they have a chance to reorganize. Ach, but they haven’t the sense, the animals, to do that.… Parade, sergeant.”Schultz saluted.“Ready, Excellence.”Zu Pfeiffer rose, took up his gold-mounted sjambok, and the two walked around the big marquee to the front where between the orderly lines of huts those askaris not on duty were drawn up for inspection. The sergeant barked. Bayonets flashed as they presented arms. Another bark and they ported arms. Zu Pfeiffer walked down the line inspecting buttons, bolts, and rifles as meticulously as he had lighted his cigar. The fifteenth barrel he thrust away petulantly and flicked the askari’s face with his sjambok. The muscles of the man’s face twitched as the blow came and the eyes bulged, but he did not flinch.“Twenty-five, sergeant!”“Excellence!”Zu Pfeiffer passed on. When the inspection was finished he stood rigidly smoking, coldly watching[pg 181]Schultz dismiss the men. Then he stalked down the hill with Schultz slightly in the rear, followed by a big black Munyamwezi sergeant-major, towards the opposite hill, of MKoffo. But at the bottom of where there were some half-constructed huts he paused.“The women, sergeant?”“The large hut, Excellence. Two hundred as ordered.”“No women of chiefs?”“No, Excellence. Those attending on the hostages are housed apart.”Zu Pfeiffer strode towards the hut indicated which stood near to the edge of a rased banana plantation. Two sentries without the fence presented arms stiffly and remained immobile. Within the compound were some sixty or more young girls, mostly having the black complexion of the slave type. The chattering and giggling ceased as the tall form of the dreaded Eyes-in-the-hands stood in the gate. A slight smile flirted his lips.From the deep violet of the hut interior darted a young girl into the sunlight. At the sight of the white men she poised on her toes, one foot forward and hands extended as if about to whirl into a dance, staring with the curiosity of a fawn.Tall for a native maid, the light bronze of her immature breasts revealed that she was of the Wongolo ruling caste. Around her slender neck was a circlet of bright blue beads. As zu Pfeiffer stiffened and stared she wheeled and fled into the hut.“Gott im Himmel!”he muttered.“The body of Lucille in Carmen!”“Who is that woman?”he demanded of Schultz.[pg 182]“I don’t know, Excellence,”replied the sergeant and spoke to the black sergeant-major.“She is the daughter of the chief Bamana, Excellence, visiting these other women. I will have her removed.”“I will not have the sense of caste abused,”said zu Pfeiffer, gazing into the hut.“That is not policy. Have her sent to the fort, sergeant, and placed under guard.”“Excellence!”Zu Pfeiffer swung on his heels and strode out and up the hill of MKoffo. The inspection was more hurried than usual that day. Then he returned to the hill of Kawa Kendi to hold court in the big marquee tent. After a lunch and a long siesta in the heat of the noonday he strolled around the village superintending the rasing of huts and the staking out of the new village which was to rise upon the ashes of the old one, a concrete example of the wisdom and power of the new lord, Eyes-in-the-hands.Under squads of askaris gangs of prisoners, criminal and political, bound by a light chain about each neck, laboured at clearing away charred stumps and debris, while other natives portered in saplings and loads of grass, each village which had submitted sending its allotted quota.Trumpets blared. The keepers of the coughing monsters made magical dances with their fire sticks up on the hill of Kawa Kendi. The black, white and red totem of the conqueror fluttered to earth like a wounded bird. Night closed like a black lid placed upon the steaming cauldron of the sun.After dinner zu Pfeiffer sat in his private tent at[pg 183]the rear of the marquee drinking brandy. Upon a camp table covered by a violet cloth was the portrait in the ivory frame at which he gazed as he smoked. The blue eyes and the feminine lips softened as sentimentally as any sex-starved Puritan virgin; perhaps not in spite of, but because of, a mediæval code as senseless as the native system of tabu, for natural emotions suppressed find an outlet in some form.From outside came the twitter and hum of the forest, the rhythm of frogs, the dim bleating of a goat and the distant wailing of the women’s death lament. Zu Pfeiffer drank and smoked and stared at the portrait in the ivory frame. Once he slapped irritably at a mosquito which had escaped the double net over the tent door. A wave of emotion seemed to well within him. He looked as if he were about to blubber as leaning over the table he peered intently at the pictured face and whispered:“Nur einmal noch möcht ich dich sehen,Und sinken vor dir aufs KnieUnd sterbend zu dir sprechen:‘Madam, ich liebe Sie!’ …“Lucille! … Ach, Lucille!”He drew himself back with a jerk, drank his brandy at a gulp and called angrily:“Bakunjala!”The flutter of sand preceded a gasped:“Bwana!”Zu Pfeiffer gave him an irritable command. Four[pg 184]minutes elapsed during which he gazed steadily at the portrait. He turned at the slither of feet. Bright blue beads glittered in the lamplight as the daughter of Bamana sank upon her heels.

[pg 152]Chapter 14About a mile from Birnier’s camp, through forest so dense that even the progress of a native clambering from trunk to trunk and over undergrowth ten feet deep was slow and tortuous, was the temporary village of Zalu Zako; some six or seven hundred huts of branches and creepers straggling over a wide area of ground which had been roughly cleared from undergrowth by a few slaves and women.The hut of Zalu Zako, as those of most of the bigger chiefs and wizards, was furnished with reeds upon the floor to avoid squatting actually in the green slime, and boasted a palisade run from tree to tree enclosing the huts of his two wives, women and slaves. Every morning the leader of a long line of slaves bringing supplies from the villages in the open, chanting softly the song of the march, entered the village through a mass of creepers which hung like a curtain of humid green. Many hundreds of warriors with their chiefs had deserted their king after the flight from Yagonyana’s village.In the mind of Zalu Zako was doubt and perplexity as in those of his people. All the accepted“laws”and“facts”of his world had been set at naught; it was as if buck lived in the rivers and fish ran roaring through the forests. Fear, curiosity, and resentment filled him. Sometimes it appeared that Eyes-in-the-hands[pg 153]had indeed proved to be a more powerful god than the Unmentionable One, of whom he was, or should have been, high priest and king; that he had eaten him up as they said; so perhaps the better course was to submit to this being invincible. Yet this very anarchy of his beliefs had released once more the passion for Bakuma whom he had renounced, the desire for whom had been inhibited by the sense of the inevitability of the mandate of the witch-doctors. Hereditary custom, which made him feel that it was incumbent upon him—a primitive sense of duty—to be king-god warred with this longing for Bakuma. The fact that he was not yet bound to celibacy quickened the seed of rebellion against the domination of the wizards. If he could escape the godhood then Bakuma was alive again. For to his mind a ban upon the personal ego was far stronger than any ban upon a second person.Chewing the cud of this sweet grass of hope squatted Zalu Zako one morning in the dignified solitude of his compound on the threshold of his hut. Opposite him sat the brother conspirator of Bakahenzie, Marufa, a brown shadow in comparison to the gleaming of the royal insignia of the ivory bangles. They sat silent, motionless, save for the occasional sparse movement of snuff taking. In the steamy heat a continual mutter and rustle persisted, punctuated by the harsh scream of a green parrot or the squawks of a troop of monkeys. In the faintly spattered sunlight percolating through the bowered roof vivid lizards rivalled in colour the rare finger of an orchid clinging to the great tree beside the hut. Through the humid air came the faint chant of carriers at the end of a journey; swelled[pg 154]louder and ceased. At the mutter of greeting near by Marufa grunted.“The beaten dog returns to nose in the garbage,”he mumbled.“Maybe he hath news of the doings,”commented Zalu Zako after a pause.“The young dog starts a buck in every tree stump,”returned Marufa.The mumble of voices in the hut of Yabolo near toZaluZako’s continued. Neither Zalu Zako nor Marufa knew other than that, after his downfall, Sakamata had retired to his native village on the southern boundary where the people, being laymen, had believed the excuse for his absence given by Sakamata that he had retired to the forest for one moon in the guise of his totem, the wart hog, which animal became accordingly tabu to their killing for that period. At length came a young slave from Yabolo who, after saluting, delivered a message from Yabolo requesting that Zalu Zako receive him and his relative, Sakamata, who had weighty news for him.Presently entered the recusant bearing signs of prosperity in the flowered print about his loins, the ancient cartridge pouch slung around his waist and a huge revolver of the pin-fire model dangling from a neck which appeared more tortoise-like than ever. Before Zalu Zako he squatted and after they had exchanged the usual hostages to hostility, Sakamata inquired most politely after the health of the Son-of-the-Snake, of his cattle and of his fortune, and last of all of his women. Sakamata, aware of the loss of prestige suffered by his old enemy, Bakahenzie, presented[pg 155]ZaluZako with a duplicate of the pin-fire revolver. Followed an equally extensive greeting to Marufa. Only when these ceremonies had been punctiliously performed did they begin to discuss the news.At first Sakamata proceeded to repeat the popular saying regarding the doings of Eyes-in-the-hands. Various chiefs had visited the fort of the white man bringing presents in their hands, terrified of what might happen, yet, according to Sakamata, their fears had been dispelled immediately; for the wise new god had received them as brothers and had made offerings to them as was the custom for strangers to do. It was true, he admitted in cross-examination, that whole villages had been put to the sword and burned; but, he demanded, was not that the way of a mighty warrior to those who resisted him?Moreover, continued Sakamata, to fight him was death. His magic was such that no man could prevail against him. Had any doctor yet succeeded in making successful magic against the Invincible One? His magic was terrible to behold. Spirits which were imprisoned in houses of trees (boxes) spoke and sang according to their tribe.“Clk!”commented Zalu Zako incredulously.“These words are as the wind in the trees at night speaking to girls,”commented Marufa slowly.“What man hath beheld those things with his own eyes?”Deliberately Sakamata tapped snuff, inhaled it with relish, meticulously, that not one grain was[pg 156]lost upon his white caterpillar moustache, and said indifferently:“Even he who sits before you.”“Eh!”Another point was scored. But both Zalu Zako and Marufa regarded him as one who, having had dealings with the devil and yet had emerged safely, was to be suspected of some ghastly pact. After a calculated pause Sakamata continued nonchalantly:“There is no magic like unto Eyes-in-the-hands, the Mighty One. A great fort hath he made upon the hill of thy grandfather (MFunya MPopo), O Zalu Zako, girded with a great palisade, around which walk everthered devils in uniform, each one of whom hath a gun with seven voices. And peering through that palisade, like a terrible black leopard from his lair, are the monster coughing devils. Eh! who are they who can withstand them?”“Eh!”echoed his audience with lively memories of the“coughing devils.”“And he hath a mighty hut made from the white man’s cloth of colour like to the forest full of things to make magic. Seated upon his chair like unto a man plucking bananas, the eyes upon his hands and in his head gleam so fiercely that water is made within a man. He who dares to look sees not only Eyes-in-the-hands, but his two souls, even as thou seest thine own two souls staring at thee with the frightened eyes that are thine!”“Ehh!”This time a genuine belly grunt was elicited, and even Marufa moved uneasily.“Thou hast been bewitched,”he added to mask his[pg 157]astonishment.“For a man may see his own soul in any pool, but never two souls!”“Even is it as I have told thee, O son of MTungo,”asserted Sakamata.Sakamata discovered the use of snuff again to be necessary. He watched covertly the repressed excitement in the eyes of Zalu Zako.“And what said the great magician unto thee?”Marufa demanded to cover his discomfort.“He spoke white words as a warrior should,”said Sakamata.“He gave words which told me that he was but a small wizard. He made my eyes to see the soul of a greater god than he, who was there and yet was not there; for at the touch of his magic hand with many eyes, behold! there were two more souls of the god which returned even as I looked.”“Ehh! A greater god than he?”demanded Zalu Zako, with a flicker of the white of his eyes.“Even as I have said, a greater god who is king of all the white man’s countries in the sea, who eats up those whom he pleases. Yet, even though he may bewitch with one of his eyes, did he speak softly to Yagombi, the son of Bagazaan, and Zalayan, the son of Kilmanyana, who were with me, bidding us to tell our brethren that if they would not acknowledge the true king that then he would eat us up, even as he ate up the Unmentionable One. But to those who would submit and make due tribute, would he protect in peace from the white men who, fleeing from the wrath of the great god, would soon come to eat up our country like the locusts.”“Eh! ehh! white men as the locusts!”[pg 158]“Thus he spoke and bade us to go forth and tell our brethren.”This was a wholly new notion and proportionally serious if true. But Marufa, recovering from the first shock, wrapped himself in his professional cloak of omniscient indifference as he recollected that Sakamata was an unfrocked priest of the craft. The group took snuff sternly until Sakamata, having accomplished his mission, deemed it wise to retire to allow the suggestive ideas to germinate. So gravely he arose and departed from the hut of Zalu Zako and went under the patronage of Yabolo to another compound where, to a group of the most disaffected chiefs, including MYalu, he repeated nearly word for word the same harangue.In the minds ofZalu Zakoand Marufa the report of Sakamata had been exceedingly disquieting. Marufa began to wonder whether he had not better make terms with the new god before worse came to the worst in the form of white men like locusts, a menace fraught with dire possibilities which were based upon the rumours which every native had heard of the ways of white men in bulk: to the Wongolo merely vague stories from the north of the conquest of the Sudan by the British. Marufa’s ambitions in the craft were almost submerged in the dread that, wizard though he was, he would have small chance of distinction and power among a race of wizards. To Zalu Zako, although the prospect of unlimited white men swooping upon them was terrifying, his semi-conscious mind was rather occupied with Bakuma than with affairs of state which seemed merely to exist to torment lovers. However he, too, was sufficiently impressed to consider seriously the[pg 159]advisability of submitting before it was too late; the motivating principle of the scheme was an idea which suggested that, in some indefinable way, such action might lead to the avoidance of the ban of godhood and thus to the reinstatement of Bakuma in the realm of possibilities.To Bakahenzie the report was more alarming than to the others, inasmuch as it appeared to portend the irretrievable loss of his power. He saw the effect upon their minds, the inclination to yield to the new conqueror, which, of course, would mean the last of his followers being swept away in the crowd like dry leaves in the wind. But more than the others he suspected the motives of Sakamata, the man whom he had unfrocked. Arguing in terms of his own mental processes he saw correctly enough that Sakamata was surely playing for himself, and guessed equally truly that Sakamata would get, or imagined that he would get, many rewards, political as well as in kind, for his services as jackal to the white man. But he listened and said no word for, or against, him. He was astute enough never to make a move until he had, or thought that he had, all the moves of the game worked out. Marufa was just as wily; he related the news given by Sakamata in a voice which gave no hint by tone or word what any of his opinions might be. Then, as they sat like graven images, supremely indifferent to the doings of Sakamata or aught else, entered the warrior bearing greetings from Birnier to Zalu Zako.Immediately Zalu Zako, to whose less skilled mind in intrigue this succession of world-shaking events was bewildering, feared that already the plague of[pg 160]white men like locusts had commenced. But when he learned that the white man was alone and was Infunyana, the only white man whom he had ever met, he perceived vaguely some remote prospect of achieving his desires. Almost eagerly, for a native, he commanded the messenger to summon the white man to his presence.To Bakahenzie the unexpected arrival of another white was an unforeseen potentiality of force which might be utilized to his own benefit; so thought Marufa, which was in effect exactly the same reaction as Zalu Zako’s. Therefore Bakahenzie immediately protested upon the ground that no stranger could be allowed to approach the Son-of-the-Snake, or even the village, who had not been purified according to custom. When Zalu Zako demurred he retorted:“Hath not one white man who was permitted to enter our country without the demon being exorcised wreaked disaster upon us? Wouldst thou then destroy us utterly?”Zalu Zako was silent. Much as he would have desired to browbeat Bakahenzie, much as his confidence in the powers of the chief witch-doctor had waned in his estimation, yet there remained sufficient to overawe him when the matter was put to a crucial test. Bakahenzie would, so he stated, go himself to see the new white man, thus unselfishly taking upon his person the whole risk of the lasting magic of a stranger unpurified. But Marufa had no intention of allowing Bakahenzie to obtain a monopoly of this possible new ally. Unlike Zalu Zako he was not burdened with awe and had confidence in his own magic to overcome[pg 161]any evil that Bakahenzie might seek to work against him. So when he announced that he would accompany Bakahenzie, that distressed wizard was too conscious of his dwindling prestige to object.

About a mile from Birnier’s camp, through forest so dense that even the progress of a native clambering from trunk to trunk and over undergrowth ten feet deep was slow and tortuous, was the temporary village of Zalu Zako; some six or seven hundred huts of branches and creepers straggling over a wide area of ground which had been roughly cleared from undergrowth by a few slaves and women.

The hut of Zalu Zako, as those of most of the bigger chiefs and wizards, was furnished with reeds upon the floor to avoid squatting actually in the green slime, and boasted a palisade run from tree to tree enclosing the huts of his two wives, women and slaves. Every morning the leader of a long line of slaves bringing supplies from the villages in the open, chanting softly the song of the march, entered the village through a mass of creepers which hung like a curtain of humid green. Many hundreds of warriors with their chiefs had deserted their king after the flight from Yagonyana’s village.

In the mind of Zalu Zako was doubt and perplexity as in those of his people. All the accepted“laws”and“facts”of his world had been set at naught; it was as if buck lived in the rivers and fish ran roaring through the forests. Fear, curiosity, and resentment filled him. Sometimes it appeared that Eyes-in-the-hands[pg 153]had indeed proved to be a more powerful god than the Unmentionable One, of whom he was, or should have been, high priest and king; that he had eaten him up as they said; so perhaps the better course was to submit to this being invincible. Yet this very anarchy of his beliefs had released once more the passion for Bakuma whom he had renounced, the desire for whom had been inhibited by the sense of the inevitability of the mandate of the witch-doctors. Hereditary custom, which made him feel that it was incumbent upon him—a primitive sense of duty—to be king-god warred with this longing for Bakuma. The fact that he was not yet bound to celibacy quickened the seed of rebellion against the domination of the wizards. If he could escape the godhood then Bakuma was alive again. For to his mind a ban upon the personal ego was far stronger than any ban upon a second person.

Chewing the cud of this sweet grass of hope squatted Zalu Zako one morning in the dignified solitude of his compound on the threshold of his hut. Opposite him sat the brother conspirator of Bakahenzie, Marufa, a brown shadow in comparison to the gleaming of the royal insignia of the ivory bangles. They sat silent, motionless, save for the occasional sparse movement of snuff taking. In the steamy heat a continual mutter and rustle persisted, punctuated by the harsh scream of a green parrot or the squawks of a troop of monkeys. In the faintly spattered sunlight percolating through the bowered roof vivid lizards rivalled in colour the rare finger of an orchid clinging to the great tree beside the hut. Through the humid air came the faint chant of carriers at the end of a journey; swelled[pg 154]louder and ceased. At the mutter of greeting near by Marufa grunted.

“The beaten dog returns to nose in the garbage,”he mumbled.

“Maybe he hath news of the doings,”commented Zalu Zako after a pause.

“The young dog starts a buck in every tree stump,”returned Marufa.

The mumble of voices in the hut of Yabolo near toZaluZako’s continued. Neither Zalu Zako nor Marufa knew other than that, after his downfall, Sakamata had retired to his native village on the southern boundary where the people, being laymen, had believed the excuse for his absence given by Sakamata that he had retired to the forest for one moon in the guise of his totem, the wart hog, which animal became accordingly tabu to their killing for that period. At length came a young slave from Yabolo who, after saluting, delivered a message from Yabolo requesting that Zalu Zako receive him and his relative, Sakamata, who had weighty news for him.

Presently entered the recusant bearing signs of prosperity in the flowered print about his loins, the ancient cartridge pouch slung around his waist and a huge revolver of the pin-fire model dangling from a neck which appeared more tortoise-like than ever. Before Zalu Zako he squatted and after they had exchanged the usual hostages to hostility, Sakamata inquired most politely after the health of the Son-of-the-Snake, of his cattle and of his fortune, and last of all of his women. Sakamata, aware of the loss of prestige suffered by his old enemy, Bakahenzie, presented[pg 155]ZaluZako with a duplicate of the pin-fire revolver. Followed an equally extensive greeting to Marufa. Only when these ceremonies had been punctiliously performed did they begin to discuss the news.

At first Sakamata proceeded to repeat the popular saying regarding the doings of Eyes-in-the-hands. Various chiefs had visited the fort of the white man bringing presents in their hands, terrified of what might happen, yet, according to Sakamata, their fears had been dispelled immediately; for the wise new god had received them as brothers and had made offerings to them as was the custom for strangers to do. It was true, he admitted in cross-examination, that whole villages had been put to the sword and burned; but, he demanded, was not that the way of a mighty warrior to those who resisted him?

Moreover, continued Sakamata, to fight him was death. His magic was such that no man could prevail against him. Had any doctor yet succeeded in making successful magic against the Invincible One? His magic was terrible to behold. Spirits which were imprisoned in houses of trees (boxes) spoke and sang according to their tribe.

“Clk!”commented Zalu Zako incredulously.

“These words are as the wind in the trees at night speaking to girls,”commented Marufa slowly.“What man hath beheld those things with his own eyes?”

Deliberately Sakamata tapped snuff, inhaled it with relish, meticulously, that not one grain was[pg 156]lost upon his white caterpillar moustache, and said indifferently:

“Even he who sits before you.”

“Eh!”

Another point was scored. But both Zalu Zako and Marufa regarded him as one who, having had dealings with the devil and yet had emerged safely, was to be suspected of some ghastly pact. After a calculated pause Sakamata continued nonchalantly:

“There is no magic like unto Eyes-in-the-hands, the Mighty One. A great fort hath he made upon the hill of thy grandfather (MFunya MPopo), O Zalu Zako, girded with a great palisade, around which walk everthered devils in uniform, each one of whom hath a gun with seven voices. And peering through that palisade, like a terrible black leopard from his lair, are the monster coughing devils. Eh! who are they who can withstand them?”

“Eh!”echoed his audience with lively memories of the“coughing devils.”

“And he hath a mighty hut made from the white man’s cloth of colour like to the forest full of things to make magic. Seated upon his chair like unto a man plucking bananas, the eyes upon his hands and in his head gleam so fiercely that water is made within a man. He who dares to look sees not only Eyes-in-the-hands, but his two souls, even as thou seest thine own two souls staring at thee with the frightened eyes that are thine!”

“Ehh!”

This time a genuine belly grunt was elicited, and even Marufa moved uneasily.

“Thou hast been bewitched,”he added to mask his[pg 157]astonishment.“For a man may see his own soul in any pool, but never two souls!”

“Even is it as I have told thee, O son of MTungo,”asserted Sakamata.

Sakamata discovered the use of snuff again to be necessary. He watched covertly the repressed excitement in the eyes of Zalu Zako.

“And what said the great magician unto thee?”Marufa demanded to cover his discomfort.

“He spoke white words as a warrior should,”said Sakamata.“He gave words which told me that he was but a small wizard. He made my eyes to see the soul of a greater god than he, who was there and yet was not there; for at the touch of his magic hand with many eyes, behold! there were two more souls of the god which returned even as I looked.”

“Ehh! A greater god than he?”demanded Zalu Zako, with a flicker of the white of his eyes.

“Even as I have said, a greater god who is king of all the white man’s countries in the sea, who eats up those whom he pleases. Yet, even though he may bewitch with one of his eyes, did he speak softly to Yagombi, the son of Bagazaan, and Zalayan, the son of Kilmanyana, who were with me, bidding us to tell our brethren that if they would not acknowledge the true king that then he would eat us up, even as he ate up the Unmentionable One. But to those who would submit and make due tribute, would he protect in peace from the white men who, fleeing from the wrath of the great god, would soon come to eat up our country like the locusts.”

“Eh! ehh! white men as the locusts!”

“Thus he spoke and bade us to go forth and tell our brethren.”

This was a wholly new notion and proportionally serious if true. But Marufa, recovering from the first shock, wrapped himself in his professional cloak of omniscient indifference as he recollected that Sakamata was an unfrocked priest of the craft. The group took snuff sternly until Sakamata, having accomplished his mission, deemed it wise to retire to allow the suggestive ideas to germinate. So gravely he arose and departed from the hut of Zalu Zako and went under the patronage of Yabolo to another compound where, to a group of the most disaffected chiefs, including MYalu, he repeated nearly word for word the same harangue.

In the minds ofZalu Zakoand Marufa the report of Sakamata had been exceedingly disquieting. Marufa began to wonder whether he had not better make terms with the new god before worse came to the worst in the form of white men like locusts, a menace fraught with dire possibilities which were based upon the rumours which every native had heard of the ways of white men in bulk: to the Wongolo merely vague stories from the north of the conquest of the Sudan by the British. Marufa’s ambitions in the craft were almost submerged in the dread that, wizard though he was, he would have small chance of distinction and power among a race of wizards. To Zalu Zako, although the prospect of unlimited white men swooping upon them was terrifying, his semi-conscious mind was rather occupied with Bakuma than with affairs of state which seemed merely to exist to torment lovers. However he, too, was sufficiently impressed to consider seriously the[pg 159]advisability of submitting before it was too late; the motivating principle of the scheme was an idea which suggested that, in some indefinable way, such action might lead to the avoidance of the ban of godhood and thus to the reinstatement of Bakuma in the realm of possibilities.

To Bakahenzie the report was more alarming than to the others, inasmuch as it appeared to portend the irretrievable loss of his power. He saw the effect upon their minds, the inclination to yield to the new conqueror, which, of course, would mean the last of his followers being swept away in the crowd like dry leaves in the wind. But more than the others he suspected the motives of Sakamata, the man whom he had unfrocked. Arguing in terms of his own mental processes he saw correctly enough that Sakamata was surely playing for himself, and guessed equally truly that Sakamata would get, or imagined that he would get, many rewards, political as well as in kind, for his services as jackal to the white man. But he listened and said no word for, or against, him. He was astute enough never to make a move until he had, or thought that he had, all the moves of the game worked out. Marufa was just as wily; he related the news given by Sakamata in a voice which gave no hint by tone or word what any of his opinions might be. Then, as they sat like graven images, supremely indifferent to the doings of Sakamata or aught else, entered the warrior bearing greetings from Birnier to Zalu Zako.

Immediately Zalu Zako, to whose less skilled mind in intrigue this succession of world-shaking events was bewildering, feared that already the plague of[pg 160]white men like locusts had commenced. But when he learned that the white man was alone and was Infunyana, the only white man whom he had ever met, he perceived vaguely some remote prospect of achieving his desires. Almost eagerly, for a native, he commanded the messenger to summon the white man to his presence.

To Bakahenzie the unexpected arrival of another white was an unforeseen potentiality of force which might be utilized to his own benefit; so thought Marufa, which was in effect exactly the same reaction as Zalu Zako’s. Therefore Bakahenzie immediately protested upon the ground that no stranger could be allowed to approach the Son-of-the-Snake, or even the village, who had not been purified according to custom. When Zalu Zako demurred he retorted:

“Hath not one white man who was permitted to enter our country without the demon being exorcised wreaked disaster upon us? Wouldst thou then destroy us utterly?”

Zalu Zako was silent. Much as he would have desired to browbeat Bakahenzie, much as his confidence in the powers of the chief witch-doctor had waned in his estimation, yet there remained sufficient to overawe him when the matter was put to a crucial test. Bakahenzie would, so he stated, go himself to see the new white man, thus unselfishly taking upon his person the whole risk of the lasting magic of a stranger unpurified. But Marufa had no intention of allowing Bakahenzie to obtain a monopoly of this possible new ally. Unlike Zalu Zako he was not burdened with awe and had confidence in his own magic to overcome[pg 161]any evil that Bakahenzie might seek to work against him. So when he announced that he would accompany Bakahenzie, that distressed wizard was too conscious of his dwindling prestige to object.

[pg 162]Chapter 15Just after sun-up next morning as Birnier was seated at the door of his tent reading hisMelancholyand drinking his coffee, a startled“clk”caused him to glance round. He saw Bakuma rise suddenly from the fire and disappear. The next moment materialized out of the miasma of the morning the figures of Bakahenzie and Marufa, followed by a file of warriors.Portentously Bakahenzie stalked to the fire and squatted down without even a murmur to Mungongo busy with the breakfast. Bakahenzie remembered Infunyana very well, but nevertheless designedly Birnier ignored him in return. So they sat, the two wizards taking snuff with grave concern almost at the feet of the white who continued to smoke and to read.The sign boded ill, for the insistence upon the punctilious etiquette inferred that Bakahenzie was disposed to be suspicious, if not directly hostile. And indeed the warriors’ description of the magic of Moonspirit, vide Mungongo, had made Bakahenzie uneasy.After a full half-hour Bakahenzie, as if beaten in this solemn game, turned gravely and saluted the white. Birnier looked down from his chair with the affectation of just having noticed that some one was there. After a pause he returned the greeting, a little point which[pg 163]Bakahenzie thoroughly appreciated. Birnier had learned that according to Mungongo and the warrior, Zalu Zako had not yet been anointed king-god; therefore that Bakahenzie evidently intended to keep the young man in the background.After preliminaries, Birnier inquired after Zalu Zako and informed Bakahenzie that he had journeyed expressly to see him. Bakahenzie ignored the question and began to talk about Eyes-in-the-hands, demanding to know whether Birnier was his brother.“Nay,”said Birnier,“Eyes-in-the-hands is not of the same tribe as Moonspirit,”for he sedulously followed up the title which Mungongo had given him.“Eyes-in-the-hands comes from a country twelve moons distant from my country.”Marufa squatting beside him grunted; Bakahenzie took snuff nonchalantly as if he did not believe a word.“Eyes-in-the-hands is a mighty magician in his own country,”said Bakahenzie in the form of an assertion.“The magic of Eyes-in-the-hands to the magic of Moonspirit,”stated Birnier,“is as water to the beer of the banana.”“Eyes-in-the-hands,”remarked Bakahenzie indifferently,“hath magic to make the souls of man to be seen by all.”“Those are but the souls of the belly and body, but Moonspirit can enchant so that the spirit of the head of man be seen at night,”boasted Birnier, wondering what trick of zu Pfeiffer’s had produced the effect.“Eyes-in-the-hands,”insisted Bakahenzie,“hath[pg 164]a spirit in a piece of a tree which cries or laughs, sings or talks to his magic.”“Moonspirit,”retorted Birnier (thinking“Gramophone, but I can go one better, my friend”),“hath also a spirit in a piece of tree who will speak words of wisdom unto thee in thine own tongue, who will repeat that which is said unto him in thy tongue or in my tongue, who will speak words of wisdom even unto thee.”Bakahenzie seemed outmatched in the boasting tournament. He tapped snuff woodenly. Marufa scratched his skinny ribs thoughtfully. Then Bakahenzie remarked:“He that hath not been cleansed may not look upon the Son-of-the-Snake.”“He that hath not been anointed need have no fear of the evil eye.”“Hath not one who was not cleansed entered and cast evil upon the tribe?”demanded Bakahenzie.“If the fence is not strong the leopard will enter.”“If the leopard be not strong and swift indeed may he not be killed in the hut?”inquired Bakahenzie.“If a leopard and a wild-cat break in, then wilt thou not kill the leopard first?”“Even so,”retorted Bakahenzie;“then is water stronger than beer, even as the beer does reveal?”Birnier nearly smiled in recognition of the hit.“Nay, does not beer make the fool to talk foolishness? Dost thou then cast away the banana? Does not one[pg 165]talk foolishness also who is sick and yet discardeth good medicine, because he feareth to poison his belly?”“Even so,”said Bakahenzie obstinately,“does the sick man exorcise the good medicine lest an enemy hath made magic thereupon?”“Then,”said Birnier, whose only objection to the ceremony was the delay and the messiness,“let the good medicine be purified.”Bakahenzie grunted and covertly took stock of the tent and equipment visible. Upon the pile of cases stacked just inside the tent his eyes rested some time, but he would not make any inquiry. Marufa, too, was occupied in the same manner. Bakahenzie was recalling the previous meeting with Birnier in the village of MFunyaMPopo—of that day when Birnier had not made any attempt to impress the native mind with“magic”other than the ordinary“miracles”in the routine of a white man’s life.“When the Son-of-the-Snake,”inquired Birnier, who had learned as much of the hagiocracy as Mungongo knew,“hath taken up the Burden, wilt thou then drive Eyes-in-the-hands from the country?”Bakahenzie slowly withdrew his eyes from the fascinating case as far as Birnier’s booted foot.“Hast thou, white man, the magic twig that makes fire?”he demanded.“Even so.”Birnier took a box of matches from his pocket and struck one. Bakahenzie and Marufa watched him solemnly. Then a lean bronze hand was outstretched. Birnier gave him the box. Slowly and gravely Bakahenzie,[pg 166]the chief witch-doctor, extracted a match, turned it over and over, smelt it, tasted it, regarded it, and struck it on the top of the box. It was a safety match, so nothing happened. Birnier, without a vestige of a smile, instructed him to strike it only upon the black piece at the side. That impressed Bakahenzie and Marufa. The former tried again as directed and succeeded. Holding the match too near the head he burned the quick of the nail, but not a muscle quivered. He would not even admit that the white man’s devil stick had bitten him. But he was still more impressed.At a sign from Birnier, Mungongo brought from the tent a nickel-plated revolver and cartridges, which he placed at the feet of Bakahenzie without comment. Apparently Bakahenzie did not notice the action or the gift. He held out the matches to return to the white man. Birnier requested him to keep them. He wrapped up the box in his loin-cloth and fell to further contemplation of the cases. He was cogitating. The value of this white had suddenly increased. Evidently he could make small magic. Perhaps he could make as much big magic as Eyes-in-the-hands. Who knew? But then if that was so he could make greater magic than he, Bakahenzie, could. Bakahenzie saw that if Moonspirit were such a great magician he would be difficult or impossible to control. Naturally Bakahenzie could only understand his own motives in others. His problem now was to discover some means by which he could control Moonspirit, make of him a familiar to work to his own ends. Why was he so insistent upon seeing Zalu Zako? Bakahenzie became more and more suspicious. He saw[pg 167]another reason why the white man must be kept away from Zalu Zako. To refuse to purify him would give a valid excuse that he may not look upon the Son-of-the-Snake. But he did not wish to displease him; also Marufa could perform the purification.Again Birnier repeated the question regarding the overthrow of Eyes-in-the-hands. Bakahenzie took snuff, regarded the revolver lying at his feet idly, and deigned to reply.“When that which must be hath come to pass, then shall the children of the Snake eat up their enemies as a lizard eats flies.”“And what is that which must come to pass?”Bakahenzie sat silent awhile, slightly shocked at the directness of the question; then as if to humour the white man, he replied:“When the Bridegroom hath taken the Bride.”The ceremony of purification could not take place until the following day, because such things may not be hurried; and moreover, various potent charms had to be sent for to the native village. Meanwhile Bakahenzie squatted by the fire, contemplating the nickel-plated revolver and affairs of policy, and opposite him sat the meditative Marufa.From the hour of the monkey, Bakahenzie, unconscious of the small face and anxious eyes watching the camp from the tangle of green, was busy muttering spells over a calabash containing a magic concoction composed of the entrails of a white goat, certain herbs and the eyes of a black wild-cat. When the roof of the forest was a patterned ceiling against an incandescent glow, Birnier stripped to the waist, and submitted himself to the hands of the wizard who,[pg 168]after scattering the feathers of a scarlet parrot into the calabash, smeared the left breast, the forehead and the right arm of the white man, to the accompaniment of an incantation. These insignia and specifics he must not remove for three suns; nor could he be permitted to look upon the semi-divine Zalu Zako until whatever evil influence his foreign body might possess should have been exorcised by this powerful medicine.To sit around half nude in such heat was no arduous undertaking, but to sleep without rubbing off the concoction was another matter; also the odour thereof was not pleasing to the nostrils of a white man. But Birnier accomplished the feat by smoking excessively and by marking with a pencil the various nostrums recommended by the amiable Burton, many of which were hardly less disagreeable than Doctor Bakahenzie’s prescription.That worthy’s slaves had erected a hut for him nigh to the tent in the door of which he squatted, usually with Marufa beside him, throughout the day, with ever a contemplative eye upon his victim, an eye which Birnier was sure was eagerly seeking some excuse to plead that he had inadvertently rendered the magic impotent, and must accordingly have the ceremony repeated.Amused by the ridiculous sight he presented, plastered over with this filth, Birnier made Mungongo, whom he had taught to operate a camera, take a photograph of him, which would entertain Lucille, as well as be of scientific interest. Bakahenzie and Marufa watched this performance from the fire with amazement, for they imagined that the camera was some kind of[pg 169]gun. When they heard the click, they grunted as if expecting the white man to fall dead. Birnier of course knew the universal native belief in the picture being the soul, or one of the souls. He summoned Bakahenzie and Marufa and showed them a photograph which, after some difficulty, they recognised as Mungongo.“Eh,”grunted a warrior,“indeed is Mungongo the slave of the white man, for hath he not imprisoned his soul?”Mungongo laughed, yet he believed in the superstition as implicitly as any of his compatriots, for said he:“It is a wise man who hath that which is his always within his hand, even as Moonspirit hath the soul of his favourite wife with him always, so that she may not be unfaithful unto him.”“Eh, he is wiser than the Banana Eater!”grunted the warrior in admiration.Birnier’s training to control his features was strained in the effort not to express surprise. He could not imagine from what Mungongo had derived this astonishing statement, until he recollected that the boy had seen a photograph of Lucille among his papers.After this successful demonstration of his sophistication, Mungongo was anxious that Moonspirit give an exhibition of his magic to dumbfound the chief witch-doctor, desiring most ardently to work the gramophone, to operate which he had also learned. But on reflection, Birnier decided that it was not his policyto makehis thunder too cheap.Each evening as the last subtle violet quivered in the[pg 170]trees had Bakuma glided from the shelter of the undergrowth under the flap of Birnier’s tent, where she had lain until the first tint of dawn on the foliage of the forest. Birnier had wished her to leave for some village until Bakahenzie had left the camp, but Bakuma had frantically pleaded to remain, knowing that the craft was seeking her throughout the country since Bakahenzie’s latest interview with mighty Tarum.But upon the third day as Birnier was seated reading philosophically at his tent door, the inevitable happened. A loud outcry arose and from the tangle of creepers started the lithe figure of Bakuma, who darted past him into the tent. For a moment there was silence. But Birnier guessed what the matter was. Bakahenzie emerged from the wall of green and cried out in a loud voice. Instantly the warriors around leaped to their feet, and broke out into great clamour.Mungongo, busy with the cooking pots, rushed to Birnier’s side, gesticulating wildly. Inside the tent crouched Bakuma. Towards Birnier advanced Bakahenzie and the warriors, whose dilated eyes and spears in their hands betokened that Bakahenzie had stirred their deepest feelings of terror and murder. Birnier smoked placidly, neither stirring nor permitting a sign of their presence to cross his features.Mungongo, startled out of his confidence in Moonspirit, excitedly bade Bakuma go forth as Bakahenzie, stopping in front of the white man, broke into a harangue, bidding him to give up Bakuma whose sacrilege in breaking the magic circle, as he had said, had brought the terrible Eyes-in-the-hands upon them; that the welfare of the tribe depended upon[pg 171]her sacrifice to the angered Unmentionable One even as she had been doomed; and threatening that they would take the insolent white man, whose magic was as water, and sacrifice him as well, as was desired by the spirit of Tarum.The longer he spoke the more excited he grew. Motivated by the sudden conviction that the sacrifice of Bakuma, whose action he had foretold so successfully, and the slaughter of the white would really restore to him his repute and remove at the same time the problem of controlling a superior magician who threatened to become his rival, Bakahenzie began to work himself up into the necessary state of prophetic hysteria. Cowering against the camp-bed Bakuma whimpered with terror; Mungongo incoherently begged Moonspirit to give up the girl.Not a muscle moved upon Birnier’s face; nor even did his eyes turn in the direction of the menacing crowd who with uplifted spears joggled each other around Bakahenzie. Birnier knew that it was a supreme test of nerve; knew that any attempt to snatch a rifle or a movement of any sort, would precipitate action on their side. He had no intention of surrendering the girl to a hideous fate, and also he saw beyond the incident that if Bakahenzie were to triumph over him now, not only would his prestige with the natives be gone for ever, but that his fate would be surely sealed. Slowly, exaggeratedly, as if he were alone, he killed a mosquito upon his bare right breast and lighted his pipe anew.Bakahenzie advanced a step followed by the warriors. His voice had reached the falsetto timbre. Mungongo lost his head entirely and seizing Bakuma, began to[pg 172]drag her out of the tent. Birnier turned his head leisurely towards him. Said he very loudly:“It is not seemly to rape a woman in my presence, O Mungongo. Let her be, for I will buy thee one.”Mungongo ceased to pull at Bakuma’s arms and stared as if paralysed. Birnier saw the eyes switch in a terrified glance at the warriors behind him and heard Bakahenzie’s yell to kill.For one moment he thought that indeed the end had come. Before he could reach the rifle a dozen spears would be in his back. He sat motionless, theAnatomy of Melancholystill in his hand, and watched the gauge of Mungongo’s eyes. Bakahenzie’s voice rose to a screech. Suddenly Birnier wheeled round in his chair, snatched up the pencil and staring hard at them, began to sketch faces on the open page of the book.At the sight the warriors ceased their shuffling dance, were arrested with the spears in their hands in as many poses. Bakahenzie’s scream was stoppered as if by a hand upon his mouth. In the silence their heavy breathing rivalled the twitter and hum of the forest. Birnier sketched furiously, glaring portentously from the group to the paper. Bakahenzie took a step forward, a nervous step, and yelled,“Kill!”but his voice released those of the warriors. In one loud shout they cried:“He bewitches us! He bewitches us!”As Birnier bent his head to make another magic mark upon the magic book he heard the rush of feet.“They have fled!”squealed Mungongo, still clutching Bakuma.[pg 173]Birnier sighed and dropped his pencil as he glanced up. Bakahenzie and the warriors had disappeared, but by the fire squatted Marufa unconcernedly scratching his skinny ribs.

Just after sun-up next morning as Birnier was seated at the door of his tent reading hisMelancholyand drinking his coffee, a startled“clk”caused him to glance round. He saw Bakuma rise suddenly from the fire and disappear. The next moment materialized out of the miasma of the morning the figures of Bakahenzie and Marufa, followed by a file of warriors.

Portentously Bakahenzie stalked to the fire and squatted down without even a murmur to Mungongo busy with the breakfast. Bakahenzie remembered Infunyana very well, but nevertheless designedly Birnier ignored him in return. So they sat, the two wizards taking snuff with grave concern almost at the feet of the white who continued to smoke and to read.

The sign boded ill, for the insistence upon the punctilious etiquette inferred that Bakahenzie was disposed to be suspicious, if not directly hostile. And indeed the warriors’ description of the magic of Moonspirit, vide Mungongo, had made Bakahenzie uneasy.

After a full half-hour Bakahenzie, as if beaten in this solemn game, turned gravely and saluted the white. Birnier looked down from his chair with the affectation of just having noticed that some one was there. After a pause he returned the greeting, a little point which[pg 163]Bakahenzie thoroughly appreciated. Birnier had learned that according to Mungongo and the warrior, Zalu Zako had not yet been anointed king-god; therefore that Bakahenzie evidently intended to keep the young man in the background.

After preliminaries, Birnier inquired after Zalu Zako and informed Bakahenzie that he had journeyed expressly to see him. Bakahenzie ignored the question and began to talk about Eyes-in-the-hands, demanding to know whether Birnier was his brother.

“Nay,”said Birnier,“Eyes-in-the-hands is not of the same tribe as Moonspirit,”for he sedulously followed up the title which Mungongo had given him.“Eyes-in-the-hands comes from a country twelve moons distant from my country.”

Marufa squatting beside him grunted; Bakahenzie took snuff nonchalantly as if he did not believe a word.

“Eyes-in-the-hands is a mighty magician in his own country,”said Bakahenzie in the form of an assertion.

“The magic of Eyes-in-the-hands to the magic of Moonspirit,”stated Birnier,“is as water to the beer of the banana.”

“Eyes-in-the-hands,”remarked Bakahenzie indifferently,“hath magic to make the souls of man to be seen by all.”

“Those are but the souls of the belly and body, but Moonspirit can enchant so that the spirit of the head of man be seen at night,”boasted Birnier, wondering what trick of zu Pfeiffer’s had produced the effect.

“Eyes-in-the-hands,”insisted Bakahenzie,“hath[pg 164]a spirit in a piece of a tree which cries or laughs, sings or talks to his magic.”

“Moonspirit,”retorted Birnier (thinking“Gramophone, but I can go one better, my friend”),“hath also a spirit in a piece of tree who will speak words of wisdom unto thee in thine own tongue, who will repeat that which is said unto him in thy tongue or in my tongue, who will speak words of wisdom even unto thee.”

Bakahenzie seemed outmatched in the boasting tournament. He tapped snuff woodenly. Marufa scratched his skinny ribs thoughtfully. Then Bakahenzie remarked:

“He that hath not been cleansed may not look upon the Son-of-the-Snake.”

“He that hath not been anointed need have no fear of the evil eye.”

“Hath not one who was not cleansed entered and cast evil upon the tribe?”demanded Bakahenzie.

“If the fence is not strong the leopard will enter.”

“If the leopard be not strong and swift indeed may he not be killed in the hut?”inquired Bakahenzie.

“If a leopard and a wild-cat break in, then wilt thou not kill the leopard first?”

“Even so,”retorted Bakahenzie;“then is water stronger than beer, even as the beer does reveal?”

Birnier nearly smiled in recognition of the hit.

“Nay, does not beer make the fool to talk foolishness? Dost thou then cast away the banana? Does not one[pg 165]talk foolishness also who is sick and yet discardeth good medicine, because he feareth to poison his belly?”

“Even so,”said Bakahenzie obstinately,“does the sick man exorcise the good medicine lest an enemy hath made magic thereupon?”

“Then,”said Birnier, whose only objection to the ceremony was the delay and the messiness,“let the good medicine be purified.”

Bakahenzie grunted and covertly took stock of the tent and equipment visible. Upon the pile of cases stacked just inside the tent his eyes rested some time, but he would not make any inquiry. Marufa, too, was occupied in the same manner. Bakahenzie was recalling the previous meeting with Birnier in the village of MFunyaMPopo—of that day when Birnier had not made any attempt to impress the native mind with“magic”other than the ordinary“miracles”in the routine of a white man’s life.

“When the Son-of-the-Snake,”inquired Birnier, who had learned as much of the hagiocracy as Mungongo knew,“hath taken up the Burden, wilt thou then drive Eyes-in-the-hands from the country?”

Bakahenzie slowly withdrew his eyes from the fascinating case as far as Birnier’s booted foot.

“Hast thou, white man, the magic twig that makes fire?”he demanded.

“Even so.”

Birnier took a box of matches from his pocket and struck one. Bakahenzie and Marufa watched him solemnly. Then a lean bronze hand was outstretched. Birnier gave him the box. Slowly and gravely Bakahenzie,[pg 166]the chief witch-doctor, extracted a match, turned it over and over, smelt it, tasted it, regarded it, and struck it on the top of the box. It was a safety match, so nothing happened. Birnier, without a vestige of a smile, instructed him to strike it only upon the black piece at the side. That impressed Bakahenzie and Marufa. The former tried again as directed and succeeded. Holding the match too near the head he burned the quick of the nail, but not a muscle quivered. He would not even admit that the white man’s devil stick had bitten him. But he was still more impressed.

At a sign from Birnier, Mungongo brought from the tent a nickel-plated revolver and cartridges, which he placed at the feet of Bakahenzie without comment. Apparently Bakahenzie did not notice the action or the gift. He held out the matches to return to the white man. Birnier requested him to keep them. He wrapped up the box in his loin-cloth and fell to further contemplation of the cases. He was cogitating. The value of this white had suddenly increased. Evidently he could make small magic. Perhaps he could make as much big magic as Eyes-in-the-hands. Who knew? But then if that was so he could make greater magic than he, Bakahenzie, could. Bakahenzie saw that if Moonspirit were such a great magician he would be difficult or impossible to control. Naturally Bakahenzie could only understand his own motives in others. His problem now was to discover some means by which he could control Moonspirit, make of him a familiar to work to his own ends. Why was he so insistent upon seeing Zalu Zako? Bakahenzie became more and more suspicious. He saw[pg 167]another reason why the white man must be kept away from Zalu Zako. To refuse to purify him would give a valid excuse that he may not look upon the Son-of-the-Snake. But he did not wish to displease him; also Marufa could perform the purification.

Again Birnier repeated the question regarding the overthrow of Eyes-in-the-hands. Bakahenzie took snuff, regarded the revolver lying at his feet idly, and deigned to reply.

“When that which must be hath come to pass, then shall the children of the Snake eat up their enemies as a lizard eats flies.”

“And what is that which must come to pass?”

Bakahenzie sat silent awhile, slightly shocked at the directness of the question; then as if to humour the white man, he replied:

“When the Bridegroom hath taken the Bride.”

The ceremony of purification could not take place until the following day, because such things may not be hurried; and moreover, various potent charms had to be sent for to the native village. Meanwhile Bakahenzie squatted by the fire, contemplating the nickel-plated revolver and affairs of policy, and opposite him sat the meditative Marufa.

From the hour of the monkey, Bakahenzie, unconscious of the small face and anxious eyes watching the camp from the tangle of green, was busy muttering spells over a calabash containing a magic concoction composed of the entrails of a white goat, certain herbs and the eyes of a black wild-cat. When the roof of the forest was a patterned ceiling against an incandescent glow, Birnier stripped to the waist, and submitted himself to the hands of the wizard who,[pg 168]after scattering the feathers of a scarlet parrot into the calabash, smeared the left breast, the forehead and the right arm of the white man, to the accompaniment of an incantation. These insignia and specifics he must not remove for three suns; nor could he be permitted to look upon the semi-divine Zalu Zako until whatever evil influence his foreign body might possess should have been exorcised by this powerful medicine.

To sit around half nude in such heat was no arduous undertaking, but to sleep without rubbing off the concoction was another matter; also the odour thereof was not pleasing to the nostrils of a white man. But Birnier accomplished the feat by smoking excessively and by marking with a pencil the various nostrums recommended by the amiable Burton, many of which were hardly less disagreeable than Doctor Bakahenzie’s prescription.

That worthy’s slaves had erected a hut for him nigh to the tent in the door of which he squatted, usually with Marufa beside him, throughout the day, with ever a contemplative eye upon his victim, an eye which Birnier was sure was eagerly seeking some excuse to plead that he had inadvertently rendered the magic impotent, and must accordingly have the ceremony repeated.

Amused by the ridiculous sight he presented, plastered over with this filth, Birnier made Mungongo, whom he had taught to operate a camera, take a photograph of him, which would entertain Lucille, as well as be of scientific interest. Bakahenzie and Marufa watched this performance from the fire with amazement, for they imagined that the camera was some kind of[pg 169]gun. When they heard the click, they grunted as if expecting the white man to fall dead. Birnier of course knew the universal native belief in the picture being the soul, or one of the souls. He summoned Bakahenzie and Marufa and showed them a photograph which, after some difficulty, they recognised as Mungongo.

“Eh,”grunted a warrior,“indeed is Mungongo the slave of the white man, for hath he not imprisoned his soul?”

Mungongo laughed, yet he believed in the superstition as implicitly as any of his compatriots, for said he:

“It is a wise man who hath that which is his always within his hand, even as Moonspirit hath the soul of his favourite wife with him always, so that she may not be unfaithful unto him.”

“Eh, he is wiser than the Banana Eater!”grunted the warrior in admiration.

Birnier’s training to control his features was strained in the effort not to express surprise. He could not imagine from what Mungongo had derived this astonishing statement, until he recollected that the boy had seen a photograph of Lucille among his papers.

After this successful demonstration of his sophistication, Mungongo was anxious that Moonspirit give an exhibition of his magic to dumbfound the chief witch-doctor, desiring most ardently to work the gramophone, to operate which he had also learned. But on reflection, Birnier decided that it was not his policyto makehis thunder too cheap.

Each evening as the last subtle violet quivered in the[pg 170]trees had Bakuma glided from the shelter of the undergrowth under the flap of Birnier’s tent, where she had lain until the first tint of dawn on the foliage of the forest. Birnier had wished her to leave for some village until Bakahenzie had left the camp, but Bakuma had frantically pleaded to remain, knowing that the craft was seeking her throughout the country since Bakahenzie’s latest interview with mighty Tarum.

But upon the third day as Birnier was seated reading philosophically at his tent door, the inevitable happened. A loud outcry arose and from the tangle of creepers started the lithe figure of Bakuma, who darted past him into the tent. For a moment there was silence. But Birnier guessed what the matter was. Bakahenzie emerged from the wall of green and cried out in a loud voice. Instantly the warriors around leaped to their feet, and broke out into great clamour.

Mungongo, busy with the cooking pots, rushed to Birnier’s side, gesticulating wildly. Inside the tent crouched Bakuma. Towards Birnier advanced Bakahenzie and the warriors, whose dilated eyes and spears in their hands betokened that Bakahenzie had stirred their deepest feelings of terror and murder. Birnier smoked placidly, neither stirring nor permitting a sign of their presence to cross his features.

Mungongo, startled out of his confidence in Moonspirit, excitedly bade Bakuma go forth as Bakahenzie, stopping in front of the white man, broke into a harangue, bidding him to give up Bakuma whose sacrilege in breaking the magic circle, as he had said, had brought the terrible Eyes-in-the-hands upon them; that the welfare of the tribe depended upon[pg 171]her sacrifice to the angered Unmentionable One even as she had been doomed; and threatening that they would take the insolent white man, whose magic was as water, and sacrifice him as well, as was desired by the spirit of Tarum.

The longer he spoke the more excited he grew. Motivated by the sudden conviction that the sacrifice of Bakuma, whose action he had foretold so successfully, and the slaughter of the white would really restore to him his repute and remove at the same time the problem of controlling a superior magician who threatened to become his rival, Bakahenzie began to work himself up into the necessary state of prophetic hysteria. Cowering against the camp-bed Bakuma whimpered with terror; Mungongo incoherently begged Moonspirit to give up the girl.

Not a muscle moved upon Birnier’s face; nor even did his eyes turn in the direction of the menacing crowd who with uplifted spears joggled each other around Bakahenzie. Birnier knew that it was a supreme test of nerve; knew that any attempt to snatch a rifle or a movement of any sort, would precipitate action on their side. He had no intention of surrendering the girl to a hideous fate, and also he saw beyond the incident that if Bakahenzie were to triumph over him now, not only would his prestige with the natives be gone for ever, but that his fate would be surely sealed. Slowly, exaggeratedly, as if he were alone, he killed a mosquito upon his bare right breast and lighted his pipe anew.

Bakahenzie advanced a step followed by the warriors. His voice had reached the falsetto timbre. Mungongo lost his head entirely and seizing Bakuma, began to[pg 172]drag her out of the tent. Birnier turned his head leisurely towards him. Said he very loudly:

“It is not seemly to rape a woman in my presence, O Mungongo. Let her be, for I will buy thee one.”

Mungongo ceased to pull at Bakuma’s arms and stared as if paralysed. Birnier saw the eyes switch in a terrified glance at the warriors behind him and heard Bakahenzie’s yell to kill.

For one moment he thought that indeed the end had come. Before he could reach the rifle a dozen spears would be in his back. He sat motionless, theAnatomy of Melancholystill in his hand, and watched the gauge of Mungongo’s eyes. Bakahenzie’s voice rose to a screech. Suddenly Birnier wheeled round in his chair, snatched up the pencil and staring hard at them, began to sketch faces on the open page of the book.

At the sight the warriors ceased their shuffling dance, were arrested with the spears in their hands in as many poses. Bakahenzie’s scream was stoppered as if by a hand upon his mouth. In the silence their heavy breathing rivalled the twitter and hum of the forest. Birnier sketched furiously, glaring portentously from the group to the paper. Bakahenzie took a step forward, a nervous step, and yelled,“Kill!”but his voice released those of the warriors. In one loud shout they cried:

“He bewitches us! He bewitches us!”

As Birnier bent his head to make another magic mark upon the magic book he heard the rush of feet.

“They have fled!”squealed Mungongo, still clutching Bakuma.

Birnier sighed and dropped his pencil as he glanced up. Bakahenzie and the warriors had disappeared, but by the fire squatted Marufa unconcernedly scratching his skinny ribs.

[pg 174]Chapter 16Changed was the City of the Snake, the place of kings. Upon the site where had been the hive of huts wrapped in the green arms of the banana plantation, laboured under the incandescent sun gangs of prisoners under armed guards upon the building of larger huts laid out in streets, broad and geometrical, lined with correct ditches for drainage. Around the outskirts here and there remained charred posts.Upon the hill of MKoffo was a palisade enclosing the barracks of two companies of the askaris and two guns. No brown cones peeped like candle-snuffers above the sea of green fronds upon the hills of the tombs of kings, but from the sacred hill of Kawa Kendi commanding the approach to the valley rose, black against the sky, the triangle of the roof frame of a large bungalow; around the crown of the hill was a stout palisade through which grinned in the sun the muzzles of a Nordenfeldt and a pom-pom; and outside upon a levee strutted rigidly four sentries night and day, a perpetual reminder to the passer-by below of efficient vigilance.Within was a methodical formation of round huts dominated by a square one; at the far end, and in solitary grandeur beneath the Imperial flag upon a roughly-hewn flag-pole, was a green marquee tent, the temporary quarters of the Kommandant.[pg 175]Under the tent verandah at the rear where were his private quarters sat zu Pfeiffer with a towel tucked around his neck upon which was scattered inch-lengths of hair. Sergeant Schultz sheared deftly with clippers like a reaper in a field of corn. When he had completed the final trimming behind the ears, he stood aside with the air of an artist viewing his work.“Is that pleasing to your Excellence?”Zu Pfeiffer ran a hand around his skull.“Ya, that is better and cooler, sergeant.”With a professional air Schultz whisked around the Kommandant’s neck with a light brush, untucked the towel and brushed him down. As zu Pfeiffer rose Bakunjala appeared with a broom of small branches and a pan and proceeded to sweep the earthen floor. Schultz neatly folded up the towel, placed it on the chair, and stood at attention.“Is that all, Excellence?”“Ya, sergeant. Take a cigar.”“Thank you, Excellence!”The sergeant selected one, saluted and departed. Zu Pfeiffer lounged in a basket chair. The usual water bag and syphon were suspended at his elbow above sparklet and brandy bottles, and a box of cigars. Around him on the floor was a litter of papers, envelopes and documents. On his wrist sparkled the jewelled bracelet and between fingers, one of which bore the large diamond which had earned him his native name, was an official document bearing the Imperial Eagles.As he read he smiled and patted his left moustache approvingly. Officially the authorities would not[pg 176]comply with his request made before leaving Ingonya for two more companies of askaris with white non-commissioned officers and two more guns; but unofficially he was informed that they would be supplied later and that the authorities were pleased. He picked up a private letter and re-read it. Then he smiled again, a sneering twist remaining at the corner of the mouth. Always he was informed by sympathetic friends and an agency of the whereabouts and doings of Lucille. On the 1st of August she had been due at Wiesbaden.He threw the letter on the table with an irritable gesture and scowled as he drank. The arrival of the mail always brought vivid regrets for the glories and comforts he was missing by being condemned to war with“dirty swines of niggers.”That was part of the penalty he had had to pay for being a gentleman in a land of dollar grubbers, yet a matter to be written up against the account of Lucille, the entzückend Lucille. He must have been verrückt, he reflected savagely. The delicate lips softened in ludicrous contrast to the brutal outline of a cropped skull. The blare of a trumpet disturbed his reveries, reveries which were apt to rankle until among his satellites went the word that the Eater-of-men was possessed by the demon once more.After he had elegantly finished a small cup of café cognac and a cigarette, Sergeant Schultz strutted up, saluted, and at a nod from zu Pfeiffer handed a document to the Kommandant, a roster of the chiefs who had submitted with the approximate number of their followers. Officially there were five chiefs with some six thousand men who had nominally accepted[pg 177]the new ruler, each one of whom had to leave as hostage for his fidelity a son, who lived under guard in the village beneath the guns.Zu Pfeiffer needed the extra companies and white men to establish stations at various points with the object of gradually extending the sphere of military occupation. Zu Pfeiffer left nothing, as far as he could foresee, to chance; his maxim was to conserve his force to the utmost, to attain his objective at the least possible cost in men and material. The policy of terrorisation was based on the reasoning that eventually schrecklichkeit saved both the conqueror and the conquered bloodshed and trouble; for if the enemy were not so impressed with the fact that all resistance was utterly useless, he would resort to the sporadic risings which would entail more slaughter on both sides. Zu Pfeiffer, acting on the teachings of the German masters, sought to make war psychologically as well as militarily, economically as well as geographically. Hence his dramatic step in the overthrow of the idol in person, and the care with which he planned to impress each chief and native with his omnipotence and magic. This system of the application of political science as well as of military science, of course, was sound, save for a temperamental error: the lack of sufficient imagination to realize the unknown quantity of chance, the inevitable mistake of military scientists who are loath to admit the artist to their counsels, exemplified by men of genius, such as Napoleon and Leonardo da Vinci, who were both mathematicians and artists.In zu Pfeiffer’s case, as in others of his type, the motivating principle was not bourgeois greed of material[pg 178]gain for himself; gain he could afford to despise in his wealth; such would have been contrary to the code of a gentleman. While he had not hesitated for a moment to destroy his rival, Birnier, he would not touch with one finger any of his goods; for that reason had he given permission to the corporal to take Birnier’s equipment, so that he would not even be contaminated by the possession of them, a temperamental error again which had led to Birnier’s escape.The driving power in his caste and tribe was love of power to an excess masked with portentous solemnity under the cloak of benefiting this people and the peoples of the world; forcing them to have broad streets and sanitary arrangements, compelling them to laugh, to sing, and to be happy whether they would or no: an urge which is the curse of the world, the impulse to interfere in other folk’s affairs, to teach them, to make them to know the true God, the right way of living, the right way of doing everything from the rising of the first sun of consciousness to that happy crack of doom when our planet tries to enforce its orbit upon some other planet.Zu Pfeiffer pinched a cigar tip, lighted it meticulously and considered the roster.“Sergeant, this man—what’s the animal’s name? Kalomato—has his son surrendered himself?”“No, Excellence. The man says that he has fled the country.”“Where does he come from?”“The neighbourhood, Excellence.”“That means that his son is with the rebels?”[pg 179]“Probably not, Excellence. He is very young, they say.”“That does not matter. Sequester all the chief’s property. If he won’t give it up let the askaris deal with him. If that doesn’t work, have him shot.”“Excellence!”For such obstinate cases zu Pfeiffer had fallen upon the custom of serving two purposes by handing over the victim to the mercies of his askaris which whetted their sadistic appetites and usually secured the desired revelation of the whereabouts of the hidden ivory or other goods under the torture of the burning feet, and divers other ingenious methods. Of late this practice had proved so satisfactory that the mere threat was usually sufficient.“This man,”continued zu Pfeiffer tapping the roster with his long nail,“his son is here?”“Ja, Excellence.”“Has he paid the tithe due?”“No, Excellence. He refuses.”“Have the son shot.”“Excellence!”“Any report this morning?”“Ja, Excellence. A Wamungo spy brings news that a white man entered the country from the south.”“Description?”“They say he is a trader, Excellence, coming from the Kivu direction, but the savage cannot give any satisfactory description. It is the first white he has seen, he says.”“He won’t be the last!”snapped zu Pfeiffer with a twitch of the left sentry moustache.“Saunders,[pg 180]possibly. If so he should be here shortly to report. Well?”“The King and the few men left with him are in hiding, Excellence, in dense forest. They are demoralized and quarrel among themselves. Many are coming to surrender, for they say that you, Excellence, have eaten their god.”“Ach!”said zu Pfeiffer with satisfaction.“What did I tell you, sergeant?”“Your Excellence was correct in every respect.”“Um! Pity I can’t spare a company. That would settle them before they have a chance to reorganize. Ach, but they haven’t the sense, the animals, to do that.… Parade, sergeant.”Schultz saluted.“Ready, Excellence.”Zu Pfeiffer rose, took up his gold-mounted sjambok, and the two walked around the big marquee to the front where between the orderly lines of huts those askaris not on duty were drawn up for inspection. The sergeant barked. Bayonets flashed as they presented arms. Another bark and they ported arms. Zu Pfeiffer walked down the line inspecting buttons, bolts, and rifles as meticulously as he had lighted his cigar. The fifteenth barrel he thrust away petulantly and flicked the askari’s face with his sjambok. The muscles of the man’s face twitched as the blow came and the eyes bulged, but he did not flinch.“Twenty-five, sergeant!”“Excellence!”Zu Pfeiffer passed on. When the inspection was finished he stood rigidly smoking, coldly watching[pg 181]Schultz dismiss the men. Then he stalked down the hill with Schultz slightly in the rear, followed by a big black Munyamwezi sergeant-major, towards the opposite hill, of MKoffo. But at the bottom of where there were some half-constructed huts he paused.“The women, sergeant?”“The large hut, Excellence. Two hundred as ordered.”“No women of chiefs?”“No, Excellence. Those attending on the hostages are housed apart.”Zu Pfeiffer strode towards the hut indicated which stood near to the edge of a rased banana plantation. Two sentries without the fence presented arms stiffly and remained immobile. Within the compound were some sixty or more young girls, mostly having the black complexion of the slave type. The chattering and giggling ceased as the tall form of the dreaded Eyes-in-the-hands stood in the gate. A slight smile flirted his lips.From the deep violet of the hut interior darted a young girl into the sunlight. At the sight of the white men she poised on her toes, one foot forward and hands extended as if about to whirl into a dance, staring with the curiosity of a fawn.Tall for a native maid, the light bronze of her immature breasts revealed that she was of the Wongolo ruling caste. Around her slender neck was a circlet of bright blue beads. As zu Pfeiffer stiffened and stared she wheeled and fled into the hut.“Gott im Himmel!”he muttered.“The body of Lucille in Carmen!”“Who is that woman?”he demanded of Schultz.[pg 182]“I don’t know, Excellence,”replied the sergeant and spoke to the black sergeant-major.“She is the daughter of the chief Bamana, Excellence, visiting these other women. I will have her removed.”“I will not have the sense of caste abused,”said zu Pfeiffer, gazing into the hut.“That is not policy. Have her sent to the fort, sergeant, and placed under guard.”“Excellence!”Zu Pfeiffer swung on his heels and strode out and up the hill of MKoffo. The inspection was more hurried than usual that day. Then he returned to the hill of Kawa Kendi to hold court in the big marquee tent. After a lunch and a long siesta in the heat of the noonday he strolled around the village superintending the rasing of huts and the staking out of the new village which was to rise upon the ashes of the old one, a concrete example of the wisdom and power of the new lord, Eyes-in-the-hands.Under squads of askaris gangs of prisoners, criminal and political, bound by a light chain about each neck, laboured at clearing away charred stumps and debris, while other natives portered in saplings and loads of grass, each village which had submitted sending its allotted quota.Trumpets blared. The keepers of the coughing monsters made magical dances with their fire sticks up on the hill of Kawa Kendi. The black, white and red totem of the conqueror fluttered to earth like a wounded bird. Night closed like a black lid placed upon the steaming cauldron of the sun.After dinner zu Pfeiffer sat in his private tent at[pg 183]the rear of the marquee drinking brandy. Upon a camp table covered by a violet cloth was the portrait in the ivory frame at which he gazed as he smoked. The blue eyes and the feminine lips softened as sentimentally as any sex-starved Puritan virgin; perhaps not in spite of, but because of, a mediæval code as senseless as the native system of tabu, for natural emotions suppressed find an outlet in some form.From outside came the twitter and hum of the forest, the rhythm of frogs, the dim bleating of a goat and the distant wailing of the women’s death lament. Zu Pfeiffer drank and smoked and stared at the portrait in the ivory frame. Once he slapped irritably at a mosquito which had escaped the double net over the tent door. A wave of emotion seemed to well within him. He looked as if he were about to blubber as leaning over the table he peered intently at the pictured face and whispered:“Nur einmal noch möcht ich dich sehen,Und sinken vor dir aufs KnieUnd sterbend zu dir sprechen:‘Madam, ich liebe Sie!’ …“Lucille! … Ach, Lucille!”He drew himself back with a jerk, drank his brandy at a gulp and called angrily:“Bakunjala!”The flutter of sand preceded a gasped:“Bwana!”Zu Pfeiffer gave him an irritable command. Four[pg 184]minutes elapsed during which he gazed steadily at the portrait. He turned at the slither of feet. Bright blue beads glittered in the lamplight as the daughter of Bamana sank upon her heels.

Changed was the City of the Snake, the place of kings. Upon the site where had been the hive of huts wrapped in the green arms of the banana plantation, laboured under the incandescent sun gangs of prisoners under armed guards upon the building of larger huts laid out in streets, broad and geometrical, lined with correct ditches for drainage. Around the outskirts here and there remained charred posts.

Upon the hill of MKoffo was a palisade enclosing the barracks of two companies of the askaris and two guns. No brown cones peeped like candle-snuffers above the sea of green fronds upon the hills of the tombs of kings, but from the sacred hill of Kawa Kendi commanding the approach to the valley rose, black against the sky, the triangle of the roof frame of a large bungalow; around the crown of the hill was a stout palisade through which grinned in the sun the muzzles of a Nordenfeldt and a pom-pom; and outside upon a levee strutted rigidly four sentries night and day, a perpetual reminder to the passer-by below of efficient vigilance.

Within was a methodical formation of round huts dominated by a square one; at the far end, and in solitary grandeur beneath the Imperial flag upon a roughly-hewn flag-pole, was a green marquee tent, the temporary quarters of the Kommandant.

Under the tent verandah at the rear where were his private quarters sat zu Pfeiffer with a towel tucked around his neck upon which was scattered inch-lengths of hair. Sergeant Schultz sheared deftly with clippers like a reaper in a field of corn. When he had completed the final trimming behind the ears, he stood aside with the air of an artist viewing his work.

“Is that pleasing to your Excellence?”

Zu Pfeiffer ran a hand around his skull.

“Ya, that is better and cooler, sergeant.”

With a professional air Schultz whisked around the Kommandant’s neck with a light brush, untucked the towel and brushed him down. As zu Pfeiffer rose Bakunjala appeared with a broom of small branches and a pan and proceeded to sweep the earthen floor. Schultz neatly folded up the towel, placed it on the chair, and stood at attention.

“Is that all, Excellence?”

“Ya, sergeant. Take a cigar.”

“Thank you, Excellence!”

The sergeant selected one, saluted and departed. Zu Pfeiffer lounged in a basket chair. The usual water bag and syphon were suspended at his elbow above sparklet and brandy bottles, and a box of cigars. Around him on the floor was a litter of papers, envelopes and documents. On his wrist sparkled the jewelled bracelet and between fingers, one of which bore the large diamond which had earned him his native name, was an official document bearing the Imperial Eagles.

As he read he smiled and patted his left moustache approvingly. Officially the authorities would not[pg 176]comply with his request made before leaving Ingonya for two more companies of askaris with white non-commissioned officers and two more guns; but unofficially he was informed that they would be supplied later and that the authorities were pleased. He picked up a private letter and re-read it. Then he smiled again, a sneering twist remaining at the corner of the mouth. Always he was informed by sympathetic friends and an agency of the whereabouts and doings of Lucille. On the 1st of August she had been due at Wiesbaden.

He threw the letter on the table with an irritable gesture and scowled as he drank. The arrival of the mail always brought vivid regrets for the glories and comforts he was missing by being condemned to war with“dirty swines of niggers.”That was part of the penalty he had had to pay for being a gentleman in a land of dollar grubbers, yet a matter to be written up against the account of Lucille, the entzückend Lucille. He must have been verrückt, he reflected savagely. The delicate lips softened in ludicrous contrast to the brutal outline of a cropped skull. The blare of a trumpet disturbed his reveries, reveries which were apt to rankle until among his satellites went the word that the Eater-of-men was possessed by the demon once more.

After he had elegantly finished a small cup of café cognac and a cigarette, Sergeant Schultz strutted up, saluted, and at a nod from zu Pfeiffer handed a document to the Kommandant, a roster of the chiefs who had submitted with the approximate number of their followers. Officially there were five chiefs with some six thousand men who had nominally accepted[pg 177]the new ruler, each one of whom had to leave as hostage for his fidelity a son, who lived under guard in the village beneath the guns.

Zu Pfeiffer needed the extra companies and white men to establish stations at various points with the object of gradually extending the sphere of military occupation. Zu Pfeiffer left nothing, as far as he could foresee, to chance; his maxim was to conserve his force to the utmost, to attain his objective at the least possible cost in men and material. The policy of terrorisation was based on the reasoning that eventually schrecklichkeit saved both the conqueror and the conquered bloodshed and trouble; for if the enemy were not so impressed with the fact that all resistance was utterly useless, he would resort to the sporadic risings which would entail more slaughter on both sides. Zu Pfeiffer, acting on the teachings of the German masters, sought to make war psychologically as well as militarily, economically as well as geographically. Hence his dramatic step in the overthrow of the idol in person, and the care with which he planned to impress each chief and native with his omnipotence and magic. This system of the application of political science as well as of military science, of course, was sound, save for a temperamental error: the lack of sufficient imagination to realize the unknown quantity of chance, the inevitable mistake of military scientists who are loath to admit the artist to their counsels, exemplified by men of genius, such as Napoleon and Leonardo da Vinci, who were both mathematicians and artists.

In zu Pfeiffer’s case, as in others of his type, the motivating principle was not bourgeois greed of material[pg 178]gain for himself; gain he could afford to despise in his wealth; such would have been contrary to the code of a gentleman. While he had not hesitated for a moment to destroy his rival, Birnier, he would not touch with one finger any of his goods; for that reason had he given permission to the corporal to take Birnier’s equipment, so that he would not even be contaminated by the possession of them, a temperamental error again which had led to Birnier’s escape.

The driving power in his caste and tribe was love of power to an excess masked with portentous solemnity under the cloak of benefiting this people and the peoples of the world; forcing them to have broad streets and sanitary arrangements, compelling them to laugh, to sing, and to be happy whether they would or no: an urge which is the curse of the world, the impulse to interfere in other folk’s affairs, to teach them, to make them to know the true God, the right way of living, the right way of doing everything from the rising of the first sun of consciousness to that happy crack of doom when our planet tries to enforce its orbit upon some other planet.

Zu Pfeiffer pinched a cigar tip, lighted it meticulously and considered the roster.

“Sergeant, this man—what’s the animal’s name? Kalomato—has his son surrendered himself?”

“No, Excellence. The man says that he has fled the country.”

“Where does he come from?”

“The neighbourhood, Excellence.”

“That means that his son is with the rebels?”

“Probably not, Excellence. He is very young, they say.”

“That does not matter. Sequester all the chief’s property. If he won’t give it up let the askaris deal with him. If that doesn’t work, have him shot.”

“Excellence!”

For such obstinate cases zu Pfeiffer had fallen upon the custom of serving two purposes by handing over the victim to the mercies of his askaris which whetted their sadistic appetites and usually secured the desired revelation of the whereabouts of the hidden ivory or other goods under the torture of the burning feet, and divers other ingenious methods. Of late this practice had proved so satisfactory that the mere threat was usually sufficient.

“This man,”continued zu Pfeiffer tapping the roster with his long nail,“his son is here?”

“Ja, Excellence.”

“Has he paid the tithe due?”

“No, Excellence. He refuses.”

“Have the son shot.”

“Excellence!”

“Any report this morning?”

“Ja, Excellence. A Wamungo spy brings news that a white man entered the country from the south.”

“Description?”

“They say he is a trader, Excellence, coming from the Kivu direction, but the savage cannot give any satisfactory description. It is the first white he has seen, he says.”

“He won’t be the last!”snapped zu Pfeiffer with a twitch of the left sentry moustache.“Saunders,[pg 180]possibly. If so he should be here shortly to report. Well?”

“The King and the few men left with him are in hiding, Excellence, in dense forest. They are demoralized and quarrel among themselves. Many are coming to surrender, for they say that you, Excellence, have eaten their god.”

“Ach!”said zu Pfeiffer with satisfaction.“What did I tell you, sergeant?”

“Your Excellence was correct in every respect.”

“Um! Pity I can’t spare a company. That would settle them before they have a chance to reorganize. Ach, but they haven’t the sense, the animals, to do that.… Parade, sergeant.”

Schultz saluted.

“Ready, Excellence.”

Zu Pfeiffer rose, took up his gold-mounted sjambok, and the two walked around the big marquee to the front where between the orderly lines of huts those askaris not on duty were drawn up for inspection. The sergeant barked. Bayonets flashed as they presented arms. Another bark and they ported arms. Zu Pfeiffer walked down the line inspecting buttons, bolts, and rifles as meticulously as he had lighted his cigar. The fifteenth barrel he thrust away petulantly and flicked the askari’s face with his sjambok. The muscles of the man’s face twitched as the blow came and the eyes bulged, but he did not flinch.

“Twenty-five, sergeant!”

“Excellence!”

Zu Pfeiffer passed on. When the inspection was finished he stood rigidly smoking, coldly watching[pg 181]Schultz dismiss the men. Then he stalked down the hill with Schultz slightly in the rear, followed by a big black Munyamwezi sergeant-major, towards the opposite hill, of MKoffo. But at the bottom of where there were some half-constructed huts he paused.

“The women, sergeant?”

“The large hut, Excellence. Two hundred as ordered.”

“No women of chiefs?”

“No, Excellence. Those attending on the hostages are housed apart.”

Zu Pfeiffer strode towards the hut indicated which stood near to the edge of a rased banana plantation. Two sentries without the fence presented arms stiffly and remained immobile. Within the compound were some sixty or more young girls, mostly having the black complexion of the slave type. The chattering and giggling ceased as the tall form of the dreaded Eyes-in-the-hands stood in the gate. A slight smile flirted his lips.

From the deep violet of the hut interior darted a young girl into the sunlight. At the sight of the white men she poised on her toes, one foot forward and hands extended as if about to whirl into a dance, staring with the curiosity of a fawn.

Tall for a native maid, the light bronze of her immature breasts revealed that she was of the Wongolo ruling caste. Around her slender neck was a circlet of bright blue beads. As zu Pfeiffer stiffened and stared she wheeled and fled into the hut.

“Gott im Himmel!”he muttered.“The body of Lucille in Carmen!”

“Who is that woman?”he demanded of Schultz.

“I don’t know, Excellence,”replied the sergeant and spoke to the black sergeant-major.“She is the daughter of the chief Bamana, Excellence, visiting these other women. I will have her removed.”

“I will not have the sense of caste abused,”said zu Pfeiffer, gazing into the hut.“That is not policy. Have her sent to the fort, sergeant, and placed under guard.”

“Excellence!”

Zu Pfeiffer swung on his heels and strode out and up the hill of MKoffo. The inspection was more hurried than usual that day. Then he returned to the hill of Kawa Kendi to hold court in the big marquee tent. After a lunch and a long siesta in the heat of the noonday he strolled around the village superintending the rasing of huts and the staking out of the new village which was to rise upon the ashes of the old one, a concrete example of the wisdom and power of the new lord, Eyes-in-the-hands.

Under squads of askaris gangs of prisoners, criminal and political, bound by a light chain about each neck, laboured at clearing away charred stumps and debris, while other natives portered in saplings and loads of grass, each village which had submitted sending its allotted quota.

Trumpets blared. The keepers of the coughing monsters made magical dances with their fire sticks up on the hill of Kawa Kendi. The black, white and red totem of the conqueror fluttered to earth like a wounded bird. Night closed like a black lid placed upon the steaming cauldron of the sun.

After dinner zu Pfeiffer sat in his private tent at[pg 183]the rear of the marquee drinking brandy. Upon a camp table covered by a violet cloth was the portrait in the ivory frame at which he gazed as he smoked. The blue eyes and the feminine lips softened as sentimentally as any sex-starved Puritan virgin; perhaps not in spite of, but because of, a mediæval code as senseless as the native system of tabu, for natural emotions suppressed find an outlet in some form.

From outside came the twitter and hum of the forest, the rhythm of frogs, the dim bleating of a goat and the distant wailing of the women’s death lament. Zu Pfeiffer drank and smoked and stared at the portrait in the ivory frame. Once he slapped irritably at a mosquito which had escaped the double net over the tent door. A wave of emotion seemed to well within him. He looked as if he were about to blubber as leaning over the table he peered intently at the pictured face and whispered:

“Nur einmal noch möcht ich dich sehen,Und sinken vor dir aufs KnieUnd sterbend zu dir sprechen:‘Madam, ich liebe Sie!’ …

“Nur einmal noch möcht ich dich sehen,

Und sinken vor dir aufs Knie

Und sterbend zu dir sprechen:

‘Madam, ich liebe Sie!’ …

“Lucille! … Ach, Lucille!”

He drew himself back with a jerk, drank his brandy at a gulp and called angrily:

“Bakunjala!”

The flutter of sand preceded a gasped:

“Bwana!”

Zu Pfeiffer gave him an irritable command. Four[pg 184]minutes elapsed during which he gazed steadily at the portrait. He turned at the slither of feet. Bright blue beads glittered in the lamplight as the daughter of Bamana sank upon her heels.

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