[pg 61]Chapter 5The same vast balloons of sepia rolled over the lake, vomited a host of liquid ramrods and, after short intervals of brilliant glare, were succeeded by others. The gutters of the station were turned into burbling brooks and the grass plot into a morass.Behind the screen on the south verandah sat zu Pfeiffer in his pink silk pyjamas, a scowl upon his brow. He sipped his café cognac distastefully and inhaled a cigarette so fiercely that the heat burned his tongue. He had not slept. Yet the broken nail on the left little finger had been cut and polished. Half the night he had sat before the photograph in the ivory frame, pondering upon, and rehearsing, the past; muttering aloud to Lucille, sometimes words of love and sometimes savage curses; wondering what she was doing and where she was; gritting his teeth at visions which aroused insane jealousy; calculating what the consequences of his action would be were he to obey the impulse that had leaped into his mind in the first flush of passion. If he were to release the prisoner the fellow would probably expect an explanation and an apology which was, of course, out of the question. No, he must carry out the thing thoroughly without leaving any chance for the man to make trouble at the coast, or through the Embassy at Washington; at all costs not through Washington. For him, Birnier merely existed as a person whose feelings mattered nothing.[pg 62]With the greening of the moon zu Pfeiffer had retired. As he had lain sleeplessly watching the pallor of the dawn he had savagely corroborated the decision. Now the roar of the deluge appeared to him in the form of an abettor to his plan. He watched the grey wall of rain with satisfaction, stroking the left sentry moustache as if to tame the fierce bristles of an outraged dignity. When he had emerged from the bath, the pink of his face appeared to have spread to the whites of his eyes, a fact which Bakunjala had noted with sullen dread.Between the storms the sun glared yellow upon the smoking earth. Across the square squelched zu Pfeiffer to the orderly room. He grunted at Sergeant Schultz’s greeting and sprawled in the chair. When Schultz proffered him some official documents he waved them aside irritably.“Bring the prisoner to the Court, sergeant. I will try him immediately.”“Excellence!”said the sergeant, saluting.“What charge am I to enter against him, Excellence?”“Arms and liquor running,”responded zu Pfeiffer quickly.“I hold papers which prove the case completely; moreover you will see that Ali ben Hassan and others are prepared to testify. But—the charge will be margined as political: not criminal. Understand, sergeant?”“Perfectly, Excellence. Ali ben Hassan and the others have to testify before your Excellence now?”“There will be no need.”“Very good, Excellence.”“And, sergeant, what is the personnel of the launch and the prisoner’s party?”[pg 63]“The launch returned immediately to Jinja, Excellence, as soon as the prisoner had landed.”“Ach, good.”“The prisoner has a considerable battery, equipment and provisions; a headman and personal servants. He intended to obtain porters here, Excellence.”Zu Pfeiffer meditated, tapping the desk with a gold pencil.“What is the headman?”“Bambeeba, Excellence.”“Good. And the servants?”“One is a Wongolo youth, the others are mixed Walegga and Kavirondo.”“Arrest them all and see that none gets away.”“Excellence!”Schultz saluted and departed. Zu Pfeiffer frowned at the glare which was suddenly extinguished by falling water. He lighted a cigar and waited. Presently the sergeant returned in a waterproof cape, dripping, and announced that the prisoner was ready. Zu Pfeiffer gathered up his long legs and marched stiffly into the Court House adjoining.Upon a slight dais was a large desk and a cane armchair beneath the Imperial Eagles and a portrait of the Kaiser Wilhelm II. Pale, stubble bearded, and tense eyed with anger, sat Birnier upon a form against the wall; beside him stood Sergeant Schneider, for it is not usual etiquette to put a white prisoner in charge of a black guard. The grizzled sergeant stood stuffy to attention, which zu Pfeiffer acknowledged. Although he did not meet Birnier’s gaze, he scowled as if he had expected him to salute the majesty of the judge as well.[pg 64]But as zu Pfeiffer mounted the step to the chair of justice he looked up at the portrait of the Kaiser, stopped, and hesitated; then he wheeled abruptly, and barked:“Sergeant, bring the prisoner to the orderly room!”In the orderly room Birnier was placed between Sergeant Schultz at his table and Sergeant Schneider by the door. Birnier watched zu Pfeiffer intently, but zu Pfeiffer regarded him icily as if he were a piece of furniture. Without a word Birnier reached out and lifted a chair. Sergeant Schneider started forward, evidently fearing that the prisoner was about to attack his officer. Birnier said acidly:“I merely wish to sit down.”Zu Pfeiffer scowled again, but he made no objection. He took up some papers at random and began to peruse them. Said Birnier sharply:“When you have finished with this farce I shall be obliged if you will kindly explain your insane actions!”The tap-tap of a typewriter sounded from another room. A fly buzzed. Zu Pfeiffer’s eyelids did not blink. The sergeants stared woodenly to the front. Birnier looked from one to the other, bit his lips, and then exclaimed in exasperation:“What in hell do you mean by this damned nonsense?”The tap-tap continued; the fly buzzed irritatedly. Birnier clenched his fist. But he sat still. Another storm so darkened the room that zu Pfeiffer could scarcely have seen the print, but apparently he read on. The deluge roared, passed, and the glare came as suddenly. Zu Pfeiffer lifted his head and said in German:“Sergeant, record the opening of the Court.”[pg 65]“Excellence!”assented Sergeant Schultz and poised his pen ready to write.“The prisoner, a Swiss subject——”“I am American, as I have told you,”said Birnier in leashed anger.“A pseudo trader and hunter, named Carl Bornstadt,”continued zu Pfeiffer imperturbably,“is charged under sub-section 79 of section 8 with supplying guns and liquor to the native subjects of his Imperial Majesty.”“Good God!”began Birnier. But as he realised zu Pfeiffer’s purpose and his own position, he closed his lips tightly.Methodically the sergeant finished the entries and waited. Zu Pfeiffer stroked his favourite moustache and considered. He glanced at Birnier, but without a vestige of expression and continued:“Make a special note, sergeant, that we have reason to suspect that the prisoner is in the political service of”—a slight smile flicked the lieutenant’s face—“in the service of the Portuguese, and so under sub-section 109 of section 8, I am referring the case to Dar-es-salaam for investigation; witnesses, documentary and personal, to accompany the prisoner. Owing to unusual pressure of service we are unable to afford the prisoner, although apparently of European descent, a white guard; therefore, Sergeant Ludwig will detail a corporal and six men for the duty.”He paused. The sergeant’s pen scratched on. Zu Pfeiffer lighted a cigar and added impersonally:“The prisoner and escort will leave to-morrow morning. Sergeant Schneider, remove the prisoner!”Birnier’s face was a little paler, the eyes were slightly[pg 66]more bloodshot; but he did not attempt to speak. Zu Pfeiffer rose. The sergeants stood to attention and saluted. As he left the room towards the Court House, he smiled with slight satisfaction as the gruff voice of Sergeant Schneider barked:“Prisoner, shun! Right turn! Quick marrch!”But zu Pfeiffer did not remain long in the Court House. After fidgeting about with papers on the table and reprimanding Sergeant Schultz because he had not arranged the next native case to his satisfaction, he rose abruptly and marched swiftly across the square in the brilliant glare without his helmet and into his study. There he straddled a chair and leaned on the back sucking a dead cigar absent-mindedly. As he stared at the portrait in the ivory frame, the blue eyes grew soft and the delicate lips quivered like a child about to weep. He sighed heavily and then rapping out an oath, rose violently, overturning the chair, poured out a half-glass of neat cognac, and drank it at a gulp. As he neared the Court House the sentry, turning at the end of his short beat, was so startled at the proximity of the Kommandant, or incompletely disciplined, that he became flurried. Zu Pfeiffer clicked his heels together and haughtily watched the fumbled efforts to salute. The bolt caught in the man’s tunic. Gold flashed in the sun as the sjambok descended. Zu Pfeiffer walked on unconcernedly, leaving a grey weal on the terrified native’s face. To Sergeant Schultz, rigid in the doorway, he snapped an order to have fifty lashes given to the“clumsy dog.”Sentences were harsher than usual that morning. All the native world about him knew that a demon had taken possession of the Eater-of-men; he was usually[pg 67]inhabited by an evil spirit, but this time the demon of Bakra who, as everybody knows, tears the vitals with hot claws, making the victim to have fits, to foam at the mouth, to be quite mad, had entered the white man. Bakunjala, coming to the Court House with vermouth and biscuits at eleven o’clock, distinctly saw the devil glaring through zu Pfeiffer’s eyes, and was so scared that he let fall the tray, which was the reason that he also was doomed to have twenty-five lashes that evening. Even the stolid Sergeant Schultz remarked that the Herr Lieutenant had gotten a touch of the sun; but the grizzled Schneider, who came from Luthuania, opined that the Herr Kommandant had left his table knife edge uppermost.When zu Pfeiffer went across to tiffin the hot sun had dried up the gutters and the plot of grass. He did not return to the Court House, much to the gratitude of many innocent and guilty. After drinking more wine than usual he lay down for the siesta and fell asleep. But at five he awoke with a mouth like a burnt cooking pot and the temper of the said devil. He yelled for Bakunjala, who came, so trembling with fright that he stuttered. Zu Pfeiffer threw a glass which missed him and broke a mirror.“Another seven years’ ill luck!”shouted zu Pfeiffer, sitting on the bed in his shirt. He glared at Bakunjala standing in the door, too terror-stricken to flee, convinced that he would be blamed for breaking the glass.“You—you superstitious nigger!”yelled zu Pfeiffer, and added more calmly in Kiswahili:“Fetch me a brandy-soda! Upesi, you son of a baboon!”“Bwana!”exclaimed Bakunjala and fled gladly.Zu Pfeiffer sat and scowled at the scattered pieces of[pg 68]mirror until Bakunjala arrived with the drink. An hour later he emerged in his immaculate undress uniform and sat on the north verandah, drank vermouth and smoked cigars, staring out across the flat swamp where the pewter of the lake was flecked with silver and blood of the sinking sun. From beyond the fort came the yaps of the drill-sergeant busy in the cool of the afternoon. At the bark of the relieving guard, zu Pfeiffer rose and walked around the house to watch, with tetchy eyes, the saluting of the flag.As he stalked off to dinner in the messroom eyes glimmered in the darkness about him. Bakunjala, after receiving punishment, was indisposed, in fact incapable of attending to his duties in the spritely manner required. Another servant, who had taken his place, was nervous of the probable consequences, and had a keen eye for the appearance of the devil so realistically described by Bakunjala. But the demon apparently slept, for zu Pfeiffer took the dishes placed before him with an unaccustomed meekness, pushed them away absent-mindedly, and rising, retired to his study. Even when the deputy brought the wrong bottle he reprimanded him mildly without taking his eyes off the photograph in the ivory frame.Yet, with the port, he did not omit to rise, and heels together, raise his glass to the“Ihre Hochheit.”Then sprawling in the chair he began to drink and to smoke steadily.As the notes of the last post stuttered out in the clammy stillness he summoned the“boy”and bade him fetch Sergeant Schultz. At the sound of the sergeant’s steps on the verandah zu Pfeiffer stiffened up and patted his lips as if desiring to erase the lines that[pg 69]were graven thereon; and with one foot pushed the chair from the direct angle to the photograph.“Take a cigar,”said zu Pfeiffer, when the man had entered. The words were rather an order than an invitation. Sergeant Schultz obeyed. Zu Pfeiffer smoked reflectively, still regarding the photograph out of the corner of his eyes as if unable to resist the fascination.“How long have you been in this benighted country, sergeant?”“Nine years, Excellence.”“You wish to retire on the pension at the year’s term?”“I have not seen my wife and children for three years, Excellence.”“You shall have special leave as soon as the Wongolo affair is over.”“I thank you, Excellence.”“And I will recommend you for the special colonial service medal and pension.”“I thank you, Excellence.”“Take a drink, sergeant.”“I thank you, Excellence.”The sergeant obeyed with some semblance of initiative and he remarked that the lieutenant drank half a tumbler of neat brandy at a gulp. As if to drag himself away from the contemplation of the photograph zu Pfeiffer stood up and sat on the arm of the chair with his face in shadow above the lamp-shade. Gazing keenly at the sergeant, he said sharply:“You are quite aware of the regulations regarding official secrets, sergeant?”[pg 70]“Ach, yes, Excellence!”As the sergeant paused to answer with the glass in his hand there was just a suspicion of astonishment in the tone.“Good. Don’t forget it!”A note of menace was in zu Pfeiffer’s voice. He added more mildly,“Political reasons may cause stringent measures sometimes.”“Yes, Excellence.”Zu Pfeiffer smoked, coldly regarding the sergeant.“Who is Sergeant Schneider detailing for the prisoner’s escort to-morrow?”“Corporal Inyira, Excellence.”“A long service man?”“Ja, Excellence.”“Good. Go and fetch him here.”Not a shadow of surprise showed on Sergeant Schultz’s face as he departed. Zu Pfeiffer smoked hard and drank another brandy thirstily with a slight unsteadiness as he lifted the glass to his mouth. The sergeant returned and stood at attention just within the door.“The man is here, Excellence.”Zu Pfeiffer nodded.“Forward, quick marrch,”commanded the sergeant in a muffled bark.“Halttt!”“Very good, sergeant, you may wait.”Schultz saluted and retired without. The tall powerfully built native in uniform stood as if he had a bayonet beneath his chin. There was a slight nervousness about the blues of the eyes as he squinted in the attempt to look straight ahead and to watch the Kommandant at the same time. One nostril was slit,[pg 71]in the lobes of the ears were three can keys, and the temples were tattooed with tribal scars.“Corporal Inyira!”said zu Pfeiffer sharply. The black body twitched at the voice.“You are to leave to-morrow for Dar-es-salaam and you will take as a prisoner a white man who has been taking your tribe as slaves and selling them to the Abyssinians. The Bwana Mkubwa protects you from these evil white men and Arabs. You know that?”sharply.“Bwana!”“Very good. You know what would happen to you if you were sold as a slave? You have had many brothers who have been sold to the Abyssinians?”“Bwana! Many, Bwana!”“Very good. Now listen! This white man is very bad. He leaves with you to-morrow morning for Dar-es-salaam, but—he is never to arrive there. I give him to you. You may do what you like with him, but never let me see him again. You have my protection. Understand?”“Bwana!”The rubber lips pouted in the emphatic utterance.“These are your secret orders. But you are not to tell them to any man, woman, or child here; you may tell your men when you are gone. If you disobey I will cut out your tongue and give you three hundred lashes. Understand?”“Bwana!”“This man is the enemy of the Bwana Mkubwa. His enemies are your enemies. His goods are yours. Begone!”The black hand came up jerkily to the black forehead, shot away out and down; the polished calves moved[pg 72]like the eccentrics of an engine, and Corporal Inyira melted into the shadows.“Sergeant Schultz!”To smart heel taps on the verandah entered the sergeant.“You will see that Corporal Inyira and the escort leave before daybreak; moreover, that he talks with no one before he leaves.”“Excellence.”“Take a drink, sergeant.”With legs as stiff as his sjambok, Sergeant Schultz obeyed the order; lifted the glass and drank.“You may go! Good night, sergeant.”“Excellence, good night!”As zu Pfeiffer shifted from the chair-arm to the seat his movements were slightly erratic. He sat forward, staring at the photograph, as he drank more brandy. Outside, the pæan of the frogs pulsed steadily. From a distance came the throb of a native drum. A cricket shrilled intermittently.“Bwana!”The ghostly figure of Bakunjala whispered from the doorway. Zu Pfeiffer started nervously.“Zingala,”began Bakunjala timorously.“Gott verdamf—Emshi!”snapped zu Pfeiffer, his ring flashing in an irritable gesture.Bakunjala melted. Came a mutter of voices and a subdued giggle.Zu Pfeiffer sat and drank and stared. Above the insectile anthem of the night, rose a gurgling voice in a drinking song.… Later the crash of a breaking glass was accompanied by an oath. The glimmer of three pairs of eyes through the window screen vanished[pg 73]and reappeared.… Once more rose the voice singing:“Scheiden tut weh,Scheiden, ja scheiden, scheiden tut weh!”Just as the cricket began anew, after having politely ceased to hear the lieutenant’s song, trickled out upon the clammy air the sound of weeping.[pg 74]Chapter 6In the violet shadow of his square hut inside the compound, squatted Zalu Zako. The lips and nose were nearer to the Aryan delicacy than the negroid bluntness; for the Wongolo, like the Wahima, are a mixed Bantu-Somali race. In colour his skin had the red of bronze rather than the blue of the negro, and the planes of his moulded chest were as light as the worn ivory bracelets upon his polished limbs. Broad in the shoulders he had almost the slender hips of a young girl and his carriage was as balanced as a dancer’s.From a group of small round huts behind his square hut, where dwelt his two wives, concubines and slaves, came the clutter of voices. A distant drum throbbed gently on the hot air. Away in the cool green of the banana plantation rose the crooning chant of the unmarried girls and slaves bringing water from the river.Apparently Zalu Zako was absorbed in the movements of a diminutive chicken scratching in the soil. The omen of the goat was occupying his mind: that and the death of his grandfather, MFunya MPopo. There was no sense of grief, for he was not a woman. Now, at the beginning of his warrior’s career, he had not any desire for divine honours and celibacy. No man had. Yet Zalu Zako no more dreamed of questioning the necessity than of spitting in the face of[pg 75]an enemy. Always had the first born male of his family been doomed to the kingly office. There was never a second born male, for it was not meet that a god should have paternal brothers. The wives of his youth and his concubines could have as many children as they could bear; but according to the law, did he select the chief wife from whom should spring the one regal son only when he had become heir apparent; for then was he not already half divine, being so near the sacred enclosure up on the hill?The choice of that chief wife was free as there were no royal families in the sense of divine descent save the direct male line of the King-God. But the mind of Zalu Zako dwelt more upon his personal career. The life of a warrior was frequently short and that of a god even briefer. MFunya MPopo had reigned but twenty moons; MKoffo, so said the elders, had reigned for full two hundred moons; but then he had been a mighty magician.With a harsh squawk a brilliant scarlet and blue bird with an enormous yellow bill perched on the palisade of the compound. Immediately the young man forgot his musing and rose, calling for his spear. A stocky man, coal black, with a fuzzy tuft of a beard, came out of the hut. From the slave Zalu Zako took a broad-bladed spear with a short haft. Watching to see that the bird was still sitting on the fence as he passed out of the compound, he set off rapidly through the village and into the banana plantations in search of a wart hog which had been rooting up one of his fields of sweet potatoes. Just as he came within sight of them a black field rat sprang out of the grass in his path, glanced round at him, and disappeared. The young[pg 76]man’s steps slackened, for he knew that the black rat had spoiled the luck which the banana eater had portended. Scarcely troubling to glance around the field, he diverged across at an angle making for a break in the jungle where he knew was the trail of the boar. But he grunted contemptuously as he examined the last spoor, which was at least half a day old. Of course the hog would not be there.He bethought himself of another field where sometimes came buck. But there was no game. The black rat again! Yet if one waited long enough a good omen might appear. As he squatted beneath a banana plant to take snuff came a squawk and the banana eater—for it appeared to be the same one—alighted on a frond near to him. Zalu Zako waited. Leisurely and cautiously he arose. The bird peered at him. Zalu Zako passed and left the banana eater still sitting there. He felt the weight of his spear tentatively, for a double omen of luck must mean big game: possibly an eland or a leopard.He circled right round the outskirts of the plantation. But he saw no signs. As he began to make the big circle again the shadows were lengthening appreciably. Passing by the ford of the small river, which was swollen from the rains, he heard a group of young girls chattering on the river bank as they filled their gourds. He paused to test which way the wind was blowing in order to avoid going down wind where the sound of their voices would scare away any game.But as he turned to move on he caught a glimpse of a figure mounting the incline. The motion was as lithe as a young giraffe; the legs were as straight as spears and as supple as a kiboko; the moulded hips swayed[pg 77]rhythmically like a banana frond in the breeze; the fluted arch of her back swelled proudly upwards to the resilient shoulders; and an arm as slender as a lizard’s tail steadied the gourd upon a small black head set upon a neck like a sapling. The dappled shadows of a tree played hide and seek upon the tiny hills that were her firm young breasts, upon the smoothness of her torso of light bronze. As he gazed her face came into view in speaking to a comrade just beneath. An errant shaft of sunlight glinted the pearl of teeth, glowed the tiny nose and blued the whites of eyes which were as soft as any antelope.Zalu Zako clicked the syllable that means astonishment.“Wait there, O Bayakala,”she called,“for I have to do the making of mighty magic with the spirits of the wood.”“Eh, eh!”responded one of those left by the water edge,“a girl of the hut thatch hath nought to do with spirits of the wood for their bellies are as big as a pregnant woman!”The young girl laughed and her notes seemed to Zalu Zako like the dripping of water upon a river rock.“Thou knowest less than the Baroto bird who as everybody knows is the spirit of one!”“’Tis more than thou wilt ever be!”retorted the rival beneath.“Ehh! Ehh!”exclaimed the girl at the sneer,“thy girdle is rotted long since with juice!”“And thine,”shouted the insulted one, who was old for a spinster,“wilt rot with the dryness!”“Tscch! It is dry for the lord whom I will conquer[pg 78]with magic such as thou hast never dreamed on, O Bayakala!”“And who is he for whom thou makest magic, O daughter of the hut thatch?”demanded Zalu Zako, stepping from the shelter of the tree.“Ehh!”ejaculated Bakuma.“I—we do but tickle the fronds (jest), O Chief!”The only sign of her nervousness was the slight swaying of the gourd of water upon her head as she turned up her eyes to the young chief who regarded her slowly. She edged away. He moved a pace in front of her. She clutched at the amulet around her neck as she turned her eyes and said:“The cooking fires are low, O Chief, and need be tended.”“Thy breasts are like unto small anthills,”he said,“and thy belly is as smooth as yonder river rock.”“Thy tongue is sweeter than the honey of the kinglan tree.”“Thy voice is softer than the muted lyre and thy nose is formed of two petals of an orchid.”“Thy praise is more refreshing than the morning dew to a thirsty flower.”“And by thy figure am I made more drunken than by the wine of the Soka palm.”For a full minute they stood, a study in light bronze against the dappled green foliage. The shrill chatter of the other girls approaching startled Bakuma into action. She swayed to one side.“The spirits of the cooking pot cry aloud for me, O Chief.”“Who is thy father, little one?”he demanded.“I am Bakuma, the daughter of Bakala, O Chief.”[pg 79]“There has been a veil before my eyes that I have not seen thee before.”“The mountains see not the tiny brooks amid the mighty forests,”murmured Bakuma and sped up the path.Zalu Zako stood motionless watching her form melt into the green, and as he turned towards the river he met Bayakala and the other women who shrank aside from the path to allow the Son of the Snake to pass in silence. Yet at the ford he paused. He had forgotten the omen of the banana eater and the purpose for which he had come.As Bakuma sped along in a gliding lope the amulet swayed rhythmically to the whispered praises of the power of Marufa, mixed with ardent prayers to the spirits to provide the fat goat with which to propitiate the spirit of the woods; for had not the love charm already manifested its wondrous power? As she hastened through the banana plantation she could not resist diverging a little in the direction of the magician’s hut. As she passed, she saw him seated on the threshold of the compound gathering inspiration from his favourite wall. But Marufa observed her demeanour, and being something of a student of men, he deducted that the charm had already begun to work.Marufa, as all successful men, had a strain of luck. Before the shadows had crept a hand’s breadth came MYalu, indignant and exasperated. The three tusks had been paid and the footprint obtained; but he had discovered that it was no easy matter to procure the other ingredients which he suspected the wizard had known well and intended as a means to extract more ivory. After the ceremonious greetings he protested[pg 80]that the task given was almost impossible to execute. Marufa remained imperturbably interested in his wall.“But as thou knowest,”insisted MYalu,“the hair and the toe-nail and the spittle of the Son of the Snake are more than difficult to obtain. Does a man so carelessly render himself unto his enemies, and he the Son of the Snake? None save one of his household could purloin a single hair. Even this morning was his hair shaved and the remnants, as thou knowest well, deposited in the temple with him who was his father.”“The hair, the toe-nail, and the spittle,”mumbled the old man,“must I have for such mighty magic.”“Ehh!”snorted MYalu,“with a man of the clay, but with one who is half divine, the Son of the Snake! Ehh!”“The bow is useless without the arrows,”mumbled the old man.“Tsch. ’Tis a mighty hunter that hath not the arrows for his bow,”sneered MYalu.“Verily,”retorted Marufa disinterestedly,“and still more a mighty man who cannot do his own hunting!”“No warrior hath been purified more frequently than I,”boasted MYalu, referring to the ceremony incumbent upon those who have taken life to appease the ghosts of the slain.“The spirits obey not the crowing of a cockerel,”reminded Marufa.“Tsch!”For a while both sat silent, MYalu gloomily watching a hen.“Aie! Aie!”he lamented at last,“what is there that I may do, for indeed she hath caught my soul in a trap. Aie! Aie!”[pg 81]“If the hunter cannot make arrows, he may buy them,”remarked Marufa, who had been patiently waiting for this state of mind.“Eh! The bowstring hath been costly but the arrows! Aie! Aie! What would’st thou?”“The rich man payeth in his kind. Four tusks of fine grain.”“Eh! Eh!”“Maybe there are others whose hands are not withered.”“Others than the Son of the Snake?”demanded MYalu quickly.“Who knows? There are more fools than chickens,”muttered the old man.MYalu stared disconsolately at the distant bananas. Perhaps, he reflected, it would be cheaper to pay the price the girl’s uncle demanded, yet—— MYalu had bought other wives whose unimpassioned charms had quickly staled. His soul, as he put it, had indeed been tempted into a trap by Bakuma; for he wished only that she should desire him as he desired her. Yet was he angry. Love seemed to be a costly business. Marufa tapped out snuff and sniffed delicately with the air of a connoisseur devoting himself to the pleasure of the moment. Replacing the cork of twisted leaves he stirred as if to rise.“Canst thou procure then the nail and the hairs that are asked by the spirits?”inquired MYalu sulkily.“All things are possible to the son of MTungo,”asserted Marufa.“Four tusks, and these things are found; but of fine grain, for the others were old and coarse.”[pg 82]“Ehh! How wilt thou procure these things?”demanded MYalu sceptically.“The ways of the wise are not the ways of fools.”“The tusks are thine,”said MYalu reluctantly,“if thou wilt tell me how thou wilt procure them.”“Thy words are like unto the vomit of a dog,”muttered the old man.“But how? My heart is not bound in clay.”“Tch!”clicked Marufa contemptuously.“Every fool must needs see the spoor of the god which he cannot read. I have spoken.”MYalu regarded the old wizard incredulously.“Tch! Send the four tusks as we have agreed and so shall it be. Begone!”Slowly MYalu rose, made his greeting, and departed more impressed than ever that the old man was a mighty magician.During the hour when the soul is small and dwells timidly around the feet Marufa dozed in the cool of his hut; but later when it spread boldly out was he squatted once more in his favourite seat at the entrance to the compound, taking snuff and contemplating. The shadows grew from violet to blue; the small hens pecked for worms with avidity and the goats scratched with vigour in the cool. Patiently Marufa sat. At length that for which he had waited with a sound though primitive knowledge of psychology, came to pass. Bakuma appeared, apprehensive, but with yet an abandon which sang her happiness. Beside Marufa she sat so as to avoid the shadow of one foot protruding beyond that of the fence.“O great and mighty magician,”she began eagerly, after the formal greetings.“Indeed all that thou hast said hath come to pass. Thy charm is infallible.”[pg 83]“Ugh!”grunted Marufa unconcernedly.“All that my heart desireth hath already begun to be. I thank thee.”“Ugh!”“O mighty son of MTungo, what must I now do?”“Thou knowest,”mumbled Marufa, fumbling for the snuff case.“Aie! Aie! but I have no fat goat!”cried Bakuma, who had hoped fatuously that the wizard would have forgotten.“I, a girl of the hut thatch, how should I have a goat?”Marufa tapped snuff as if no romance were in the making. Bakuma’s bright eyes, sharpened by the proximity of the promise of her love, watched the old man keenly.“Listen, O great and mighty son of MTungo, to whom all things are known, who canst accomplish all that thou desireth, Bayakala, my cousin, hath a goat, but it is old and skinny. Perhaps——”“In the nostrils of the spirits,”asserted Marufa instantly,“all odours are the same except that of the fat goat whom they love.”“Aie! then am I undone, for no fat goat have I!”wailed Bakuma.“Know I not one who hath a goat who would smile on me, a girl of the hut thatch.”“Ugh!”Bakuma regarded him imploringly, but Marufa’s gaze was fixed upon the wall as if his mind were turned to matters of more importance.“O mighty wizard, what must I do?”implored Bakuma desperately.“Ugh!”After a prolonged contemplation, said Marufa:[pg 84]“If thou canst get no goat, then is there another path by which thou mayest accomplish thy end.”“Eh!”“But it is very difficult.”“By my cord, will I do all that thou canst bid me to do!”swore Bakuma in anxious haste.“Ugh! This path is more certain of success for the will of the spirits are oftentimes chary of their favours.”“O mighty one!”breathed Bakuma, as he paused tantalisingly.“But the matter is exceedingly difficult—and dangerous.”“If the flower hath no sun hath it ever lived?”“As even thou shouldst know,”mumbled Marufa, more casually than ever,“he who possesses a part of the soul may do magic thereon.”“Aye! Aye!”“Bring me then of the nail parings one, of his hairs one, and of his spittle. Then may I do magic thereon which he cannot resist.”“O mighty magician!”gasped Bakuma, appalled at the difficulty and the danger of the task.“That path is sure. There is no other.”“Eh! … But if they of thy craft should know then am I doomed!”“There is no other.”Torn between her love and the dread of the penalty incurred by the sacrilege of the theft of the parts of one who might any day be King-God, Bakuma stared distraught.“Were not my words white? Hath not the love charm thou hast already had done even as I did say?”[pg 85]“O mighty one!”“But that is only as the goat to the leopard. The trap must be dug—or the scent of the bait will be blown.”“Ehh!”gasped Bakuma, in desperation,“by my twin soul which dwells beneath the banana plant, will I do it!”
[pg 61]Chapter 5The same vast balloons of sepia rolled over the lake, vomited a host of liquid ramrods and, after short intervals of brilliant glare, were succeeded by others. The gutters of the station were turned into burbling brooks and the grass plot into a morass.Behind the screen on the south verandah sat zu Pfeiffer in his pink silk pyjamas, a scowl upon his brow. He sipped his café cognac distastefully and inhaled a cigarette so fiercely that the heat burned his tongue. He had not slept. Yet the broken nail on the left little finger had been cut and polished. Half the night he had sat before the photograph in the ivory frame, pondering upon, and rehearsing, the past; muttering aloud to Lucille, sometimes words of love and sometimes savage curses; wondering what she was doing and where she was; gritting his teeth at visions which aroused insane jealousy; calculating what the consequences of his action would be were he to obey the impulse that had leaped into his mind in the first flush of passion. If he were to release the prisoner the fellow would probably expect an explanation and an apology which was, of course, out of the question. No, he must carry out the thing thoroughly without leaving any chance for the man to make trouble at the coast, or through the Embassy at Washington; at all costs not through Washington. For him, Birnier merely existed as a person whose feelings mattered nothing.[pg 62]With the greening of the moon zu Pfeiffer had retired. As he had lain sleeplessly watching the pallor of the dawn he had savagely corroborated the decision. Now the roar of the deluge appeared to him in the form of an abettor to his plan. He watched the grey wall of rain with satisfaction, stroking the left sentry moustache as if to tame the fierce bristles of an outraged dignity. When he had emerged from the bath, the pink of his face appeared to have spread to the whites of his eyes, a fact which Bakunjala had noted with sullen dread.Between the storms the sun glared yellow upon the smoking earth. Across the square squelched zu Pfeiffer to the orderly room. He grunted at Sergeant Schultz’s greeting and sprawled in the chair. When Schultz proffered him some official documents he waved them aside irritably.“Bring the prisoner to the Court, sergeant. I will try him immediately.”“Excellence!”said the sergeant, saluting.“What charge am I to enter against him, Excellence?”“Arms and liquor running,”responded zu Pfeiffer quickly.“I hold papers which prove the case completely; moreover you will see that Ali ben Hassan and others are prepared to testify. But—the charge will be margined as political: not criminal. Understand, sergeant?”“Perfectly, Excellence. Ali ben Hassan and the others have to testify before your Excellence now?”“There will be no need.”“Very good, Excellence.”“And, sergeant, what is the personnel of the launch and the prisoner’s party?”[pg 63]“The launch returned immediately to Jinja, Excellence, as soon as the prisoner had landed.”“Ach, good.”“The prisoner has a considerable battery, equipment and provisions; a headman and personal servants. He intended to obtain porters here, Excellence.”Zu Pfeiffer meditated, tapping the desk with a gold pencil.“What is the headman?”“Bambeeba, Excellence.”“Good. And the servants?”“One is a Wongolo youth, the others are mixed Walegga and Kavirondo.”“Arrest them all and see that none gets away.”“Excellence!”Schultz saluted and departed. Zu Pfeiffer frowned at the glare which was suddenly extinguished by falling water. He lighted a cigar and waited. Presently the sergeant returned in a waterproof cape, dripping, and announced that the prisoner was ready. Zu Pfeiffer gathered up his long legs and marched stiffly into the Court House adjoining.Upon a slight dais was a large desk and a cane armchair beneath the Imperial Eagles and a portrait of the Kaiser Wilhelm II. Pale, stubble bearded, and tense eyed with anger, sat Birnier upon a form against the wall; beside him stood Sergeant Schneider, for it is not usual etiquette to put a white prisoner in charge of a black guard. The grizzled sergeant stood stuffy to attention, which zu Pfeiffer acknowledged. Although he did not meet Birnier’s gaze, he scowled as if he had expected him to salute the majesty of the judge as well.[pg 64]But as zu Pfeiffer mounted the step to the chair of justice he looked up at the portrait of the Kaiser, stopped, and hesitated; then he wheeled abruptly, and barked:“Sergeant, bring the prisoner to the orderly room!”In the orderly room Birnier was placed between Sergeant Schultz at his table and Sergeant Schneider by the door. Birnier watched zu Pfeiffer intently, but zu Pfeiffer regarded him icily as if he were a piece of furniture. Without a word Birnier reached out and lifted a chair. Sergeant Schneider started forward, evidently fearing that the prisoner was about to attack his officer. Birnier said acidly:“I merely wish to sit down.”Zu Pfeiffer scowled again, but he made no objection. He took up some papers at random and began to peruse them. Said Birnier sharply:“When you have finished with this farce I shall be obliged if you will kindly explain your insane actions!”The tap-tap of a typewriter sounded from another room. A fly buzzed. Zu Pfeiffer’s eyelids did not blink. The sergeants stared woodenly to the front. Birnier looked from one to the other, bit his lips, and then exclaimed in exasperation:“What in hell do you mean by this damned nonsense?”The tap-tap continued; the fly buzzed irritatedly. Birnier clenched his fist. But he sat still. Another storm so darkened the room that zu Pfeiffer could scarcely have seen the print, but apparently he read on. The deluge roared, passed, and the glare came as suddenly. Zu Pfeiffer lifted his head and said in German:“Sergeant, record the opening of the Court.”[pg 65]“Excellence!”assented Sergeant Schultz and poised his pen ready to write.“The prisoner, a Swiss subject——”“I am American, as I have told you,”said Birnier in leashed anger.“A pseudo trader and hunter, named Carl Bornstadt,”continued zu Pfeiffer imperturbably,“is charged under sub-section 79 of section 8 with supplying guns and liquor to the native subjects of his Imperial Majesty.”“Good God!”began Birnier. But as he realised zu Pfeiffer’s purpose and his own position, he closed his lips tightly.Methodically the sergeant finished the entries and waited. Zu Pfeiffer stroked his favourite moustache and considered. He glanced at Birnier, but without a vestige of expression and continued:“Make a special note, sergeant, that we have reason to suspect that the prisoner is in the political service of”—a slight smile flicked the lieutenant’s face—“in the service of the Portuguese, and so under sub-section 109 of section 8, I am referring the case to Dar-es-salaam for investigation; witnesses, documentary and personal, to accompany the prisoner. Owing to unusual pressure of service we are unable to afford the prisoner, although apparently of European descent, a white guard; therefore, Sergeant Ludwig will detail a corporal and six men for the duty.”He paused. The sergeant’s pen scratched on. Zu Pfeiffer lighted a cigar and added impersonally:“The prisoner and escort will leave to-morrow morning. Sergeant Schneider, remove the prisoner!”Birnier’s face was a little paler, the eyes were slightly[pg 66]more bloodshot; but he did not attempt to speak. Zu Pfeiffer rose. The sergeants stood to attention and saluted. As he left the room towards the Court House, he smiled with slight satisfaction as the gruff voice of Sergeant Schneider barked:“Prisoner, shun! Right turn! Quick marrch!”But zu Pfeiffer did not remain long in the Court House. After fidgeting about with papers on the table and reprimanding Sergeant Schultz because he had not arranged the next native case to his satisfaction, he rose abruptly and marched swiftly across the square in the brilliant glare without his helmet and into his study. There he straddled a chair and leaned on the back sucking a dead cigar absent-mindedly. As he stared at the portrait in the ivory frame, the blue eyes grew soft and the delicate lips quivered like a child about to weep. He sighed heavily and then rapping out an oath, rose violently, overturning the chair, poured out a half-glass of neat cognac, and drank it at a gulp. As he neared the Court House the sentry, turning at the end of his short beat, was so startled at the proximity of the Kommandant, or incompletely disciplined, that he became flurried. Zu Pfeiffer clicked his heels together and haughtily watched the fumbled efforts to salute. The bolt caught in the man’s tunic. Gold flashed in the sun as the sjambok descended. Zu Pfeiffer walked on unconcernedly, leaving a grey weal on the terrified native’s face. To Sergeant Schultz, rigid in the doorway, he snapped an order to have fifty lashes given to the“clumsy dog.”Sentences were harsher than usual that morning. All the native world about him knew that a demon had taken possession of the Eater-of-men; he was usually[pg 67]inhabited by an evil spirit, but this time the demon of Bakra who, as everybody knows, tears the vitals with hot claws, making the victim to have fits, to foam at the mouth, to be quite mad, had entered the white man. Bakunjala, coming to the Court House with vermouth and biscuits at eleven o’clock, distinctly saw the devil glaring through zu Pfeiffer’s eyes, and was so scared that he let fall the tray, which was the reason that he also was doomed to have twenty-five lashes that evening. Even the stolid Sergeant Schultz remarked that the Herr Lieutenant had gotten a touch of the sun; but the grizzled Schneider, who came from Luthuania, opined that the Herr Kommandant had left his table knife edge uppermost.When zu Pfeiffer went across to tiffin the hot sun had dried up the gutters and the plot of grass. He did not return to the Court House, much to the gratitude of many innocent and guilty. After drinking more wine than usual he lay down for the siesta and fell asleep. But at five he awoke with a mouth like a burnt cooking pot and the temper of the said devil. He yelled for Bakunjala, who came, so trembling with fright that he stuttered. Zu Pfeiffer threw a glass which missed him and broke a mirror.“Another seven years’ ill luck!”shouted zu Pfeiffer, sitting on the bed in his shirt. He glared at Bakunjala standing in the door, too terror-stricken to flee, convinced that he would be blamed for breaking the glass.“You—you superstitious nigger!”yelled zu Pfeiffer, and added more calmly in Kiswahili:“Fetch me a brandy-soda! Upesi, you son of a baboon!”“Bwana!”exclaimed Bakunjala and fled gladly.Zu Pfeiffer sat and scowled at the scattered pieces of[pg 68]mirror until Bakunjala arrived with the drink. An hour later he emerged in his immaculate undress uniform and sat on the north verandah, drank vermouth and smoked cigars, staring out across the flat swamp where the pewter of the lake was flecked with silver and blood of the sinking sun. From beyond the fort came the yaps of the drill-sergeant busy in the cool of the afternoon. At the bark of the relieving guard, zu Pfeiffer rose and walked around the house to watch, with tetchy eyes, the saluting of the flag.As he stalked off to dinner in the messroom eyes glimmered in the darkness about him. Bakunjala, after receiving punishment, was indisposed, in fact incapable of attending to his duties in the spritely manner required. Another servant, who had taken his place, was nervous of the probable consequences, and had a keen eye for the appearance of the devil so realistically described by Bakunjala. But the demon apparently slept, for zu Pfeiffer took the dishes placed before him with an unaccustomed meekness, pushed them away absent-mindedly, and rising, retired to his study. Even when the deputy brought the wrong bottle he reprimanded him mildly without taking his eyes off the photograph in the ivory frame.Yet, with the port, he did not omit to rise, and heels together, raise his glass to the“Ihre Hochheit.”Then sprawling in the chair he began to drink and to smoke steadily.As the notes of the last post stuttered out in the clammy stillness he summoned the“boy”and bade him fetch Sergeant Schultz. At the sound of the sergeant’s steps on the verandah zu Pfeiffer stiffened up and patted his lips as if desiring to erase the lines that[pg 69]were graven thereon; and with one foot pushed the chair from the direct angle to the photograph.“Take a cigar,”said zu Pfeiffer, when the man had entered. The words were rather an order than an invitation. Sergeant Schultz obeyed. Zu Pfeiffer smoked reflectively, still regarding the photograph out of the corner of his eyes as if unable to resist the fascination.“How long have you been in this benighted country, sergeant?”“Nine years, Excellence.”“You wish to retire on the pension at the year’s term?”“I have not seen my wife and children for three years, Excellence.”“You shall have special leave as soon as the Wongolo affair is over.”“I thank you, Excellence.”“And I will recommend you for the special colonial service medal and pension.”“I thank you, Excellence.”“Take a drink, sergeant.”“I thank you, Excellence.”The sergeant obeyed with some semblance of initiative and he remarked that the lieutenant drank half a tumbler of neat brandy at a gulp. As if to drag himself away from the contemplation of the photograph zu Pfeiffer stood up and sat on the arm of the chair with his face in shadow above the lamp-shade. Gazing keenly at the sergeant, he said sharply:“You are quite aware of the regulations regarding official secrets, sergeant?”[pg 70]“Ach, yes, Excellence!”As the sergeant paused to answer with the glass in his hand there was just a suspicion of astonishment in the tone.“Good. Don’t forget it!”A note of menace was in zu Pfeiffer’s voice. He added more mildly,“Political reasons may cause stringent measures sometimes.”“Yes, Excellence.”Zu Pfeiffer smoked, coldly regarding the sergeant.“Who is Sergeant Schneider detailing for the prisoner’s escort to-morrow?”“Corporal Inyira, Excellence.”“A long service man?”“Ja, Excellence.”“Good. Go and fetch him here.”Not a shadow of surprise showed on Sergeant Schultz’s face as he departed. Zu Pfeiffer smoked hard and drank another brandy thirstily with a slight unsteadiness as he lifted the glass to his mouth. The sergeant returned and stood at attention just within the door.“The man is here, Excellence.”Zu Pfeiffer nodded.“Forward, quick marrch,”commanded the sergeant in a muffled bark.“Halttt!”“Very good, sergeant, you may wait.”Schultz saluted and retired without. The tall powerfully built native in uniform stood as if he had a bayonet beneath his chin. There was a slight nervousness about the blues of the eyes as he squinted in the attempt to look straight ahead and to watch the Kommandant at the same time. One nostril was slit,[pg 71]in the lobes of the ears were three can keys, and the temples were tattooed with tribal scars.“Corporal Inyira!”said zu Pfeiffer sharply. The black body twitched at the voice.“You are to leave to-morrow for Dar-es-salaam and you will take as a prisoner a white man who has been taking your tribe as slaves and selling them to the Abyssinians. The Bwana Mkubwa protects you from these evil white men and Arabs. You know that?”sharply.“Bwana!”“Very good. You know what would happen to you if you were sold as a slave? You have had many brothers who have been sold to the Abyssinians?”“Bwana! Many, Bwana!”“Very good. Now listen! This white man is very bad. He leaves with you to-morrow morning for Dar-es-salaam, but—he is never to arrive there. I give him to you. You may do what you like with him, but never let me see him again. You have my protection. Understand?”“Bwana!”The rubber lips pouted in the emphatic utterance.“These are your secret orders. But you are not to tell them to any man, woman, or child here; you may tell your men when you are gone. If you disobey I will cut out your tongue and give you three hundred lashes. Understand?”“Bwana!”“This man is the enemy of the Bwana Mkubwa. His enemies are your enemies. His goods are yours. Begone!”The black hand came up jerkily to the black forehead, shot away out and down; the polished calves moved[pg 72]like the eccentrics of an engine, and Corporal Inyira melted into the shadows.“Sergeant Schultz!”To smart heel taps on the verandah entered the sergeant.“You will see that Corporal Inyira and the escort leave before daybreak; moreover, that he talks with no one before he leaves.”“Excellence.”“Take a drink, sergeant.”With legs as stiff as his sjambok, Sergeant Schultz obeyed the order; lifted the glass and drank.“You may go! Good night, sergeant.”“Excellence, good night!”As zu Pfeiffer shifted from the chair-arm to the seat his movements were slightly erratic. He sat forward, staring at the photograph, as he drank more brandy. Outside, the pæan of the frogs pulsed steadily. From a distance came the throb of a native drum. A cricket shrilled intermittently.“Bwana!”The ghostly figure of Bakunjala whispered from the doorway. Zu Pfeiffer started nervously.“Zingala,”began Bakunjala timorously.“Gott verdamf—Emshi!”snapped zu Pfeiffer, his ring flashing in an irritable gesture.Bakunjala melted. Came a mutter of voices and a subdued giggle.Zu Pfeiffer sat and drank and stared. Above the insectile anthem of the night, rose a gurgling voice in a drinking song.… Later the crash of a breaking glass was accompanied by an oath. The glimmer of three pairs of eyes through the window screen vanished[pg 73]and reappeared.… Once more rose the voice singing:“Scheiden tut weh,Scheiden, ja scheiden, scheiden tut weh!”Just as the cricket began anew, after having politely ceased to hear the lieutenant’s song, trickled out upon the clammy air the sound of weeping.[pg 74]Chapter 6In the violet shadow of his square hut inside the compound, squatted Zalu Zako. The lips and nose were nearer to the Aryan delicacy than the negroid bluntness; for the Wongolo, like the Wahima, are a mixed Bantu-Somali race. In colour his skin had the red of bronze rather than the blue of the negro, and the planes of his moulded chest were as light as the worn ivory bracelets upon his polished limbs. Broad in the shoulders he had almost the slender hips of a young girl and his carriage was as balanced as a dancer’s.From a group of small round huts behind his square hut, where dwelt his two wives, concubines and slaves, came the clutter of voices. A distant drum throbbed gently on the hot air. Away in the cool green of the banana plantation rose the crooning chant of the unmarried girls and slaves bringing water from the river.Apparently Zalu Zako was absorbed in the movements of a diminutive chicken scratching in the soil. The omen of the goat was occupying his mind: that and the death of his grandfather, MFunya MPopo. There was no sense of grief, for he was not a woman. Now, at the beginning of his warrior’s career, he had not any desire for divine honours and celibacy. No man had. Yet Zalu Zako no more dreamed of questioning the necessity than of spitting in the face of[pg 75]an enemy. Always had the first born male of his family been doomed to the kingly office. There was never a second born male, for it was not meet that a god should have paternal brothers. The wives of his youth and his concubines could have as many children as they could bear; but according to the law, did he select the chief wife from whom should spring the one regal son only when he had become heir apparent; for then was he not already half divine, being so near the sacred enclosure up on the hill?The choice of that chief wife was free as there were no royal families in the sense of divine descent save the direct male line of the King-God. But the mind of Zalu Zako dwelt more upon his personal career. The life of a warrior was frequently short and that of a god even briefer. MFunya MPopo had reigned but twenty moons; MKoffo, so said the elders, had reigned for full two hundred moons; but then he had been a mighty magician.With a harsh squawk a brilliant scarlet and blue bird with an enormous yellow bill perched on the palisade of the compound. Immediately the young man forgot his musing and rose, calling for his spear. A stocky man, coal black, with a fuzzy tuft of a beard, came out of the hut. From the slave Zalu Zako took a broad-bladed spear with a short haft. Watching to see that the bird was still sitting on the fence as he passed out of the compound, he set off rapidly through the village and into the banana plantations in search of a wart hog which had been rooting up one of his fields of sweet potatoes. Just as he came within sight of them a black field rat sprang out of the grass in his path, glanced round at him, and disappeared. The young[pg 76]man’s steps slackened, for he knew that the black rat had spoiled the luck which the banana eater had portended. Scarcely troubling to glance around the field, he diverged across at an angle making for a break in the jungle where he knew was the trail of the boar. But he grunted contemptuously as he examined the last spoor, which was at least half a day old. Of course the hog would not be there.He bethought himself of another field where sometimes came buck. But there was no game. The black rat again! Yet if one waited long enough a good omen might appear. As he squatted beneath a banana plant to take snuff came a squawk and the banana eater—for it appeared to be the same one—alighted on a frond near to him. Zalu Zako waited. Leisurely and cautiously he arose. The bird peered at him. Zalu Zako passed and left the banana eater still sitting there. He felt the weight of his spear tentatively, for a double omen of luck must mean big game: possibly an eland or a leopard.He circled right round the outskirts of the plantation. But he saw no signs. As he began to make the big circle again the shadows were lengthening appreciably. Passing by the ford of the small river, which was swollen from the rains, he heard a group of young girls chattering on the river bank as they filled their gourds. He paused to test which way the wind was blowing in order to avoid going down wind where the sound of their voices would scare away any game.But as he turned to move on he caught a glimpse of a figure mounting the incline. The motion was as lithe as a young giraffe; the legs were as straight as spears and as supple as a kiboko; the moulded hips swayed[pg 77]rhythmically like a banana frond in the breeze; the fluted arch of her back swelled proudly upwards to the resilient shoulders; and an arm as slender as a lizard’s tail steadied the gourd upon a small black head set upon a neck like a sapling. The dappled shadows of a tree played hide and seek upon the tiny hills that were her firm young breasts, upon the smoothness of her torso of light bronze. As he gazed her face came into view in speaking to a comrade just beneath. An errant shaft of sunlight glinted the pearl of teeth, glowed the tiny nose and blued the whites of eyes which were as soft as any antelope.Zalu Zako clicked the syllable that means astonishment.“Wait there, O Bayakala,”she called,“for I have to do the making of mighty magic with the spirits of the wood.”“Eh, eh!”responded one of those left by the water edge,“a girl of the hut thatch hath nought to do with spirits of the wood for their bellies are as big as a pregnant woman!”The young girl laughed and her notes seemed to Zalu Zako like the dripping of water upon a river rock.“Thou knowest less than the Baroto bird who as everybody knows is the spirit of one!”“’Tis more than thou wilt ever be!”retorted the rival beneath.“Ehh! Ehh!”exclaimed the girl at the sneer,“thy girdle is rotted long since with juice!”“And thine,”shouted the insulted one, who was old for a spinster,“wilt rot with the dryness!”“Tscch! It is dry for the lord whom I will conquer[pg 78]with magic such as thou hast never dreamed on, O Bayakala!”“And who is he for whom thou makest magic, O daughter of the hut thatch?”demanded Zalu Zako, stepping from the shelter of the tree.“Ehh!”ejaculated Bakuma.“I—we do but tickle the fronds (jest), O Chief!”The only sign of her nervousness was the slight swaying of the gourd of water upon her head as she turned up her eyes to the young chief who regarded her slowly. She edged away. He moved a pace in front of her. She clutched at the amulet around her neck as she turned her eyes and said:“The cooking fires are low, O Chief, and need be tended.”“Thy breasts are like unto small anthills,”he said,“and thy belly is as smooth as yonder river rock.”“Thy tongue is sweeter than the honey of the kinglan tree.”“Thy voice is softer than the muted lyre and thy nose is formed of two petals of an orchid.”“Thy praise is more refreshing than the morning dew to a thirsty flower.”“And by thy figure am I made more drunken than by the wine of the Soka palm.”For a full minute they stood, a study in light bronze against the dappled green foliage. The shrill chatter of the other girls approaching startled Bakuma into action. She swayed to one side.“The spirits of the cooking pot cry aloud for me, O Chief.”“Who is thy father, little one?”he demanded.“I am Bakuma, the daughter of Bakala, O Chief.”[pg 79]“There has been a veil before my eyes that I have not seen thee before.”“The mountains see not the tiny brooks amid the mighty forests,”murmured Bakuma and sped up the path.Zalu Zako stood motionless watching her form melt into the green, and as he turned towards the river he met Bayakala and the other women who shrank aside from the path to allow the Son of the Snake to pass in silence. Yet at the ford he paused. He had forgotten the omen of the banana eater and the purpose for which he had come.As Bakuma sped along in a gliding lope the amulet swayed rhythmically to the whispered praises of the power of Marufa, mixed with ardent prayers to the spirits to provide the fat goat with which to propitiate the spirit of the woods; for had not the love charm already manifested its wondrous power? As she hastened through the banana plantation she could not resist diverging a little in the direction of the magician’s hut. As she passed, she saw him seated on the threshold of the compound gathering inspiration from his favourite wall. But Marufa observed her demeanour, and being something of a student of men, he deducted that the charm had already begun to work.Marufa, as all successful men, had a strain of luck. Before the shadows had crept a hand’s breadth came MYalu, indignant and exasperated. The three tusks had been paid and the footprint obtained; but he had discovered that it was no easy matter to procure the other ingredients which he suspected the wizard had known well and intended as a means to extract more ivory. After the ceremonious greetings he protested[pg 80]that the task given was almost impossible to execute. Marufa remained imperturbably interested in his wall.“But as thou knowest,”insisted MYalu,“the hair and the toe-nail and the spittle of the Son of the Snake are more than difficult to obtain. Does a man so carelessly render himself unto his enemies, and he the Son of the Snake? None save one of his household could purloin a single hair. Even this morning was his hair shaved and the remnants, as thou knowest well, deposited in the temple with him who was his father.”“The hair, the toe-nail, and the spittle,”mumbled the old man,“must I have for such mighty magic.”“Ehh!”snorted MYalu,“with a man of the clay, but with one who is half divine, the Son of the Snake! Ehh!”“The bow is useless without the arrows,”mumbled the old man.“Tsch. ’Tis a mighty hunter that hath not the arrows for his bow,”sneered MYalu.“Verily,”retorted Marufa disinterestedly,“and still more a mighty man who cannot do his own hunting!”“No warrior hath been purified more frequently than I,”boasted MYalu, referring to the ceremony incumbent upon those who have taken life to appease the ghosts of the slain.“The spirits obey not the crowing of a cockerel,”reminded Marufa.“Tsch!”For a while both sat silent, MYalu gloomily watching a hen.“Aie! Aie!”he lamented at last,“what is there that I may do, for indeed she hath caught my soul in a trap. Aie! Aie!”[pg 81]“If the hunter cannot make arrows, he may buy them,”remarked Marufa, who had been patiently waiting for this state of mind.“Eh! The bowstring hath been costly but the arrows! Aie! Aie! What would’st thou?”“The rich man payeth in his kind. Four tusks of fine grain.”“Eh! Eh!”“Maybe there are others whose hands are not withered.”“Others than the Son of the Snake?”demanded MYalu quickly.“Who knows? There are more fools than chickens,”muttered the old man.MYalu stared disconsolately at the distant bananas. Perhaps, he reflected, it would be cheaper to pay the price the girl’s uncle demanded, yet—— MYalu had bought other wives whose unimpassioned charms had quickly staled. His soul, as he put it, had indeed been tempted into a trap by Bakuma; for he wished only that she should desire him as he desired her. Yet was he angry. Love seemed to be a costly business. Marufa tapped out snuff and sniffed delicately with the air of a connoisseur devoting himself to the pleasure of the moment. Replacing the cork of twisted leaves he stirred as if to rise.“Canst thou procure then the nail and the hairs that are asked by the spirits?”inquired MYalu sulkily.“All things are possible to the son of MTungo,”asserted Marufa.“Four tusks, and these things are found; but of fine grain, for the others were old and coarse.”[pg 82]“Ehh! How wilt thou procure these things?”demanded MYalu sceptically.“The ways of the wise are not the ways of fools.”“The tusks are thine,”said MYalu reluctantly,“if thou wilt tell me how thou wilt procure them.”“Thy words are like unto the vomit of a dog,”muttered the old man.“But how? My heart is not bound in clay.”“Tch!”clicked Marufa contemptuously.“Every fool must needs see the spoor of the god which he cannot read. I have spoken.”MYalu regarded the old wizard incredulously.“Tch! Send the four tusks as we have agreed and so shall it be. Begone!”Slowly MYalu rose, made his greeting, and departed more impressed than ever that the old man was a mighty magician.During the hour when the soul is small and dwells timidly around the feet Marufa dozed in the cool of his hut; but later when it spread boldly out was he squatted once more in his favourite seat at the entrance to the compound, taking snuff and contemplating. The shadows grew from violet to blue; the small hens pecked for worms with avidity and the goats scratched with vigour in the cool. Patiently Marufa sat. At length that for which he had waited with a sound though primitive knowledge of psychology, came to pass. Bakuma appeared, apprehensive, but with yet an abandon which sang her happiness. Beside Marufa she sat so as to avoid the shadow of one foot protruding beyond that of the fence.“O great and mighty magician,”she began eagerly, after the formal greetings.“Indeed all that thou hast said hath come to pass. Thy charm is infallible.”[pg 83]“Ugh!”grunted Marufa unconcernedly.“All that my heart desireth hath already begun to be. I thank thee.”“Ugh!”“O mighty son of MTungo, what must I now do?”“Thou knowest,”mumbled Marufa, fumbling for the snuff case.“Aie! Aie! but I have no fat goat!”cried Bakuma, who had hoped fatuously that the wizard would have forgotten.“I, a girl of the hut thatch, how should I have a goat?”Marufa tapped snuff as if no romance were in the making. Bakuma’s bright eyes, sharpened by the proximity of the promise of her love, watched the old man keenly.“Listen, O great and mighty son of MTungo, to whom all things are known, who canst accomplish all that thou desireth, Bayakala, my cousin, hath a goat, but it is old and skinny. Perhaps——”“In the nostrils of the spirits,”asserted Marufa instantly,“all odours are the same except that of the fat goat whom they love.”“Aie! then am I undone, for no fat goat have I!”wailed Bakuma.“Know I not one who hath a goat who would smile on me, a girl of the hut thatch.”“Ugh!”Bakuma regarded him imploringly, but Marufa’s gaze was fixed upon the wall as if his mind were turned to matters of more importance.“O mighty wizard, what must I do?”implored Bakuma desperately.“Ugh!”After a prolonged contemplation, said Marufa:[pg 84]“If thou canst get no goat, then is there another path by which thou mayest accomplish thy end.”“Eh!”“But it is very difficult.”“By my cord, will I do all that thou canst bid me to do!”swore Bakuma in anxious haste.“Ugh! This path is more certain of success for the will of the spirits are oftentimes chary of their favours.”“O mighty one!”breathed Bakuma, as he paused tantalisingly.“But the matter is exceedingly difficult—and dangerous.”“If the flower hath no sun hath it ever lived?”“As even thou shouldst know,”mumbled Marufa, more casually than ever,“he who possesses a part of the soul may do magic thereon.”“Aye! Aye!”“Bring me then of the nail parings one, of his hairs one, and of his spittle. Then may I do magic thereon which he cannot resist.”“O mighty magician!”gasped Bakuma, appalled at the difficulty and the danger of the task.“That path is sure. There is no other.”“Eh! … But if they of thy craft should know then am I doomed!”“There is no other.”Torn between her love and the dread of the penalty incurred by the sacrilege of the theft of the parts of one who might any day be King-God, Bakuma stared distraught.“Were not my words white? Hath not the love charm thou hast already had done even as I did say?”[pg 85]“O mighty one!”“But that is only as the goat to the leopard. The trap must be dug—or the scent of the bait will be blown.”“Ehh!”gasped Bakuma, in desperation,“by my twin soul which dwells beneath the banana plant, will I do it!”
[pg 61]Chapter 5The same vast balloons of sepia rolled over the lake, vomited a host of liquid ramrods and, after short intervals of brilliant glare, were succeeded by others. The gutters of the station were turned into burbling brooks and the grass plot into a morass.Behind the screen on the south verandah sat zu Pfeiffer in his pink silk pyjamas, a scowl upon his brow. He sipped his café cognac distastefully and inhaled a cigarette so fiercely that the heat burned his tongue. He had not slept. Yet the broken nail on the left little finger had been cut and polished. Half the night he had sat before the photograph in the ivory frame, pondering upon, and rehearsing, the past; muttering aloud to Lucille, sometimes words of love and sometimes savage curses; wondering what she was doing and where she was; gritting his teeth at visions which aroused insane jealousy; calculating what the consequences of his action would be were he to obey the impulse that had leaped into his mind in the first flush of passion. If he were to release the prisoner the fellow would probably expect an explanation and an apology which was, of course, out of the question. No, he must carry out the thing thoroughly without leaving any chance for the man to make trouble at the coast, or through the Embassy at Washington; at all costs not through Washington. For him, Birnier merely existed as a person whose feelings mattered nothing.[pg 62]With the greening of the moon zu Pfeiffer had retired. As he had lain sleeplessly watching the pallor of the dawn he had savagely corroborated the decision. Now the roar of the deluge appeared to him in the form of an abettor to his plan. He watched the grey wall of rain with satisfaction, stroking the left sentry moustache as if to tame the fierce bristles of an outraged dignity. When he had emerged from the bath, the pink of his face appeared to have spread to the whites of his eyes, a fact which Bakunjala had noted with sullen dread.Between the storms the sun glared yellow upon the smoking earth. Across the square squelched zu Pfeiffer to the orderly room. He grunted at Sergeant Schultz’s greeting and sprawled in the chair. When Schultz proffered him some official documents he waved them aside irritably.“Bring the prisoner to the Court, sergeant. I will try him immediately.”“Excellence!”said the sergeant, saluting.“What charge am I to enter against him, Excellence?”“Arms and liquor running,”responded zu Pfeiffer quickly.“I hold papers which prove the case completely; moreover you will see that Ali ben Hassan and others are prepared to testify. But—the charge will be margined as political: not criminal. Understand, sergeant?”“Perfectly, Excellence. Ali ben Hassan and the others have to testify before your Excellence now?”“There will be no need.”“Very good, Excellence.”“And, sergeant, what is the personnel of the launch and the prisoner’s party?”[pg 63]“The launch returned immediately to Jinja, Excellence, as soon as the prisoner had landed.”“Ach, good.”“The prisoner has a considerable battery, equipment and provisions; a headman and personal servants. He intended to obtain porters here, Excellence.”Zu Pfeiffer meditated, tapping the desk with a gold pencil.“What is the headman?”“Bambeeba, Excellence.”“Good. And the servants?”“One is a Wongolo youth, the others are mixed Walegga and Kavirondo.”“Arrest them all and see that none gets away.”“Excellence!”Schultz saluted and departed. Zu Pfeiffer frowned at the glare which was suddenly extinguished by falling water. He lighted a cigar and waited. Presently the sergeant returned in a waterproof cape, dripping, and announced that the prisoner was ready. Zu Pfeiffer gathered up his long legs and marched stiffly into the Court House adjoining.Upon a slight dais was a large desk and a cane armchair beneath the Imperial Eagles and a portrait of the Kaiser Wilhelm II. Pale, stubble bearded, and tense eyed with anger, sat Birnier upon a form against the wall; beside him stood Sergeant Schneider, for it is not usual etiquette to put a white prisoner in charge of a black guard. The grizzled sergeant stood stuffy to attention, which zu Pfeiffer acknowledged. Although he did not meet Birnier’s gaze, he scowled as if he had expected him to salute the majesty of the judge as well.[pg 64]But as zu Pfeiffer mounted the step to the chair of justice he looked up at the portrait of the Kaiser, stopped, and hesitated; then he wheeled abruptly, and barked:“Sergeant, bring the prisoner to the orderly room!”In the orderly room Birnier was placed between Sergeant Schultz at his table and Sergeant Schneider by the door. Birnier watched zu Pfeiffer intently, but zu Pfeiffer regarded him icily as if he were a piece of furniture. Without a word Birnier reached out and lifted a chair. Sergeant Schneider started forward, evidently fearing that the prisoner was about to attack his officer. Birnier said acidly:“I merely wish to sit down.”Zu Pfeiffer scowled again, but he made no objection. He took up some papers at random and began to peruse them. Said Birnier sharply:“When you have finished with this farce I shall be obliged if you will kindly explain your insane actions!”The tap-tap of a typewriter sounded from another room. A fly buzzed. Zu Pfeiffer’s eyelids did not blink. The sergeants stared woodenly to the front. Birnier looked from one to the other, bit his lips, and then exclaimed in exasperation:“What in hell do you mean by this damned nonsense?”The tap-tap continued; the fly buzzed irritatedly. Birnier clenched his fist. But he sat still. Another storm so darkened the room that zu Pfeiffer could scarcely have seen the print, but apparently he read on. The deluge roared, passed, and the glare came as suddenly. Zu Pfeiffer lifted his head and said in German:“Sergeant, record the opening of the Court.”[pg 65]“Excellence!”assented Sergeant Schultz and poised his pen ready to write.“The prisoner, a Swiss subject——”“I am American, as I have told you,”said Birnier in leashed anger.“A pseudo trader and hunter, named Carl Bornstadt,”continued zu Pfeiffer imperturbably,“is charged under sub-section 79 of section 8 with supplying guns and liquor to the native subjects of his Imperial Majesty.”“Good God!”began Birnier. But as he realised zu Pfeiffer’s purpose and his own position, he closed his lips tightly.Methodically the sergeant finished the entries and waited. Zu Pfeiffer stroked his favourite moustache and considered. He glanced at Birnier, but without a vestige of expression and continued:“Make a special note, sergeant, that we have reason to suspect that the prisoner is in the political service of”—a slight smile flicked the lieutenant’s face—“in the service of the Portuguese, and so under sub-section 109 of section 8, I am referring the case to Dar-es-salaam for investigation; witnesses, documentary and personal, to accompany the prisoner. Owing to unusual pressure of service we are unable to afford the prisoner, although apparently of European descent, a white guard; therefore, Sergeant Ludwig will detail a corporal and six men for the duty.”He paused. The sergeant’s pen scratched on. Zu Pfeiffer lighted a cigar and added impersonally:“The prisoner and escort will leave to-morrow morning. Sergeant Schneider, remove the prisoner!”Birnier’s face was a little paler, the eyes were slightly[pg 66]more bloodshot; but he did not attempt to speak. Zu Pfeiffer rose. The sergeants stood to attention and saluted. As he left the room towards the Court House, he smiled with slight satisfaction as the gruff voice of Sergeant Schneider barked:“Prisoner, shun! Right turn! Quick marrch!”But zu Pfeiffer did not remain long in the Court House. After fidgeting about with papers on the table and reprimanding Sergeant Schultz because he had not arranged the next native case to his satisfaction, he rose abruptly and marched swiftly across the square in the brilliant glare without his helmet and into his study. There he straddled a chair and leaned on the back sucking a dead cigar absent-mindedly. As he stared at the portrait in the ivory frame, the blue eyes grew soft and the delicate lips quivered like a child about to weep. He sighed heavily and then rapping out an oath, rose violently, overturning the chair, poured out a half-glass of neat cognac, and drank it at a gulp. As he neared the Court House the sentry, turning at the end of his short beat, was so startled at the proximity of the Kommandant, or incompletely disciplined, that he became flurried. Zu Pfeiffer clicked his heels together and haughtily watched the fumbled efforts to salute. The bolt caught in the man’s tunic. Gold flashed in the sun as the sjambok descended. Zu Pfeiffer walked on unconcernedly, leaving a grey weal on the terrified native’s face. To Sergeant Schultz, rigid in the doorway, he snapped an order to have fifty lashes given to the“clumsy dog.”Sentences were harsher than usual that morning. All the native world about him knew that a demon had taken possession of the Eater-of-men; he was usually[pg 67]inhabited by an evil spirit, but this time the demon of Bakra who, as everybody knows, tears the vitals with hot claws, making the victim to have fits, to foam at the mouth, to be quite mad, had entered the white man. Bakunjala, coming to the Court House with vermouth and biscuits at eleven o’clock, distinctly saw the devil glaring through zu Pfeiffer’s eyes, and was so scared that he let fall the tray, which was the reason that he also was doomed to have twenty-five lashes that evening. Even the stolid Sergeant Schultz remarked that the Herr Lieutenant had gotten a touch of the sun; but the grizzled Schneider, who came from Luthuania, opined that the Herr Kommandant had left his table knife edge uppermost.When zu Pfeiffer went across to tiffin the hot sun had dried up the gutters and the plot of grass. He did not return to the Court House, much to the gratitude of many innocent and guilty. After drinking more wine than usual he lay down for the siesta and fell asleep. But at five he awoke with a mouth like a burnt cooking pot and the temper of the said devil. He yelled for Bakunjala, who came, so trembling with fright that he stuttered. Zu Pfeiffer threw a glass which missed him and broke a mirror.“Another seven years’ ill luck!”shouted zu Pfeiffer, sitting on the bed in his shirt. He glared at Bakunjala standing in the door, too terror-stricken to flee, convinced that he would be blamed for breaking the glass.“You—you superstitious nigger!”yelled zu Pfeiffer, and added more calmly in Kiswahili:“Fetch me a brandy-soda! Upesi, you son of a baboon!”“Bwana!”exclaimed Bakunjala and fled gladly.Zu Pfeiffer sat and scowled at the scattered pieces of[pg 68]mirror until Bakunjala arrived with the drink. An hour later he emerged in his immaculate undress uniform and sat on the north verandah, drank vermouth and smoked cigars, staring out across the flat swamp where the pewter of the lake was flecked with silver and blood of the sinking sun. From beyond the fort came the yaps of the drill-sergeant busy in the cool of the afternoon. At the bark of the relieving guard, zu Pfeiffer rose and walked around the house to watch, with tetchy eyes, the saluting of the flag.As he stalked off to dinner in the messroom eyes glimmered in the darkness about him. Bakunjala, after receiving punishment, was indisposed, in fact incapable of attending to his duties in the spritely manner required. Another servant, who had taken his place, was nervous of the probable consequences, and had a keen eye for the appearance of the devil so realistically described by Bakunjala. But the demon apparently slept, for zu Pfeiffer took the dishes placed before him with an unaccustomed meekness, pushed them away absent-mindedly, and rising, retired to his study. Even when the deputy brought the wrong bottle he reprimanded him mildly without taking his eyes off the photograph in the ivory frame.Yet, with the port, he did not omit to rise, and heels together, raise his glass to the“Ihre Hochheit.”Then sprawling in the chair he began to drink and to smoke steadily.As the notes of the last post stuttered out in the clammy stillness he summoned the“boy”and bade him fetch Sergeant Schultz. At the sound of the sergeant’s steps on the verandah zu Pfeiffer stiffened up and patted his lips as if desiring to erase the lines that[pg 69]were graven thereon; and with one foot pushed the chair from the direct angle to the photograph.“Take a cigar,”said zu Pfeiffer, when the man had entered. The words were rather an order than an invitation. Sergeant Schultz obeyed. Zu Pfeiffer smoked reflectively, still regarding the photograph out of the corner of his eyes as if unable to resist the fascination.“How long have you been in this benighted country, sergeant?”“Nine years, Excellence.”“You wish to retire on the pension at the year’s term?”“I have not seen my wife and children for three years, Excellence.”“You shall have special leave as soon as the Wongolo affair is over.”“I thank you, Excellence.”“And I will recommend you for the special colonial service medal and pension.”“I thank you, Excellence.”“Take a drink, sergeant.”“I thank you, Excellence.”The sergeant obeyed with some semblance of initiative and he remarked that the lieutenant drank half a tumbler of neat brandy at a gulp. As if to drag himself away from the contemplation of the photograph zu Pfeiffer stood up and sat on the arm of the chair with his face in shadow above the lamp-shade. Gazing keenly at the sergeant, he said sharply:“You are quite aware of the regulations regarding official secrets, sergeant?”[pg 70]“Ach, yes, Excellence!”As the sergeant paused to answer with the glass in his hand there was just a suspicion of astonishment in the tone.“Good. Don’t forget it!”A note of menace was in zu Pfeiffer’s voice. He added more mildly,“Political reasons may cause stringent measures sometimes.”“Yes, Excellence.”Zu Pfeiffer smoked, coldly regarding the sergeant.“Who is Sergeant Schneider detailing for the prisoner’s escort to-morrow?”“Corporal Inyira, Excellence.”“A long service man?”“Ja, Excellence.”“Good. Go and fetch him here.”Not a shadow of surprise showed on Sergeant Schultz’s face as he departed. Zu Pfeiffer smoked hard and drank another brandy thirstily with a slight unsteadiness as he lifted the glass to his mouth. The sergeant returned and stood at attention just within the door.“The man is here, Excellence.”Zu Pfeiffer nodded.“Forward, quick marrch,”commanded the sergeant in a muffled bark.“Halttt!”“Very good, sergeant, you may wait.”Schultz saluted and retired without. The tall powerfully built native in uniform stood as if he had a bayonet beneath his chin. There was a slight nervousness about the blues of the eyes as he squinted in the attempt to look straight ahead and to watch the Kommandant at the same time. One nostril was slit,[pg 71]in the lobes of the ears were three can keys, and the temples were tattooed with tribal scars.“Corporal Inyira!”said zu Pfeiffer sharply. The black body twitched at the voice.“You are to leave to-morrow for Dar-es-salaam and you will take as a prisoner a white man who has been taking your tribe as slaves and selling them to the Abyssinians. The Bwana Mkubwa protects you from these evil white men and Arabs. You know that?”sharply.“Bwana!”“Very good. You know what would happen to you if you were sold as a slave? You have had many brothers who have been sold to the Abyssinians?”“Bwana! Many, Bwana!”“Very good. Now listen! This white man is very bad. He leaves with you to-morrow morning for Dar-es-salaam, but—he is never to arrive there. I give him to you. You may do what you like with him, but never let me see him again. You have my protection. Understand?”“Bwana!”The rubber lips pouted in the emphatic utterance.“These are your secret orders. But you are not to tell them to any man, woman, or child here; you may tell your men when you are gone. If you disobey I will cut out your tongue and give you three hundred lashes. Understand?”“Bwana!”“This man is the enemy of the Bwana Mkubwa. His enemies are your enemies. His goods are yours. Begone!”The black hand came up jerkily to the black forehead, shot away out and down; the polished calves moved[pg 72]like the eccentrics of an engine, and Corporal Inyira melted into the shadows.“Sergeant Schultz!”To smart heel taps on the verandah entered the sergeant.“You will see that Corporal Inyira and the escort leave before daybreak; moreover, that he talks with no one before he leaves.”“Excellence.”“Take a drink, sergeant.”With legs as stiff as his sjambok, Sergeant Schultz obeyed the order; lifted the glass and drank.“You may go! Good night, sergeant.”“Excellence, good night!”As zu Pfeiffer shifted from the chair-arm to the seat his movements were slightly erratic. He sat forward, staring at the photograph, as he drank more brandy. Outside, the pæan of the frogs pulsed steadily. From a distance came the throb of a native drum. A cricket shrilled intermittently.“Bwana!”The ghostly figure of Bakunjala whispered from the doorway. Zu Pfeiffer started nervously.“Zingala,”began Bakunjala timorously.“Gott verdamf—Emshi!”snapped zu Pfeiffer, his ring flashing in an irritable gesture.Bakunjala melted. Came a mutter of voices and a subdued giggle.Zu Pfeiffer sat and drank and stared. Above the insectile anthem of the night, rose a gurgling voice in a drinking song.… Later the crash of a breaking glass was accompanied by an oath. The glimmer of three pairs of eyes through the window screen vanished[pg 73]and reappeared.… Once more rose the voice singing:“Scheiden tut weh,Scheiden, ja scheiden, scheiden tut weh!”Just as the cricket began anew, after having politely ceased to hear the lieutenant’s song, trickled out upon the clammy air the sound of weeping.
The same vast balloons of sepia rolled over the lake, vomited a host of liquid ramrods and, after short intervals of brilliant glare, were succeeded by others. The gutters of the station were turned into burbling brooks and the grass plot into a morass.
Behind the screen on the south verandah sat zu Pfeiffer in his pink silk pyjamas, a scowl upon his brow. He sipped his café cognac distastefully and inhaled a cigarette so fiercely that the heat burned his tongue. He had not slept. Yet the broken nail on the left little finger had been cut and polished. Half the night he had sat before the photograph in the ivory frame, pondering upon, and rehearsing, the past; muttering aloud to Lucille, sometimes words of love and sometimes savage curses; wondering what she was doing and where she was; gritting his teeth at visions which aroused insane jealousy; calculating what the consequences of his action would be were he to obey the impulse that had leaped into his mind in the first flush of passion. If he were to release the prisoner the fellow would probably expect an explanation and an apology which was, of course, out of the question. No, he must carry out the thing thoroughly without leaving any chance for the man to make trouble at the coast, or through the Embassy at Washington; at all costs not through Washington. For him, Birnier merely existed as a person whose feelings mattered nothing.
With the greening of the moon zu Pfeiffer had retired. As he had lain sleeplessly watching the pallor of the dawn he had savagely corroborated the decision. Now the roar of the deluge appeared to him in the form of an abettor to his plan. He watched the grey wall of rain with satisfaction, stroking the left sentry moustache as if to tame the fierce bristles of an outraged dignity. When he had emerged from the bath, the pink of his face appeared to have spread to the whites of his eyes, a fact which Bakunjala had noted with sullen dread.
Between the storms the sun glared yellow upon the smoking earth. Across the square squelched zu Pfeiffer to the orderly room. He grunted at Sergeant Schultz’s greeting and sprawled in the chair. When Schultz proffered him some official documents he waved them aside irritably.
“Bring the prisoner to the Court, sergeant. I will try him immediately.”
“Excellence!”said the sergeant, saluting.“What charge am I to enter against him, Excellence?”
“Arms and liquor running,”responded zu Pfeiffer quickly.“I hold papers which prove the case completely; moreover you will see that Ali ben Hassan and others are prepared to testify. But—the charge will be margined as political: not criminal. Understand, sergeant?”
“Perfectly, Excellence. Ali ben Hassan and the others have to testify before your Excellence now?”
“There will be no need.”
“Very good, Excellence.”
“And, sergeant, what is the personnel of the launch and the prisoner’s party?”
“The launch returned immediately to Jinja, Excellence, as soon as the prisoner had landed.”
“Ach, good.”
“The prisoner has a considerable battery, equipment and provisions; a headman and personal servants. He intended to obtain porters here, Excellence.”
Zu Pfeiffer meditated, tapping the desk with a gold pencil.
“What is the headman?”
“Bambeeba, Excellence.”
“Good. And the servants?”
“One is a Wongolo youth, the others are mixed Walegga and Kavirondo.”
“Arrest them all and see that none gets away.”
“Excellence!”
Schultz saluted and departed. Zu Pfeiffer frowned at the glare which was suddenly extinguished by falling water. He lighted a cigar and waited. Presently the sergeant returned in a waterproof cape, dripping, and announced that the prisoner was ready. Zu Pfeiffer gathered up his long legs and marched stiffly into the Court House adjoining.
Upon a slight dais was a large desk and a cane armchair beneath the Imperial Eagles and a portrait of the Kaiser Wilhelm II. Pale, stubble bearded, and tense eyed with anger, sat Birnier upon a form against the wall; beside him stood Sergeant Schneider, for it is not usual etiquette to put a white prisoner in charge of a black guard. The grizzled sergeant stood stuffy to attention, which zu Pfeiffer acknowledged. Although he did not meet Birnier’s gaze, he scowled as if he had expected him to salute the majesty of the judge as well.
But as zu Pfeiffer mounted the step to the chair of justice he looked up at the portrait of the Kaiser, stopped, and hesitated; then he wheeled abruptly, and barked:
“Sergeant, bring the prisoner to the orderly room!”
In the orderly room Birnier was placed between Sergeant Schultz at his table and Sergeant Schneider by the door. Birnier watched zu Pfeiffer intently, but zu Pfeiffer regarded him icily as if he were a piece of furniture. Without a word Birnier reached out and lifted a chair. Sergeant Schneider started forward, evidently fearing that the prisoner was about to attack his officer. Birnier said acidly:“I merely wish to sit down.”
Zu Pfeiffer scowled again, but he made no objection. He took up some papers at random and began to peruse them. Said Birnier sharply:
“When you have finished with this farce I shall be obliged if you will kindly explain your insane actions!”
The tap-tap of a typewriter sounded from another room. A fly buzzed. Zu Pfeiffer’s eyelids did not blink. The sergeants stared woodenly to the front. Birnier looked from one to the other, bit his lips, and then exclaimed in exasperation:“What in hell do you mean by this damned nonsense?”
The tap-tap continued; the fly buzzed irritatedly. Birnier clenched his fist. But he sat still. Another storm so darkened the room that zu Pfeiffer could scarcely have seen the print, but apparently he read on. The deluge roared, passed, and the glare came as suddenly. Zu Pfeiffer lifted his head and said in German:
“Sergeant, record the opening of the Court.”
“Excellence!”assented Sergeant Schultz and poised his pen ready to write.
“The prisoner, a Swiss subject——”
“I am American, as I have told you,”said Birnier in leashed anger.
“A pseudo trader and hunter, named Carl Bornstadt,”continued zu Pfeiffer imperturbably,“is charged under sub-section 79 of section 8 with supplying guns and liquor to the native subjects of his Imperial Majesty.”
“Good God!”began Birnier. But as he realised zu Pfeiffer’s purpose and his own position, he closed his lips tightly.
Methodically the sergeant finished the entries and waited. Zu Pfeiffer stroked his favourite moustache and considered. He glanced at Birnier, but without a vestige of expression and continued:
“Make a special note, sergeant, that we have reason to suspect that the prisoner is in the political service of”—a slight smile flicked the lieutenant’s face—“in the service of the Portuguese, and so under sub-section 109 of section 8, I am referring the case to Dar-es-salaam for investigation; witnesses, documentary and personal, to accompany the prisoner. Owing to unusual pressure of service we are unable to afford the prisoner, although apparently of European descent, a white guard; therefore, Sergeant Ludwig will detail a corporal and six men for the duty.”
He paused. The sergeant’s pen scratched on. Zu Pfeiffer lighted a cigar and added impersonally:
“The prisoner and escort will leave to-morrow morning. Sergeant Schneider, remove the prisoner!”
Birnier’s face was a little paler, the eyes were slightly[pg 66]more bloodshot; but he did not attempt to speak. Zu Pfeiffer rose. The sergeants stood to attention and saluted. As he left the room towards the Court House, he smiled with slight satisfaction as the gruff voice of Sergeant Schneider barked:“Prisoner, shun! Right turn! Quick marrch!”
But zu Pfeiffer did not remain long in the Court House. After fidgeting about with papers on the table and reprimanding Sergeant Schultz because he had not arranged the next native case to his satisfaction, he rose abruptly and marched swiftly across the square in the brilliant glare without his helmet and into his study. There he straddled a chair and leaned on the back sucking a dead cigar absent-mindedly. As he stared at the portrait in the ivory frame, the blue eyes grew soft and the delicate lips quivered like a child about to weep. He sighed heavily and then rapping out an oath, rose violently, overturning the chair, poured out a half-glass of neat cognac, and drank it at a gulp. As he neared the Court House the sentry, turning at the end of his short beat, was so startled at the proximity of the Kommandant, or incompletely disciplined, that he became flurried. Zu Pfeiffer clicked his heels together and haughtily watched the fumbled efforts to salute. The bolt caught in the man’s tunic. Gold flashed in the sun as the sjambok descended. Zu Pfeiffer walked on unconcernedly, leaving a grey weal on the terrified native’s face. To Sergeant Schultz, rigid in the doorway, he snapped an order to have fifty lashes given to the“clumsy dog.”
Sentences were harsher than usual that morning. All the native world about him knew that a demon had taken possession of the Eater-of-men; he was usually[pg 67]inhabited by an evil spirit, but this time the demon of Bakra who, as everybody knows, tears the vitals with hot claws, making the victim to have fits, to foam at the mouth, to be quite mad, had entered the white man. Bakunjala, coming to the Court House with vermouth and biscuits at eleven o’clock, distinctly saw the devil glaring through zu Pfeiffer’s eyes, and was so scared that he let fall the tray, which was the reason that he also was doomed to have twenty-five lashes that evening. Even the stolid Sergeant Schultz remarked that the Herr Lieutenant had gotten a touch of the sun; but the grizzled Schneider, who came from Luthuania, opined that the Herr Kommandant had left his table knife edge uppermost.
When zu Pfeiffer went across to tiffin the hot sun had dried up the gutters and the plot of grass. He did not return to the Court House, much to the gratitude of many innocent and guilty. After drinking more wine than usual he lay down for the siesta and fell asleep. But at five he awoke with a mouth like a burnt cooking pot and the temper of the said devil. He yelled for Bakunjala, who came, so trembling with fright that he stuttered. Zu Pfeiffer threw a glass which missed him and broke a mirror.
“Another seven years’ ill luck!”shouted zu Pfeiffer, sitting on the bed in his shirt. He glared at Bakunjala standing in the door, too terror-stricken to flee, convinced that he would be blamed for breaking the glass.“You—you superstitious nigger!”yelled zu Pfeiffer, and added more calmly in Kiswahili:“Fetch me a brandy-soda! Upesi, you son of a baboon!”
“Bwana!”exclaimed Bakunjala and fled gladly.
Zu Pfeiffer sat and scowled at the scattered pieces of[pg 68]mirror until Bakunjala arrived with the drink. An hour later he emerged in his immaculate undress uniform and sat on the north verandah, drank vermouth and smoked cigars, staring out across the flat swamp where the pewter of the lake was flecked with silver and blood of the sinking sun. From beyond the fort came the yaps of the drill-sergeant busy in the cool of the afternoon. At the bark of the relieving guard, zu Pfeiffer rose and walked around the house to watch, with tetchy eyes, the saluting of the flag.
As he stalked off to dinner in the messroom eyes glimmered in the darkness about him. Bakunjala, after receiving punishment, was indisposed, in fact incapable of attending to his duties in the spritely manner required. Another servant, who had taken his place, was nervous of the probable consequences, and had a keen eye for the appearance of the devil so realistically described by Bakunjala. But the demon apparently slept, for zu Pfeiffer took the dishes placed before him with an unaccustomed meekness, pushed them away absent-mindedly, and rising, retired to his study. Even when the deputy brought the wrong bottle he reprimanded him mildly without taking his eyes off the photograph in the ivory frame.
Yet, with the port, he did not omit to rise, and heels together, raise his glass to the“Ihre Hochheit.”Then sprawling in the chair he began to drink and to smoke steadily.
As the notes of the last post stuttered out in the clammy stillness he summoned the“boy”and bade him fetch Sergeant Schultz. At the sound of the sergeant’s steps on the verandah zu Pfeiffer stiffened up and patted his lips as if desiring to erase the lines that[pg 69]were graven thereon; and with one foot pushed the chair from the direct angle to the photograph.
“Take a cigar,”said zu Pfeiffer, when the man had entered. The words were rather an order than an invitation. Sergeant Schultz obeyed. Zu Pfeiffer smoked reflectively, still regarding the photograph out of the corner of his eyes as if unable to resist the fascination.
“How long have you been in this benighted country, sergeant?”
“Nine years, Excellence.”
“You wish to retire on the pension at the year’s term?”
“I have not seen my wife and children for three years, Excellence.”
“You shall have special leave as soon as the Wongolo affair is over.”
“I thank you, Excellence.”
“And I will recommend you for the special colonial service medal and pension.”
“I thank you, Excellence.”
“Take a drink, sergeant.”
“I thank you, Excellence.”
The sergeant obeyed with some semblance of initiative and he remarked that the lieutenant drank half a tumbler of neat brandy at a gulp. As if to drag himself away from the contemplation of the photograph zu Pfeiffer stood up and sat on the arm of the chair with his face in shadow above the lamp-shade. Gazing keenly at the sergeant, he said sharply:
“You are quite aware of the regulations regarding official secrets, sergeant?”
“Ach, yes, Excellence!”
As the sergeant paused to answer with the glass in his hand there was just a suspicion of astonishment in the tone.
“Good. Don’t forget it!”A note of menace was in zu Pfeiffer’s voice. He added more mildly,“Political reasons may cause stringent measures sometimes.”
“Yes, Excellence.”
Zu Pfeiffer smoked, coldly regarding the sergeant.
“Who is Sergeant Schneider detailing for the prisoner’s escort to-morrow?”
“Corporal Inyira, Excellence.”
“A long service man?”
“Ja, Excellence.”
“Good. Go and fetch him here.”
Not a shadow of surprise showed on Sergeant Schultz’s face as he departed. Zu Pfeiffer smoked hard and drank another brandy thirstily with a slight unsteadiness as he lifted the glass to his mouth. The sergeant returned and stood at attention just within the door.
“The man is here, Excellence.”Zu Pfeiffer nodded.
“Forward, quick marrch,”commanded the sergeant in a muffled bark.“Halttt!”
“Very good, sergeant, you may wait.”
Schultz saluted and retired without. The tall powerfully built native in uniform stood as if he had a bayonet beneath his chin. There was a slight nervousness about the blues of the eyes as he squinted in the attempt to look straight ahead and to watch the Kommandant at the same time. One nostril was slit,[pg 71]in the lobes of the ears were three can keys, and the temples were tattooed with tribal scars.
“Corporal Inyira!”said zu Pfeiffer sharply. The black body twitched at the voice.“You are to leave to-morrow for Dar-es-salaam and you will take as a prisoner a white man who has been taking your tribe as slaves and selling them to the Abyssinians. The Bwana Mkubwa protects you from these evil white men and Arabs. You know that?”sharply.
“Bwana!”
“Very good. You know what would happen to you if you were sold as a slave? You have had many brothers who have been sold to the Abyssinians?”
“Bwana! Many, Bwana!”
“Very good. Now listen! This white man is very bad. He leaves with you to-morrow morning for Dar-es-salaam, but—he is never to arrive there. I give him to you. You may do what you like with him, but never let me see him again. You have my protection. Understand?”
“Bwana!”
The rubber lips pouted in the emphatic utterance.
“These are your secret orders. But you are not to tell them to any man, woman, or child here; you may tell your men when you are gone. If you disobey I will cut out your tongue and give you three hundred lashes. Understand?”
“Bwana!”
“This man is the enemy of the Bwana Mkubwa. His enemies are your enemies. His goods are yours. Begone!”
The black hand came up jerkily to the black forehead, shot away out and down; the polished calves moved[pg 72]like the eccentrics of an engine, and Corporal Inyira melted into the shadows.
“Sergeant Schultz!”
To smart heel taps on the verandah entered the sergeant.
“You will see that Corporal Inyira and the escort leave before daybreak; moreover, that he talks with no one before he leaves.”
“Excellence.”
“Take a drink, sergeant.”
With legs as stiff as his sjambok, Sergeant Schultz obeyed the order; lifted the glass and drank.
“You may go! Good night, sergeant.”
“Excellence, good night!”
As zu Pfeiffer shifted from the chair-arm to the seat his movements were slightly erratic. He sat forward, staring at the photograph, as he drank more brandy. Outside, the pæan of the frogs pulsed steadily. From a distance came the throb of a native drum. A cricket shrilled intermittently.
“Bwana!”
The ghostly figure of Bakunjala whispered from the doorway. Zu Pfeiffer started nervously.
“Zingala,”began Bakunjala timorously.
“Gott verdamf—Emshi!”snapped zu Pfeiffer, his ring flashing in an irritable gesture.
Bakunjala melted. Came a mutter of voices and a subdued giggle.
Zu Pfeiffer sat and drank and stared. Above the insectile anthem of the night, rose a gurgling voice in a drinking song.… Later the crash of a breaking glass was accompanied by an oath. The glimmer of three pairs of eyes through the window screen vanished[pg 73]and reappeared.… Once more rose the voice singing:
“Scheiden tut weh,Scheiden, ja scheiden, scheiden tut weh!”
“Scheiden tut weh,
Scheiden, ja scheiden, scheiden tut weh!”
Just as the cricket began anew, after having politely ceased to hear the lieutenant’s song, trickled out upon the clammy air the sound of weeping.
[pg 74]Chapter 6In the violet shadow of his square hut inside the compound, squatted Zalu Zako. The lips and nose were nearer to the Aryan delicacy than the negroid bluntness; for the Wongolo, like the Wahima, are a mixed Bantu-Somali race. In colour his skin had the red of bronze rather than the blue of the negro, and the planes of his moulded chest were as light as the worn ivory bracelets upon his polished limbs. Broad in the shoulders he had almost the slender hips of a young girl and his carriage was as balanced as a dancer’s.From a group of small round huts behind his square hut, where dwelt his two wives, concubines and slaves, came the clutter of voices. A distant drum throbbed gently on the hot air. Away in the cool green of the banana plantation rose the crooning chant of the unmarried girls and slaves bringing water from the river.Apparently Zalu Zako was absorbed in the movements of a diminutive chicken scratching in the soil. The omen of the goat was occupying his mind: that and the death of his grandfather, MFunya MPopo. There was no sense of grief, for he was not a woman. Now, at the beginning of his warrior’s career, he had not any desire for divine honours and celibacy. No man had. Yet Zalu Zako no more dreamed of questioning the necessity than of spitting in the face of[pg 75]an enemy. Always had the first born male of his family been doomed to the kingly office. There was never a second born male, for it was not meet that a god should have paternal brothers. The wives of his youth and his concubines could have as many children as they could bear; but according to the law, did he select the chief wife from whom should spring the one regal son only when he had become heir apparent; for then was he not already half divine, being so near the sacred enclosure up on the hill?The choice of that chief wife was free as there were no royal families in the sense of divine descent save the direct male line of the King-God. But the mind of Zalu Zako dwelt more upon his personal career. The life of a warrior was frequently short and that of a god even briefer. MFunya MPopo had reigned but twenty moons; MKoffo, so said the elders, had reigned for full two hundred moons; but then he had been a mighty magician.With a harsh squawk a brilliant scarlet and blue bird with an enormous yellow bill perched on the palisade of the compound. Immediately the young man forgot his musing and rose, calling for his spear. A stocky man, coal black, with a fuzzy tuft of a beard, came out of the hut. From the slave Zalu Zako took a broad-bladed spear with a short haft. Watching to see that the bird was still sitting on the fence as he passed out of the compound, he set off rapidly through the village and into the banana plantations in search of a wart hog which had been rooting up one of his fields of sweet potatoes. Just as he came within sight of them a black field rat sprang out of the grass in his path, glanced round at him, and disappeared. The young[pg 76]man’s steps slackened, for he knew that the black rat had spoiled the luck which the banana eater had portended. Scarcely troubling to glance around the field, he diverged across at an angle making for a break in the jungle where he knew was the trail of the boar. But he grunted contemptuously as he examined the last spoor, which was at least half a day old. Of course the hog would not be there.He bethought himself of another field where sometimes came buck. But there was no game. The black rat again! Yet if one waited long enough a good omen might appear. As he squatted beneath a banana plant to take snuff came a squawk and the banana eater—for it appeared to be the same one—alighted on a frond near to him. Zalu Zako waited. Leisurely and cautiously he arose. The bird peered at him. Zalu Zako passed and left the banana eater still sitting there. He felt the weight of his spear tentatively, for a double omen of luck must mean big game: possibly an eland or a leopard.He circled right round the outskirts of the plantation. But he saw no signs. As he began to make the big circle again the shadows were lengthening appreciably. Passing by the ford of the small river, which was swollen from the rains, he heard a group of young girls chattering on the river bank as they filled their gourds. He paused to test which way the wind was blowing in order to avoid going down wind where the sound of their voices would scare away any game.But as he turned to move on he caught a glimpse of a figure mounting the incline. The motion was as lithe as a young giraffe; the legs were as straight as spears and as supple as a kiboko; the moulded hips swayed[pg 77]rhythmically like a banana frond in the breeze; the fluted arch of her back swelled proudly upwards to the resilient shoulders; and an arm as slender as a lizard’s tail steadied the gourd upon a small black head set upon a neck like a sapling. The dappled shadows of a tree played hide and seek upon the tiny hills that were her firm young breasts, upon the smoothness of her torso of light bronze. As he gazed her face came into view in speaking to a comrade just beneath. An errant shaft of sunlight glinted the pearl of teeth, glowed the tiny nose and blued the whites of eyes which were as soft as any antelope.Zalu Zako clicked the syllable that means astonishment.“Wait there, O Bayakala,”she called,“for I have to do the making of mighty magic with the spirits of the wood.”“Eh, eh!”responded one of those left by the water edge,“a girl of the hut thatch hath nought to do with spirits of the wood for their bellies are as big as a pregnant woman!”The young girl laughed and her notes seemed to Zalu Zako like the dripping of water upon a river rock.“Thou knowest less than the Baroto bird who as everybody knows is the spirit of one!”“’Tis more than thou wilt ever be!”retorted the rival beneath.“Ehh! Ehh!”exclaimed the girl at the sneer,“thy girdle is rotted long since with juice!”“And thine,”shouted the insulted one, who was old for a spinster,“wilt rot with the dryness!”“Tscch! It is dry for the lord whom I will conquer[pg 78]with magic such as thou hast never dreamed on, O Bayakala!”“And who is he for whom thou makest magic, O daughter of the hut thatch?”demanded Zalu Zako, stepping from the shelter of the tree.“Ehh!”ejaculated Bakuma.“I—we do but tickle the fronds (jest), O Chief!”The only sign of her nervousness was the slight swaying of the gourd of water upon her head as she turned up her eyes to the young chief who regarded her slowly. She edged away. He moved a pace in front of her. She clutched at the amulet around her neck as she turned her eyes and said:“The cooking fires are low, O Chief, and need be tended.”“Thy breasts are like unto small anthills,”he said,“and thy belly is as smooth as yonder river rock.”“Thy tongue is sweeter than the honey of the kinglan tree.”“Thy voice is softer than the muted lyre and thy nose is formed of two petals of an orchid.”“Thy praise is more refreshing than the morning dew to a thirsty flower.”“And by thy figure am I made more drunken than by the wine of the Soka palm.”For a full minute they stood, a study in light bronze against the dappled green foliage. The shrill chatter of the other girls approaching startled Bakuma into action. She swayed to one side.“The spirits of the cooking pot cry aloud for me, O Chief.”“Who is thy father, little one?”he demanded.“I am Bakuma, the daughter of Bakala, O Chief.”[pg 79]“There has been a veil before my eyes that I have not seen thee before.”“The mountains see not the tiny brooks amid the mighty forests,”murmured Bakuma and sped up the path.Zalu Zako stood motionless watching her form melt into the green, and as he turned towards the river he met Bayakala and the other women who shrank aside from the path to allow the Son of the Snake to pass in silence. Yet at the ford he paused. He had forgotten the omen of the banana eater and the purpose for which he had come.As Bakuma sped along in a gliding lope the amulet swayed rhythmically to the whispered praises of the power of Marufa, mixed with ardent prayers to the spirits to provide the fat goat with which to propitiate the spirit of the woods; for had not the love charm already manifested its wondrous power? As she hastened through the banana plantation she could not resist diverging a little in the direction of the magician’s hut. As she passed, she saw him seated on the threshold of the compound gathering inspiration from his favourite wall. But Marufa observed her demeanour, and being something of a student of men, he deducted that the charm had already begun to work.Marufa, as all successful men, had a strain of luck. Before the shadows had crept a hand’s breadth came MYalu, indignant and exasperated. The three tusks had been paid and the footprint obtained; but he had discovered that it was no easy matter to procure the other ingredients which he suspected the wizard had known well and intended as a means to extract more ivory. After the ceremonious greetings he protested[pg 80]that the task given was almost impossible to execute. Marufa remained imperturbably interested in his wall.“But as thou knowest,”insisted MYalu,“the hair and the toe-nail and the spittle of the Son of the Snake are more than difficult to obtain. Does a man so carelessly render himself unto his enemies, and he the Son of the Snake? None save one of his household could purloin a single hair. Even this morning was his hair shaved and the remnants, as thou knowest well, deposited in the temple with him who was his father.”“The hair, the toe-nail, and the spittle,”mumbled the old man,“must I have for such mighty magic.”“Ehh!”snorted MYalu,“with a man of the clay, but with one who is half divine, the Son of the Snake! Ehh!”“The bow is useless without the arrows,”mumbled the old man.“Tsch. ’Tis a mighty hunter that hath not the arrows for his bow,”sneered MYalu.“Verily,”retorted Marufa disinterestedly,“and still more a mighty man who cannot do his own hunting!”“No warrior hath been purified more frequently than I,”boasted MYalu, referring to the ceremony incumbent upon those who have taken life to appease the ghosts of the slain.“The spirits obey not the crowing of a cockerel,”reminded Marufa.“Tsch!”For a while both sat silent, MYalu gloomily watching a hen.“Aie! Aie!”he lamented at last,“what is there that I may do, for indeed she hath caught my soul in a trap. Aie! Aie!”[pg 81]“If the hunter cannot make arrows, he may buy them,”remarked Marufa, who had been patiently waiting for this state of mind.“Eh! The bowstring hath been costly but the arrows! Aie! Aie! What would’st thou?”“The rich man payeth in his kind. Four tusks of fine grain.”“Eh! Eh!”“Maybe there are others whose hands are not withered.”“Others than the Son of the Snake?”demanded MYalu quickly.“Who knows? There are more fools than chickens,”muttered the old man.MYalu stared disconsolately at the distant bananas. Perhaps, he reflected, it would be cheaper to pay the price the girl’s uncle demanded, yet—— MYalu had bought other wives whose unimpassioned charms had quickly staled. His soul, as he put it, had indeed been tempted into a trap by Bakuma; for he wished only that she should desire him as he desired her. Yet was he angry. Love seemed to be a costly business. Marufa tapped out snuff and sniffed delicately with the air of a connoisseur devoting himself to the pleasure of the moment. Replacing the cork of twisted leaves he stirred as if to rise.“Canst thou procure then the nail and the hairs that are asked by the spirits?”inquired MYalu sulkily.“All things are possible to the son of MTungo,”asserted Marufa.“Four tusks, and these things are found; but of fine grain, for the others were old and coarse.”[pg 82]“Ehh! How wilt thou procure these things?”demanded MYalu sceptically.“The ways of the wise are not the ways of fools.”“The tusks are thine,”said MYalu reluctantly,“if thou wilt tell me how thou wilt procure them.”“Thy words are like unto the vomit of a dog,”muttered the old man.“But how? My heart is not bound in clay.”“Tch!”clicked Marufa contemptuously.“Every fool must needs see the spoor of the god which he cannot read. I have spoken.”MYalu regarded the old wizard incredulously.“Tch! Send the four tusks as we have agreed and so shall it be. Begone!”Slowly MYalu rose, made his greeting, and departed more impressed than ever that the old man was a mighty magician.During the hour when the soul is small and dwells timidly around the feet Marufa dozed in the cool of his hut; but later when it spread boldly out was he squatted once more in his favourite seat at the entrance to the compound, taking snuff and contemplating. The shadows grew from violet to blue; the small hens pecked for worms with avidity and the goats scratched with vigour in the cool. Patiently Marufa sat. At length that for which he had waited with a sound though primitive knowledge of psychology, came to pass. Bakuma appeared, apprehensive, but with yet an abandon which sang her happiness. Beside Marufa she sat so as to avoid the shadow of one foot protruding beyond that of the fence.“O great and mighty magician,”she began eagerly, after the formal greetings.“Indeed all that thou hast said hath come to pass. Thy charm is infallible.”[pg 83]“Ugh!”grunted Marufa unconcernedly.“All that my heart desireth hath already begun to be. I thank thee.”“Ugh!”“O mighty son of MTungo, what must I now do?”“Thou knowest,”mumbled Marufa, fumbling for the snuff case.“Aie! Aie! but I have no fat goat!”cried Bakuma, who had hoped fatuously that the wizard would have forgotten.“I, a girl of the hut thatch, how should I have a goat?”Marufa tapped snuff as if no romance were in the making. Bakuma’s bright eyes, sharpened by the proximity of the promise of her love, watched the old man keenly.“Listen, O great and mighty son of MTungo, to whom all things are known, who canst accomplish all that thou desireth, Bayakala, my cousin, hath a goat, but it is old and skinny. Perhaps——”“In the nostrils of the spirits,”asserted Marufa instantly,“all odours are the same except that of the fat goat whom they love.”“Aie! then am I undone, for no fat goat have I!”wailed Bakuma.“Know I not one who hath a goat who would smile on me, a girl of the hut thatch.”“Ugh!”Bakuma regarded him imploringly, but Marufa’s gaze was fixed upon the wall as if his mind were turned to matters of more importance.“O mighty wizard, what must I do?”implored Bakuma desperately.“Ugh!”After a prolonged contemplation, said Marufa:[pg 84]“If thou canst get no goat, then is there another path by which thou mayest accomplish thy end.”“Eh!”“But it is very difficult.”“By my cord, will I do all that thou canst bid me to do!”swore Bakuma in anxious haste.“Ugh! This path is more certain of success for the will of the spirits are oftentimes chary of their favours.”“O mighty one!”breathed Bakuma, as he paused tantalisingly.“But the matter is exceedingly difficult—and dangerous.”“If the flower hath no sun hath it ever lived?”“As even thou shouldst know,”mumbled Marufa, more casually than ever,“he who possesses a part of the soul may do magic thereon.”“Aye! Aye!”“Bring me then of the nail parings one, of his hairs one, and of his spittle. Then may I do magic thereon which he cannot resist.”“O mighty magician!”gasped Bakuma, appalled at the difficulty and the danger of the task.“That path is sure. There is no other.”“Eh! … But if they of thy craft should know then am I doomed!”“There is no other.”Torn between her love and the dread of the penalty incurred by the sacrilege of the theft of the parts of one who might any day be King-God, Bakuma stared distraught.“Were not my words white? Hath not the love charm thou hast already had done even as I did say?”[pg 85]“O mighty one!”“But that is only as the goat to the leopard. The trap must be dug—or the scent of the bait will be blown.”“Ehh!”gasped Bakuma, in desperation,“by my twin soul which dwells beneath the banana plant, will I do it!”
In the violet shadow of his square hut inside the compound, squatted Zalu Zako. The lips and nose were nearer to the Aryan delicacy than the negroid bluntness; for the Wongolo, like the Wahima, are a mixed Bantu-Somali race. In colour his skin had the red of bronze rather than the blue of the negro, and the planes of his moulded chest were as light as the worn ivory bracelets upon his polished limbs. Broad in the shoulders he had almost the slender hips of a young girl and his carriage was as balanced as a dancer’s.
From a group of small round huts behind his square hut, where dwelt his two wives, concubines and slaves, came the clutter of voices. A distant drum throbbed gently on the hot air. Away in the cool green of the banana plantation rose the crooning chant of the unmarried girls and slaves bringing water from the river.
Apparently Zalu Zako was absorbed in the movements of a diminutive chicken scratching in the soil. The omen of the goat was occupying his mind: that and the death of his grandfather, MFunya MPopo. There was no sense of grief, for he was not a woman. Now, at the beginning of his warrior’s career, he had not any desire for divine honours and celibacy. No man had. Yet Zalu Zako no more dreamed of questioning the necessity than of spitting in the face of[pg 75]an enemy. Always had the first born male of his family been doomed to the kingly office. There was never a second born male, for it was not meet that a god should have paternal brothers. The wives of his youth and his concubines could have as many children as they could bear; but according to the law, did he select the chief wife from whom should spring the one regal son only when he had become heir apparent; for then was he not already half divine, being so near the sacred enclosure up on the hill?
The choice of that chief wife was free as there were no royal families in the sense of divine descent save the direct male line of the King-God. But the mind of Zalu Zako dwelt more upon his personal career. The life of a warrior was frequently short and that of a god even briefer. MFunya MPopo had reigned but twenty moons; MKoffo, so said the elders, had reigned for full two hundred moons; but then he had been a mighty magician.
With a harsh squawk a brilliant scarlet and blue bird with an enormous yellow bill perched on the palisade of the compound. Immediately the young man forgot his musing and rose, calling for his spear. A stocky man, coal black, with a fuzzy tuft of a beard, came out of the hut. From the slave Zalu Zako took a broad-bladed spear with a short haft. Watching to see that the bird was still sitting on the fence as he passed out of the compound, he set off rapidly through the village and into the banana plantations in search of a wart hog which had been rooting up one of his fields of sweet potatoes. Just as he came within sight of them a black field rat sprang out of the grass in his path, glanced round at him, and disappeared. The young[pg 76]man’s steps slackened, for he knew that the black rat had spoiled the luck which the banana eater had portended. Scarcely troubling to glance around the field, he diverged across at an angle making for a break in the jungle where he knew was the trail of the boar. But he grunted contemptuously as he examined the last spoor, which was at least half a day old. Of course the hog would not be there.
He bethought himself of another field where sometimes came buck. But there was no game. The black rat again! Yet if one waited long enough a good omen might appear. As he squatted beneath a banana plant to take snuff came a squawk and the banana eater—for it appeared to be the same one—alighted on a frond near to him. Zalu Zako waited. Leisurely and cautiously he arose. The bird peered at him. Zalu Zako passed and left the banana eater still sitting there. He felt the weight of his spear tentatively, for a double omen of luck must mean big game: possibly an eland or a leopard.
He circled right round the outskirts of the plantation. But he saw no signs. As he began to make the big circle again the shadows were lengthening appreciably. Passing by the ford of the small river, which was swollen from the rains, he heard a group of young girls chattering on the river bank as they filled their gourds. He paused to test which way the wind was blowing in order to avoid going down wind where the sound of their voices would scare away any game.
But as he turned to move on he caught a glimpse of a figure mounting the incline. The motion was as lithe as a young giraffe; the legs were as straight as spears and as supple as a kiboko; the moulded hips swayed[pg 77]rhythmically like a banana frond in the breeze; the fluted arch of her back swelled proudly upwards to the resilient shoulders; and an arm as slender as a lizard’s tail steadied the gourd upon a small black head set upon a neck like a sapling. The dappled shadows of a tree played hide and seek upon the tiny hills that were her firm young breasts, upon the smoothness of her torso of light bronze. As he gazed her face came into view in speaking to a comrade just beneath. An errant shaft of sunlight glinted the pearl of teeth, glowed the tiny nose and blued the whites of eyes which were as soft as any antelope.
Zalu Zako clicked the syllable that means astonishment.
“Wait there, O Bayakala,”she called,“for I have to do the making of mighty magic with the spirits of the wood.”
“Eh, eh!”responded one of those left by the water edge,“a girl of the hut thatch hath nought to do with spirits of the wood for their bellies are as big as a pregnant woman!”
The young girl laughed and her notes seemed to Zalu Zako like the dripping of water upon a river rock.
“Thou knowest less than the Baroto bird who as everybody knows is the spirit of one!”
“’Tis more than thou wilt ever be!”retorted the rival beneath.
“Ehh! Ehh!”exclaimed the girl at the sneer,“thy girdle is rotted long since with juice!”
“And thine,”shouted the insulted one, who was old for a spinster,“wilt rot with the dryness!”
“Tscch! It is dry for the lord whom I will conquer[pg 78]with magic such as thou hast never dreamed on, O Bayakala!”
“And who is he for whom thou makest magic, O daughter of the hut thatch?”demanded Zalu Zako, stepping from the shelter of the tree.
“Ehh!”ejaculated Bakuma.“I—we do but tickle the fronds (jest), O Chief!”
The only sign of her nervousness was the slight swaying of the gourd of water upon her head as she turned up her eyes to the young chief who regarded her slowly. She edged away. He moved a pace in front of her. She clutched at the amulet around her neck as she turned her eyes and said:
“The cooking fires are low, O Chief, and need be tended.”
“Thy breasts are like unto small anthills,”he said,“and thy belly is as smooth as yonder river rock.”
“Thy tongue is sweeter than the honey of the kinglan tree.”
“Thy voice is softer than the muted lyre and thy nose is formed of two petals of an orchid.”
“Thy praise is more refreshing than the morning dew to a thirsty flower.”
“And by thy figure am I made more drunken than by the wine of the Soka palm.”
For a full minute they stood, a study in light bronze against the dappled green foliage. The shrill chatter of the other girls approaching startled Bakuma into action. She swayed to one side.
“The spirits of the cooking pot cry aloud for me, O Chief.”
“Who is thy father, little one?”he demanded.
“I am Bakuma, the daughter of Bakala, O Chief.”
“There has been a veil before my eyes that I have not seen thee before.”
“The mountains see not the tiny brooks amid the mighty forests,”murmured Bakuma and sped up the path.
Zalu Zako stood motionless watching her form melt into the green, and as he turned towards the river he met Bayakala and the other women who shrank aside from the path to allow the Son of the Snake to pass in silence. Yet at the ford he paused. He had forgotten the omen of the banana eater and the purpose for which he had come.
As Bakuma sped along in a gliding lope the amulet swayed rhythmically to the whispered praises of the power of Marufa, mixed with ardent prayers to the spirits to provide the fat goat with which to propitiate the spirit of the woods; for had not the love charm already manifested its wondrous power? As she hastened through the banana plantation she could not resist diverging a little in the direction of the magician’s hut. As she passed, she saw him seated on the threshold of the compound gathering inspiration from his favourite wall. But Marufa observed her demeanour, and being something of a student of men, he deducted that the charm had already begun to work.
Marufa, as all successful men, had a strain of luck. Before the shadows had crept a hand’s breadth came MYalu, indignant and exasperated. The three tusks had been paid and the footprint obtained; but he had discovered that it was no easy matter to procure the other ingredients which he suspected the wizard had known well and intended as a means to extract more ivory. After the ceremonious greetings he protested[pg 80]that the task given was almost impossible to execute. Marufa remained imperturbably interested in his wall.
“But as thou knowest,”insisted MYalu,“the hair and the toe-nail and the spittle of the Son of the Snake are more than difficult to obtain. Does a man so carelessly render himself unto his enemies, and he the Son of the Snake? None save one of his household could purloin a single hair. Even this morning was his hair shaved and the remnants, as thou knowest well, deposited in the temple with him who was his father.”
“The hair, the toe-nail, and the spittle,”mumbled the old man,“must I have for such mighty magic.”
“Ehh!”snorted MYalu,“with a man of the clay, but with one who is half divine, the Son of the Snake! Ehh!”
“The bow is useless without the arrows,”mumbled the old man.
“Tsch. ’Tis a mighty hunter that hath not the arrows for his bow,”sneered MYalu.
“Verily,”retorted Marufa disinterestedly,“and still more a mighty man who cannot do his own hunting!”
“No warrior hath been purified more frequently than I,”boasted MYalu, referring to the ceremony incumbent upon those who have taken life to appease the ghosts of the slain.
“The spirits obey not the crowing of a cockerel,”reminded Marufa.
“Tsch!”For a while both sat silent, MYalu gloomily watching a hen.
“Aie! Aie!”he lamented at last,“what is there that I may do, for indeed she hath caught my soul in a trap. Aie! Aie!”
“If the hunter cannot make arrows, he may buy them,”remarked Marufa, who had been patiently waiting for this state of mind.
“Eh! The bowstring hath been costly but the arrows! Aie! Aie! What would’st thou?”
“The rich man payeth in his kind. Four tusks of fine grain.”
“Eh! Eh!”
“Maybe there are others whose hands are not withered.”
“Others than the Son of the Snake?”demanded MYalu quickly.
“Who knows? There are more fools than chickens,”muttered the old man.
MYalu stared disconsolately at the distant bananas. Perhaps, he reflected, it would be cheaper to pay the price the girl’s uncle demanded, yet—— MYalu had bought other wives whose unimpassioned charms had quickly staled. His soul, as he put it, had indeed been tempted into a trap by Bakuma; for he wished only that she should desire him as he desired her. Yet was he angry. Love seemed to be a costly business. Marufa tapped out snuff and sniffed delicately with the air of a connoisseur devoting himself to the pleasure of the moment. Replacing the cork of twisted leaves he stirred as if to rise.
“Canst thou procure then the nail and the hairs that are asked by the spirits?”inquired MYalu sulkily.
“All things are possible to the son of MTungo,”asserted Marufa.“Four tusks, and these things are found; but of fine grain, for the others were old and coarse.”
“Ehh! How wilt thou procure these things?”demanded MYalu sceptically.
“The ways of the wise are not the ways of fools.”
“The tusks are thine,”said MYalu reluctantly,“if thou wilt tell me how thou wilt procure them.”
“Thy words are like unto the vomit of a dog,”muttered the old man.
“But how? My heart is not bound in clay.”
“Tch!”clicked Marufa contemptuously.“Every fool must needs see the spoor of the god which he cannot read. I have spoken.”MYalu regarded the old wizard incredulously.“Tch! Send the four tusks as we have agreed and so shall it be. Begone!”
Slowly MYalu rose, made his greeting, and departed more impressed than ever that the old man was a mighty magician.
During the hour when the soul is small and dwells timidly around the feet Marufa dozed in the cool of his hut; but later when it spread boldly out was he squatted once more in his favourite seat at the entrance to the compound, taking snuff and contemplating. The shadows grew from violet to blue; the small hens pecked for worms with avidity and the goats scratched with vigour in the cool. Patiently Marufa sat. At length that for which he had waited with a sound though primitive knowledge of psychology, came to pass. Bakuma appeared, apprehensive, but with yet an abandon which sang her happiness. Beside Marufa she sat so as to avoid the shadow of one foot protruding beyond that of the fence.
“O great and mighty magician,”she began eagerly, after the formal greetings.“Indeed all that thou hast said hath come to pass. Thy charm is infallible.”
“Ugh!”grunted Marufa unconcernedly.
“All that my heart desireth hath already begun to be. I thank thee.”
“Ugh!”
“O mighty son of MTungo, what must I now do?”
“Thou knowest,”mumbled Marufa, fumbling for the snuff case.
“Aie! Aie! but I have no fat goat!”cried Bakuma, who had hoped fatuously that the wizard would have forgotten.“I, a girl of the hut thatch, how should I have a goat?”Marufa tapped snuff as if no romance were in the making. Bakuma’s bright eyes, sharpened by the proximity of the promise of her love, watched the old man keenly.“Listen, O great and mighty son of MTungo, to whom all things are known, who canst accomplish all that thou desireth, Bayakala, my cousin, hath a goat, but it is old and skinny. Perhaps——”
“In the nostrils of the spirits,”asserted Marufa instantly,“all odours are the same except that of the fat goat whom they love.”
“Aie! then am I undone, for no fat goat have I!”wailed Bakuma.“Know I not one who hath a goat who would smile on me, a girl of the hut thatch.”
“Ugh!”
Bakuma regarded him imploringly, but Marufa’s gaze was fixed upon the wall as if his mind were turned to matters of more importance.
“O mighty wizard, what must I do?”implored Bakuma desperately.
“Ugh!”
After a prolonged contemplation, said Marufa:[pg 84]“If thou canst get no goat, then is there another path by which thou mayest accomplish thy end.”
“Eh!”
“But it is very difficult.”
“By my cord, will I do all that thou canst bid me to do!”swore Bakuma in anxious haste.
“Ugh! This path is more certain of success for the will of the spirits are oftentimes chary of their favours.”
“O mighty one!”breathed Bakuma, as he paused tantalisingly.
“But the matter is exceedingly difficult—and dangerous.”
“If the flower hath no sun hath it ever lived?”
“As even thou shouldst know,”mumbled Marufa, more casually than ever,“he who possesses a part of the soul may do magic thereon.”
“Aye! Aye!”
“Bring me then of the nail parings one, of his hairs one, and of his spittle. Then may I do magic thereon which he cannot resist.”
“O mighty magician!”gasped Bakuma, appalled at the difficulty and the danger of the task.
“That path is sure. There is no other.”
“Eh! … But if they of thy craft should know then am I doomed!”
“There is no other.”
Torn between her love and the dread of the penalty incurred by the sacrilege of the theft of the parts of one who might any day be King-God, Bakuma stared distraught.
“Were not my words white? Hath not the love charm thou hast already had done even as I did say?”
“O mighty one!”
“But that is only as the goat to the leopard. The trap must be dug—or the scent of the bait will be blown.”
“Ehh!”gasped Bakuma, in desperation,“by my twin soul which dwells beneath the banana plant, will I do it!”