My Dark Companions Part 20

"That is the second time I have heard a thin voice saying, 'Ha, ha!' If I only knew who he was that cried 'Ha, ha!' I would squeeze him, and squeeze him until he cried, 'Ugh, ugh!'"

"Ugh, ugh!" echoed the little voice again.

The gorilla leaped to his feet and rummaged around the pots and the baskets, took hold of the bodies one after another and dashed them against the floor, then went to every house and searched, but could not discover who it was that mocked him.

In a short time he returned and ate a pile of bananas that would have satisfied twenty men, and afterwards he went out, saying to himself that it would be a good thing to fill the nest with food, as it was a bore to leave the warm nest each time he felt a desire to eat.

No sooner had he departed than Kinneneh slipped down, and carried every bunch that had been left away to his own house, where they were stowed in the loft for his mother, and after enjoining his mother to remain still, he waited, peering through the c.h.i.n.ks of the door.

He soon saw Gorilla bearing a pile of bunches that would have required ten men to carry, and after flinging them into the chief's house, return to the plantation for another supply. While Gorilla was tearing down the plants and plucking at the bunches, Kinneneh was actively engaged in transferring what he brought into the loft by his mother's side.

Gorilla made many trips in this manner, and brought in great heaps, but somehow his stock appeared to be very small. At last his strength was exhausted, and feeling that he could do no more that day, he commenced to feed on what he had last brought, promising to himself that he would do better in the morning.

At dawn the gorilla hastened out to obtain a supply of fruit for his breakfast, and Kinneneh took advantage of his absence to hide himself overhead.

He was not long in his place before Gorilla came in with a huge lot of ripe fruit, and after making himself comfortable on his haunches with a great bunch before him he rocked himself to and fro, saying while he munched:

"Ha, ha! Now I have plenty again, and I shall eat it all myself. Ha, ha!"

"Ha, ha," echoed a thin voice again, so close and clear it seemed to him, that leaping up he made sure to catch it. As there appeared to be no one in the house, he rushed out raging, champing his teeth, and searched the other houses, but meantime Kinneneh carried the bananas to the loft of the gorilla's house, and covered them with bark-cloth.

In a short time Gorilla returned furious and disappointed, and sat down to finish the breakfast he had only begun, but on putting out his hands he found only the withered peelings of yesterday's bananas. He looked and rummaged about, but there was positively nothing left to eat. He was now terribly hungry and angry, and he bounded out to obtain another supply, which he brought in and flung on the floor, saying,

"Ha, ha! I will now eat the whole at once--all to myself, and that other thing which says, 'Ha, ha!' after me, I will hunt and mash him like this," and he seized a ripe banana and squeezed it with his paw with so much force that the pulp was squirted all over him. "Ha, ha!"

he cried.

"Ha, ha!" mocked the shrill voice, so clear that it appeared to come from behind his ear.

This was too much to bear; Gorilla bounded up and vented a roar of rage.

He tossed the pots, the baskets, the bodies, and bed-gra.s.s about-- bellowing so loudly and funnily in his fury that Kinneneh, away up in the loft, could scarcely forbear imitating him. But the mocker could not be found, and Gorilla roared loudly in the open place before the village, and tore in and out of each house, looking for him.

Kinneneh descended swiftly from his hiding-place, and bore every banana into the loft as before.

Gorilla hastened to the plantation again, and so angry was he that he uprooted the banana-stalks by the root, and snapped off the cl.u.s.ters with one stroke of his great dog-teeth, and having got together a large stock, he bore it in his arms to the house.

"There," said he, "ha, ha! Now I shall eat in comfort and have a long sleep afterwards, and if that fellow who mocks me comes near--ah! I would"--and he crushed a big bunch in his arms and cried, "ha, ha!"

"Ha, ha! Ha, ha!" cried the mocking voice; and again it seemed to be at the back of his head. Whereupon Gorilla flung his arms behind in the hope of catching him, but there was nothing but his own back, which sounded like a damp drum with the stroke.

"Ha, ha! Ha, ha!" repeated the voice, at which Gorilla shot out of the door, and raced round the house, thinking that the owner was flying before him, but he never could overtake the flyer. Then he went around outside of the other houses, and flew round and round the village, but he could discover naught. But meanwhile Kinneneh had borne all the stock of bananas up into the loft above, and when Gorilla returned there was not one banana of all the great pile he had brought left on the floor.

When, after he was certain that there was not a single bit of a banana left for him to eat, he scratched his sides and his legs, and putting his hand on the top of his head, he uttered a great cry just like a great, stupid child, but the crying did not fill his tummy. No, he must have bananas for that--and he rose up after awhile and went to procure some more fruit.

But when he had brought a great pile of it and had sat down with his nice-smelling bunch before him, he would exclaim, "Ha, ha! Now--now I shall eat and be satisfied. I shall fill myself with the sweet fruit, and then lie down and sleep. Ha, ha!"

Then instantly the mocking voice would cry out after him, "Ha, ha!" and sometimes it sounded close to his ears, and then behind his head, sometimes it appeared to come from under the bananas and sometimes from the doorway:--that Gorilla would roar in fury, and he would grind his teeth just like two grinding-stones, and chatter to himself, and race about the village, trying to discover whence the voice came, but in his absence the fruit would be swept away by his invisible enemy, and when he would come in to finish his meal, lo! there were only blackened and stained banana peelings--the refuse of his first feast.

Gorilla would then cry like a whipped child, and would go again into the plantation, to bring some more fruit into the house, but when he returned with it he would always boast of what he was going to do, and cry out "Ha, ha!" and instantly his unseen enemy would mock him and cry "Ha, ha!" and he would start up raving and screaming in rage, and search for him, and in his absence his bananas would be whisked away. And Gorilla's hunger grew on him, until his paunch became like an empty sack, and what with his hunger and grief and rage, and furious raving and racing about, his strength was at last quite exhausted, and the end of him was that on the fifth day he fell from weakness across the threshold of the chief's house, which he had chosen to make his nest, and there died.

When the people of the next village heard of how Kinneneh, a little boy, had conquered the man-killing gorilla, they brought him and his mother away, and they gave him a fine new house and a plantation, and male and female slaves to tend it, and when their old king died, and the period of mourning for him was over, they elected wise Kinneneh to be king over them.

"Ah, friends," said Safeni to his companions, after Kadu had concluded his story, "there is no doubt that the cunning of a son of man prevails over the strongest brute, and it is well for us, Mashallah! that it should be so; for if the elephant, or the lion, or the gorilla possessed but cunning equal to their strength, what would become of us!"

And each man retired to his hut, congratulating himself that he was born a man-child, and not a thick, muddle-headed beast.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

THE CITY OF THE ELEPHANTS.

"Master," said Ka.s.sim, one of the Basoko boys, "Baruti's tales have brought back from among forgotten things a legend I once knew very well.

Ah, I wish I could remember more, but little by little the stories that I used to hear in my childhood from my mother and the old woman who would come and sit with her, will perhaps return again into the mind. I should never have thought of this that I am about to repeat to you now had it not been that Baruti's legends seem to recall as though they were but yesterday the days that came and went uncounted in our Basoko village. This legend is about the City of the Elephants that one of my countrymen and his wife came across in the far past time, in the manner that I shall tell you."

A Bungandu man named Dudu, and his wife Salimba, were one day seeking in the forest a long way from the town for a proper redwood-tree, out of which they could make a wooden mortar wherein they could pound their manioc. They saw several trees of this kind as they proceeded, but after examining one, and then another, they would appear to be dissatisfied, and say, "Perhaps if we went a little further we might find a still better tree for our purpose."

And so Dudu and Salimba proceeded further and further into the tall and thick woods, and ever before them there appeared to be still finer trees which would after all be unsuited for their purpose, being too soft, or too hard, or hollow, or too old, or of another kind than the useful redwood. They strayed in this manner very far. In the forest where there is no path or track, it is not easy to tell which direction one came from, and as they had walked round many trees, they were too confused to know which way they ought to turn homeward. When Dudu said he was sure that his course was the right one for home, Salimba was as sure that the opposite was the true way. They agreed to walk in the direction Dudu wished, and after a long time spent on it, they gave it up and tried another, but neither took them any nearer home.

The night overtook them and they slept at the foot of a tree. The next day they wandered still farther from their town, and they became anxious and hungry. As one cannot see many yards off on any side in the forest, an animal hears the coming step long before the hunter gets a chance to use his weapon. Therefore, though they heard the rustle of the flying antelope, or wild pig as it rushed away, it only served to make their anxiety greater. And the second day pa.s.sed, and when night came upon them they were still hungrier.

Towards the middle of the third day, they came into an open place by a pool frequented by Kiboko (hippo), and there was a margin of gra.s.s round about it, and as they came in view of it, both, at the same time, sighted a grazing buffalo.

Dudu bade his wife stand behind a tree while he chose two of his best and sharpest arrows, and after a careful look at his bow-string, he crept up to the buffalo, and drove an arrow home as far as the guiding leaf, which nearly buried it in the body. While the beast looked around and started from the twinge within, Dudu shot his second arrow into his windpipe, and it fell to the ground quite choked. Now here was water to drink and food to eat, and after cutting a load of meat they chose a thick bush-clump a little distance from the pool, made a fire, and, after satisfying their hunger, slept in content. The fourth day they stopped and roasted a meat provision that would last many days, because they knew that luck is not constant in the woods.

On the fifth they travelled, and for three days more they wandered.

They then met a young lion who, at the sight of them, boldly advanced, but Dudu sighted his bow, and sent an arrow into his chest which sickened him of the fight, and he turned and fled.

A few days afterwards, Dudu saw an elephant standing close to them behind a high bush, and whispered to his wife:

"Ah, now, we have a chance to get meat enough for a month."

"But," said Salimba, "why should you wish to kill him, when we have enough meat still with us? Do not hurt him. Ah, what a fine back he has, and how strong he is. Perhaps he would carry us home."

"How could an elephant understand our wishes?" asked Dudu.

"Talk to him anyhow, perhaps he will be clever enough to understand what we want."

Dudu laughed at his wife's simplicity, but to please her he said, "Elephant, we have lost our way; will you carry us and take us home, and we shall be your friends for ever."

The Elephant ceased waving his trunk, and nodding to himself, and turning to them said--

"If you come near to me and take hold of my ears, you may get on my back, and I will carry you safely."

When the Elephant spoke, Dudu fell back from surprise, and looked at him as though he had not heard aright, but Salimba advanced with all confidence, and laid hold of one of his ears, and pulled herself up on to his back. When she was seated, she cried out, "Come, Dudu, what are you looking at? Did you not hear him say he would carry you?"

Seeing his wife smiling and comfortable on the Elephant's back, Dudu became a little braver and moved forward slowly, when the Elephant spoke again, "Come, Dudu, be not afraid. Follow your wife, and do as she did, and then I will travel home with you quickly."

Dudu then put aside his fears, and his surprise, and seizing the Elephant's ear, he ascended and seated himself by his wife on the Elephant's back.

Without another word the Elephant moved on rapidly, and the motion seemed to Dudu and Salimba most delightful. Whenever any overhanging branch was in the way, the Elephant wrenched it off, or bent it and pa.s.sed on. No creek, stream, gulley, or river, stopped him, he seemed to know exactly the way he should go, as if the road he was travelling was well known to him.