The Witch Doctor and other Rhodesian Studies Part 10

"And the slaves of her house, have they slept well?"

"They have."

"And is the Chief's wife pleased with the new shawl chosen by Sikoro as a gift from the Chief to his wife?"

"It is all right."

Sikoro relapsed into silence and Mironda did not speak. Presently the man got up and, in a crouching att.i.tude, shuffled nearer and sat down as close as possible to the edge of the woman's mat without actually touching it. To touch the mat of the Chief's wife would have been an offence, to come so near to it was studied insolence.

Mironda looked up angrily, met the bloodshot eye of Sikoro and opened her mouth as if to speak. Instead of doing so, however, she looked away and examined the work upon which she had been engaged when the man arrived.

Sikoro grinned and, detaching from his belt a small gourd, emptied some snuff into the palm of his hand.

This was a deliberate insult to the Chief's wife and conclusive evidence to her, if indeed she needed it, that she might now expect the worst.

Sikoro blew his nose unpleasantly and loudly sniffed up the snuff from the palm of his hand. Then, clearing his throat, he said: "Someone has stolen one of the Chief's heifers."

"Eh."

"A yellow one which the Chief might well have sold to a Jew."

"So."

"It is no great loss to the Chief, as the heifer is barren."

Mironda's eyes blazed with fury; she had no child.

"The thief has been caught."

"What will be done with him?"

Ah! he had aroused her interest at last. Sikoro smiled pleasantly as he said: "He will, of course, be strangled."

"Will not the Missionaries prevent it?"

"The Missionaries? They do not know and may not know for many days, and anyhow, what could they do?"

"The white man's Government will prevent the killing of people."

"No doubt the white man's Government will do many foolish things, but the Magistrate has not yet come."

"He is coming soon."

"But they strangle Miyobo to-day, now."

No name had been mentioned before: indeed it was not necessary even now; Mironda had known Sikoro's errand from the manner of entry into her compound.

The abominable man leant forward and repeated: "Now, now, now," then put his hand to his ear. The woman listened, too, and heard distinctly the shriek and gurgle of a dying man: then silence save for the pattering of slaves' feet and their shrill inquiries and conjectures. Miyobo had been strangled just outside the compound in which the woman sat.

Mironda looked at Sikoro with wide eyes of fear. He, of course, enjoyed the situation. Did he not hate this woman for her overbearing pride? Had not she and Miyobo fooled him more than once, and had it not been the merest chance which had delivered them into his hand?

His one eye contracted with merriment, a cruel smile lifted his lip and disclosed a row of sharply-filed teeth--the tribal mark of a subject race; he was a freed slave.

Pointing to the bangles on the woman's arm, Sikoro asked: "What are you doing with the Chief's ivory?"

One by one Mironda took her bangles off and placed them on the mat before her.

"Is not that the Chief's new shawl?"

The wretched woman took the garment from her shoulders and laid it on the mat beside the bangles.

"And why," said Sikoro, "do you sit on the Chief's mat?"

Mironda slowly rose to her feet.

"And is not this the Chief's hut?"

This was the last word, the full sentence of divorce; she, now a common woman, had no right to stand where she stood. She looked hastily round the compound and then walked silently to the gate and so out.

The man gathered up the ivory bangles and tied them in the shawl. He rolled up the mat upon which Mironda had been sitting and tucked it under his arm. Then, spitting contemptuously on the ground, he followed.

Some years later I saw Mironda, clothed in the rags of a slave woman, begging food at the Mission station.

When the wife of the Chief is divorced, her fall is gradual. For a s.p.a.ce she becomes the wife of a head man, who presently pa.s.ses her on to someone lower in the social scale, and so from hand to hand she pa.s.ses until she becomes the consort of a slave.

In Mironda's case she first became the wife of Sikoro; surely a no more cruel punishment could have been devised for her.

MAN AND BEAST.

PROTECTIVE COLOURING.

Mobita had views on protective colouring. Who is Mobita? Oh, an elephant hunter, a black man; a very good fellow--as black men go. Mobita used to say that elephants, and big and small game generally, could not see black and white. Black they could and white they could, but not a judicious combination of the two. His usual hunting kit was a black hat with a white feather in it, a black waistcoat over a white shirt, a black and white striped loin cloth. His thin arms and legs were dull ebony. There you have Mobita.

Mobita's theory worked very well for a time, but as he had missed an essential he paid the penalty in the end. A zebra is black and white--more or less--and in the bush is practically invisible so long as it stands still. That, then, is the essential adjunct to protective colouring--you must keep still.

This is what happened to Mobita.

Just before the war I was hunting on the edge of the Great Swamp. Early one afternoon, when the day was at its hottest, I heard a shot fired.

Later, I met a freshly-wounded tusker and dropped him. I went up to have a look at him, and found dry blood on his ground tusk and a hole behind his near shoulder; someone had just missed his heart. My shot took him in the ear.