The Witch Doctor and other Rhodesian Studies Part 11

I left some of my men to cut out his tusks, and, out of curiosity, went back along his spoor. I had not far to go. Sitting round a pile of green branches I found a dozen of Mobita's people, looking very glum.

They told me their yarn, which I did not believe until I had had a look round for myself. The spoor told me their story was true enough.

It appears that Mobita had followed the bull since early morning. He got in a moderate shot; the bull saw him and gave chase. The ground was unbroken, with no large ant-hills or big trees to dodge behind. Here and there they went, this way and that, but the tusker kept his eye on Mobita--on his protective colouring, I should think. Then somehow Mobita tripped and fell, and the game was up. The elephant stamped on him, knelt on him, put his tusk through him. Then--and here is the strange part of it all--went from tree to tree picking green branches and piling them up on what was left of Mobita.

Then he moved off and shortly met me.

Did I bury Mobita? Why, no. People came around presently--as natives will when meat is about--and I made them pile stones on him; quite a hill they made. I paid them for their trouble with elephant meat, and handed the tusks to Mobita's men, as the custom is.

Protective colouring is all right, no doubt--if you keep still.

DARWIN--A BIRD.

When the railway construction reached to within reasonable distance of my camp, I realised how tired I was of living in a mud hut, and acquired sufficient material from the contractor for a small house. I also asked him to spare one of his carpenters to erect it for me.

The man sent to me was a German named Fritz Kunst. He was not only a carpenter, but a mason, bricklayer, plumber, and painter as well. He was an excellent workman, a member of no union, and intent only on finishing his job quickly and well. I hasten to explain that this was many years before the war.

In build he was very short, almost deformed. His head was abnormally large; so, too, were his hands and feet, especially his feet. He looked upon his feet as his salvation. He was flat-footed, and on that account had never served in the German army. He referred to his feet as, "My goot luck, isn't it?"

I had but one fault to find with him. He was rough with his native servant. The boy sometimes complained to me, and when I remonstrated with Kunst or threatened him with the law he would burst into a flood of tears and offer to pay cash for his lapse. One day the boy complained to me that Kunst had beaten him severely and without cause. He could, however, show no mark, but I sent for his master and demanded an explanation. Kunst was evidently very angry with the boy, for he shook his fist in his face and bellowed in his coa.r.s.e, guttural voice: "Zo, you make er tam vool of me, eh? I will your head break. You spoil my money. Gott tam you!"

In broken English, but with considerable fluency and force, Kunst told me the source of his indignation. It appeared that from time to time he commissioned his boy to make small purchases for him--eggs, fowls, milk, fish, and the like. On the previous evening the boy produced a very large egg for which he said he had paid sixpence. As eggs were then never more than sixpence a dozen in that country, Kunst charged him with cheating. The boy explained that the egg was a very large one. It was large--huge, in fact--for a hen's egg, so Kunst did not press the charge, but went to bed, telling the boy to boil it for breakfast next morning.

On the breakfast-table the egg looked larger than ever. It couldn't sit in the tin egg-cup, so lay on the table beside it.

Now Kunst was a greedy man and attacked the egg in the best of good spirits. He tried to crack it in the usual way with a spoon, but without success. He banged it on the table. The sh.e.l.l did crack then, but, to Kunst's indignation, the egg proved to be hard set. Whether he thought parts of it might be good I cannot say, but the German broke open the egg and examined it more closely. He then became very angry indeed, for what he found satisfied him that the egg was not a hen's egg at all. The creature upon which he gazed was three-parts beak and most of the rest was made up of feet. Kunst had never seen anything like it. In a rage of disappointment he beat the boy. He had so looked forward to eating that very large egg which the boy a.s.sured him was a hen's egg. Had not his trusted servant declared that the egg had cost sixpence?

I soothed Kunst's ruffled feelings, and persuaded him to go to his work and forgive the boy.

When I had settled the little differences between the German and the native, I cross-questioned the latter. It transpired that the giant egg was that of a marabout stork which had nested in a tree a few miles away. As one egg still remained in the nest, I told the boy to let a week or two go by, and if by then the egg had hatched out to bring the chick to me.

In due course Darwin arrived. I did not call him Darwin for several weeks; the name occurred to me later. Darwin was the queerest of objects. He was a large ball of fluff based on two very long legs, and surmounted by a huge beak protruding from a bald head. He was wise from birth; it was when I had fully realised how very wise he was that I christened him Darwin.

When he first came to me he made no proper use of his legs. He could not stand erect, but sat awkwardly with his bird equivalent to knees protruding behind and his large feet, with toes spread out, in front. He resembled a downy globe on rails. He crawled about my bungalow almost from the first day I had him. This he managed by sliding first his right hand rail along the floor and then his left, clapping his huge beak after each movement. I suppose I subconsciously accepted this beak clapping as the crooning of a baby bird, for I soon found myself indulging in baby talk with him.

His appet.i.te was amazing; moreover, he was omnivorous.

When it was neither his meal time nor mine, he would sit on the floor in front of me blinking up at me with wisdom in his eyes. He winked. There is no doubt about it. It was as if he had just remarked: "What you and I don't know isn't worth knowing." I soon dropped the baby talk with Darwin, and discussed with him Affairs of State.

He grew rapidly. One day I detected a feather. By degrees feathers replaced the down, but the most important sign of Darwin's growing up was when he took his first step. One morning without warning he heaved himself up, and, by using his beak as a third leg, actually stood on his feet. For the s.p.a.ce of a full minute he remained in this position, then, suddenly lifting his head, he was erect. For one moment only; then, overbalancing backwards, he fell with a crash full length on the floor.

He appeared stunned at first. I picked him up and placed him on his rails again, and there he sat, thinking the matter over. Presently he repeated the manoeuvre, but with no better success, falling this time on his "front" as a child would say. Again I gathered him up, and apparently, after mature consideration, he decided that his time for walking had not yet come, for he made no more attempts that day.

About a week later, as if the idea had struck him for the first time, he got up quite suddenly, and coolly walked out of the back door into the yard; he stood there sunning himself, and chattering to and at everybody and everything in sight.

Darwin never looked back. He quickly developed a curiosity as insatiable as his appet.i.te. He became playful, too. He made friends with the dogs, and romped with them. He noticed that the doctor paid a daily visit to the compound, and hid behind the fence in wait for him. As the doctor sped past on his bicycle, Darwin would shoot out his heavy beak at him.

So sure a marksman did the bird become--he always narrowly missed the saddle, but hit the doctor--that the good man complained, and approached the compound by the long way round.

The day arrived when certain puppies had to lose their tails. Darwin took a proper interest in the operation, and gobbled up each tail as it fell. He appeared to like dogs' tails, and went in search of more. He found a nice long one which he tried to swallow, but it happened to be still attached to an elderly greyhound. Poor Darwin met with his first serious rebuff in life; he came to me for sympathy with a large puncture in his beak. The mark of the dog's displeasure was permanent.

When natives came, as they did in hundreds, to sell the produce of their gardens, woods, and streams, Darwin inspected their wares. With a twist of his beak he would filch a pinch of meal from a bowl to see, so the natives declared, whether it was of uniform whiteness throughout. Eggs had to be protected with outstretched arms, so, too, had baskets of little fishes, for he was very partial to them both, and only a very full sample would satisfy him. The natives declared him possessed.

Judging by the way he first abused and then a.s.saulted any one of them bold enough to resist his inspection, I think they were right.

I have already mentioned his curiosity. He permitted this defect in his character to carry him too far when he became a common thief. A traveller stayed with me for a few days. In spite of warning, he left the door of his hut open when he came across to the mess hut for breakfast. Darwin entered to inspect. It is surmised that he swallowed my guest's shaving brush and tooth brush, for they have never been found. It is only surmise, but there was circ.u.mstantial evidence to support the charge in the form of the stick of shaving soap which was found on the floor with marks on it which might have been made by the beak of a large bird.

Again, the contents of two boxes of cigars were found scattered far and wide; each cigar had been nipped in half. Darwin was questioned; he looked wise but said nothing. A native witness swore he had seen the accused walking in the yard with the white man's pipe in his mouth. This was a wicked slander, for the white man had that pipe in his pocket, and it was his only one.

The case was not proven, but Darwin left the court without a shred of character.

I have referred to his appet.i.te. One day the cook missed a piece of lamb's neck, weighing probably half a dozen pounds. He couldn't blame the cat, because there wasn't one, so he pointed the finger of accusation at Darwin. The evil bird was sent for. I felt he was guilty, and, although he winked at me for sympathy, I had to say so. Besides, he had not been sufficiently careful to hide the loot; even a professional detective could have recognised the meat by the very large, irregular bulge in the bird's pouch. In places the mutton bones threatened to pierce the thin disguise.

Darwin certainly had his uses. No nasty-smelling sc.r.a.p could lie undetected for long. His scent was keen and his eye sharp. I never found a snake in the house after Darwin grew up, nor were there many rats about the place.

Once a huge swarm of locusts fell upon us, and all hands turned out to destroy them. Darwin joined in the fray, and soon we retired and left him to finish the job, as he disposed of thousands to our joint hundreds. His method was simplicity itself. He dashed here, there, and everywhere with his huge beak wide open. Only now and then, and for a moment, did he close it to gulp down what had fallen in.

The doctor, who lived a mile away, did not like Darwin; partly because of his stupid trick of pecking at him as he cycled by, but chiefly because he seemed to know what was going on in the hospital. If an operation was being performed, Darwin could be heard tramping about impatiently on the corrugated iron roof of the building. As the marabout stork mainly lives on carrion sc.r.a.ps, there was, the doctor considered, questionable taste in Darwin's visits.

Alas! Darwin met with a violent death in his early prime.

Like all others of his kind, he grew those beautiful downy feathers so highly prized by women who dress well. There was a demand throughout the country for the feathers, and many of these delightful and useful birds died at the hands of the natives in consequence.

An operation was going on at the hospital, and Darwin was hurrying thither on foot, as I had recently cut the feathers of one of his wings.

In the road he met a strange native, who despatched him with his a.s.segai, stripped him of his feathers, and walked on.

The spoiler soon came up with two of my servants who, on hearing of the man's good luck, as he put it, took him back to the scene of the outrage.

Yes, it was "Da-wi-ni"; was not that the hole in his beak which the angry greyhound made?

My servants decided that Darwin had been most foully murdered, and acted according to their lights.

It was well that the doctor knew his job. After six anxious weeks the native was so far recovered from the beating as to be p.r.o.nounced out of danger.

THE LION'S SKIN.

In the year 1898 Sergeant Johnson, the one with the bright red beard, was sent up country to establish and to remain in charge of the new out-station of Likonga. Likonga, a little-known spot in Central Africa, was, and still is, miles away from civilisation. Sergeant Johnson's command was cut to small dimensions by malaria at headquarters. He had but a corporal and two men. Likonga in those days consisted of nothing but a name on the map, and nothing at all in the way of buildings or anything else to show you when you had got there. The Commandant of Police had dotted vaguely the imperfect sketch map with his pencil, and had instructed Sergeant Johnson to go there. The Sergeant had glanced at the map as it lay on the office table, and had said, "Yes, sir."

"You will take with you Corporal Merton and Privates Hay and Hare. I cannot spare more."

Again the Sergeant said, "Yes, sir."