Witch-Doctors Part 15

"Ehh!" gasped Bak.u.ma, in desperation, "by my twin soul which dwells beneath the banana plant, will I do it!"

CHAPTER 7

Gerald Birnier had flattered himself that he was a philosopher with a sense of humour, fairly well developed by ten years' wandering about Central Africa, but deep emotions submerge such cherished qualities.

The presence of the photograph was explicable by several surmises: zu Pfeiffer might have met Lucille at Washington, Paris, or Berlin: she might have given him the photograph or he might have bought it, or even stolen it. But-the signature "a toi, Lucille"! There lay the sting which maddened Birnier and strangled reason, the fact at which his mind yawed futilely.

So great had been the shock that the arrest had seemed but a secondary matter in accord with the insanity of zu Pfeiffer's statement that he was engaged to Lucille. The affair had been so sudden that for some time he could progress no farther in an attempt to think than a gasp, pawing mentally at an intangible substance which eluded him like a child's small hand trying to grasp a toy balloon. Sense of reality appeared to have been dissolved. He had followed the sergeant across the square meekly without realising what was happening, and when he had been placed in a whitewashed room at the back of the native guard house which served as a jail, he sat down upon a chair, too bewildered to comprehend where he was. That "a toi, Lucille" rang like the clanging in a belfry, drowning the sound of other thoughts.

By the light of a hurricane lamp he regarded the soldiers bringing in an old camp bed with indifference. When they had gone he began to pace up and down the small room frantically trying to gain control. To the first prompting of a logical reason for the whole affair he did not dare to listen. The disrupting cause was the complete inability to explain the familiar signature. To his Anglo-Saxonised mind, bred in the strict code of the south, tutoyer was only permissible to dogs, inferiors, most intimate relations and lovers. He was far too unbalanced to see the humour as he solemnly announced that certainly zu Pfeiffer was not a dog, nor in the social code an inferior; he was not a relation; therefore.... His mind baulked and raced into incoherence.

A point of view which added false premises, as well as his att.i.tude to those two little words, was the consciousness that many would consider that he had not treated his wife as a husband should do. This possibility had never occurred to him before, so that it came with disproportionate emphasis.

As a young man he had been too absorbed in his profession to be a lady's man; and of love he had reckoned little until he had met the Lucille Charltrain with whom half the world was in love. And she doubtless, like many a spoiled beauty, was a little piqued that the professor did not join the throng of her courtiers. In Birnier's mind there had ever been a.s.sociated with love the fear that the woman would demand too much, that no woman could understand that a man's profession must of necessity come before all things. Lucille was the first woman whom he had met who really seemed to understand this point of view, as she, too, was devoted to her art. This had grown to be the biggest bond and attraction between them.

Most men wished to make of love a nuisance, as Lucille once put it. So the good-looking professor had won the beauty. They were married on the mutual understanding that each should pursue their respective professions.

Shortly afterwards Birnier was offered a special mission to go to Africa for the purpose of studying the customs and superst.i.tions of the natives.

Lucille had consented, forbidden, relented, and laughed.

So Lucille sang from musical height to height and her husband sped from depth to depth in the seas of human fatuity. Whenever he took a furlough he went, of course, straight to her, wheresoever she was, in Berlin, New York, or Paris. To Birnier the situation was ideal. He had never dreamed of any other woman. Indeed the tracts of his mind were so filled with statistics of anthropology and Lucille that there was little or no room for any one else. The delight and satisfaction in Birnier's mind were so sincere that he never had dreamed of questioning whether Lucille's point of view had remained the same. But now?

That "a toi" stung and baited him into the unprecedented realisation that after all women had been known to change their opinions. Perhaps pride had prevented her from ever openly demanding other ways. Lucille was young and beautiful, courted and flattered on every hand. Perhaps he had been wrong to leave her for years at a stretch. Of her loyalty he had had no doubt, but for the first time in his marital life the professor's profound knowledge of human nature was shot like a spot-light on to his own affairs. Yet his erudition did not in the least relieve him from the laws of emotional reaction.

Perhaps in an emotional moment.... That knowledge of the frailties of genus h.o.m.o was too deep for comfort in such actuation.

"a toi, Lucille! a toi, Lucille!" rang and echoed as he paced that room, striving for control.... And-and-why else should zu Pfeiffer have gone crazy?-why had he exclaimed: "Das ist der Schweinhund"? The husband, of course, whom he wanted out of the way, and he had immediately seized the opportunity to secure that end, seemingly indifferent to consequences-symptomatic of the state of "being in love."

Around and about, about and around a field of weeds which had sprung from that seed "a toi," had paced the professor all night. When the green was creeping through the high barred window, Sergeant Schneider had brought to him some coffee and biscuits. Birnier had drunk the coffee thirstily, and as the sergeant had no English nor French, had tried in broken German to extract some information. But the sergeant had merely grunted and retired.

At seven he had returned again and escorted Birnier to the Court House. He returned from the mock trial a little more in touch with reality, and more impressed with the malignity of zu Pfeiffer. Yet the gratuitous insults, the laboured farce of the registering of an alleged Swiss trader, Birnier saw through, and was relieved, for it argued that zu Pfeiffer's intention was to make Lucille a widow. No other reason could account for the homicidal intentions displayed.

At the glow of dawn next day he was aroused by the big corporal who ordered him out. The tone of the man's voice naturally stimulated a violent reaction. But Birnier realised that his sole chance lay in controlling himself to accept stoically whatever treatment was offered; for he saw instantly that any protest or indignation would be interpreted as insubordination and possibly be made an excuse to shoot him down.

Outside in the grey light he saw under the guard of six native soldiers, the five others of his party. Mungongo, his personal "boy," cried out at the sight of him, asking what was the meaning of these strange happenings.

Before Birnier could reply, the big corporal struck the man savagely with a kiboko, bidding him to be silent. In spite of his resolution, the reaction made Birnier turn angrily upon the soldier, who deliberately repeated the order, and struck the white man across the face. As Birnier raised his fist the man lowered his bayonet and grinned, adding, apparently for the benefit of his men, that now the white would learn what it was to be a slave.

Furiously Birnier looked around for Sergeant Schneider: but no white man was in sight.... He turned to Mungongo and said quickly: "Take no heed. Do as they bid thee for the moment."

"Be silent!" shouted the corporal, but as he raised his kiboko, Birnier looked him quietly straight in the eyes. The black hand was lowered; the man turned away, ordering the party in general to march.

Dishevelled and without any camp equipment, Birnier began to march as the blood of the sky paled to orange. At the bottom of the great parade ground he turned in time to see the relieving guard falling in behind the Court House. For one moment he hesitated whether to put all to the test by refusing to go; but a significant gesture with the ever ready rifle of the corporal signified that he would not be given a chance. Humiliated, he obeyed. But just beyond the last hut, waiting by the path, was a group of women loaded with the soldiers' gear; and beside them were some carriers bearing his green tent and apparently all his equipment. The sight cheered him a little. He attempted to find immediate consolation in the idea that the savagery of the corporal might possibly abate when they were away from the neighbourhood of the inciting agent, whom he was sure was zu Pfeiffer.

Leading the caravan was a soldier; next to him came Birnier and behind him was another soldier, after whom walked Mungongo and the four other prisoners, with a soldier between each; and then the corporal, strutting portentously important within easy shooting distance of the white man. The carriers and women brought up the rear.

The path led for some miles through the dreary swamp following the course of the small bayou, crossing and recrossing small streams swollen with the rains, through which the white man was forced to wade to his hips. For the first mile Birnier was so angry and humiliated that he dared not catch the troubled eyes of Mungongo. But by force of will he attained a reasonable plane of philosophic resignation, temporary at least, and smiled at the boy, who grinned back like a tickled child. At any rate, soliloquised Birnier, he had at least one man upon whom he could rely.

At the head of the bayou they reached higher ground and the path zigzagged through dense jungle thick with fan palms. The longer Birnier pondered upon the situation the nearer he came towards the conclusion that he had better make his escape as soon as possible, or he would never have the chance. Rather by the uneasy glances of Mungongo, who dared not speak, did he guess that they had left the regular trail to the coast. What their destination was he could not imagine. Probably, he thought grimly, to make an end of the whole party and return to the camp. Yet why trouble to travel so far? And another good reason to hasten an escape was that, although for the moment he was in good health, a few days of exposure would subject him to fever and consequent weakness.

Now and again the theme "a toi" would return like the refrain of a song to which he found himself keeping step; but the words sometimes became meaningless; for in the merciful way that nature has, the impulse of self-preservation so occupied his mind that he had scarcely leisure to worry over marital troubles.

At the end of about two hours, when the heat of the sun was beginning to be felt severely, the corporal called a halt in the shade of a great baobab. Birnier sat down with his back against the bole. Alongside him squatted the corporal deliberately and called to the women for a gourd of juwala. There is a certain acid odour which native beer has that is particularly irritating to a dry palate. The corporal drank deep, sighed with satisfaction and set the gourd beside him almost touching the feet of the white. Involuntarily Birnier swallowed. The corporal saw and grinned.

Birnier understood and turned his back to the man. Immediately the corporal arose and lowering his bayonet until it p.r.i.c.ked the sleeve of Birnier's coat, ordered him to get up. In the knowledge that he would be instantly shot by the others if he attempted to resist, he had perforce to obey.

Outside the shade of the great tree, in the full glare of the sun, was the white man compelled to sit while the black corporal, with the rifle ready across his knee, drank deep and handed the gourd to his fellows. Again Birnier turned his back to him. But he began to realise faintly what treatment he would receive before the end came and an intimate knowledge of native ingenuity made him feel physically sick.

Half an hour later they were on the march again. The path became rugged and difficult, pa.s.sing through th.o.r.n.y ground, following burbling watercourses of rough stones. To make the going more trying Birnier wore light moccasins intended for camp use instead of his high field boots.

Once when a long thorn penetrated the flank of his shoe he stopped to extract it. The corporal shouted at him; the soldier behind called him unmentionable names in the dialect and pushed him with his foot. The insult and the heat of the sun maddened him. He leaped to his feet. The corporal raised his gun promptly and jeered. For a moment Birnier stood trembling with pa.s.sion; then he closed his eyes as if to shut out sight and sound and limped forward, fighting with himself.

With natives had Birnier always been able to negotiate, to live, and to quarrel when necessary, on terms of amity; but this black "swine," as he termed him in his wrath, prinked out in a masquerade of a white man's clothes.... He jammed his heel down savagely upon the thorn to divert the southern pa.s.sion. After all it was not the man's fault but zu Pfeiffer's.

Put a white man in a uniform and he becomes a beast; put a n.i.g.g.e.r in a uniform and he becomes a devil, Birnier forced himself to reflect.

The sun grew incandescent. The heat and the flies quickened his thirst. He plodded on, stumbling over the stones, sagging heavily in sandy patches.

They had left the comparative shelter of the jungle and were crossing a flat plain approaching, he judged, to a river bed. The carriers, he noted, had lagged behind. Soon they must halt. Even the fiend of a corporal would not fatigue himself too much for the sake of tormenting a white man.

Then a new idea was added to the plagues. He had tasted nothing save the coffee, canned beef, and native bread which had been given him for dinner on the previous evening. The corporal had manifested his conception of humour by refusing him beer and water on the march; was he going to torment him by starvation as well as by thirst? And if torture were reserved for him by that grinning black brute, then he knew what would be the end that awaited him.

Within an hour they came to a river about forty yards broad, a swollen rushing torrent. There was no village as he had expected. The corporal halted. Birnier slid down the bank and thrust his muzzle into the flood.

There was torture in the restraint not to drink too much. He clambered up the slope to find the corporal grinning at him. He turned his back and lay down. There was no shade; only short scrub and gra.s.s. Small sand flies buzzed and stung. He heard the gurgle of the corporal's military water-bottle. But this time the sting was extracted; his belly was moist.

Birnier stretched out, shielding from the glare the little that he could with his hands. Faint echoes of "a toi" strolled across his field of consciousness. He observed the apparently stoical indifference of Mungongo squatted a few feet from him, a soldier sprawling between them; but he cursed because investigations had taught him that that "stoical" should usually be read as "bovinity," as he had termed it; and he smiled dismally at the ancient story that so well ill.u.s.trated the point, of the peasant who expressed his occupation through the long winter hours as "sometimes we sits and thinks but mostly we just sits."

Mungongo "just sits," he repeated, and envied him. Yet in that heat and hunger, waiting for his savage captor to wreak some new fancy upon him, so saturated with philosophic interest in life was Birnier, that he wandered off into a meditation upon the mechanical fatuity of human conduct; ill.u.s.trating his reflections by his own actions when stirred by emotion.

"The loaded gun may be as wise as Solomon was reputed to be," he remarked beneath his hands, "but all the same when some one pulls the trigger the d.a.m.n thing goes off," and sat up to confront the muzzle of the corporal's rifle, who was ordering him to get up. Birnier rose. But to the savage's amazement, he smiled.

The corporal backed away.

"Ah, my friend," remarked Birnier blandly in English. "You've lost, for I have found that which was lost!"

The corporal scowled and bade him to follow. Birnier obeyed but he felt that he was obliging the man. The carriers had arrived and the green tent was pitched, invitingly cool against the grey flood of the river. He followed the corporal gladly, but at ten feet from his tent, beside a thorn bush four feet tall which spread in a fan shape, he was bidden to sit. For the moment, newly arrived from his philosophic dreams, he did not comprehend.

"But that is my tent!" he said in Kiswahili.

"Sit down!" commanded the corporal, grinning. "The white seller of slaves sits in the place of the slave, but his owner dwells in the place of the blessed."

"O G.o.d!" remarked Birnier as he b.u.mped his head against black reality.

CHAPTER 8

Bak.u.ma sat in the shade of the reed fence preparing the evening meal of boiled bananas. From her slender neck swung the precious amulet at which, as if to rea.s.sure herself of its safety, she clutched occasionally. Her half-sister, who had not yet pa.s.sed through the initiation at maturity, sprawled upon her belly in the dwindling rays of the sun, scratching her woolly head. Beyond her were two slaves tending a fire beneath two large calabashes, preparatory to the brewing of banana beer, which had of course to be done by the chief widow, Bak.u.ma's half-sister's mother.