Witch-Doctors Part 22

About a mile from Birnier's camp, through forest so dense that even the progress of a native clambering from trunk to trunk and over undergrowth ten feet deep was slow and tortuous, was the temporary village of Zalu Zako; some six or seven hundred huts of branches and creepers straggling over a wide area of ground which had been roughly cleared from undergrowth by a few slaves and women.

The hut of Zalu Zako, as those of most of the bigger chiefs and wizards, was furnished with reeds upon the floor to avoid squatting actually in the green slime, and boasted a palisade run from tree to tree enclosing the huts of his two wives, women and slaves. Every morning the leader of a long line of slaves bringing supplies from the villages in the open, chanting softly the song of the march, entered the village through a ma.s.s of creepers which hung like a curtain of humid green. Many hundreds of warriors with their chiefs had deserted their king after the flight from Yagonyana's village.

In the mind of Zalu Zako was doubt and perplexity as in those of his people. All the accepted "laws" and "facts" of his world had been set at naught; it was as if buck lived in the rivers and fish ran roaring through the forests. Fear, curiosity, and resentment filled him. Sometimes it appeared that Eyes-in-the-hands had indeed proved to be a more powerful G.o.d than the Unmentionable One, of whom he was, or should have been, high priest and king; that he had eaten him up as they said; so perhaps the better course was to submit to this being invincible. Yet this very anarchy of his beliefs had released once more the pa.s.sion for Bak.u.ma whom he had renounced, the desire for whom had been inhibited by the sense of the inevitability of the mandate of the witch-doctors. Hereditary custom, which made him feel that it was inc.u.mbent upon him-a primitive sense of duty-to be king-G.o.d warred with this longing for Bak.u.ma. The fact that he was not yet bound to celibacy quickened the seed of rebellion against the domination of the wizards. If he could escape the G.o.dhood then Bak.u.ma was alive again. For to his mind a ban upon the personal ego was far stronger than any ban upon a second person.

Chewing the cud of this sweet gra.s.s of hope squatted Zalu Zako one morning in the dignified solitude of his compound on the threshold of his hut.

Opposite him sat the brother conspirator of Bakahenzie, Marufa, a brown shadow in comparison to the gleaming of the royal insignia of the ivory bangles. They sat silent, motionless, save for the occasional spa.r.s.e movement of snuff taking. In the steamy heat a continual mutter and rustle persisted, punctuated by the harsh scream of a green parrot or the squawks of a troop of monkeys. In the faintly spattered sunlight percolating through the bowered roof vivid lizards rivalled in colour the rare finger of an orchid clinging to the great tree beside the hut. Through the humid air came the faint chant of carriers at the end of a journey; swelled louder and ceased. At the mutter of greeting near by Marufa grunted.

"The beaten dog returns to nose in the garbage," he mumbled.

"Maybe he hath news of the doings," commented Zalu Zako after a pause.

"The young dog starts a buck in every tree stump," returned Marufa.

The mumble of voices in the hut of Yabolo near to Zalu Zako's continued.

Neither Zalu Zako nor Marufa knew other than that, after his downfall, Sakamata had retired to his native village on the southern boundary where the people, being laymen, had believed the excuse for his absence given by Sakamata that he had retired to the forest for one moon in the guise of his totem, the wart hog, which animal became accordingly tabu to their killing for that period. At length came a young slave from Yabolo who, after saluting, delivered a message from Yabolo requesting that Zalu Zako receive him and his relative, Sakamata, who had weighty news for him.

Presently entered the recusant bearing signs of prosperity in the flowered print about his loins, the ancient cartridge pouch slung around his waist and a huge revolver of the pin-fire model dangling from a neck which appeared more tortoise-like than ever. Before Zalu Zako he squatted and after they had exchanged the usual hostages to hostility, Sakamata inquired most politely after the health of the Son-of-the-Snake, of his cattle and of his fortune, and last of all of his women. Sakamata, aware of the loss of prestige suffered by his old enemy, Bakahenzie, presented Zalu Zako with a duplicate of the pin-fire revolver. Followed an equally extensive greeting to Marufa. Only when these ceremonies had been punctiliously performed did they begin to discuss the news.

At first Sakamata proceeded to repeat the popular saying regarding the doings of Eyes-in-the-hands. Various chiefs had visited the fort of the white man bringing presents in their hands, terrified of what might happen, yet, according to Sakamata, their fears had been dispelled immediately; for the wise new G.o.d had received them as brothers and had made offerings to them as was the custom for strangers to do. It was true, he admitted in cross-examination, that whole villages had been put to the sword and burned; but, he demanded, was not that the way of a mighty warrior to those who resisted him?

Moreover, continued Sakamata, to fight him was death. His magic was such that no man could prevail against him. Had any doctor yet succeeded in making successful magic against the Invincible One? His magic was terrible to behold. Spirits which were imprisoned in houses of trees (boxes) spoke and sang according to their tribe.

"Clk!" commented Zalu Zako incredulously.

"These words are as the wind in the trees at night speaking to girls,"

commented Marufa slowly. "What man hath beheld those things with his own eyes?"

Deliberately Sakamata tapped snuff, inhaled it with relish, meticulously, that not one grain was lost upon his white caterpillar moustache, and said indifferently:

"Even he who sits before you."

"Eh!"

Another point was scored. But both Zalu Zako and Marufa regarded him as one who, having had dealings with the devil and yet had emerged safely, was to be suspected of some ghastly pact. After a calculated pause Sakamata continued nonchalantly:

"There is no magic like unto Eyes-in-the-hands, the Mighty One. A great fort hath he made upon the hill of thy grandfather (MFunya MPopo), O Zalu Zako, girded with a great palisade, around which walk ever the red devils in uniform, each one of whom hath a gun with seven voices. And peering through that palisade, like a terrible black leopard from his lair, are the monster coughing devils. Eh! who are they who can withstand them?"

"Eh!" echoed his audience with lively memories of the "coughing devils."

"And he hath a mighty hut made from the white man's cloth of colour like to the forest full of things to make magic. Seated upon his chair like unto a man plucking bananas, the eyes upon his hands and in his head gleam so fiercely that water is made within a man. He who dares to look sees not only Eyes-in-the-hands, but his two souls, even as thou seest thine own two souls staring at thee with the frightened eyes that are thine!"

"Ehh!"

This time a genuine belly grunt was elicited, and even Marufa moved uneasily.

"Thou hast been bewitched," he added to mask his astonishment. "For a man may see his own soul in any pool, but never two souls!"

"Even is it as I have told thee, O son of MTungo," a.s.serted Sakamata.

Sakamata discovered the use of snuff again to be necessary. He watched covertly the repressed excitement in the eyes of Zalu Zako.

"And what said the great magician unto thee?" Marufa demanded to cover his discomfort.

"He spoke white words as a warrior should," said Sakamata. "He gave words which told me that he was but a small wizard. He made my eyes to see the soul of a greater G.o.d than he, who was there and yet was not there; for at the touch of his magic hand with many eyes, behold! there were two more souls of the G.o.d which returned even as I looked."

"Ehh! A greater G.o.d than he?" demanded Zalu Zako, with a flicker of the white of his eyes.

"Even as I have said, a greater G.o.d who is king of all the white man's countries in the sea, who eats up those whom he pleases. Yet, even though he may bewitch with one of his eyes, did he speak softly to Yagombi, the son of Bagazaan, and Zalayan, the son of Kilmanyana, who were with me, bidding us to tell our brethren that if they would not acknowledge the true king that then he would eat us up, even as he ate up the Unmentionable One. But to those who would submit and make due tribute, would he protect in peace from the white men who, fleeing from the wrath of the great G.o.d, would soon come to eat up our country like the locusts."

"Eh! ehh! white men as the locusts!"

"Thus he spoke and bade us to go forth and tell our brethren."

This was a wholly new notion and proportionally serious if true. But Marufa, recovering from the first shock, wrapped himself in his professional cloak of omniscient indifference as he recollected that Sakamata was an unfrocked priest of the craft. The group took snuff sternly until Sakamata, having accomplished his mission, deemed it wise to retire to allow the suggestive ideas to germinate. So gravely he arose and departed from the hut of Zalu Zako and went under the patronage of Yabolo to another compound where, to a group of the most disaffected chiefs, including MYalu, he repeated nearly word for word the same harangue.

In the minds of Zalu Zako and Marufa the report of Sakamata had been exceedingly disquieting. Marufa began to wonder whether he had not better make terms with the new G.o.d before worse came to the worst in the form of white men like locusts, a menace fraught with dire possibilities which were based upon the rumours which every native had heard of the ways of white men in bulk: to the Wongolo merely vague stories from the north of the conquest of the Sudan by the British. Marufa's ambitions in the craft were almost submerged in the dread that, wizard though he was, he would have small chance of distinction and power among a race of wizards. To Zalu Zako, although the prospect of unlimited white men swooping upon them was terrifying, his semi-conscious mind was rather occupied with Bak.u.ma than with affairs of state which seemed merely to exist to torment lovers.

However he, too, was sufficiently impressed to consider seriously the advisability of submitting before it was too late; the motivating principle of the scheme was an idea which suggested that, in some indefinable way, such action might lead to the avoidance of the ban of G.o.dhood and thus to the reinstatement of Bak.u.ma in the realm of possibilities.

To Bakahenzie the report was more alarming than to the others, inasmuch as it appeared to portend the irretrievable loss of his power. He saw the effect upon their minds, the inclination to yield to the new conqueror, which, of course, would mean the last of his followers being swept away in the crowd like dry leaves in the wind. But more than the others he suspected the motives of Sakamata, the man whom he had unfrocked. Arguing in terms of his own mental processes he saw correctly enough that Sakamata was surely playing for himself, and guessed equally truly that Sakamata would get, or imagined that he would get, many rewards, political as well as in kind, for his services as jackal to the white man. But he listened and said no word for, or against, him. He was astute enough never to make a move until he had, or thought that he had, all the moves of the game worked out. Marufa was just as wily; he related the news given by Sakamata in a voice which gave no hint by tone or word what any of his opinions might be. Then, as they sat like graven images, supremely indifferent to the doings of Sakamata or aught else, entered the warrior bearing greetings from Birnier to Zalu Zako.

Immediately Zalu Zako, to whose less skilled mind in intrigue this succession of world-shaking events was bewildering, feared that already the plague of white men like locusts had commenced. But when he learned that the white man was alone and was Infunyana, the only white man whom he had ever met, he perceived vaguely some remote prospect of achieving his desires. Almost eagerly, for a native, he commanded the messenger to summon the white man to his presence.

To Bakahenzie the unexpected arrival of another white was an unforeseen potentiality of force which might be utilized to his own benefit; so thought Marufa, which was in effect exactly the same reaction as Zalu Zako's. Therefore Bakahenzie immediately protested upon the ground that no stranger could be allowed to approach the Son-of-the-Snake, or even the village, who had not been purified according to custom. When Zalu Zako demurred he retorted:

"Hath not one white man who was permitted to enter our country without the demon being exorcised wreaked disaster upon us? Wouldst thou then destroy us utterly?"

Zalu Zako was silent. Much as he would have desired to browbeat Bakahenzie, much as his confidence in the powers of the chief witch-doctor had waned in his estimation, yet there remained sufficient to overawe him when the matter was put to a crucial test. Bakahenzie would, so he stated, go himself to see the new white man, thus unselfishly taking upon his person the whole risk of the lasting magic of a stranger unpurified. But Marufa had no intention of allowing Bakahenzie to obtain a monopoly of this possible new ally. Unlike Zalu Zako he was not burdened with awe and had confidence in his own magic to overcome any evil that Bakahenzie might seek to work against him. So when he announced that he would accompany Bakahenzie, that distressed wizard was too conscious of his dwindling prestige to object.

CHAPTER 15

Just after sun-up next morning as Birnier was seated at the door of his tent reading his _Melancholy_ and drinking his coffee, a startled "clk"

caused him to glance round. He saw Bak.u.ma rise suddenly from the fire and disappear. The next moment materialized out of the miasma of the morning the figures of Bakahenzie and Marufa, followed by a file of warriors.

Portentously Bakahenzie stalked to the fire and squatted down without even a murmur to Mungongo busy with the breakfast. Bakahenzie remembered Infunyana very well, but nevertheless designedly Birnier ignored him in return. So they sat, the two wizards taking snuff with grave concern almost at the feet of the white who continued to smoke and to read.

The sign boded ill, for the insistence upon the punctilious etiquette inferred that Bakahenzie was disposed to be suspicious, if not directly hostile. And indeed the warriors' description of the magic of Moonspirit, vide Mungongo, had made Bakahenzie uneasy.

After a full half-hour Bakahenzie, as if beaten in this solemn game, turned gravely and saluted the white. Birnier looked down from his chair with the affectation of just having noticed that some one was there. After a pause he returned the greeting, a little point which Bakahenzie thoroughly appreciated. Birnier had learned that according to Mungongo and the warrior, Zalu Zako had not yet been anointed king-G.o.d; therefore that Bakahenzie evidently intended to keep the young man in the background.

After preliminaries, Birnier inquired after Zalu Zako and informed Bakahenzie that he had journeyed expressly to see him. Bakahenzie ignored the question and began to talk about Eyes-in-the-hands, demanding to know whether Birnier was his brother.

"Nay," said Birnier, "Eyes-in-the-hands is not of the same tribe as Moonspirit," for he sedulously followed up the t.i.tle which Mungongo had given him. "Eyes-in-the-hands comes from a country twelve moons distant from my country."