The foremost of the two remaining Arabs and the negro were closing on the fugitive when Tom overtook the second Arab. He, hearing the thud of rapid footsteps immediately behind, checked his pace, and gave a startled glance backwards. Instantly Tom's fist was flung out, and the Arab, receiving the full force of the blow between the eyes, spun round, and rolled over and over. Mbutu, as he shot by, snatched at his falling musket, and making upon the pursuing negro, thrust it between his legs, so that he was tripped up and fell heavily. He clutched at Mbutu to save himself, and both reached the ground together. There was a short, sharp struggle; Mbutu wriggled out of the big man's grip, and drove his knife through his heart.
Meanwhile the fugitive, taking advantage of this miraculous succour, had stopped running, and was now engaging the only remaining Arab in a singular duel. He was swinging the chain upon his wrist like a flail, the Arab using the musket in his left hand to parry its clanking strokes. It was an unequal contest. The negro's force was spent; the chain was no match for weapons firmly held. The Arab was just about to rush in with his knife under the negro's guard when he was struck smartly behind the knee with Tom's thick staff, and as he half fell his panting opponent brought the chain down with one tremendous sweep and stretched him senseless.
The rescued negro flung himself face downwards on the ground, gasping, almost sobbing, with relief. Tom looked round for the Arab whom he had first struck down, and caught sight of him speeding back into the forest. The big negro was dead; one of the prostrate Arabs was stirring, the other still lay unconscious.
Tom sat down to rest, propping his head on his arms, and panting from his exertions. Mbutu stood anxiously scanning the fugitive, who by and by turned over, and looked at his rescuers with eyes that plainly told how puzzled he was at the mystery of their intervention. He was a fine-looking man, with strong muscular frame, and a face of great intelligence and some refinement of feature. About his close woolly hair he wore two thin fillets, and a dozen necklaces of string encircled his neck, a number of small wooden charms dangling from them; from a longer string a cube of wood hung upon his breast. Mbutu, after gazing at him in silence for a moment or two, suddenly addressed to him a few words in a Bantu dialect. The man started, fixed his eyes in keen scrutiny on the boy's face, and then answered him in the same language. A rapid dialogue ensued, and Mbutu, turning eagerly to his master, exclaimed:
"Him Muhima, sah; Muhima like Mbutu; him chief, name Barega. Say sah him fader and mudder; him gib sah hut, and food--eberyfing belong him."
Tom smiled wearily. His recent exertions had, he felt, precipitated the inevitable collapse. He was approaching the last stage of exhaustion.
"I'm glad, Mbutu," he said. "But had we not better be going? These Arabs may belong to a party, and we shall almost certainly be pursued and outnumbered. I can hardly walk, but the chief's village may not be far. Can he take us there?"
Mbutu again spoke with his compatriot.
"Yes, sah," he said at length. "Village five marches ober dar. Say must go all too quick."
"Five marches! I can never do it."
"Try, sah, try; must do it," cried the boy imploringly himself trembling with pain and fatigue.
"One more try, then. Can we first knock off the man's chains?"
The negro, himself exerting tremendous power with fingers and wrist, managed, with Mbutu's assistance, to break off both chains, leaving simply the circles of iron about his wrist and ankle. The three then prepared to start; but as they turned Tom felt a touch of compunction for the two Arabs prostrate on the ground, but still alive.
"I don't like leaving them to perish. What can we do for them?"
"Nuffin, nuffin, sah," cried Mbutu. "All too bad lot. Chief kill."
"No, I can't allow it," said Tom sternly. "Go to the dead negro, and tear a strip off his loin-cloth. If you peg it to a tree it is bound to attract the attention of their companion when he returns with help."
Mbutu having, with rather an ill grace, done his master's bidding, the Bahima chief led the way into the forest towards the south-west, Tom and the boy, each with a musket in his right hand, following him painfully. They never knew that, just as they disappeared among the trees, half a dozen little naked figures sprang silently out of the wood on the other side. They darted to the fallen Arabs, pierced them through and through with their spears, and then, despoiling them of their clothing, vanished again into the forest as noiselessly as they had come.
Barega Tells His Story--Malaria--The Major Writes Home--The End of a Long Vigil--Mabruki: Medicine-man--A Moving Dialogue--On The Brink
Ignorant of how the pigmies had rounded off their work, the travellers accompanied the Bahima chief along the narrow path into the forest. At first he went too fast for them, until Mbutu explained that they had been wandering for twelve days through the forest, and were on the verge of starvation. He told also how his master, like the chief himself, had been a prisoner among Arabs, and had escaped when barely recovered from a terrible wound inflicted on him during a great single-handed fight with the Arab chief. Mbutu did not fail to impress his compatriot with the rank and prowess of the Englishman. As for his present worn and enfeebled condition, that was obvious to the most casual glance. On hearing all this the rescued Muhima expressed his sympathy with a grace and courtesy that seemed to Tom wonderfully well bred, and further acquaintance with the people confirmed his belief, first formed from his knowledge of Mbutu, that Central Africa contains some of Nature's gentlemen.
As they went on their way, Tom asked the chief through Mbutu to tell his own story. He was nothing loth, and at once began a narrative which beguiled more than an hour of weary walking. It was often interrupted by questions from Mbutu, who, as he translated, mingled comments and explanatory remarks with the chief's own statements. Stripped of these annotations, and rendered into straightforward English, it ran somewhat as follows:--
"You ask me for my story? Know then, O white man, that I am Barega, a chief among chiefs, owning no man lord. Not of a handful of men and a few hundred cattle am I chief; no, I am Barega; many chiefs own my sway; my rule extends over ten times thirty Bahima, great hunters all of them, and multitudes of Bairo like the stars of heaven. No menial delvers of the soil are we Bahima; no, we tend countless herds of cattle and goats, whose flesh we eat and milk we drink. And I--I am Barega, a mighty chief. The Bugandanwe is mine--the king-drum handed down from my father's fathers through a hundred years, whose sound strikes terror into the souls of our enemies, and even disquiets Magaso himself, the devil that haunts our groves and feasts on our bananas. Bananas!--I eat them not; my meat is the flesh of oxen, sheep, and goats; but the Bairo eat them, the Bairo our servants, whose blood is not our blood, nor their ways our ways.
"Know this, O white man, son of the Great King, for thou didst find me a prisoner, and 'tis not well that thou shouldst think me one of the common people, born of slaves. No, I am a mighty chief. Four years have I ruled my tribe, and there are none like them in all the earth for strength or wealth, for skill in hunting or prowess in war. My father had many sons, but out of them all he chose me to rule after him. True, I have an elder brother, Murasi is his name; and a younger brother, Mwonga; but Murasi is a reed, a straw blown hither and thither by the breath of Mabruki, my medicine-man, who quaffs lakes of museru and then weeps rivers of tears. As for Mwonga, he is but a boy, and him I keep as my chief mutuma, head of the fifty boys who guard my dwelling and fulfil my behest, and whom I train in arms and all manly doing. Murasi I did not slay; no, nor does he languish in the prison where he lies; he is fed with good food and wine. The white man wonders? True, other chiefs would have slain him, but I am merciful, I do but keep him in prison. Were Murasi free, he would plot against me, work mischief among my people, try to rob me of my hut and place. He must not be free; it is I, Barega, that say it.
"I was a prisoner with the Arabs--cats, jackals, beasts unfit to herd with the Bahima's dogs! I hide my face; it shames me to have been their captive. And yet it was no shame; if any man cries shame, I say he lies. I was far from my village, hunting great elephants. Twenty of my best spearmen were with me, tall men and big of heart. We were far in the forest towards the setting sun, and one day we saw, in a glade beyond us, a herd of elephants with tusks longer than a man and whiter than milk. My men stretched their net and dug a pit, the skewers cunningly planted at the bottom, so that they might drive the animals therein and take them thus. But that, forsooth, is poor sport for a hunter like Barega. 'No, let us take them with our spears,' I said, 'and have true tales of a mighty killing to tell about our fires of winter nights.' Know, O white man, that we Bahima tell truth and no lies. So then did we stalk those noble animals, but they lifted up their trunks and smelt us, and straightway uttered a great voice and fled. But we are fleet of foot; no pot-bellied sluggards are we, like the Ankole; no, we are slim, and straight, and lithe of limb as thou seest; we are thy cousins, O white man! Swiftly then did we pursue the elephants; leopards could not have gone more silently. They forgot us, and stayed to rest and pluck the tender leaves at the ends of the branches. Not a word, not a cry. I was in front of my men; the chief must ever show the way. I marked the prince and lord of the elephants and said: 'He is mine; let no man touch him.' I poised my spear; I flung it with aim swift and sure; it smote behind the ear; the beast fell. Ere he could rise, another spear, and another, from this same right hand pierced him, and in a little he died.
"Two other elephants had fallen to the spears of my men, the rest had fled. Then did we make a camp, and sat us down to rest by our spoils. The sun went down, and as we sang our hunting-song around our fire, behold! there came out of the forest, silently, like the servaline, a band of Arabs. Around us they made a ring, and with their loud fire-sticks they slew ten of my people. I sprang to my feet; not mine to flee; no, I hurled at them my last spear, and then a blazing brand snatched from the fire. See, there is the scar on my hand to-day--the mark of the fire. But they were more than we; they threw themselves upon me, and put their cursed ropes upon my hands and feet. Then they carried me and my ten men to a fortress many marches in the forest, and loaded me with the chains of slaves. Many days was I thus fettered; then, at the rising of the sun they came to me and said: 'Dog!'--woe is me, that I, Barega, was called a dog!--'take us to your village.' 'Pig!' I cried, 'I would rather die!' Then did they beat me with their whips till, in my pain, I called on Muhanga, the Mighty Spirit that upholds the sky and rules the thunder and rain, to slay me. Yet I bethought myself: 'They will not all come to my village till they have spied it out.' I know their ways. 'I will deceive them; I will lead them into the forest, and then Muhanga will send a storm, and I shall escape.' And then a band of them loosed me, and fettered me with other chains, and made me walk with them, my hands bound together, my two feet linked to a block of wood between them, so that I hobbled slowly and with pain.
"Then came we into the forest, by winding tracks that I knew well. Nine nights ago the sky opened, Muhanga threw his flaming spears and poured out his floods. The Arabs cursed Muhanga; I praised him in my heart. They crouched in hollow trees and in big bushes to escape the storm. 'Let the dog wash,' they said of me. But in the black darkness, when the thunder roared, I wrenched my hands apart till a link snapped, and then with my free hand tore at my ankle-chains until I had wrested one of them from the block. I could not cast off my fetters altogether; the storm began to abate, and I dared not stay. I ran and ran hard through the night, and for days and nights after, away, away, far from the tracks I knew. Woe is me! An evil spirit must have led mine enemy! To-day, when the sun rose, I saw them close upon me, but only four of them; the others, I make no doubt, were searching for me otherwhere in the forest. I ran from them, but the clank of my chains called them after me, and when I was nigh to falling, thou camest out of the forest, O white man, and smotest them even as Muhanga smiteth in his wrath, and didst save me, and I hold thee in my heart for ever. But they are many and will now pursue us; they will come with their whole band, and with their fire-sticks will seek us out, to kill me and all my people. Therefore let us make what haste we can, and in my village the white man shall live in peace; he shall see my wives and warriors and all my gathered store; he shall eat my best cattle and drink my newest milk and strongest wine till his cheeks are round and his muscles firm again. I, Barega, have said it."
Such was Barega's story. Tom had listened with an interest that for a time made him forget his feeling of intense weakness. He walked along as well as he could, stooping occasionally to avoid creepers, using his musket now as a staff, now as a means of fending off obstructions. But he felt that collapse ere long was inevitable, and all that he could hope for was that he might retain sufficient strength to reach the Bahima village before he broke down.
The collapse came on the second evening after their adventure with the Arabs. They had fed mainly on roots, and drunk from the rills they met at intervals along the track. Barega's woodcraft served them well when even Mbutu's was at fault, but all three were racked with the gnawing pains of hunger. Sores had broken out in several parts of Tom's body; his head was never free from pain; and on the evening of the second day, just as they stopped to find a camping-place for the night, he tottered, and would have fallen but for the ready support of Mbutu's arm.
"It's no good, Mbutu," he said, with an attempt to smile; "I'm done up. I can't hold out any longer."
"Soon get well, sah," said Mbutu, helping him tenderly to recline with his back against a tree. But the boy was in reality stricken with terror lest his master should die. He had recognized the dreaded signs of malaria, and there, in the midst of the forest, with no medicines at hand and no nourishing food, he feared that there would be but one end, and that speedily. Tom fell into a heavy sleep almost as soon as he lay down, and Mbutu held an anxious consultation with the chief. What could be done? They could carry the invalid between them, but progress would be slow, and he needed immediate attention, and above all, something to protect him from insects during the day. They were still at least three days' march from the village. Mbutu was almost in despair, when the chief made a suggestion. Let them build a grass hut, he said, at a reasonably safe distance from the track, and let Mbutu watch his master there while he himself hurried on alone to his village. They were not far from the edge of the forest, which was already becoming thinner. He would start at once for help, and could cover the distance to the village at a run in a night and a day.
The plan seemed feasible, and indeed the only possible one under the circumstances. To force a way for a quarter of a mile from the track, clear a space, and build a grass hut upon it was the work of rather more than two hours. When it was done, the two Bahima gently carried Tom to the resting-place and laid him down on a comfortable couch of leaves, and then the chief, tightening his strip of bark cloth around his loins, started, promising to travel, without resting, through the night, and to use his utmost speed.
Mbutu, left alone with the invalid, spent the last half-hour of daylight in collecting a small quantity of ripe berries, and then sat down to watch. He dared not light a fire in case the Arabs happened to be near enough to see or smell the smoke. It was no small testimony to Mbutu's devotion that he was so willing, for all his dread of goblins, to remain with his master, unable now to talk the boy's fears away or to defend him against danger.
As Mbutu sat, touching his master's hand and brow occasionally, and trembling as he felt how hot they were, he suddenly remembered that he had seen him put a packet of the quinine given him by the missionary into his vest pocket. He wondered whether it was still there. The Arabs were not likely to have taken it; he only feared lest, with the wettings it had suffered, the drug should have lost its virtue.
Gently lifting the burnous which he had thrown over his master, and feeling in his clothes, he was overjoyed to find in the pocket where he had seen it put a small paper packet, showing only too plain signs of the soakings it had gone through. He opened it, the paper dropping to pieces under his touch. There was a little something there, not a powder any longer, but a paste. Was there the least remnant of virtue in it? There could be no harm in trying a dose, and Mbutu carefully and tenderly put a small quantity of the paste between Tom's parted lips. Twice again during the night he repeated the dose, anxiously feeling the invalid's brow each time, as though hoping for an instant result. Not for a moment did he close his eyes, but when he felt drowsiness stealing upon him he rose and walked to and fro before the hut, murmuring the half-forgotten words of some fetish spell he had learnt when a child. But he had little faith in fetish now. If only the white medicine-man were there! He had unbounded confidence in Dr. Corney O'Brien.
Dr. Corney O'Brien was, alas! more than a thousand miles away, sitting in the smoking-room of the Mombasa club, waiting with some impatience for Major Burnaby to finish the letter he was writing at the table. It was a letter home, to Mr. Barkworth, and the doctor knew why his friend's face wore such a look of concern as his pen scratched over the paper.
... "I thought," he wrote, "that I knew my nephew pretty well, but I know only now--alas! too late, I fear--what grit there was in him. We old stagers are too much inclined, perhaps, to pooh-pooh the enthusiasms of our juniors. The boy was built for a soldier and nothing else, and I blame myself now for not moving heaven and earth to get him into the service. When I saw him come into camp that evening, I own I was at first desperately annoyed with you for allowing him to follow us up; although I could not help admitting it was an uncommonly plucky thing of the youngster to undertake such an enterprise through a strange and savage country. He showed both courage and resource in the adventure with that rascally Portuguese; but what I feel most proud of is the grit with which he stuck to his task when every step must have been agony. But for him the expedition might easily have come to grief. The enemy's plan was as good as any I ever met with; if it had come off it would have been touch and go with us. You may be quite sure that in my report home I have taken care to represent in its true light the service he did us. Nothing has yet been heard of him. I've offered the most tempting rewards. He either died of his wound, or is a prisoner with the Arabs. In the latter case the strange thing is that no attempt has been made to get a ransom for him. Perhaps the Portuguese is in some way concerned; if so, then God help him! I have asked Father Chevasse to do what he can--the missionaries have as good a chance to get news of him as anyone,--and be sure that I will let you know if anything turns up. I am entitled to come home on furlough, but I've arranged to stay out here a month or two longer. It was very pleasant to get your cable of congratulation, and to hear of all the nice things said of me at home; but you'll believe me when I say that I'd give it all up and drop out of sight gladly, if by so doing I could get a glimpse of Tom."
For three terrible nights and days Mbutu kept faithful watch over his sick master in the forest. It seemed an age to the poor boy. Tom was unconscious almost all the time, his eyes burning bright, his cheeks flushed, his lips ever and anon muttering and babbling of things incomprehensible to Mbutu. The Muhima hardly dared to leave him for a moment, and when he did leave him, wore himself out in scouring the forest within a short radius in search of food. He ventured on the second day to light a fire, over which, in a bowl he carved out of hard Wood, he tried to brew a decoction from some leaves and berries, for he found it impossible to get his master to take such solid roots as those on which he barely sustained himself. The quinine was soon exhausted. Fortunately there was plenty of good water, and at short intervals he poured a small quantity between Tom's parched lips. He hoped that the pigmies would again provide food, but there was never a sign of the little people. As hour after hour dragged slowly by, the boy fretted, feeling his helplessness, in an agony of grief for his master, and beside himself with despair when, after brief intervals of semi-consciousness, Tom relapsed into delirium, tossing and moaning on his couch of leaves.
At sundown on the third day after the chief's departure Mbutu was walking restlessly up and down the track, peering into the tunnel of foliage. The night before, he had been scared by the cries of animals in his near neighbourhood, and his nerves were in a state of tremor. He had kept a large watch-fire burning beside his master's hut, for he felt now that, even if it did attract the Arabs, it was no worse to be slain by them than by wild beasts. More than once during this third day he had put his ear to the ground, hoping to hear the tramp of feet from the direction in which Barega had gone. Now he walked farther along the path, thinking that, if the chief had reached his village, as he had promised, in a night and a day, surely there had been time for him to return. He lay down again and pressed his ear to the beaten path. The air was still, not a leaf rustled; the sounds of day had ceased, and the nightly hum and murmur had not yet begun. What was that? Faintly, like the sound of ripples on a stream, rather a movement than a sound, something touched his ear. He got up and ran still farther along the track, then flung himself down again. He could hear nothing but the throbbing of his heart. He held his breath; yes, the sound was growing, growing; it was the sound of running feet. Was it of animals or men? It was too regular, too heavy, to be the pad of animals; it was coming nearer! He almost screamed in his excitement. Thud! thud! thud! nearer and nearer--not one sound now, but many sounds conjoined. Yes, his doubts were gone; it was a force of men, running steadily towards him. He got up, and stood, his lips parted, his eyes astare, his body bent forward in the direction of the sound, every nerve tingling, every sinew tense. Minute after minute passed; he stood alone in vaulted darkness. Now the sound was audible through the air: the steady thud of runners, broken in upon at moments by the faint far jingle of metal. Hark! there was the hum of voices, like the sound of water stirred by gusts of wind. Louder and louder it came; Mbutu's sharp ears were strained towards it. It rose and swelled; he recognized it; it was a marching-song he had not heard for years! His heart gave a great leap for joy; beyond a doubt these were Barega's men approaching; his agony was over. Hardly knowing whether to run back to his master or to run forward to meet his fellow-countrymen, he stood irresolute, his breath coming and going in quick pants. He tried to join in the song, but his throat was parched, and his voice broke in a soundless sob. He waited, waited; there was commotion in the forest; crickets and cicadas had raised their notes, as though to drown the unaccustomed sounds. He heard the crackle of snapped twigs and the rustle of parted leaves; then, a deeper blackness in the black, a form appeared, and another, and another.
"Wekaine kenaina? Can you see me?"
The words, shrilled from Mbutu's lips, brought the runners to a dead stop. There was silence for a brief moment.
"Mesitoka! I cannot!" came the answer. "Who are you?"
"Ema Mbutu, muzungu katikiro! I am Mbutu, the white man's katikiro!"
Then ensued a scene that must have provoked from the sylvan deities a kindly sympathetic smile. The foremost of the line of strangers advanced and greeted Mbutu, who was almost beside himself with excitement and relief. He wasted no time in words; he was all eagerness to lead the negroes to his master. Running in advance, then doubling back like a dog, he led the tall Muhima along the track. It was Barega's katikiro, and with him were thirty spearmen. In single file they followed Mbutu, turned aside towards the clearing, and were soon collected in a group around the blazing watch-fire--thirty tall straight warriors, the pick of Barega's body-guard, breathing hard, but ready at a word to run again. The katikiro informed Mbutu that their departure had been delayed by exciting events in their village. They had come with all speed, and behind them was another band bringing goats and flour and cooking-utensils to provide food for the sick man. A brief rest, and he was ready to start on the return journey, and he proposed to travel through the night, so that the muzungu at his first removal should not have to endure the day's heat. The spearmen, squatting in a circle about the fire, showed their native politeness by obeying the katikiro's command to talk in subdued tones.
After an hour's rest, four of the Bahima gently lifted Tom into a litter they had brought with them, and the order of march was formed. The line was led by the mugurusi, the chief's provider of firewood, who was followed by fourteen of the spearmen; then came the katikiro at the head of Tom's litter, borne by four, Mbutu walking behind; and the rear was brought up by the remaining eleven. They marched with long regular swing, and before they had gone far the omutezi wahanga, or harpist, who strode along immediately in front of the katikiro, struck up the marching-song:
"Yakuba emundu ngagayalaMukamawange Katabuzi eikyasengaAmaso zamynka mwenywera omwenge".Bravely he fights; no foeman doth he dread;Never by craven chief will I be led;Let me drink and drink till mine eyes be red.
Three hours' march brought them to the camp, where they were boisterously greeted by an equal band gathered about a huge fire. A large iron pot was placed in the midst of the fire, and in it the flesh of a goat was simmering in stew, thickened with plantain flour. When the new-comers had eaten their fill, a guard was set, the katikiro himself undertaking to share with Mbutu the duty of watching his master.
At dawn they resumed the march, the katikiro deciding to finish the journey by easy stages, resting for three hours at least in the hottest part of the day. The route lay through country that was thickly wooded, but not such dense forest as the wayworn travellers had just traversed. Every care was taken to protect Tom from the sun's rays and the assaults of insects, an awning being cleverly arranged about his litter, with air-holes defended from insects by a fine network of goats'-hair. The sick man was fed at intervals with diluted marwa, and with soup whenever the procession stopped.
On the way, especially when they encamped for the night, the katikiro, a man of exceedingly pleasant countenance and genial manner, talked a good deal to Mbutu, asking innumerable questions, and showing the most lively interest in the story of the ambush. In return he gave the boy, to whom he appeared to have taken a strong fancy, some very interesting information about affairs in his village. He half apologized, indeed, for the non-appearance of his chief with the rescue-party. It was due to most important events. When week after week passed by, and the chief had not returned from his great elephant-hunt, Mabruki, the medicine-man, declared after consulting his fetishes that Barega was dead. Who was to be his successor? Mabruki had at first sounded some of the more important men as to their willingness to accept himself; but finding that there was a strong feeling against anyone not of the chief's blood, he had nominated Barega's elder brother, the weak and vicious Murasi, who, drunk or sober, was completely under his thumb. Murasi, accordingly, became chief, and Mabruki appointed himself kasegara, or steward of the household. The katikiro himself, an easy-going man, ready, like the Vicar of Bray, to serve anyone so long as he retained his own office, had given his adhesion to the new chief, and remained katikiro.
These arrangements had hardly been made when Barega suddenly reappeared. The majority of the Bahima were unfeignedly glad to see their chief again; he had a kingly presence, they knew his prowess as warrior and hunter, and loved him as a fair-dealing ruler in peace. A small minority of the Bahima, however, with a considerable number of their Bairo dependents, had hoped great things of Murasi's accession, and were disposed to stick to their new chief. But the medicine-man saw that his game was up; he lost no time in obsequiously making his peace with Barega, and was the loudest in upbraiding Murasi when he whimpered at his fall from power. But though Mabruki was outwardly the loyalest subject of his chief, he was deeply chagrined at the failure of his bid for greatness, and inwardly resolved to seize the first opportunity, fair or foul, of reinstating the elderly drunkard and getting rid of Barega.
This news gave some concern to Mbutu. With internal dissension in the village he was not sure that his master's life would be safe. But when he imparted his fears to the katikiro, that burly and cheerful soul laughed them away, assuring him that the chief's party, already numerically the stronger, would grow still larger as time went on.
On the fourth afternoon after leaving the forest, the katikiro informed Mbutu that they were approaching the village. The ground began to rise gently, and was less thickly covered with scrub. By and by a large banana-plantation came into view, a welcome sight to Mbutu's eyes, and beyond it wide fields of maize, beans, sweet-potatoes, sorghum, and tobacco, in some of which negro women were at work. They looked curiously at the closed litter as it passed, and then with one consent flung down their clumsy implements and followed at the end of the line, behind the spearmen.
Passing through these extensive plantations, the procession arrived at a wide open space on which a herd of splendid long-horned oxen were tethered. The katikiro explained that these were the chief's own cattle, the animals belonging to the rest of the community being kept beyond the southern extremity of the village. Then they came to a number of huts made of grass and wattles, with untidy haycock roofs coming nearly down to the ground, and low doorways. The population had so largely increased that these huts had been built outside the village stockade, which at last came into sight, surmounting a steep acclivity. The ascent was by a narrow path, running straight up the incline, with a deep depression of rough land on the left, and on the right a banana-plantation. There was a gate in the stockade, and at this Mbutu saw a large crowd gathered. In front, was a group of young boys, their graceful forms almost bare of clothing, the foremost of them being Mwonga, the chief's young brother. Behind this group stood Barega himself among his principal men, all dressed in their ceremonial array for the occasion. Tom was quite unconscious of the gorgeousness of the finery there displayed in his honour, for during the day he had patently become worse, and Mbutu feared that he had reached the village only to find a grave. As the procession reached the gates formal greetings were exchanged between Mwonga the mutuma and the first spearman.
"Is it well?"
"It is well."
"Ah!"
"Ah!"
"Um!"
"Um!"
Such was the dialogue, a conversation in those regions never ending without a number of sighs and grunts. Then the group of boys parted, and the chief came forward. Over his woolly tufts of hair he wore a cap of antelope-skin, adorned with a mighty crest of cock's feathers, and across his breast was slung a broad shoulder-belt of leopard-skin, from which depended a miscellaneous assortment of the tags and tassels of fetish mysteries. He stepped forward with a splendid air of dignity. The katikiro then advanced to the head of the procession, and removed the fillets from his hair as a sign of respect. Then ensued another brief dialogue.
"Hast thou slept well?"
"I have slept well."
"Very well?"
"Very well."
"Very well indeed?"
"Very well indeed."
"I am thy servant."
"Thou art my servant."
"Ma!"
"Ma!"
"Mum!"
"Mum!"
And the grunting being finished, the chief went up to the litter, and, discarding his array, which seemed to irk him, he bent over to look at his sick visitor. He turned, and beckoned to the medicine-man, who all the time had stood a little behind, scowling darkly, for he felt by no means tenderly towards the white youth who had saved Barega from the Arabs, and thereby tumbled down the short-lived authority of Murasi. He stepped forward at the chief's bidding, and pulled a preternaturally solemn face as he scanned the unconscious Englishman. He shook his head, causing his fantastic head-dress of skin and feathers to make strange gyrations, and the wooden charms about his neck to clatter as they knocked together. Fingering the tufts of fetish-grass dangling from a string across his shoulder, he gravely announced that the muzungu would surely die. Mbutu had been anxiously watching the man of mystery, and he shuddered as he heard his master's doom. But the katikiro shrugged his shoulders behind Mabruki's back, and the chief himself, in a tone of petulant annoyance, bade the medicine-man retire. Then the procession was re-formed, and, amid a crowd of nearly two thousand, mingled Bahima and Bairo, men, women, and children, the whole population having turned out to see the wonderful white man who had given their chief back to them, Tom was carried to the centre of the village, where the katikiro's hut, standing nearest to the chief's, had been assigned to him. The katikiro was the essence of good-nature; and when Barega ordered him, in conjunction with the mwobisi wamarwa (his cup-bearer), and the muchumbi wanyama (his chief cook), to provide everything necessary for the white man's comfort, he went smiling to do his master's behest.
A fortnight passed away, and during that time Tom hovered between life and death. As day followed day, and Mbutu, worn almost to a skeleton with watching and anxiety, saw no change in his master's condition, he felt the bitterness of despair. Mabruki offered to make medicine and employ all the mysteries of his art. He produced one day a gourd filled with mead, in which a kind of hay had been steeped for twenty-four hours. Acting on the advice of the katikiro, who had become his bosom friend, Mbutu accepted the offering with profuse thanks; but as soon as Mabruki had turned his back, the katikiro advised the boy to throw the liquor away, though he refused to say plainly why. From that time Mbutu maintained a still more jealous guard over his master. He kept the hut spotlessly clean, renewing every day the grass that covered the floor, and doing all that he could, by changing the arrangement of the skins and calico sheets upon the rough clay settle, to render Tom's position easy.
Thus the weary days went by. For a short period each day Tom was conscious, alive to the presence and the attentions of Mbutu and his friend Msala the katikiro. At such times he would swallow a little goat-broth, or an egg beaten up in milk, relapsing into unconsciousness again. He was too ill to think; he was only conscious of terrible weakness and pain. He could not sit up, could scarcely move his arms, and when it was necessary to change his position, Mbutu had to lift him. One morning, realizing more clearly than before the dreadful prostration of his body, he was possessed of a presentiment that he would die.
"I shan't bother you much longer," he said faintly to Mbutu. "When I am gone you'll find my uncle and tell him all about it, won't you?"
Mbutu could not speak for the lump in his throat. At this moment the katikiro entered, bringing a fresh gourd of banana wine. Mbutu poured a little between his master's lips, and watched him in an agony of suspense. Tom opened his eyes.
"I should like to thank the chief," he said. "Ask that good Msala to fetch him."
The katikiro soon returned with the chief, and they stood at the foot of the settle, their intelligent faces expressing a real sympathy with the sufferer. He tried to speak to them, but his voice failed. Barega advanced and clasped his hand. A strange drowsiness was stealing upon him; with a strong effort he moved his lips again.
"Chief," he said, "I thank you for your kindness. If ever you--"
But the sentence remained unfinished, a dark cloud seemed to come between his face and the chief's; his eyes closed, and the silence was only broken by an irrepressible sob from Mbutu.
Barega's Village--The Cavern in the Cliff--Mutterings--Under a Cloud--The Bell and the Basket--A Challenge--In the Lists--A Palpable Hit--Vae Victis
For twenty-four hours Tom lay stark and motionless in one position, the flush in his cheeks and his quick breathing showing that he was still alive. Then, as the morning sunlight entered by the narrow doorway, he opened his eyes. Mbutu was in the act of spreading new and fragrant grass upon the floor.
"Mbutu!" came a faint voice from the settle. The boy flung down the grass and ran to his master.
"I am terribly hungry," said Tom.
Mbutu looked for a moment incredulous.
"I am indeed. I think I shall get well after all."
"Neyanzi-gé!" cried Mbutu with a shout of joy, his emotion finding expression in his native tongue. "Neyanzi-gé! I praise too much, sah! I fank too much!"
He was indeed bubbling, over with thankfulness. He went out of the hut and joyously spread the good news. In a few moments the whole camp knew that the muzungu was recovering. The chief ordered Bugandanwe, the big drum, to be struck, and arranged a spear-dance for the evening. A goat was instantly killed to make fresh soup, and some of the spearmen who had carried Tom to the village brought him voluntary offerings of bananas and sweet-potatoes. Even at this moment of excitement the chief displayed an amount of tact which, characteristic as it is of his race, seemed in strange disaccord with the European idea of the negro. He refrained from visiting Tom, and strictly commanded that no one except Mbutu, not even the katikiro, should go inside the hut on any pretence until the invalid's recovery was assured. As for the katikiro himself, he beamed on everybody, and, observing the dark look on the face of the medicine-man, whose prestige was bound to suffer somewhat from the failure of his prediction, he smiled still more broadly. He had no love for Mabruki, and, being a man of shrewd sense, nourished a strong suspicion that he was a humbug; but being also a discreet man, he was very careful never to give verbal expression to his thought.
From that time Tom grew slowly better. At first his limbs seemed paralysed, and he suffered intense pain from bed-sores; but the good food and Mbutu's careful nursing worked improvement day by day. He was soon strong enough to receive short visits from Barega and Msala, and on the tenth day was so far recovered as to have himself carried out before the sun was hot into the fresh air, well wrapped up in leopard and antelope skins, and sheltered by an awning. A week later he first ventured to walk, leaning on Mbutu's arm, and he laughed with something of his old light-heartedness when he saw what thin sticks his legs had become. The few paces from his bed to the outside of the hut seemed a matter of immense labour. But new strength came daily, and in three weeks he was strong enough to walk unassisted through the village.
Those three weeks had not been wasted. He got Mbutu to teach him the language, and was intensely amused at the chief's gasp of amazement at being one day addressed in his own tongue. He obtained also a great stock of information about the habits and customs of the people. Remembering his long-standing promise to gratify Mbutu's appetite for stories, he drew on his memory for tales of war and adventure, and found that nothing pleased the boy better than the old, old story of the fight between the Pigmies and the Cranes. In return, Mbutu told him legends of the country: the meaning of the Hyena's cry; why the Leopard catches his victim by the throat; and how the Hare outwitted the Elephant. And Tom at last heard the story of the Uncle and the Crocodile.
The village itself, with its surroundings, was a subject of considerable interest for Tom. From Mbutu he had learnt that a Bahima village usually contained some twenty huts, with a total population of perhaps a hundred and fifty. But Barega, as the place was called after the name of its chief, was by comparison quite a large town. It was built upon a gentle slope, rising from the north gate, by which Tom had entered, for some five hundred yards up a hill-side. On its north-eastern boundary, extending for some hundred and fifty yards, there was a sheer precipice about two hundred and fifty feet deep, partly overhanging a large open space of prairie-like land. Through the centre of the village meandered a clear streamlet two feet broad, flowing gently downward from south-west to north-east, and escaping in a light cascade over the precipice. About sixteen yards before it reached its outlet, the brook passed through a large reservoir sunk six feet in the ground, in which the water was always fresh and pure because of its constant flow. The chief's hut, a round structure of sticks and wattles, plastered with bluish clay ornamented with designs in white kaolin, stood amid a ring-fence in the centre of the village, and in an adjoining courtyard a perennial spring bubbled up, joining the streamlet outside the fence. The katikiro's hut, where Tom was located, was placed a few yards from the chief's, and the rest of the thatched dwellings were arranged in two streets round the whole circuit of the village. A thick and well-kept stockade encircled the place, broken by only two gates, north and south. There were some four hundred huts in all, and the population consisted of about five hundred of the aristocratic Bahima, whose only occupation was tending cattle and hunting, and nearly fifteen hundred menial Bairo, who grew what crops were required, chiefly for their own consumption, and also took part in the larger hunting-expeditions.
The unusual size of the village was explained by its situation. Being near the edge of the forest, within the range of the depredations of Arabs and pigmies, it had become, during the rule of Barega, a sort of harbour of refuge for people of kindred stock. Barega had won an immense reputation for miles around as a dauntless warrior; he had more than once inflicted trifling defeats on wandering bands of raiders; spearmen with their families had put themselves under his protection; and the consequence was that a number of people which, in other parts of Central Africa, might have been spread over fifteen square miles in scattered hamlets, was now collected on a space not much more than a quarter of a mile square. The plantations were all, save for one large patch of bananas, on the north side, nearer the forest, while the cattle, huge herds of oxen, sheep, and goats, had their grazing-grounds to the south.
As he walked through the village, Tom met none but smiling faces. Everybody seemed pleased that the rescuer of the chief was restored to health. Ere many days passed, his usual escort was a throng of naked youngsters, who gazed with awe at his tall gaunt figure, and scampered off in a panic if he happened to turn round and look at them. Before long, however, his form lost its terrors, and he became the idol of all the children in the village. As he grew stronger, he was never tired of romping with them, showing them simple tricks, and finding endless amusement for himself in setting them to play at English games. "If games make men of us," he thought, "why not of black youngsters too?"
"'Pon my word, Mbutu," he said one day, "I believe I could make something of these little beggars if I had them for a year. Look at those little chaps over there, with sticks over their shoulders, marching exactly like a squad of recruits. Uncle Jack would go into fits if he saw them. I shall have some funny things to tell him by and by."
As he gained strength Tom made long excursions in the surrounding country. In these jaunts he was always attended by Mbutu, under whose tuition he made rapid progress in Central African woodcraft, and the thousand artifices with which semi-civilized man carries on his more or less successful struggle with the elemental forces of nature.
As a boy, crags and cliffs had always had a strange fascination for him; and for hours together, while still too weak to walk more than a few yards at a time, he would watch the birds circling around the spur at the north-eastern extremity of the village. He noticed that hundreds of these birds disappeared into a narrow cleft, which seemed from the base of the cliff to be no more than a couple of feet in height. For some days he was content to note the fact, but as his strength returned, he felt the impulse of a born cragsman to explore the cleft. It was clearly a hazardous undertaking, for the spot in question was some two hundred feet above the ground, and the face of the cliff was almost perpendicular. Above the cleft the precipice jutted out at a considerable angle, rendering any attempt to reach it from above impossible. There were, however, traces of a narrow ledge along the face of the cliff, running from the desired spot for some distance parallel with the ground, and then sweeping gently downwards to a point some fifty feet above the surface, where it suddenly ceased. Tom resolved to attempt the ascent, and not all the entreaties of Mbutu could turn him from his purpose. Armed with an improvised alpenstock, and a grappling-hook to aid him in clinging to the face of the cliff, he reached the ledge with some difficulty, owing to the loose nature of the soil. But once on the ledge his progress was more rapid, and in less than half an hour from the start he found himself at the entrance of an extensive cavern in the side of the cliff. The opening was, for the most part, hidden from view by a large mass of loose rock that had fallen from the roof. The slope of the cavern led upward, and although he soon found himself in darkness, Tom was surprised to find that the air was quite pure. At the expense of his shins, he groped his way upwards, disturbing on the way innumerable bats and birds, which cannoned against him in a panic rush for the open air. After some thirty yards of toilsome progress he came to a sudden stop, discovering as he did so the reason why the cavern had none of the vault-like stuffiness which he associated with many similar adventures at home. Through a cleft in the rock ahead filtered a thin beam of light, but there was no passage even for Tom's lithe frame, wasted though it was by a month's illness. Tom was curious to know at what point of the cliff he had arrived, and, returning to the opening of the cavern, he made signs to Mbutu to betake himself to the hill overhead.
Again retracing his steps, Tom thrust his alpenstock through the narrow opening, and shouted to attract Mbutu's attention, to the complete discomfiture of the bolder spirits among the feathered inmates of the cavern, which had clung to their homes throughout this alarming episode. Mbutu's quick ears easily caught the signal, and he had no difficulty in discovering the cleft, which proved to be only a few feet from the stockade. Tom then returned by the road he had come, well satisfied with this little adventure, which came as a welcome break in his enforced idleness.
A day or two after this, Tom said to Mbutu:
"The people here are exceedingly kind, and I have learnt a great deal that is extremely interesting; but we can't stay here for ever. I should think in another week I'll be strong enough to make tracks, eh?"
"Sure nuff, sah. Nyanza ober dar;" he pointed almost due east; "chief send men too; help sah 'long."
"As a sort of escort, you mean, for I don't want to be carried again. I shan't forget that time in the forest, Mbutu, nor how much I owe to you. I feel years older, somehow; and, by the by, d'you think there's such a thing as a razor in the village? I can't see myself, having no looking-glass, but I feel that during that illness my face has got a trifle downy."
"No razor, sah; Bahima pluck hair out. Muzema-wa-taba do it for sah."
"That's the chief's pipe-lighter, isn't it? No, thanks! let him continue lighting his master's pipe. Talking of that, since everybody smokes here, women included, I feel rather out of it without a pipe too; but really their tobacco is so--well, so intensely aromatic that I don't care to risk it. How that medicine-man scowls at me, by the way." Mabruki had just passed them. "I am extremely sorry to have been the unconscious means of upsetting his apple-cart; and I wish he'd see reason and make friends."
"No like medicine-man," said Mbutu hurriedly, looking over his shoulder at the strange figure departing.
"I wonder what he does in those little fetish-huts all round the village," added Tom. "Come now, d'you think he'd be pleased if I asked him for one of those wooden charms I've seen him gibbering over?"
"Nebber, nebber, sah," returned the boy earnestly. "Sah white man; no want dem things; sah laugh inside."
"Oh, it was only to please the man!--Here's our friend Msala coming. I wonder why the light of his countenance is gone for once."
The katikiro did indeed look unusually grave as he came up. In answer to Mbutu's enquiry, the regular formula "Is it well?" he replied that it was certainly not well, for he had just discovered that one of his best oxen, as well as two of the kasegara's, had died mysteriously during the night. He could not account for it; they had shown no signs of sickness, and none of the other animals were affected. The devil Magaso had hitherto confined his attentions to bananas; it seemed strange if he had suddenly become a destroyer of oxen. One of his Bairo herdsmen, said the katikiro, suggested that Muhoko, another evil spirit, had paid a flying visit to the village; but this suggestion he treated with scorn; he couldn't imagine a Bairo devil having the impudence to interfere with Bahima property. Altogether, the usually genial official was decidedly upset.
"Perhaps they've got poison somehow," said Tom.
Poison! It was unheard-of. The beasts would not of their own accord eat anything poisonous, and who should want to poison them?
"Perhaps someone has a grudge against you and the kasegara."
Against him, the katikiro! It was impossible. Wasn't he a friend to everyone, never bad-tempered, never greedy, never in anybody's way? The kasegara--oh! there might well be a grudge against him, for he thought a great deal too much of himself, talked a great deal too volubly at the village palavers, and had yet to learn that he was inferior to the katikiro after all.
"No doubt," said Tom, inwardly amused at the whole affair. "Some enemy of the kasegara, then, has paid him out by poisoning two of his cattle, and got rid of one of yours too, by mistake. All cats are gray in the dark, you know."
This explanation somewhat consoled the katikiro, when a Bahima equivalent for the proverb had been found; and then, with Mbutu's assistance, he engaged in animated conversation with Tom about the prime minister of the Great White King, whom he was very eager to emulate.
The death of the cattle passed from Tom's mind, but two days later the whole camp was in an uproar at the discovery that no fewer than six other oxen had died in the same mysterious way. Tom, as he went with Mbutu for his daily walk round the village, was surprised to find that the people looked much less pleasantly on him than usual. The change was shown in more than looks. He beckoned to a handsome little boy of four, a special favourite of his, and the child was running to him when he was checked by a sharp call from his mother, who sent him howling into her hut.
"This looks as though we're outstaying our welcome, Mbutu," said Tom. "Perhaps we had better arrange to start in a couple of days, when the chief gets back from the hunt. I think I'm strong enough to manage the journey if we don't have to hurry."
That night, soon after Mbutu had settled to sleep in his usual place just inside the doorway of his master's hut, he felt the stealthy touch of a hand upon his shoulder. He sprang up, wide awake in an instant. It was the katikiro's voice that spoke to him, and asked him to come out for a little conversation. Surprised at his choosing such a time, Mbutu followed him to the hut in which he had for the time taken up his abode, and there, in low tones, Msala explained the mystery of the villagers' changed attitude.
It was due to the medicine-man, he said. That individual had been for some time doing all he could to stir up the people against the white man, but had met with little success, so confident were they that their chief would never have made a friend of a man likely to harm them. But the loss of the cattle had now given Mabruki a strong leverage. He had gone about among the villagers, declaring that the Buchwezi, the spirits of their ancestors, had revealed to him most positively that the white man was the cause of all their recent losses. The katikiro scouted the suggestion, and had determined to show his friendliness towards Tom by acquainting him with the origin of the hostile movement. He advised Mbutu to lose no time in getting his master away from the village, for if the infatuation got a thorough hold of the people, even the protection of the chief would be quite unable to save their lives.
Mbutu returned to the hut in a state of unconquerable nervousness. After a sleepless night, he gave his master the information he had received.
"What bosh!" cried Tom, laughing. "What a fool the medicine-man must be! I don't see what he has to gain by putting this on to me. Supposing he worked up the people to tear me to pieces, he couldn't get rid of Barega, and Murasi would be as far from being chief as ever."
"No, no, sah," said Mbutu, "him say sah kill oxen; berrah well. Chief say bosh; berrah well. Black men say no bosh; chief fool; white man him master; bad chief; must hab nudder chief. Oh yes! dat what medicine-man say!"
"I see; you mean he'll hit at the chief through me. Very well; we'll be off as soon as the chief returns; he shan't suffer loss of prestige through me."
On the second day after this, early in the morning, the chief returned from a hunting-expedition, in high feather at having secured several magnificent tusks of ivory. But his jubilation was changed to terrible wrath when he was met by the news that two of the finest of his Hima bulls were dead. The Bahima are intensely proud of their cattle, and any injury to them is most bitterly resented. When Barega heard that his own loss was only the climax of similar losses among his principal officers, he blazed forth in fury. He threatened to chop off everybody's head, but contented himself with summoning his household officials, along with the medicine-man and other important tribesmen, to a palaver. At this it was decided, after very little discussion, that next day a great smelling-out ceremonial should be held. The duty of conducting this important and mystic rite naturally fell upon Mabruki, who at once went off with a gleeful look of satisfaction to make the necessary preparations. As soon as he found an opportunity, the katikiro went to Tom's hut, and urged him to fly instantly. The medicine-man would assuredly pitch on him as the worker of this evil spell on the cattle, and nothing could then save him.
"Why should he? What have I done to him?"
Then, without making an explicit statement, Msala hinted that Mabruki was bent on the white man's destruction, and had himself poisoned the oxen to that end.
"And you expect me to run, eh?" said Tom. "No, my friend, I'll see this through. I'm not going to abscond, and let that ass bray."
Mbutu had still sufficient superstition to be greatly alarmed at hearing the medicine-man called an ass. But the katikiro was greatly tickled when the boy reluctantly interpreted the opprobrious term, and he went away chuckling and clacking the native word kapa between his lips with much enjoyment. He had no objection to other people calling Mabruki names.
Early next morning the adult population assembled in a huge circle at the south end of the village, waiting for the mysterious ceremony to begin. There was an absence of the light-hearted chatter that goes on usually in a company of negroes; they were too much awe-stricken at the occasion. At length the principal officials took their places, and the chief, in full dress, looking very grim in his leopard-skin mantle and antelope cap, seated himself on a rough stool, a large elephant's tusk being held on each side of him. Then he gave the order to beat the drums; the great wooden instruments sent forth deep-booming notes from their ox-hide heads, and the medicine-man appeared.
He cut a most extraordinary figure. His fat legs and arms were smeared with white kaolin; he wore a belt of cowries with bunches of fetish-grass dangling all round it; on his head there was a remarkable head-dress of feathers, and his face was hidden by a fantastic grimacing mask. In one hand he carried a bell, in the other a basket. He walked slowly into the circle, treading gingerly, like a cat on hot bricks, and halted in the centre of the silent crowd. Then the chief ordered the katikiro to proclaim the reason for holding the assembly. Msala made an oration lasting fully half an hour, and licked his lips and slapped his thighs in thorough enjoyment of his own eloquence. Then was the turn of the medicine-man. In a hollow, sepulchral, and unsteady voice he began to recite an incantation of the abracadabra sort. As he progressed he worked himself up into a state of frenzy. Then, depositing his basket and bell on the ground, he burned a few bunches of specially-prepared grass which sent forth a nauseating smell. Moving to the immediate left of the chief, he began to make the circuit of the crowd, ringing his bell as he went. Save for the dong of the bell, there was a silence as of death; the natives, from the chief downwards, kept their eyes fixed on the circulating medicine-man, and not even the bleating of a calf, which had strayed into the village and poked its nose over the shoulder of one of the women, brought the faintest shadow of a smile to their faces, though the animal's mild stare of wonderment almost convulsed Tom. Round went Mabruki, coming nearer to the spot where Tom stood on the right of the chief. Mbutu's knees were knocking together; he gave a gasp of relief when the medicine-man passed him. Suddenly Mabruki stopped; he was opposite to Tom, three yards away. He flourished his bell up and down frantically, but no sound came from it. A groan went round the circle; the chief turned and gave Tom an anxious and startled look, and Mbutu had gone gray about the lips.
Without a word the medicine-man returned to the centre of the circle. Laying down the bell, he took up the basket and again walked round the throng, removing the lid of the basket as he came opposite each individual. He arrived at Tom, who was standing now with his hands in his pockets, looking on with a smile of amusement mingled with contempt. There, though Mabruki apparently pulled with all his strength at the lid of the basket, it refused to come off. Angry cries arose from all parts of the circle; some of the men sprang up and shook their spears menacingly, but the medicine-man called for silence and began a frenzied denunciation of the white man. It was he who had destroyed the much-prized cattle; the Buchwezi had declared it. Before him the bell would not ring, before him the basket-lid was immovable. The spirits had given their doom; let the white man die!
Tom still stood with his hands in his pockets, now gazing grimly at his denouncer. Inclined at first to pooh-pooh the whole business, he saw that the people were impressed by the medicine-man's harangue, and that the chief was troubled and perplexed. "Poor fellow!" thought Tom, "I suppose he'll have to give in." It was of no use his merely denying the charge, he very well knew. It was equally useless to engage in a war of words with Mabruki. It was a time for action, prompt and vigorous. His resolution was instantly taken. Almost before the last words were out of Mabruki's mouth, he stepped before the chief, bidding Mbutu accompany him, and asked to be allowed to speak. Then, in a clear confident voice, he began his first public speech, the words, unpremeditated as they were, pouring from his lips with a fluency that surprised him and taxed Mbutu's interpretative powers to the full.
"I am amazed, O Barega," he said, "that you, and the mighty tribe you rule, should be swayed by an ignorant, stupid humbug like Mabruki. Look at him, forsooth! He can't stand straight; he has been feeding his courage on tubs of museru till he is fuddled. He says I destroyed the cattle. Why should I, a stranger to whom you, O Barega, have shown so many kindnesses--why should I so basely return evil for your good, and bring death among those who brought me back to life? There is no sense in it. You believe your medicine-man? I don't care that for your medicine-man." (He walked slowly to the centre,--Mabruki, with eyes glaring through the mask, retreating before him,--and with two kicks sent the bell and the basket flying among the negroes, who watched him in dumb amazement.) "I will prove to you that his medicine is no medicine. To-morrow at sunset, do you, Barega, call your tribe together, and I will bring medicine to match against Mabruki's. Then shall you see whose medicine is the stronger; then shall you see that I am a true man, and know Mabruki for the sham he is. Shall it be so?"
A murmur of assent ran round the ring. Tom's dauntless bearing and confident words, a little amplified perhaps in places by his interpreter; above all, the fact that he had kicked the magic bell and basket without suffering instant hurt; had made their impression on the natives. And the negro dearly loves a show. The prospect of a similar but more novel entertainment entranced them. The medicine-man was in no condition to offer a protest; he had seized the opportunity to take frequent pulls at a gourd of museru, and, exhausted by his own violence, he now lay a fuddled, huddled heap on the ground. The chief, unfeignedly glad of the turn events had taken, consulted with his officers, and was strongly urged by the katikiro to agree to Tom's proposal. The trial of strength was fixed then for the evening of the following day, and the assembly broke up. Now all tongues were loosed; every incident in the strange scene was canvassed by two thousand chattering negroes. Some openly expressed their belief that the fearless white man would effectually squelch the unhappy discredited medicine-man, while others still had confidence in Mabruki, and expected that even yet the white man would smart for his impiety.
Tom spent the rest of that day in seclusion. He was making medicine, was Mbutu's invariable answer to enquiries. The white man was making medicine!--the word flew round the village, and even the most sceptical began to believe there was something in it. Just before sunset Tom sent for the katikiro, who had been bursting with curiosity to know what was going on in his own hut. Darkness fell, and the stars appeared, and yet he remained with Tom. The chief, in the hut adjoining, once or twice fancied he heard the sounds of stifled laughter. Unable to contain himself, he went quietly to Tom's hut, and crept in before Mbutu had time to interpose. Tom was standing in the middle, with arms akimbo, smiling down at the katikiro, who was sitting on the floor fairly shaking with half-suppressed merriment. He got up rather sheepishly when he saw his chief looking grimly at him, and sidled out of the hut. Tom turned to the chief and said cheerfully:
"I was only finishing my medicine-making, chief. Everything is ready now."
"Ah, um! Are you quite sure that your medicine will be stronger than Mabruki's? If not, I would urge you to flee at once; I will send trusty men with you. For if Mabruki prevails to-morrow my people will claim a terrible revenge."
"Don't be alarmed, chief. I will answer for my medicine. I hope your sleep won't be disturbed; as for me, I have been working hard, and want a good night's rest."
Very early next morning the villagers began to assemble on the site of the previous day's ceremony. Time does not exist for the negro; sunrise and sundown are his only periods, and the people were quite content to squat in a circle through all the long hot day. The crowd was larger than ever; all the boys and girls had been brought to see the show. Villagers, even, from outlying parts had come in, the news having spread with that wonderful speed which is one of the most striking phenomena in African life. Nor were the tongues of the people tied by any feeling of solemnity; on the previous day they might have been compared to the congregation in a cathedral, to-day they were like the spectators at a circus.
Sunset was the time fixed for the trial of strength. As the sun disappeared the officials came from their huts, the katikiro apparently relishing his recollection of the previous night's amusement, and failing lamentably to maintain the dignity of his office. The medicine-man was brought in; he had wisely laid aside his flummery, and looked more ghastly than ever in his coating of kaolin. The chief entered the ring, with his drummers and tusk-bearers, followed by Tom, and a score of torch-bearers ranged themselves around.
Just as Barega reached his place a man came dashing up the village from the northern gate, never pausing till he stood before the chief. It was one of the principal scouts. In breathless haste he stated that he had learned that a strong Arab force was advancing through the forest. It was bent on some great enterprise, for the caravan included thousands of slaves, carrying all the paraphernalia of a camp and large stores of provisions. It was by this time only twelve marches away, and was coming steadily in the direction of the village. The news went through the assembly in an instant, and silenced every tongue. The medicine-man straightened himself, and with something of his former assurance proclaimed that the white man was accountable, and that unless he were expelled or slain the village would fall an easy prey to the enemy. He evidently welcomed the diversion, and was preparing for a long harangue, when Tom, advancing, stilled the gathering murmurs with an imperious gesture.
"Chief," he said, "heed not what the medicine-man says. It is a trial of strength between our magic to-day; if his medicine proves the stronger, turn me out or slay me; but if mine, then I promise you I will not leave you till we have made a good account with your Arab foes. I know the Arabs; I have fought them; I have been a prisoner among them and escaped; I saved you from them. Is it a bargain?"
Loud shouts of assent broke from the whole company, and the chief, with a dignified inclination of the head, said: "It shall be so." Then, amid breathless silence, the trial of strength commenced.
Tom had resolved from the outset that he would make no attempt to persuade the natives that Mabruki's medicine was mere vanity and hollowness. Superstitions generations old could not be banished in a night. His object was to show, not that the medicine did not exist, but that it was poor medicine, quite unworthy of an important village, and not to be compared with the medicine he himself had at command. He began with a short speech in which he recited the history of the affair up to the present, finding it rather difficult to get on without the interpreting aid of Mbutu, who was not at hand. He laid stress on the strange disaster that had befallen the primest cattle, and reminded the people how the medicine-man had professed to discover that he was the cause, if not the agent, of the death of the bulls. If this accusation was merely the outcome of spite and hatred, the Bahima would know how much reliance to place on it. If, however, it were really due to the operation of Mabruki's magic--here Tom turned swiftly toward the medicine-man, and cried: "We shall see what faith can be placed on the words of an ignoramus like this. Bahima and Bairo, look!"
He seized the bell, which the medicine-man had placed on the basket at his feet. Mabruki stood mute and motionless with astonishment as Tom, ringing the bell with the same large gestures as his enemy, began to march round the circle. Before he had walked ten paces Tom found, as he had expected, that by a simple mechanical contrivance the clapper could be fixed at the will of the performer, and the trick had not been discovered only because no one else in the village had dared to touch the magic bell. He walked on solemnly round the circle until he came to the place where Mabruki stood scowling, and then, though he agitated the bell with more than ordinary violence, not a sound came from it.