Witch-Doctors Part 23

Marufa squatting beside him grunted; Bakahenzie took snuff nonchalantly as if he did not believe a word.

"Eyes-in-the-hands is a mighty magician in his own country," said Bakahenzie in the form of an a.s.sertion.

"The magic of Eyes-in-the-hands to the magic of Moonspirit," stated Birnier, "is as water to the beer of the banana."

"Eyes-in-the-hands," remarked Bakahenzie indifferently, "hath magic to make the souls of man to be seen by all."

"Those are but the souls of the belly and body, but Moonspirit can enchant so that the spirit of the head of man be seen at night," boasted Birnier, wondering what trick of zu Pfeiffer's had produced the effect.

"Eyes-in-the-hands," insisted Bakahenzie, "hath a spirit in a piece of a tree which cries or laughs, sings or talks to his magic."

"Moonspirit," retorted Birnier (thinking "Gramophone, but I can go one better, my friend"), "hath also a spirit in a piece of tree who will speak words of wisdom unto thee in thine own tongue, who will repeat that which is said unto him in thy tongue or in my tongue, who will speak words of wisdom even unto thee."

Bakahenzie seemed outmatched in the boasting tournament. He tapped snuff woodenly. Marufa scratched his skinny ribs thoughtfully. Then Bakahenzie remarked:

"He that hath not been cleansed may not look upon the Son-of-the-Snake."

"He that hath not been anointed need have no fear of the evil eye."

"Hath not one who was not cleansed entered and cast evil upon the tribe?"

demanded Bakahenzie.

"If the fence is not strong the leopard will enter."

"If the leopard be not strong and swift indeed may he not be killed in the hut?" inquired Bakahenzie.

"If a leopard and a wild-cat break in, then wilt thou not kill the leopard first?"

"Even so," retorted Bakahenzie; "then is water stronger than beer, even as the beer does reveal?"

Birnier nearly smiled in recognition of the hit.

"Nay, does not beer make the fool to talk foolishness? Dost thou then cast away the banana? Does not one talk foolishness also who is sick and yet discardeth good medicine, because he feareth to poison his belly?"

"Even so," said Bakahenzie obstinately, "does the sick man exorcise the good medicine lest an enemy hath made magic thereupon?"

"Then," said Birnier, whose only objection to the ceremony was the delay and the messiness, "let the good medicine be purified."

Bakahenzie grunted and covertly took stock of the tent and equipment visible. Upon the pile of cases stacked just inside the tent his eyes rested some time, but he would not make any inquiry. Marufa, too, was occupied in the same manner. Bakahenzie was recalling the previous meeting with Birnier in the village of MFunya MPopo-of that day when Birnier had not made any attempt to impress the native mind with "magic" other than the ordinary "miracles" in the routine of a white man's life.

"When the Son-of-the-Snake," inquired Birnier, who had learned as much of the hagiocracy as Mungongo knew, "hath taken up the Burden, wilt thou then drive Eyes-in-the-hands from the country?"

Bakahenzie slowly withdrew his eyes from the fascinating case as far as Birnier's booted foot.

"Hast thou, white man, the magic twig that makes fire?" he demanded.

"Even so."

Birnier took a box of matches from his pocket and struck one. Bakahenzie and Marufa watched him solemnly. Then a lean bronze hand was outstretched.

Birnier gave him the box. Slowly and gravely Bakahenzie, the chief witch-doctor, extracted a match, turned it over and over, smelt it, tasted it, regarded it, and struck it on the top of the box. It was a safety match, so nothing happened. Birnier, without a vestige of a smile, instructed him to strike it only upon the black piece at the side. That impressed Bakahenzie and Marufa. The former tried again as directed and succeeded. Holding the match too near the head he burned the quick of the nail, but not a muscle quivered. He would not even admit that the white man's devil stick had bitten him. But he was still more impressed.

At a sign from Birnier, Mungongo brought from the tent a nickel-plated revolver and cartridges, which he placed at the feet of Bakahenzie without comment. Apparently Bakahenzie did not notice the action or the gift. He held out the matches to return to the white man. Birnier requested him to keep them. He wrapped up the box in his loin-cloth and fell to further contemplation of the cases. He was cogitating. The value of this white had suddenly increased. Evidently he could make small magic. Perhaps he could make as much big magic as Eyes-in-the-hands. Who knew? But then if that was so he could make greater magic than he, Bakahenzie, could. Bakahenzie saw that if Moonspirit were such a great magician he would be difficult or impossible to control. Naturally Bakahenzie could only understand his own motives in others. His problem now was to discover some means by which he could control Moonspirit, make of him a familiar to work to his own ends.

Why was he so insistent upon seeing Zalu Zako? Bakahenzie became more and more suspicious. He saw another reason why the white man must be kept away from Zalu Zako. To refuse to purify him would give a valid excuse that he may not look upon the Son-of-the-Snake. But he did not wish to displease him; also Marufa could perform the purification.

Again Birnier repeated the question regarding the overthrow of Eyes-in-the-hands. Bakahenzie took snuff, regarded the revolver lying at his feet idly, and deigned to reply.

"When that which must be hath come to pa.s.s, then shall the children of the Snake eat up their enemies as a lizard eats flies."

"And what is that which must come to pa.s.s?"

Bakahenzie sat silent awhile, slightly shocked at the directness of the question; then as if to humour the white man, he replied:

"When the Bridegroom hath taken the Bride."

The ceremony of purification could not take place until the following day, because such things may not be hurried; and moreover, various potent charms had to be sent for to the native village. Meanwhile Bakahenzie squatted by the fire, contemplating the nickel-plated revolver and affairs of policy, and opposite him sat the meditative Marufa.

From the hour of the monkey, Bakahenzie, unconscious of the small face and anxious eyes watching the camp from the tangle of green, was busy muttering spells over a calabash containing a magic concoction composed of the entrails of a white goat, certain herbs and the eyes of a black wild-cat. When the roof of the forest was a patterned ceiling against an incandescent glow, Birnier stripped to the waist, and submitted himself to the hands of the wizard who, after scattering the feathers of a scarlet parrot into the calabash, smeared the left breast, the forehead and the right arm of the white man, to the accompaniment of an incantation. These insignia and specifics he must not remove for three suns; nor could he be permitted to look upon the semi-divine Zalu Zako until whatever evil influence his foreign body might possess should have been exorcised by this powerful medicine.

To sit around half nude in such heat was no arduous undertaking, but to sleep without rubbing off the concoction was another matter; also the odour thereof was not pleasing to the nostrils of a white man. But Birnier accomplished the feat by smoking excessively and by marking with a pencil the various nostrums recommended by the amiable Burton, many of which were hardly less disagreeable than Doctor Bakahenzie's prescription.

That worthy's slaves had erected a hut for him nigh to the tent in the door of which he squatted, usually with Marufa beside him, throughout the day, with ever a contemplative eye upon his victim, an eye which Birnier was sure was eagerly seeking some excuse to plead that he had inadvertently rendered the magic impotent, and must accordingly have the ceremony repeated.

Amused by the ridiculous sight he presented, plastered over with this filth, Birnier made Mungongo, whom he had taught to operate a camera, take a photograph of him, which would entertain Lucille, as well as be of scientific interest. Bakahenzie and Marufa watched this performance from the fire with amazement, for they imagined that the camera was some kind of gun. When they heard the click, they grunted as if expecting the white man to fall dead. Birnier of course knew the universal native belief in the picture being the soul, or one of the souls. He summoned Bakahenzie and Marufa and showed them a photograph which, after some difficulty, they recognised as Mungongo.

"Eh," grunted a warrior, "indeed is Mungongo the slave of the white man, for hath he not imprisoned his soul?"

Mungongo laughed, yet he believed in the superst.i.tion as implicitly as any of his compatriots, for said he:

"It is a wise man who hath that which is his always within his hand, even as Moonspirit hath the soul of his favourite wife with him always, so that she may not be unfaithful unto him."

"Eh, he is wiser than the Banana Eater!" grunted the warrior in admiration.

Birnier's training to control his features was strained in the effort not to express surprise. He could not imagine from what Mungongo had derived this astonis.h.i.+ng statement, until he recollected that the boy had seen a photograph of Lucille among his papers.

After this successful demonstration of his sophistication, Mungongo was anxious that Moonspirit give an exhibition of his magic to dumbfound the chief witch-doctor, desiring most ardently to work the gramophone, to operate which he had also learned. But on reflection, Birnier decided that it was not his policy to make his thunder too cheap.

Each evening as the last subtle violet quivered in the trees had Bak.u.ma glided from the shelter of the undergrowth under the flap of Birnier's tent, where she had lain until the first tint of dawn on the foliage of the forest. Birnier had wished her to leave for some village until Bakahenzie had left the camp, but Bak.u.ma had frantically pleaded to remain, knowing that the craft was seeking her throughout the country since Bakahenzie's latest interview with mighty Tarum.

But upon the third day as Birnier was seated reading philosophically at his tent door, the inevitable happened. A loud outcry arose and from the tangle of creepers started the lithe figure of Bak.u.ma, who darted past him into the tent. For a moment there was silence. But Birnier guessed what the matter was. Bakahenzie emerged from the wall of green and cried out in a loud voice. Instantly the warriors around leaped to their feet, and broke out into great clamour.

Mungongo, busy with the cooking pots, rushed to Birnier's side, gesticulating wildly. Inside the tent crouched Bak.u.ma. Towards Birnier advanced Bakahenzie and the warriors, whose dilated eyes and spears in their hands betokened that Bakahenzie had stirred their deepest feelings of terror and murder. Birnier smoked placidly, neither stirring nor permitting a sign of their presence to cross his features.

Mungongo, startled out of his confidence in Moonspirit, excitedly bade Bak.u.ma go forth as Bakahenzie, stopping in front of the white man, broke into a harangue, bidding him to give up Bak.u.ma whose sacrilege in breaking the magic circle, as he had said, had brought the terrible Eyes-in-the-hands upon them; that the welfare of the tribe depended upon her sacrifice to the angered Unmentionable One even as she had been doomed; and threatening that they would take the insolent white man, whose magic was as water, and sacrifice him as well, as was desired by the spirit of Tarum.

The longer he spoke the more excited he grew. Motivated by the sudden conviction that the sacrifice of Bak.u.ma, whose action he had foretold so successfully, and the slaughter of the white would really restore to him his repute and remove at the same time the problem of controlling a superior magician who threatened to become his rival, Bakahenzie began to work himself up into the necessary state of prophetic hysteria. Cowering against the camp-bed Bak.u.ma whimpered with terror; Mungongo incoherently begged Moonspirit to give up the girl.

Not a muscle moved upon Birnier's face; nor even did his eyes turn in the direction of the menacing crowd who with uplifted spears joggled each other around Bakahenzie. Birnier knew that it was a supreme test of nerve; knew that any attempt to s.n.a.t.c.h a rifle or a movement of any sort, would precipitate action on their side. He had no intention of surrendering the girl to a hideous fate, and also he saw beyond the incident that if Bakahenzie were to triumph over him now, not only would his prestige with the natives be gone for ever, but that his fate would be surely sealed.

Slowly, exaggeratedly, as if he were alone, he killed a mosquito upon his bare right breast and lighted his pipe anew.