CHAPTER 6

In the violet shadow of his square hut inside the compound, squatted Zalu Zako. The lips and nose were nearer to the Aryan delicacy than the negroid bluntness; for the Wongolo, like the Wahima, are a mixed Bantu-Somali race. In colour his skin had the red of bronze rather than the blue of the negro, and the planes of his moulded chest were as light as the worn ivory bracelets upon his polished limbs. Broad in the shoulders he had almost the slender hips of a young girl and his carriage was as balanced as a dancer's.

From a group of small round huts behind his square hut, where dwelt his two wives, concubines and slaves, came the clutter of voices. A distant drum throbbed gently on the hot air. Away in the cool green of the banana plantation rose the crooning chant of the unmarried girls and slaves bringing water from the river.

Apparently Zalu Zako was absorbed in the movements of a diminutive chicken scratching in the soil. The omen of the goat was occupying his mind: that and the death of his grandfather, MFunya MPopo. There was no sense of grief, for he was not a woman. Now, at the beginning of his warrior's career, he had not any desire for divine honours and celibacy. No man had.

Yet Zalu Zako no more dreamed of questioning the necessity than of spitting in the face of an enemy. Always had the first born male of his family been doomed to the kingly office. There was never a second born male, for it was not meet that a G.o.d should have paternal brothers. The wives of his youth and his concubines could have as many children as they could bear; but according to the law, did he select the chief wife from whom should spring the one regal son only when he had become heir apparent; for then was he not already half divine, being so near the sacred enclosure up on the hill?

The choice of that chief wife was free as there were no royal families in the sense of divine descent save the direct male line of the King-G.o.d. But the mind of Zalu Zako dwelt more upon his personal career. The life of a warrior was frequently short and that of a G.o.d even briefer. MFunya MPopo had reigned but twenty moons; MKoffo, so said the elders, had reigned for full two hundred moons; but then he had been a mighty magician.

With a harsh squawk a brilliant scarlet and blue bird with an enormous yellow bill perched on the palisade of the compound. Immediately the young man forgot his musing and rose, calling for his spear. A stocky man, coal black, with a fuzzy tuft of a beard, came out of the hut. From the slave Zalu Zako took a broad-bladed spear with a short haft. Watching to see that the bird was still sitting on the fence as he pa.s.sed out of the compound, he set off rapidly through the village and into the banana plantations in search of a wart hog which had been rooting up one of his fields of sweet potatoes. Just as he came within sight of them a black field rat sprang out of the gra.s.s in his path, glanced round at him, and disappeared. The young man's steps slackened, for he knew that the black rat had spoiled the luck which the banana eater had portended. Scarcely troubling to glance around the field, he diverged across at an angle making for a break in the jungle where he knew was the trail of the boar.

But he grunted contemptuously as he examined the last spoor, which was at least half a day old. Of course the hog would not be there.

He bethought himself of another field where sometimes came buck. But there was no game. The black rat again! Yet if one waited long enough a good omen might appear. As he squatted beneath a banana plant to take snuff came a squawk and the banana eater-for it appeared to be the same one-alighted on a frond near to him. Zalu Zako waited. Leisurely and cautiously he arose. The bird peered at him. Zalu Zako pa.s.sed and left the banana eater still sitting there. He felt the weight of his spear tentatively, for a double omen of luck must mean big game: possibly an eland or a leopard.

He circled right round the outskirts of the plantation. But he saw no signs. As he began to make the big circle again the shadows were lengthening appreciably. Pa.s.sing by the ford of the small river, which was swollen from the rains, he heard a group of young girls chattering on the river bank as they filled their gourds. He paused to test which way the wind was blowing in order to avoid going down wind where the sound of their voices would scare away any game.

But as he turned to move on he caught a glimpse of a figure mounting the incline. The motion was as lithe as a young giraffe; the legs were as straight as spears and as supple as a kiboko; the moulded hips swayed rhythmically like a banana frond in the breeze; the fluted arch of her back swelled proudly upwards to the resilient shoulders; and an arm as slender as a lizard's tail steadied the gourd upon a small black head set upon a neck like a sapling. The dappled shadows of a tree played hide and seek upon the tiny hills that were her firm young b.r.e.a.s.t.s, upon the smoothness of her torso of light bronze. As he gazed her face came into view in speaking to a comrade just beneath. An errant shaft of sunlight glinted the pearl of teeth, glowed the tiny nose and blued the whites of eyes which were as soft as any antelope.

Zalu Zako clicked the syllable that means astonishment.

"Wait there, O Bayakala," she called, "for I have to do the making of mighty magic with the spirits of the wood."

"Eh, eh!" responded one of those left by the water edge, "a girl of the hut thatch hath nought to do with spirits of the wood for their bellies are as big as a pregnant woman!"

The young girl laughed and her notes seemed to Zalu Zako like the dripping of water upon a river rock.

"Thou knowest less than the Baroto bird who as everybody knows is the spirit of one!"

"'Tis more than thou wilt ever be!" retorted the rival beneath.

"Ehh! Ehh!" exclaimed the girl at the sneer, "thy girdle is rotted long since with juice!"

"And thine," shouted the insulted one, who was old for a spinster, "wilt rot with the dryness!"

"Tscch! It is dry for the lord whom I will conquer with magic such as thou hast never dreamed on, O Bayakala!"

"And who is he for whom thou makest magic, O daughter of the hut thatch?"

demanded Zalu Zako, stepping from the shelter of the tree.

"Ehh!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Bak.u.ma. "I-we do but tickle the fronds (jest), O Chief!"

The only sign of her nervousness was the slight swaying of the gourd of water upon her head as she turned up her eyes to the young chief who regarded her slowly. She edged away. He moved a pace in front of her. She clutched at the amulet around her neck as she turned her eyes and said:

"The cooking fires are low, O Chief, and need be tended."

"Thy b.r.e.a.s.t.s are like unto small anthills," he said, "and thy belly is as smooth as yonder river rock."

"Thy tongue is sweeter than the honey of the kinglan tree."

"Thy voice is softer than the muted lyre and thy nose is formed of two petals of an orchid."

"Thy praise is more refreshing than the morning dew to a thirsty flower."

"And by thy figure am I made more drunken than by the wine of the Soka palm."

For a full minute they stood, a study in light bronze against the dappled green foliage. The shrill chatter of the other girls approaching startled Bak.u.ma into action. She swayed to one side.

"The spirits of the cooking pot cry aloud for me, O Chief."

"Who is thy father, little one?" he demanded.

"I am Bak.u.ma, the daughter of Bakala, O Chief."

"There has been a veil before my eyes that I have not seen thee before."

"The mountains see not the tiny brooks amid the mighty forests," murmured Bak.u.ma and sped up the path.

Zalu Zako stood motionless watching her form melt into the green, and as he turned towards the river he met Bayakala and the other women who shrank aside from the path to allow the Son of the Snake to pa.s.s in silence. Yet at the ford he paused. He had forgotten the omen of the banana eater and the purpose for which he had come.

As Bak.u.ma sped along in a gliding lope the amulet swayed rhythmically to the whispered praises of the power of Marufa, mixed with ardent prayers to the spirits to provide the fat goat with which to propitiate the spirit of the woods; for had not the love charm already manifested its wondrous power? As she hastened through the banana plantation she could not resist diverging a little in the direction of the magician's hut. As she pa.s.sed, she saw him seated on the threshold of the compound gathering inspiration from his favourite wall. But Marufa observed her demeanour, and being something of a student of men, he deducted that the charm had already begun to work.

Marufa, as all successful men, had a strain of luck. Before the shadows had crept a hand's breadth came MYalu, indignant and exasperated. The three tusks had been paid and the footprint obtained; but he had discovered that it was no easy matter to procure the other ingredients which he suspected the wizard had known well and intended as a means to extract more ivory. After the ceremonious greetings he protested that the task given was almost impossible to execute. Marufa remained imperturbably interested in his wall.

"But as thou knowest," insisted MYalu, "the hair and the toe-nail and the spittle of the Son of the Snake are more than difficult to obtain. Does a man so carelessly render himself unto his enemies, and he the Son of the Snake? None save one of his household could purloin a single hair. Even this morning was his hair shaved and the remnants, as thou knowest well, deposited in the temple with him who was his father."

"The hair, the toe-nail, and the spittle," mumbled the old man, "must I have for such mighty magic."

"Ehh!" snorted MYalu, "with a man of the clay, but with one who is half divine, the Son of the Snake! Ehh!"

"The bow is useless without the arrows," mumbled the old man.

"Tsch. 'Tis a mighty hunter that hath not the arrows for his bow," sneered MYalu.

"Verily," retorted Marufa disinterestedly, "and still more a mighty man who cannot do his own hunting!"

"No warrior hath been purified more frequently than I," boasted MYalu, referring to the ceremony inc.u.mbent upon those who have taken life to appease the ghosts of the slain.

"The spirits obey not the crowing of a c.o.c.kerel," reminded Marufa.

"Tsch!" For a while both sat silent, MYalu gloomily watching a hen.

"Aie! Aie!" he lamented at last, "what is there that I may do, for indeed she hath caught my soul in a trap. Aie! Aie!"

"If the hunter cannot make arrows, he may buy them," remarked Marufa, who had been patiently waiting for this state of mind.