Zu Pfeiffer struck a match without looking up.

"I am he."

One hand upon the open door, Birnier stroked his shaven chin perplexedly with the other. He glanced from the sergeant, standing rigidly by the table, to the lieutenant engaged in stoking his cigar to a nicety.

"Well, it's usual to invite a white man to sit down, isn't it?" suggested Birnier, with a note of irritation.

Zu Pfeiffer looked across the table.

"Nein. This is the Orderly Room; not a general office."

"Oh, I see. I beg your pardon!" There was a note of laughter in the voice.

"Will you kindly instruct me where I am to apply?"

Zu Pfeiffer continued to regard the stranger from head to foot, smoking slowly.

"Please to come in," he said at length, gesturing with his cigar, "and sit down."

"Thanks so much!"

The trace of irony seemed to escape zu Pfeiffer. He gave a guttural order to the sergeant, who saluted and disappeared. The stranger placed his Tirai hat on the table, revealing rumpled brown hair flecked with grey, a high white forehead, and long features; the slight stoop of the shoulders and general carriage rather suggested a professional type than a hunter or trader. He regarded the slim figure staring insolently at him with a hardening look of disapproval.

"What is it you wish?"

"Well, princ.i.p.ally I require an elephant licence and the usual permit to trade."

"Where are you going?"

"To the Kivu country."

Zu Pfeiffer regarded his cigar tip interestedly.

"You are going to the Wongolo country," he stated.

Birnier's mouth tightened.

"Quite possibly."

"You have been to the Wongolo country already?"

"Yes, I have been there, but what has that to do with it?"

"We know all about you," stated zu Pfeiffer coldly, twiddling his cigar between slender fingers. He glanced at a gold repeater. "Pardon, but I must request you to return later. The Court is already awaiting me."

Birnier frowned slightly. "If you will be so good as to return at, let us say, five o'clock, I will be pleased to listen to your application."

Birnier rose, taking his hat.

"Certainly," he said curtly. "Good morning!"

Zu Pfeiffer watched him depart; then he struck the bell sharply. Sergeant Schultz appeared, a line of nervous expectancy upon his sallow face.

"Why have you not reported that man's arrival?" demanded zu Pfeiffer harshly.

"Excellence," returned Schultz, saluting, "he has but arrived within the hour in a launch, loaned to him by the Englander."

"Ach! An English spy!"

"I do not know, Excellence."

"We ought to know. Why have you not a report of the man's movements? He admits that he has been in the Wongolo country."

"Excellence, it is already done." Schultz hurriedly searched a card index cabinet and handed a doc.u.ment to the lieutenant. "There is Saunders'

report, Excellence; more than six months old."

Zu Pfeiffer glanced at the page indicated and began to read while the sergeant stood stiffly at attention.

"You may go, sergeant," announced zu Pfeiffer without looking up. Schultz saluted and departed. Zu Pfeiffer finished the report leisurely, put down the paper, and stared meditatively.

No, he decided, as he rose, all the English are spies.

CHAPTER 2

Like a topaz set in a jade ring was the city of the Snake, the place of Kings, a village of some eight hundred huts huddled upon a slight rise above a sea of banana fronds, some two hundred miles to the west of Ingonya.

On the summit was a large conical hut like an enormous candle snuffer, the dwelling place of Usak.u.ma, the spirit of the Snake, whose name was forbidden to all save the Priest-G.o.d and Rain Maker, King MFunya MPopo, who was so holy that after succeeding to the sacred office he was doomed to live within the compound, even as were the Kings of Eutopia, Sheba and China, a celibate for the remainder of his life: for, as the incarnation of the Idol, Usak.u.ma, and therefore the controller of the Heavens and the Earth, his body must be kept from all danger of witchcraft lest the rains cease and the blue skies fall.

From the compound, looking towards the north-west where the snow-capped Gamballagalla rose violet against the horizon, another brown cone peeped above the green fronds, the late residence, and now the tomb of King MKoffo, predecessor of MFunya MPopo. For where a King-G.o.d dies there is he buried, he and his wives after him; the site becomes holy ground, a place of pilgrimage and sanctuary.

In each of the small huts to the rear of the temple of MFunya MPopo, but outside the sacred enclosure, lived his wives who, although forbidden to their husband, were permitted a royal promiscuity. Just within the precincts was a small replica of the temple where dwelt a young chief, also bound to celibacy, whose duties were to keep the royal fire burning as long as the king should reign. No one was allowed to converse with the king, save on matters of state, except this man; through him was spoken the royal will-what there was left of it-to the council which sat in a long rectangular building opposite to the temple entrance and open to the village, a body of witch-doctors and chiefs.

Solely the kingly office existed as a beneficent agent, a matter of self-preservation on the part of the tribe. The King-G.o.d's functions were divine; to make magic for the victory of his warriors and princ.i.p.ally to make rain, on which, of course, the alimentary needs of his subjects depended-an incarnation of a G.o.d who was in reality the scapegoat of the G.o.d's omissions.

The office was hereditary. Perhaps no one else would willingly accept such an onerous post. The making of magic was performed before the G.o.d with the a.s.sistance of the chief witch-doctor, an exceedingly lucrative post won upon merit, occupied by one Bakahenzie, a tall muscular man in the prime of life, whose bearing was that of the native autocrat, fierce and remorseless. The King's personal wishes could be safely granted as long as he did not endanger the existence of the people by a desire to break any of the meshes of the tabus designed to ensure the safety of his sacred body, and therefore that of the tribe, on the a.s.sumption that if the incarnation were injured the G.o.d would be injured, and so would his creations be affected: any infringement of these laws entailed the penalty of death, a code which revealed the native logic in the confusion of cause and effect, the concrete and the abstract.

In the door of a hut on the outskirts of the village squatted a wizened man with a tuft of grey beard upon his chin. He was clad in a loin-cloth fairly clean, and about his neck was suspended by a twisted fibre an amulet wrapped in banana leaves containing the gall and toenail of an enemy slain by a virgin warrior, a specific against black magic whose powerful properties were proven by the undisputed influence and wealth of the owner.

A tall lithe savage, bearing upon his arms and ankles the ivory bracelets of the royal house and the elephant hair chaplet of the warrior, advanced leisurely towards him from the banana plantation. Marufa continued to gaze in rumination at the opposite hut. But as they had not met since the rising of the sun, he did not fail to make the orthodox greeting at the exact moment that the chief's shadow pa.s.sed in front of him, which Zalu Zako returned punctiliously, thereby averting an evil omen. As soon as the young man had pa.s.sed beyond the next hut appeared in the grove a girl, modelled like a bronze wood nymph. She wore the tiny girdle of the unmarried and walked furtively, carrying in her hand a parcel wrapped in banana leaves. In the shadow of a compound fence she halted, one slender brown arm set back in apprehension as her eyes followed the lithe figure of Zalu Zako.

Motionless sat Marufa staring in mystic contemplation. Bak.u.ma glanced swiftly about her. Apparently satisfied that no one was observing her save a lean dog and two gollywog children, she continued on as if to pa.s.s the old man, her eyes still ranging like a fawn's. But when she was beside Marufa she subsided on her haunches beside him, clutching the bundle as she whispered:

"Greetings, O wise one!"

"Greeting, daughter," returned Marufa without lessening the fixity of his gaze.