The Valley of the Shadow
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 ngagayala
Mukamawange Katabuzi eikyasenga
Amaso 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.