Big Medicine
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.
[Illustration: Tom surprises Mabruki]
There was for a moment a silence as of death. Then a low growl rumbled
round the throng. The katikiro laughed, the chief frowned ominously, as
Tom, keeping a wary eye on Mabruki, flung the bell contemptuously at his
feet. The medicine-man was livid with wrath. The scorn of his enemy,
the murmurs of the spectators, the despiteful usage of his fetish, whose
terrors were now gone for ever, were too much for him. With a snarl of
rage the burly negro hurled himself at Tom, aiming a vicious blow at him
with a strangely-carved fetish staff he carried in his hand. It was the
very move Tom had intended to provoke; if only Mabruki could be goaded
to attack him he was confident of the issue. His confidence appeared to
be shared by Msala, who, alone of that vast throng, seemed to be excited
rather with suppressed merriment than with any emotion of doubt or fear.
The crowd gazed open-mouthed, for Mabruki was to all appearance easily
able to overpower the slim stripling opposed to him. But as the big man
lurched forward Tom stepped nimbly aside and evaded the blow. Before
Mabruki could recover he found his wrist firmly grasped, and was jerked
sharply forward, his elbow being gripped as in a vice by Tom’s left
hand. Then Tom brought into play a trick of Japanese wrestling he had
learnt from a ship’s engineer, who had taken advantage of visits to the
island empire to make a study of methods unrecognized and unknown in
Cumberland and Cornwall. The medicine-man instinctively resisted when
he felt the forward pull. Instantly reversing his movement, Tom pushed
his opponent’s elbow up with the left hand while pulling his hand
outwards and downwards with the right. At the same time he placed his
leg behind his opponent’s knee, and before the astonished magician could
realize what was happening, with a sharp jerk he was thrown on to his
back, the earth seeming to shake under his seventeen stone of
corpulence.
The whole operation had not occupied more than a few seconds. The
medicine-man in an African village is rather feared than beloved; he has
countless ways of making his dreaded tyranny felt. When, therefore, the
people saw the man whose power they had held in awe so rapidly
overthrown, apparently without any exertion on the part of his opponent,
a great shout of mocking laughter burst from them. The katikiro was
bent double with delight, and even Barega’s face relaxed its habitual
gravity, Mabruki, with no breath left in his unwieldy body, thoroughly
cowed, was in no condition to renew the attack. He still lay upon the
ground as Tom explained that he had turned Mabruki’s medicine upon him,
and shown that white medicine had enabled himself to do what no other
man among them, not even the strongest, could have accomplished.
Mabruki had brought his humiliation upon himself.
"But this," he added, "is mere trifling. In my country we leave such
simple things to the children. If you wish to see what the white man’s
magic is like, pay heed to what I am about to do. And I warn you, be
satisfied with that, lest worse befall."
He walked slowly to the centre of the circle, where the huge king-drum
was placed. The glare of the torches lit up the hundreds of eager
faces, all gazing at him with eyes opened to their widest. Even the
katikiro, who had shown no surprise at the previous feats, looked on now
with an air of fearful expectancy.
"Put out your torches!" cried Tom.
One by one the lights were extinguished. The whole village was covered
with the black darkness of a moonless tropical night. For half a minute
there was absolute silence; then, taking the drum-stick, Tom smote the
drum with three measured strokes.
Boom! boom! boom!
The hollow sounds rolled away and died in the distance. Nothing could be
heard but the quick pants of the waiting crowd. A light breeze had
sprung up, grateful after the day’s heat, and from far in the distance
came faintly the trumpet note of an elephant, followed by the quick bark
of a hyena. Again Tom struck the drum.
Boom! boom! boom!
A moment later he noticed a glow in the tree-tops of a plantation
three-quarters of a mile to the west. The silent throng was still
looking towards him, trying to pierce the darkness. The glow increased
rapidly in brightness, defining itself as a globe of fire.
B-r-r-rrrrrrrr!
A tremendous roll from the drum woke rumbling echoes all around.
Pointing dramatically with his drum-stick into the sky, Tom cried:
"Behold!"
The crowd turned as one man. A huge blazing globe was advancing slowly
towards them out of the darkness. The effect was stupendous. For a
moment the throng was inarticulate with dread. Then murmurs of fear
arose. Some of the women shrieked; many of the children buried their
faces in their mothers’ bosoms. Most of the men sank into their
customary abject attitude of supplication; others were too terrified to
move, and gazed upwards in stupefaction at the advancing and ascending
ball of fire. It came slowly along on the breeze, passed almost
directly over the village, then mounted higher and higher into the sky
as it drifted eastward. The crowd watched it in awe-struck silence as
it grew smaller and smaller in the distance, and at last disappeared as
a tiny speck on the horizon.
A gasp of relief rose from the throng. Barega cried again for torches;
by their light Mabruki could be seen shaking like an aspen, the evidence
of superior medicine having overpowered him altogether. Among the
people there was the inevitable reaction. Their fear being removed,
they turned against the medicine-man and assailed him with vehement
cries of scorn. Barega sent for his executioner, and announced his
immediate intention of having Mabruki’s head. But Tom called aloud for
silence, and beckoning Mbutu, who with the torches had suddenly appeared
at his side, said:
"Barega and Barega’s men," he said, "you have seen with your own eyes.
You saw that with Mabruki’s own bell I proved against him, if such
childish folly can be called a proof, what he had proved against me.
You saw that when he tried to fell me with his weighty fist, with a mere
turn of the hand I laid him low. And now you have seen how, striking
your own king-drum, Bugandanwe, I summoned a globe of fire from the
trees yonder, and how it sailed away out of sight with a message to the
morning chamber of the sun. The trial is made; who has the stronger
medicine--Mabruki or I?"
"You, the muzungu!" shouted every creature in the throng.
"And do you, O Barega, any longer believe that I caused the death of
your cattle?"
"No, no; I do not believe it. If any of my people believes it, he shall
surely die!"
Barega glared round the circle of his trembling subjects, as if to dare
any of them to confess himself a doubter.
"No one believes it," said Tom quickly. "Now I tell you this," he
added, turning to Barega; "you will lose no more cattle, my friend.
Your losses are due to Mabruki’s bad medicine."
"I will have his head!" cried Barega furiously.
"Wait, my brother. Let me plead for him. What will his death avail?
It will not bring back your cattle. No, it is for the strong to show
mercy. What shall be his doom? Let it be this, that he give to
everyone who has lost cattle by this strange death one bull for every
bull that died, you, O chief, to choose first among his beasts. And
mark, if in the days to come any cattle die in the same way, let Mabruki
give the owner two bulls for every one that so dies. My medicine is not
concerned with cattle; but I think Mabruki has enough medicine left to
preserve your cattle henceforth."
The suggestion met with instant approval, and Mabruki himself dared not
raise a protest. As he slunk shamefaced away, the assembly broke up, to
discuss the wonderful occurrences with shouting and laughter for hours
afterwards.
Tom walked quietly back to his hut.
"You did it very well, Mbutu," he said.
Mbutu grinned.
"Like it berrah much, sah," he said; "jolly good bloony bloon."
"Yes; and we must never repeat the performance. We will not stale our
big medicine, Mbutu."
The explanation of the wonderful event was simplicity itself.
When Tom had offered to pit himself against Mabruki, he had in his mind
the trick of Japanese wrestling. But that was hardly sufficient,
perhaps, to impress the people, and he resolved to attempt something
even more startling. While thinking over the matter, he remembered how
amazed he had been himself when, as a young child, he first saw a
balloon. Could he make a fire-balloon? Suddenly he bethought him of a
roll of Indian silk he had seen among the chief’s possessions. Surely
that would provide the very material he required. He persuaded the
chief to give him a few lengths from the roll, and during the time of
his seclusion in the hut he had, with Mbutu’s assistance, cut the silk
into strips, stuck them together with a natural gum obtained from trees
near, stitched the seams together, smeared the whole surface with gum to
make it air-tight, and bent a thin sapling to hold open the mouth of the
balloon, with a light pan dangling from it to hold combustible material
steeped in spirit. Mbutu had smuggled the balloon into the plantation
on the previous night, while Tom was engaged in practising his wrestling
trick on the katikiro. When the performance began with the ringing of
the bell, Mbutu had inflated the envelope with hot air over a large
charcoal fire, and at the second drum-signal had ignited the
spirit-soaked material, and let the balloon rise.
Before Tom retired to rest that night, the katikiro came to him and
humbly begged to know how he had made fire come from the tree-tops.
"Msala, my friend," said Tom, smiling, "that is my secret. We cannot all
do everything; too much learning, like too much museru, might turn your
head. Be satisfied with getting your cattle replaced, and take my word
for it that you will never lose your bulls in the same way again."