THE MOTHER OF JEEKIE.
“Jeekie,” said Alan next morning, “I tell you again that I
have had enough of this place, I want to get out.”
“Yes, Major, that just what mouse say when he finish cheese in trap, but
missus come along, call him ‘Pretty, pretty,’ and drown him all the
same,” and he nodded in the direction of the Asika’s house.
“Jeekie, it has got to be done—do you hear me? I had rather die
trying to get away than stop here till the next two months are up. If I
am here on the night of the next full moon but one, I shall shoot that
Asika and then shoot myself, and you must take your chance. Do you
understand?”
“Understand that foolish game and poor lookout for Jeekie, Major, but
can’t think of any plan.” Then he rubbed his big nose reflectively
and added, “Fahni and his people your slaves now, ’spose we have
talk with him. I tell priests to bring him along when they come with
breakfast. Leave it to me, Major.”
Alan did leave it to him, with the result that after long argument the
priests consented or obtained permission to produce Fahni and his
followers, and a little while after the great men arrived looking very
dejected, and saluted Alan humbly. Bidding the rest of them be seated,
he called Fahni to the end of the room and asked him through Jeekie if
he and his men did not wish to return home.
“Indeed we do, white lord,” answered the old chief, “but how
can we? The Asika has a grudge against our tribe and but for you would
have killed every one of us last night. We are snared and must stop
here till we die.”
“Would not your people help you if they knew, Fahni?”
“Yes, lord, I think so. But how can I tell them who doubtless believe us
dead? Nor can I send a messenger, for this place is guarded and he would
be killed at once. We came here for your sake because you had Little
Bonsa, a god that is known in the east and the west, in the north and
the south, and because you saved me from the lion, and here, alas! we
must perish.”
“Jeekie,” said Alan, “can you not find a messenger? Have you,
who were born of this people, no friend among them at all?”
Jeekie shook his white head and rolled his eyes. Then suddenly an idea
struck him.
“Yes,” he said, “I think one, p’raps. I mean my
ma.”
“Your ma!” said Alan. “Oh! I remember. Have you heard
anything more about her?”
“Yes, Major. Very old girl now, but strong on leg, so they say. Believe
she glad go anywhere, because she public nuisance; they tired of her in
prison and there no workhouse here, so they want turn her out starve,
which of course break my heart. Perhaps she take message. Some use that
way. Only think she afraid go Ogula-land because they nasty cannibal
and eat old woman.”
When all this was translated to Fahni he assured Jeekie with earnestness
that nothing would induce the Ogula people to eat his mother; moreover,
that for her sake they would never look carnivorously on another old
woman, fat or thin.
“Well,” said Jeekie, “I try again to get hold of old lady and
we see. I pray priests, whom you save other day, let her out of chokey
as I sick to fall upon bosom, which quite true, only so much to think
of that no time to attend to domestic relation till now.”
That very afternoon, on returning to his room from walking in the dismal
cedar garden, Alan’s ears were greeted by a sound of shrill
quarrelling. Looking up he saw an extraordinary sight. A tall, gaunt,
withered female who might have been of any age between sixty and a
hundred, had got Jeekie’s ear in one hand, and with the other was
slapping him in the face while she exclaimed:
“O thief, whom by the curse of Bonsa I brought into the world, what have
you done with my blanket? Was it not enough that you, my only son,
should leave me to earn my own living? Must you also take my best
blanket with you, for which reason I have been cold ever since. Where
is it, thief, where is it?”
“Worn out, my mother, worn out,” he answered, trying to free
himself. “You forget, honourable mother, that I grow old and you should
have been dead years ago. How can you expect a blanket to last so long?
Leave go of my ear, beloved mother, and I will give you another. I have
travelled across the world to find you and I want to hear news of your
husband.”
“My husband, thief, which husband? Do you mean your father, the one with
the broken nose, who was sacrificed because you ran away with the white
man whom Bonsa loved? Well, you look out for him when you get into the
world of ghosts, for he said that he was going to wait for you there
with the biggest stick that he could find. Why I haven’t thought of him
for years, but then I have had three other husbands since his time, bad
enough, but better than he was, so who would? And now Bonsa has got the
lot, and I have no children alive, and they say I am to be driven out
of the prison to starve next week as they won’t feed me any longer, I
who can still work against any one of them, and—you’ve got my blanket,
you ugly old rascal,” and collapsing beneath the weight of her recited
woes, the hag burst into a melancholy howl.
“Peace, my mother,” said Jeekie, patting her on the head. “Do
what I tell you and you shall have more blankets than you can wear and,
as you are still so handsome, another husband too if you like, and a
garden and slaves to work for you and plenty to eat.”
“How shall I get all these things, my son?” asked the old woman,
looking up. “Will you take me to your home and support me, or will that
white lord marry me? They told me that the Asika had named him as the
Mungana, and she is very jealous, the most jealous Asika that I have
ever known.”
“No, mother, he would like to, but he dare not, and I cannot support you
as I should wish, as here I have no house or property. You will get all
this by taking a walk and holding your tongue. You see this man here,
he is Fahni, king of a great tribe, the Ogula. He wants you to carry a
message for him, and by and by he will marry you, won’t you, Fahni?”
“Oh! yes, yes,” said Fahni; “I will do anything she likes. No
one shall be so rich and honoured in my country, and for her sake we
will never eat another old woman, whereas if she stays here she will be
driven to the mountains to starve in a week.”
“Set out the matter,” said the mother of Jeekie, who was by no
means so foolish as she seemed.
So they told her what she must do, namely, travel down to the Ogula and
tell them of the plight of their chief, bidding them muster all their
fighting men and when the swamps were dry enough, advance as near as
they dared to the Asiki country and, if they could not attack it, wait
till they had further news.
The end of it was that the mother of Jeekie, who knew her case to be
desperate at home, where she was in no good repute, promised to attempt
the journey in consideration of advantages to be received. Since she
was to be turned adrift to meet her fate with as much food as she could
carry, this she could do without exciting any suspicion, for who would
trouble about the movements of a useless old thief? Meanwhile Jeekie
gave her one of the robes which the Asika had provided for Alan, also
various articles which she desired and, having learned Fahni’s message
by heart and announced that she considered herself his affianced bride,
the gaunt old creature departed happy enough after exchanging embraces
with her long lost son.
“She will tell somebody all about it and we shall only get our throats
cut,” said Alan wearily, for the whole thing seemed to him a foolish
farce.
“No, no, Major. I make her swear not split on ghosts of all her husbands
and by Big Bonsa hisself. She sit tight as wax, because she think they
haunt her if she don’t and I too by and by when I dead. P’raps she get
to Ogula country and p’raps not. If she don’t, can’t help it and
no harm done. Break my heart, but only one old woman less. Anyhow she
hold tongue, that main point, and I really very glad find my ma, who
never hoped to see again. Heaven very kind to Jeekie, give him back to
family bosom,” he added, unctuously.
That day there were no excitements, and to Alan’s intense relief he saw
nothing of the Asika. After its orgy of witchcraft and bloodshed on the
previous night, weariness and silence seemed to have fallen upon the
town. At any rate no sound came from it that could be heard above the
low, constant thunder of the great waterfall rushing down its
precipice, and in the cedar-shadowed garden where Alan walked till he
was weary, attended by Jeekie and the Ogula savages, not a soul was to
be seen.
On the following morning, when he was sitting moodily in his room, two
priests came to conduct him to the Asika. Having no choice, followed by
Jeekie, he accompanied them to her house, masked as usual, for without
this hateful disguise he was not allowed to stir. He found her lying
upon a pile of cushions in a small room that he had never seen before,
which was better lighted than most in that melancholy abode, and seemed
to serve as her private chamber. In front of her lay the skin of the
lion that he had sent as a present, and about her throat hung a
necklace made of its claws, heavily set in gold, with which she was
playing idly.
At the opening of the door she looked up with a swift smile that turned
to a frown when she saw that he was followed by Jeekie.
“Say, Vernoon,” she asked in her languorous voice, “can you
not stir a yard without that ugly black dog at your heels? Do you bring
him to protect your back? If so, what is the need? Have I not sworn
that you are safe in my land?”
Alan made Jeekie interpret this speech, then answered that the reason
was that he knew but little of her tongue.
“Can I not teach it to you alone, then, without this low fellow hearing
all my words? Well, it will not be for long,” and she looked at Jeekie
in a way that made him feel very uncomfortable. “Get behind us, dog,
and you, Vernoon, come sit on these cushions at my side. Nay, not
there, I said upon the cushions—so. Now I will take off that ugly mask
of yours, for I would look into your eyes. I find them pleasant,
Vernoon,” and, without waiting for his permission, she sat up and did
so. “Ah!” she went on, “we shall be happy when we are married, shall we
not? Do not be afraid, Vernoon, I will not eat out your heart as I have
those of the men that went before you. We will live together until we
are old, and die together at last, and together be born again, and so
on and on till the end which even I cannot foresee. Why do you not
smile, Vernoon, and say that you are pleased, and that you will be
happy with me who loved you from the moment that my eyes fell upon you
in sleep? Speak, Vernoon, lest I should grow angry with you.”
“I don’t know what to say,” answered Alan despairingly
through Jeekie, “the honour is too great for me, who am but a wandering
trader who came here to barter Little Bonsa against the gold I
need”—to support my wife and family, he was about to add, then
remembering that this statement might not be well received, substituted,
“to support my old parents and eight brothers and sisters who are
dependent upon me, and remain hungry until I return to them.”
“Then I think they will remain hungry a long time, Vernoon, for while I
live you shall never return. Much as I love you I would kill you first,”
and her eyes glittered as she said the words. “Still,” she added,
noting the fall in his face, “if it is gold that they need, you shall
send it them. Yes, my people shall take all that I gave you down to the
coast, and there it can be put in a big canoe and carried across the
water. See to the packing of the stuff, you black dog,” she said to
Jeekie over her shoulder, “and when it is ready I will send it hence.”
Alan began to thank her, though he thought it more than probable that
even if she kept her word, this bullion would never get to Old Calabar,
and much less to England. But she waived the matter aside as one in
which she was not interested.
“Tell me,” she asked; “would you have me other than I am?
First, do you think me beautiful?”
“Yes,” answered Alan honestly, “very beautiful when you are
quiet as now, not when you are dancing as you did the other night
without your robes.”
When she understood what he meant the Asika actually blushed a little.
“I am sorry,” she answered in a voice that for her was quite
humble. “I forget that it might seem strange in your eyes. It has always
been the custom for the Asika to do as I did at feasts and sacrifices,
but perhaps that is not the fashion among your women; perhaps they
always remain veiled, as I have heard the worshippers of the Prophet
do, and therefore you thought me immodest. I am very, very sorry,
Vernoon. I pray you to forgive me who am ignorant and only do what I
have been taught.”
“Yes, they always remain veiled,” stammered Alan, though he was not
referring to their faces, and as the words passed his lips he wondered
what the Asika would think if she could see a ballet at a London
music-hall.
“Is there anything else wrong?” she went on gently. “If so,
tell me that I may set it right.”
“I do not like cruelty or sacrifices, O Asika. I have told you that
bloodshed is _orunda_ to me, and at the feast those men were poisoned
and you mocked them in their pain; also many others were taken away to
be killed for no crime.”
She opened her beautiful eyes and stared at him, answering:
“But, Vernoon, all this is not my fault; they were sacrifices to the
gods, and if I did not sacrifice, I should be sacrificed by the priests
and wizards who live to sacrifice. Yes, myself I should be made to
drink the poison and be mocked at while I died like a snake with a
broken back. Or even if I escaped the vengeance of the people, the gods
themselves would kill me and raise up another in my place. Do they not
sacrifice in your country, Vernoon?”
“No, Asika, they fight if necessary and kill those who commit murder.
But they have no fetish that asks for blood, and the law they have from
heaven is a law of mercy.”
She stared at him again.
“All this is strange to me,” she said. “I was taught
otherwise. Gods are devils and must be appeased, lest they bring
misfortune on us; men must be ruled by terror, or they would rebel and
pull down the great House; doctors must learn magic, or how could they
avert spells? wizards must be killed, or the people would perish in
their net. May not we who live in a hell, strive to beat back its flame
with the wisdom our forefathers have handed on to us? Tell me, Vernoon,
for I would know.”
“You make your own hell,” answered Alan when with the help of
Jeekie he understood her talk.
She pondered over his words for a while, then said:
“I must think. The thing is big. I wander in blackness; I will speak
with you again. Say now, what else is wrong with me?”
Now Alan thought that he saw opportunity for a word in season and made a
great mistake.
“I think that you treat your husband, that man whom you call Mungana,
very badly. Why should you drive him to his death?”
At these words the Asika leapt up in a rage, and seeking something to
vent her temper on, violently boxed Jeekie’s ears and kicked him with
her sandalled foot.
“The Mungana!” she exclaimed, “that beast! What have I to do
with him? I hate him, as I hated the others. The priests thrust him on
me. He has had his day, let him go. In your country do they make women
live with men whom they loathe? I love _you_, Bonsa himself knows why.
Perhaps because you have a white skin and white thoughts. But I hate
that man. What is the use of being Asika if I cannot take what I love
and reject what I hate? Go away, Vernoon, go away, you have angered me,
and if it were not for what you have said about that new law of mercy,
I think that I would cut your throat,” and again she boxed Jeekie’s
ears and kicked him in the shins.
Alan rose and bowed himself towards the door while she stood with her
back towards him, sobbing. As he was about to pass it she wheeled
round, wiping the tears from her eyes with her hand, and said:
“I forgot, I sent for you to thank you for your presents; that,”
and she pointed to the lion skin, “which they tell me you killed with
some kind of thunder to save the life of that old cannibal, and this,”
and she pulled off the necklace of claws, then added, “as I am too bad
to wear it, you had better take it back again,” and she threw it with
all her strength straight into Jeekie’s face.
Fearing worse things, the much maltreated Jeekie uttered a howl and
bolted through the door, while Alan, picking up the necklace, returned
it to her with a bow. She took it.
“Stop,” she said. “You are leaving the room without your mask
and my women are outside. Come here,” and she tied the thing upon his
head, setting it all awry, then pushed him from the place.
“Very poor joke, Major, very poor indeed,” said Jeekie when they
had reached their own apartment. “Lady make love to _you_;
_you_ play prig and lecture lady about holy customs of her country and
she box _my_ ear till head sing, also kick me all over and throw sharp
claws in face. Please you do it no more. The next time, who knows? she
stick knife in _my_ gizzard, then kiss _you_ afterward and say she so
sorry and hope she no hurt _you_. But how that help poor departed
Jeekie who get all kicks, while you have ha’pence?”
“Oh! be quiet,” said Alan; “you are welcome to the halfpence
if you would only leave me the kicks. The question is, how am I to get
out of this mess? While she was a beautiful savage devil one could deal
with the thing, but if she is going to become human it is another
matter.”
Jeekie looked at him with pity in his eyes.
“Always thought white man mad at bottom,” he said, shaking his big
head. “To benighted black nigger thing so very simple. All you got to
do, make love and cut when you get chance. Then she pleased as Punch,
everything go smooth and Jeekie get no more kicks. Christian religion
business very good, but won’t wash in Asiki-land. Your reverend uncle
find out that.”
Not wishing to pursue the argument, Alan changed the subject by asking
his indignant retainer if he thought that the Asika had meant what she
said when she offered to send the gold down to the coast.
“Why not, Major? That good lady always mean what she say, and what she
do too,” and he dabbed wrathfully at the scratches made by the lion’s
claws on his face, then added, “She know her own mind, not like
shilly-shally, see-saw white woman, who get up one thing and go to bed
another. If she love she love, if she hate she hate. If she say she
send gold, she send it, though pity to part with all that cash, because
’spect someone bag it.”
Alan reflected a while.
“Don’t you see, Jeekie, that here is a chance, if a very small one,
of getting a message to the coast. Also it is quite clear that if we are
ever able to escape, it will be impossible for us to carry this heavy
stuff, whereas if we send it on ahead, perhaps some of it might get
through. We will pack it up, Jeekie, at any rate it will be something
to do. Go now and send a message to the Asika, and ask her to let us
have some carpenters, and a lot of well-seasoned wood.”
The message was sent and an hour later a dozen of the native craftsmen
arrived with their rude tools and a supply of planks cut from a kind of
iron-wood or ebony tree. They prostrated themselves to Alan, then the
master of them rising, instantly began to measure Jeekie with a marked
reed. That worthy sprang back and asked what in the name of Bonsa, Big
and Little, they were doing, whereon the man explained with humility
that the Asika had said that she thought the white lord wanted the wood
to make a box to bury his servant in, as he, the said servant, had
offended her that morning, and doubtless the white lord wished to kill
him on that account, or perhaps to put him away under ground alive.
“Oh, my golly!” said Jeekie, shaking till his great knees knocked
together, “oh! my golly! here pretty go. She think you want bury me all
alive. That mean she want to be rid of Jeekie, because he got sit there
and play gooseberry when she wish talk alone with you. Oh, yes! I see
her little game.”
“Well, Jeekie,” said Alan, bursting into such a roar of laughter
that he nearly shook off his mask, “you had better be careful, for you
just told me that the Asika is not like a see-saw white woman and never
changes her mind. Say to this man that he must tell the Asika there is
a mistake, and that however much I should like to oblige her, I can’t
bury you because it has been prophesied to me that on the day you are
buried, I shall be buried also, and that therefore you must be kept
alive.”
“Capital notion that, Major,” said Jeekie, much relieved.
“She not want bury you just at present; next year perhaps, but not now.
I tell him.” And he did with much vigour.
This slight misconception having been disposed of, they explained to the
carpenters what was wanted. First, all the gold was emptied out of the
sacks in which it remained as the priests had brought it, and divided
into heaps, each of which weighed about forty pounds, a weight that
with its box Alan considered would be a good load for a porter. Of
these heaps there proved to be fifty-three, their total value, Alan
reckoned, amounting to about £100,000 sterling. Then the carpenters
were set to work to make a model box, which they did quickly enough and
with great ingenuity, cutting the wood with their native saws,
dovetailing it as a civilized craftsman would do, and finally securing
it everywhere with ebony pegs, driven into holes which they bored with
a hot iron. The result was a box that would stand any amount of rough
usage and when finally pegged down, one that could only be opened with
a hammer and a cold chisel.
This box-making went on for two whole days. As each of them was filled
and pegged down, the gold within being packed in sawdust to keep it
from rattling, Alan amused himself in adding an address with a feather
brush and a supply of red paint such as the Asiki priests used to
decorate their bodies. At first he was puzzled to know what address to
put, but finally decided upon the following:
_Major A. Vernon, care of Miss Champers, The Court, near Kingswell,
England._ Adding in the corner, _From A. V., Asiki Land, Africa._
It was all childish enough, he knew, yet when it was done he regarded
his handiwork with a sort of satisfaction. For, reflected Alan, if but
one of those boxes should chance to get through to England, it would
tell Barbara a great deal, and if it were addressed to himself, her
uncle could scarcely dare to take possession of it.
Then he bethought him of sending a letter, but was obliged to abandon
the idea, as he had neither pen, pencil, ink, nor paper left to him.
Whatever arts remained to them, that of any form of writing was now
totally unknown to the Asiki, although marks that might be writing, it
will be remembered, did appear on the inner side of the Little Bonsa
mask, an evidence of its great antiquity. Even in the days when they
had wrapped up the Egyptian, the Roman, and other early Munganas in
sheets of gold and set them in their treasure-house, apparently they
had no knowledge of it, for not even an hieroglyph or a rune appeared
upon the imperishable metal shrouds. Since that time they had evidently
decreased, not advanced, in learning till at the present day, except
for these relics and some dim and meaningless survival of rites that
once had been religious and were still offered to the same ancient
idols, there was little to distinguish them from other tribes of
Central African savages. Still Alan did something, for obtaining a
piece of white wood, which he smoothed as well as he was able with a
knife, he painted on it this message:
“Messrs. Aston, Old Calabar. Please forward accompanying fifty-three
packages, or as many as arrive, and cable as follows (all costs will be
remitted): Miss Champers, Kingswell, England. Prisoner among Asiki. No
present prospect of escape, but hope for best. Jeekie and I well.
Allowed send this, but perhaps no future message possible. Good-bye.
Alan.”
As it happened just as Alan was finishing this scrawl with a sad heart,
he heard a movement and glancing up, perceived standing at his side the
Asika, of whom he had seen nothing since the interview when she had
beaten Jeekie:
“What are those marks that you make upon the board, Vernoon?” she
asked suspiciously.
With the assistance of Jeekie, who kept at a respectful distance, he
informed her that they were a message in writing to tell the white men
at the coast to forward the gold to his starving family.
“Oh!” she said, “I never heard of writing. You shall teach it
me. It will serve to pass the time till we are married, though it will
not be of much use afterwards, as we shall never be separated any more
and words are better than marks upon a board. But,” she added
cheerfully, “I can send away this black dog of yours,” and she looked
at Jeekie, “and he can write to us. No, I cannot, for an accident might
happen to him, and they tell me you say that if he dies, you die also,
so he must stop here always. What have you in those little boxes?”
“The gold you gave me, Asika, packed in loads.”
“A small gift enough,” she answered contemptuously; “would
you not like more, since you value that stuff? Well, another time you
shall send all you want. Meanwhile the porters are waiting, fifty men
and three, as you sent me word, and ten spare ones to take the place of
any who die. But how they will find their way, I know not, since none
of them have ever been to the coast.”
An idea occurred to Alan, who had small faith in Jeekie’s
“ma” as a messenger.
“The Ogula prisoners could show them,” he said; “at any rate
as far as the forest, and after that they could find out. May they not
go, Asika?”
“If you will,” she answered carelessly. “Let them be ready to
start to-morrow at the dawn, all except their chief, Fahni, who must
stop here as a hostage. I do not trust those Ogula, who more than once
have threatened to make war upon us,” she added, then turned and bade
the priests bring in the bearers to receive their instructions.
Presently they came, picked men all of them, under the command of an
Asiki captain, and with them the Ogula, whom she summoned also.
“Go where the white lord sends you,” she said in an indifferent
voice, “carrying with you these packages. I do not know where it is, but
these man-eaters will show you some of the way, and if you fail in the
business but live to come back again, you shall be sacrificed to Bonsa
at the next feast; if you run away then your wives and children will be
sacrificed. Food shall be given you for your journey, and gold to buy
more when it is gone. Now, Vernoon, tell them what they have to do.”
So Alan, or rather Jeekie, told them, and these directions were so long
and minute, that before they were finished the Asika grew tired of
listening and went away, saying as she passed the captain of the
company:
“Remember my words, man, succeed or die, but of your land and its
secrets say nothing.”
“I hear,” answered the captain, prostrating himself.
That night Alan summoned the Ogula and spoke to them through Jeekie in
their own language. At first they declared that they would not leave
their chief, preferring to stay and die with him.
“Not so,” said Fahni; “go, my children, that I may live. Go
and gather the tribe, all the thousands of them who are men and can
fight, and bring them up to attack Asiki-land, to rescue me if I still
live, or to avenge me if I am dead. As for these bearers, do them no
harm, but send them on to the coast with the white man’s goods.”
So in the end the Ogula said that they would go, and when Alan woke up
on the following morning, he was informed that they and the Asiki
porters had already departed upon their journey. Then he dismissed the
matter from his mind, for to tell the truth he never expected to hear
of them any more.