THE PILOCARPIN
The _sultani_ duly appeared the next morning; women brought in firewood
and products of the country to trade; all was well. The entire day, and
the succeeding days for over a week, Kingozi sat under his big tree,
smoking his black pipe. The _sultani_ sat beside him. For long periods
at a time nothing at all was said. Then for equally long periods a
lively conversation went on, through an interpreter mostly, though
occasionally the _sultani_ launched into his bastard Swahili or Kingozi
ventured a few words in the new tongue. Once in a while some intimate
would saunter into view, and would be summoned by his king. Then
Kingozi patiently did the following things:
(a) He performed disappearing tricks with a rupee or other small
object; causing it to vanish, and then plucking it from unexpected
places.
(b) With a pair of scissors--which were magic aplenty in themselves--he
cut a folded paper in such a manner that when unfolded a row of paper
dolls was disclosed. This was a very successful trick. The pleased
warriors dandled them up and down delightedly in an _n'goma_.
(c) He opened and shut an opera hat. The ordinary "plug hat" was known
to these people, but not an opera hat.
(d) He allowed them to look through his prism glasses.
(e) On rare occasions he lit a match.
This vaudeville entertainment was always a huge success. The newcomers
squatted around the two chairs, and the conversation continued.
Bibi-ya-chui occasionally stood near and listened. The subjects were
trivial in themselves, and repeated endlessly.
Ten minutes of this bored her to the point of extinction. She could not
understand how Kingozi managed to survive ten hours day after day. Only
once was he absent from his post, and then for only a few hours. He
went out accompanied by Simba and a dozen _shenzis_, and shot a
wildebeeste. The tail of this--an object much prized as a fly whisk--he
presented to his majesty. All the rest of the time he talked and
listened.
"It is such childish nonsense!" the Leopard Woman expostulated. "How
can you do it?"
"Goes with the job. It's a thing you must learn to do if you would get
on in this business."
And once more she seemed to catch a glimpse of the infinity of savage
Africa, which has been the same for uncounted ages, impersonal, without
history, without the values of time!
But had she known it, Kingozi was getting what he required. Information
came to him a word now, a word then; promises came to him in single
phrases lost in empty gossip. He collected what he wanted grain by
grain from bushels of chaff. The whole sum of his new knowledge could
have been expressed in a paragraph, took him a week to get, but was
just what he wanted. If he had asked categorical questions, he would
have received lies. If he had attempted to hurry matters, he would have
got nothing at all.
About sundown the _sultani_ would depart, followed shortly by the last
straggler of his people. The succeeding hours were clear of _shenzis_,
for either the custom of the country or the presence of strangers
seemed to demand an _n'goma_ every evening. In the night stillness
sounds carried readily. The drums, no longer rubbed but beaten in
rhythm; the shrill wailing chants of women; the stamp and shuffle of
feet; the cadenced clapping of hands rose and fell according to the
fervour of the dance. The throb of these sounds was as a background to
the evening--fierce, passionate, barbaric.
After the departure of the _sultani_ Kingozi took a bath and changed
his clothes. The necessity for this was more mental than physical. Then
he relaxed luxuriously. It was then that he resumed his relations with
the Leopard Woman, and that they discussed matters of more or less
importance to both.
The first evening they talked of the wonder of the ivory stockade.
Kingozi had not yet had an opportunity to find out whence the tusks had
come, whether the elephants had been killed in this vicinity, or
whether the ivory had been traded from the Congo.
"It is very valuable," he said. "I must find out whether old
Stick-in-the-mud knows what they are worth, or whether he can be traded
out of them on any reasonable basis."
"You will not be going farther," she suggested one evening, apropos of
nothing.
"Farther? Why not?" he asked rather blankly.
"You told me you were an ivory hunter," she pointed out.
"Ah--yes. But I have hardly the goods to trade--come back later," he
stumbled, for once caught off his guard. "I'm really looking for new
hunting grounds."
She did not pursue the subject; but the enigmatic smile lurked for a
moment in the depths of her eyes.
Every night after supper Kingozi caused his medicine chest to be
brought out and opened, and for a half-hour he doctored the sick. On
this subject he manifested an approach to enthusiasm.
"I know I can't doctor them all," he answered her objection, "and that
it's foolish to pick out one here and there; but it interests me. I
told you I was a medical student by training." He fingered over the
square bottles, each in its socket. "This is not the usual safari drug
list," he said. "I like to take these queer cases and see what I can do
with them. I may learn something; at any rate, it interests me. McCloud
at Nairobi fitted me out; and told me what it would be valuable to
observe."
She appeared interested, and shortly he became enough convinced of this
to show and explain each drug separately. The quinine he carried in the
hydrochlorate instead of the sulphate, and he waxed eloquent telling
her why. Crystals of iodine as opposed to permanganate of potash for
antiseptic he discussed. From that he branched into antisepsis as
opposed to asepsis as a practical method in the field.
"Theory has nothing to do with it," said he. "It's a matter of which
will _work!_"
It was all technical; but it interested her for the simple reason that
Kingozi was really enthusiastic. True enthusiasm, without pose or
self-consciousness, invariably arouses interest.
"Now here's something you'll never see in another safari kit," said he,
holding up one of the square bottles filled with small white crystals,
"and that wouldn't be found in this one except for an accident. It's
pilocarpin."
"What is pilocarpin?" she asked, making a difficulty of the word.
"It is really a sort of eye dope," he explained. "You know atropin--the
stuff an oculist uses in your eyes when he wants to examine
them--leaves your vision blurred for a day or so."
"Yes, I know that."
"The effect of atropin is to expand the pupil. Pilocarpin is just the
opposite--it contracts the pupil."
"What need could you possibly have of that?"
"There's the joke: I haven't. But when I was outfitting I could not get
near enough phenacetin. I suppose you know that we use phenacetin to
induce sweating as first treatment of fever."
"I am not entirely ignorant. I can treat fevers, of course."
"Well, I took all they could spare. Then McCloud suggested pilocarpin.
Though it is really an eye drug, to be used externally, it also has an
effect internally to induce sweating. So that's why I have it."
She was examining the bottles.
"But you have atropin also. Why is that?"
"There's a good deal of ophthalmia or trachoma floating around some
native districts. I thought I might experiment."
"And this"--she picked up a third bottle--"ah, yes, morphia. But how
much alike they all are."
"In appearance, yes; in effect most radically and fatally
different--like people," smiled Kingozi.
But though Kingozi's scientific interest was keen in certain
directions--as ethnology, drugs, and zoology--it had totally blind
spots. Thus the Leopard Woman kept invariably on her table the bowl of
fresh flowers; and she manifested an unfailing liking to investigate
such strange shrubs, trees, flowers, or nondescript growths as
flourished thereabouts.
"Do you know how one names these?" she asked him concerning certain
strange blooms.
"I know nothing whatever about vegetables," he replied with indifferent
scorn.
Several times after that, forgetting, she proffered the same question
and received exactly the same reply. Finally it became a joke to her.
Slyly, at sufficient intervals so that he should not become conscious
of the repetition, she took delight in eliciting this response, always
the same, always delivered with the same detached scorn:
"I know nothing whatever about vegetables."
In the meantime Simba, with great enthusiasm, continued his drill of
the _askaris_. Kingozi gave them an hour early in the day. They
developed rapidly from wild trigger yanking. An allowance of two
cartridges apiece proved them no great marksmen, but at least steady on
discharge.
The "business conversation" Kingozi projected with the Leopard Woman
did not take place until late in the week. By that time he had pieced
together considerable information, as follows:
The mountain ranges at their backs possessed three practicable routes.
Beyond the ranges were grass plains with much game. Water could be had
in certain known places. No people dwell on these plains. This was
because of the tsetse fly that made it impossible to keep domestic
cattle. Far--very far--perhaps a month, who knows, is the country of
the _sultani_ M'tela. This is a very great _sultani_--very great
indeed--a _sultani_ whose spears are like the leaves of grass. His
people are fierce, like the Masai, like the people of Lobengula, and
make war their trade. His people are known as the Kabilagani. The way
through the mountains is known; guides can be had. The way across the
plains is known; but for guides one must find representatives of a
little scattered plains tribe. That can be done. _Potio_ for two weeks
can be had--and so on.
Kingozi was particularly interested in these Kabilaganis: and pressed
for as much information as he could. Strangely enough he did not
mention the ivory stockade, nor did he attempt either to trade or to
determine whether or not the _sultani_ knew its value.
At the end of eight days he knew what he wished to know.
"I shall leave in two days," he told the Leopard Woman. "I should
suggest that you go to-morrow. I will send Simba with you to show you
the water-hole in the kopje. After that you know the country for
yourself."
"But I am not going back!" she cried. "I am going on."
"That is impossible." He went on to explain to her what he had learned
of the country ahead: omitting, however, all reference to M'tela and
his warrior nation. "More plains: more game. That's all. You have more
of that than you can use back where we came from. And with every step
you are farther away. I am going on--very far. I may not come back at
all."
She listened to all his arguments, but shook her head obstinately at
their end.
"Your plan does not please me," said she. "I will go and see these
plains for myself."
This was final, and Kingozi at last came to see it so.
"I was going to suggest that I relieve you of your _askaris_," said he,
"but if you persist in this foolish and aimless plan, you will need
them for yourself."
"Cannot we go together, at least for a distance?"
But to this he was much opposed.
"I shall be travelling faster than your cumbersome safari," he
objected. "I could not delay."
And in this decision he seemed as firm as had she in her intention to
proceed. After a light reconnaissance, so to speak, of argument,
appeal, and charm, she gave over trying to persuade him, and fell back
on her usual lazily indifferent attitude. Kingozi went ahead with his
preparations, laying in _potio_, examining kits, preparing in every way
his compact little caravan for the long journey before it. Then
something happened. He changed his mind and decided to combine safaris
with the Leopard Woman.