We were passing into the thick of the “low town,” and on our right
loomed the ugly oblong of the douane, the French custom-house that
stands at the converging of the deep-Sahara routes. Borak looked at
it and chuckled.
“Old Arnauld” (the customs official) “is in a fair pother. There’s
a frighful mixture in the trek, blacks and browns from a dozen
different basins down below, and you may imagine there’s a lack
of passports. So that’s Arnauld’s job; to divine. Or rather it’s
Bou Dik’s job, for the orderly has all the work. When I passed the
market coming to you Bou Dik was tackling an old chap who claims to
be Senegal but looks away east of that, a pot-bellied old swine,
black as a chimney-pot, solemn as an archbishop, and blind as a bat.
I gather all he wants is to be let pass quietly on his way to Holy
Mekka, where he hopes to die. Bou Dik, though, is full of wild and
horrid notions. He has crossed the trail lately of a dervish man
who has the word that Mouley Saa[21] is now booked to descend in
the guise of a blackamoor, and naturally, having a fat berth with
the Infidel, Bou Dik isn’t going to let the Deliverer into _his_
department--not if he can help it. So just now Bou Dik is death and
leprosy on niggers. I wish you could have heard the row.”
I was to hear it presently. We had arrived at a chain swung across
the black street and, ducking under it, we came into the open market
square. I had seen the place a hundred times, by sun and moon and
stars, and still familiarity had not quite worn off my first sense
of it as a haven between the winds, the anchorage of a remote white
port of call lost in the ocean of stone. To-night that illusion was
deepened a dozenfold. There is no other metaphor in speech so true
as “ships of the desert.” They were here. To-night I knew that I
had known before only the small fry of that dry sea world, only the
shore-huggers, the humble brotherhood of the coastwise trade. Here
to-night was the creature of the main, the deep-sea squadron, the
tall fleet.
From where we stood, clear to the further shore of dim arcades, the
ground was hidden under the mass of kneeling beasts and heaped bales,
a tumbled thing, monstrous in sleep. We picked our way through the
ruck, lighting matches from time to time when we found ourselves
trapped in blind alleys between bales and humps, or felt our way
barred by the hairy neck of a camel curving waist-high across the
night. Mountains whisked fat tails at us; sleeping legs sprawled from
beneath hills of cargo like dead men pinned under wreckage. Borak
took hold of my elbow.
“This way,” he said. “I hear the voice of Bou Dik.”
I heard it too, impassive, obstinate. There was a small fire of
brush-roots throwing a glow around a ring of specters in the center
of the field of ruin. The burnooses, all the same color of desert
dust, might indeed have been winding-sheets; the hooded faces, gaunt,
bone-built, played upon by the weak and tricky illumination from
beneath, might have been skulls. And in the midst of the communing
dead Bou Dik, enveloped in his red robe of authority, was the devil
himself presiding.
His voice had ceased. As we settled behind him a man got to his feet
on the side beyond the fire. With a gesture which had in it something
of the trained orator he put back the hood of his burnoose, baring
his strong neck and his round, blue-black, kinky-polled negroid head.
“Thou hast demanded, sidi, who is this man who is the father of my
father. Thou hast demanded whence he comes, whither he goes, what he
desires. Now I will tell thee all these things, I, Belkano, who am
not without power in the country which is under Kalgou.”
He spoke a quaint Arabic in which all the throat-sounds were brought
forward and softened--such a tongue, Borak told me, as black boys
pick up in the Mohammedan _zaouias_ at Sikasso and Timbuktu--quaint,
and yet more easily understood in the Mzab than dialects not so far
away, in Tunis, say, or the Moroccan uplands.
“The father of my father,” he said, “is a very great and holy man.”
In the pause that followed all the eyes turned upon the object
deposited at the speaker’s feet. It was discerned to be human.
“Black as a chimney-pot, solemn as an archbishop, blind as a bat.”
Like many of Borak’s observations, that one had everything in it but
the essential. The essential thing was the man’s enormous separation.
Whether it was the infirmity of his great age or whether it was his
“holiness” (which may account for many things), he was removed to a
distance which could not be measured. He lived on another planet. He
lived within another sky, the sky of his own skin.
There was something majestic in the completeness of his immobility.
Save for a faint, slow, rhythmical pulse of his swollen lower lip
there was nothing visibly alive in him. Not once did the dead
eyeballs, sustained in little cups of rheum, shift from the line of
dead ahead. From the first to the last of that audience he remained
in the attitude in which I imagine he must have been deposited, a
sphinx thing in ebony, content with memories. Memories gorgeous
or infernal. His lip fascinated me. I could not get my eyes away
from that pendulous and extraordinary tissue, throbbing with faint,
ordered convulsions in the orange light. It was as if the creature’s
heart, appalled by something under the black sky of skin, had broken
prison and escaped so far, only to be caught on the threshold and
hang there eternally, beating.
I had to shake myself. In a whisper, to Borak: “What’s that he was
saying? The tall one.”
“He says that his grandfather is bound on the pilgrimage to Mekka
because he is tremendously holy, and he is tremendously holy because
he has a huge sin on his soul. Not bad, eh? It has happened before.”
Bou Dik’s voice was heard. “What then is that sin?”
The dark orator looked around the circle beneath him.
“It is known in Andiorou and Adar. It is known in Damagarin country
and even in Manga country in the east.” He looked at Bou Dik. “Now I
will recount thee that history, sidi.”
His gaze returned to the fire. I shall not soon forget him as he
stood there against the stars of the desert night, tall, glossy,
vibrant, speaking out in a strong voice the story of the moribund
flesh beside him.
“Know thou then that it was in the years before the missionaries of
God (to whom be the prayer) and of his Prophet (be his bliss eternal
by the streams that never cease!) had brought to my tribe the Word
and the Flame of Islam. Glory to the One God!”
“Glory to the One God!” the echo rustled around the ring.
“In those days then the men of my people lived in darkness. They
performed no ablutions. Their prayers were to images made with their
hands. The strongest and bravest of the young men of that tribe was
Djeba, who was later called Djim, as I will recount to thee, sidi,
and who was to become the father of my father, and who is this man.
The young man who was next to Djeba in strength and courage was
Moa. These two were brothers of the milk. Of these two, each was
the other’s breath. When these two went into the bush to hunt, the
animals said to one another, ‘Strike if thou wilt amongst seven men,
but avoid the Brothers of the Milk!’ So lived Djeba and Moa in those
days. Djeba was the spear of Moa; Moa was Djeba’s shield.
“In those days then came a war-party from the south, from the country
of Gando under Sokoto, the country of braggarts and thieves. They
came out of the bush in the morning and moved toward the village,
casting their spears aloft and beating on drums. The warriors of
my people did not fail to answer them. They advanced out of the
stockade. Nikato, the Headman, was in the forefront, and at his two
shoulders went Djeba and Moa. That sunrise Djeba slew five of the
sons of Gandoland. Moa slew five. Neither cut nor bruise was on their
bodies. _Sing the Valor of the Brothers of the Milk!_”
The apostrophe rang out, absorbed, deep-throated, across the sleeping
caravan. My eyes went to the flesh on the ground. Into that dark
house had those words been able to penetrate? Had their ringing set
some hidden echo ringing? How could one say? The lip that was like
the man’s drawn heart pulsed in the same laggard, imperturbable
count; the dead eyeballs did not shift. But perhaps they were dead
only that they might see the better the sunlight of that vanished and
heroic myth.
“_Sing the Valor and the Victory of the Brothers of the Milk!_
“That war-party was beaten; its dead soiled the ground; its living
fled into the bush. That day the drums were beaten in the village
and muttons were killed; that night a feast was made. The young men
danced and the old men made sacrifice to their images.
“But the images of those days were idolatrous and had no power
over good and ill. _La illah il allah!_[22] Accordingly then it was
written that the survivors of that war-party, gathering again in
the bush and being drunk with the desire of revenge, fell once more
upon the village in the hour when the young men were full-fed and
their weapons away. So in that night many of my tribe were slain. The
stockades were thrown down; the houses were given to the flame. In
the light of that flame many virgins were desecrated, many old men
disemboweled, many children spun on spears. But those of good growth
and being were taken away. Djeba and Moa were taken away.
“How can I recount to thee, sidi, the days of that march? Am I then
another Errendi, that the words of my lamentation should fall like
burning oil on a new wound? But the history is well known in all the
country above the River, for my father’s brother, Ahmed ben Djeba,
he who had it out of the mouth of Djeba, has made it a chant at a
hundred feasts and sung it under a hundred council-trees. He has sung
the days of that going, the weeks, each week after the other through
the hotness of that bush-trail. He has told the tale of the moons. In
the roof of his mouth he has recalled the song of the lash that fell
on those men’s shoulders and made of their flesh the flesh of goats
that is hung on the stockade to cure. He has stirred the dung-heaps
to bring in memory the meat that was given them at evening before
they fell down to sleep. With his tongue he has made the clank of the
chain that bound them together, the heavy chain of iron that bound
together even those two who were bound by the strong bond of the
breast that gave them suck!
“Many among them died. When they died their bodies were cut from the
chain with swords. Djeba and Moa grew thin. When Djeba looked at Moa
he saw a skeleton that he did not know. When Moa looked at Djeba he
saw a thing which filled him with terror. At night each bade the
other farewell, saying, ‘In the morning I shall be dead.’ But they
were strong and they did not die. Only their minds became empty.
“Then they came at last to the banks of a great lake. This lake was
so great that when they had been sold to a white boatman and when
they had come out in the boat so far that they could no longer see
the bank behind them, then they could yet see no bank before, and the
water was all about them to the sky like the sand in the desert of
Djouf. To my father’s brother Djeba has recounted that they were more
than the length of a moon in that going, but it must be recalled that
his mind was empty, since no lake to be compared with that is in our
knowledge. A wind arose on that lake and water came into the boat.
They were athirst, but when they drank of that water it was sour and
their thirst consumed them tenfold after. What man is there master
of words sufficiently bitter to recount that going upon the lake of
those men who were captive?
“Then they came at last to the other bank of that lake, and they were
taken up swiftly into the bush of the country beyond, for there were
war-boats of other white men on the water. And on another day they
came to a great _ksar_ of a hundred shelters, and in the market-place
of that _ksar_ they were exposed for sale. They were nine. Nine men
left out of sevenscore strong men! What battle in the memory of the
tribes so disastrous as that going! What ambush so bloody as that
march of the companions of the Brothers of the Milk!”
For a moment after the outcry the orator’s lips closed over the
firelit sheen of his white teeth. I suppose that he (like his
paternal uncle) had recited this tropic saga a hundred times in the
villages of the black south. I doubt not that at this point he had
been accustomed to pause, to receive for a moment the sweet applause
of a groan.
“And so,” he resumed, “they were sold that day into labor. And of the
Brothers of the Milk, those whose eyes saw a single thing and whose
lips spoke the same, Moa was taken one way and Djeba another, and
their hearts died. Djeba, the blood-child of chieftains, was driven
like a bullock up into the bush by a white driver, and when his
weakness grew on him and he stumbled that driver struck him with a
thong.
“That country beyond the great lake is a fat country, full of
plantings of maize and cotton in the uplands where the bush is
cleared. It is known by the name of Djoja, and in extent it lies from
the banks of the lake into the interior many marches away. Djeba was
taken to a certain planting and thrown into a _dar_ in a stockade as
great as a small _ksar_. There he had the company of other captives
from the River, from the Camaroun, and from the River Greater than
the River in the south. Some there were who had been there so great
a time that they had forgotten their own tongues and knew only the
Djoja speech, and some had been born in that stockade.
“Then they were driven into the fields to labor. In his weakness the
sun beat upon the head of Djeba and made him forget. Then he was
driven back to the stockade, and the rain came through the thatch of
the _dar_ and wet his body and fever consumed his heart. But already
his heart was dead; only when he slept and saw Moa in a dream did he
live.
“And that driver said to him, ‘How art thou called?’ And he said,
‘Djeba.’ And the driver laughed and cried, ‘That is no name for a
black boy; I christen thee Djim; and Djim thou art!” And he went
away, still laughing as if he had turned a word of wit. So a hate
of him came into Djeba, and Djeba would have killed him, only that
he was a tall, great-bodied man, and Djeba, who had been worth five
warriors in his strength, was like a child in weakness now.
“That fever burned his heart and his bowels. He was given to eat of a
cous-cous made of sour maize and swineflesh. Then his stomach turned
over. He vomited. He said, ‘Now at last I am to die.’
“But then a woman came into that _dar_. She laid a hand on his head
and called him Djim, but the hand was cool, and the anger went from
his heart. She gave him milk to drink, and his pain ceased. His
sickness passed. In the darkness of that shelter that woman was like
the healing benignity of the moon when it has come an hour high in
the east. She spoke in tones of compassion, and he was made whole.
“‘Who then is that woman?’ he asked of the men, ‘and how is she
called?’
“‘She is Mis’us, and she lives in the _dar kebir_’ (the Big House).
“‘Is she then the woman of that driver?’ he asked.
“His companions laughed. ‘Nay, she is the woman of Maas Djo.’
“‘Who then is Maas Djo?’
“‘Maas Djo is the Maasa, the Headman. It is his silver with which
thou wert got.’
“‘Why then have I not seen this Headman?’
“‘For the reason that since thou hast come he has been gone with a
war-party to fight the Yankis to the north.’
“‘He has gone then to take other captives?’
“‘Nay he has gone to save those he has got.’ And then they recounted
to Djeba: ‘The war-parties of the Yankis who come from behind the
rivers of the north choke the trails. The bush never sleeps for the
sound of their drums. Their torches are amongst the settlements. The
long peace of the white men is broken; new confederations are formed;
terror is loosed abroad. The lust of booty and of blood is aflame in
the Yankis. It is said that they devour babes; it is known that when
they make prayer in their holy places their ablutions are performed
in the blood of a lamb. Such are they!’
“Then they recounted to Djeba how Maas Djo and the other Headmen, the
holders of plantings, all the young men, how they had gathered to the
war-drums in the trails, how they had chosen chiefs and gone away
into the bush, and how the sky above them was that day the color of
gore.
“And Djeba asked them, ‘Which is then the stronger?’ And they
answered, ‘The party of Maas Djo is the stronger. Mayhap even now it
has driven the Yankis back across their rivers. Mayhap to-morrow he
will return home!’
“But one amongst them who had been born into labor in that stockade
in Djoja and who was now an old man said, ‘Mayhap not.’ That same
man, who was called by the name of Moz, came into the _dar_ at night
and said in a low voice to Djeba, ‘The Yankis are like the leaves of
the pepper-tree; they are small, but their number is beyond count.
Hark thou well when the bush is sleeping and thou wilt hear their
powder-guns in the north.’
“Then Djeba harkened, but he heard no guns. Nevertheless he sharpened
his reaping-tool. But he was not yet strong from his sickness.
“From time to time that woman from the _dar kebir_ came to bring him
sweet milk and speak in tones of compassion. And it was written that
the heart of Djeba, the son of chieftains, should grow soft and meek.
But when that driver perceived Mis’us ministering to the captive’s
weakness he jeered with mocking laughter, and the woman cowered
before it as though she had been afraid and fled away to the Big
House. And Djeba’s hatred of that man grew like a pain.
“‘When I am stronger I will kill him,’ he said.
“So he grew stronger.
“On another night that man called Moz came in secret and said to
Djeba, ‘Hark thou well in the night, and before another moon has gone
thou wilt hear the drums of the tribesmen of the north.’ And when he
saw Djeba take up his reaping-tool he said, ‘Rather shouldst thou
sing for joy. For these men here who are ignorant _niggahs_ have
told thee things apart from the truth. Thou hast spoken to me of
they milk-brother who is called Moa, who was sold into the planting
of Maas Djoj Blaak. It has come to my knowledge that Moa has fled
from that planting, and with others from other plantings has gone to
fight in the war-parties of the Yankis, where they are received with
honors. Is it probable that such men eat babes? No, Djim, I repeat to
thee, these here are child-headed _niggahs_, who know not that the
Yankis come to set them free out of labor in the plantings. No, Djim,
rather shouldst thou sing for joy, for when thou see’st the Yankis
thou wilt see thy milk-brother in their train.’
“Then Djeba’s heart sang for joy.
“‘Again, again I shall see my brother!’ he cried. ‘Again our eyes
shall behold one thing and our breaths shall be one!’ And he said to
Moz, ‘Now I too will run away from the stockade and I will go to meet
Moa.’
“And Moz said, ‘But the driver will prevent thee.’
“And Djeba said, ‘No, for I will kill the driver before I go.’
“And Djeba waited, feeding his heart on the thought of Moa and on the
promise of the death of that white man who had laughed.
“There came an evening when he watched and saw the driver going out
of the stockade into the edge of the bush. So Djeba took up his sharp
reaping-tool and followed, creeping near the ground. He came near
to the driver. He saw him very clearly. The driver was dressed in
finery, with a hat like a deep drum fashioned of fur, and a tunic
of blue cloth with buttons of silver. Djeba saw him against the
light of dusk in the sky. But the driver was not alone. Mis’us was
there, where she had stolen for solitude. It was she that the driver
had followed, as the desert hyena slinks slavering after the lone
gazelle. The fear was in Djeba that if he struck the man, then the
woman would give the alarm and he would be taken again. He might
have struck both. But his heart was softened by the compassion of
the woman, and what was written in the book of the future he was not
given yet to read. Had he known! Had he but known to strike--the
driver afterward, perhaps--but the woman first.
“But while he hesitated, already it was too late. He saw the driver
step forward and grasp the woman’s arm, uttering words he could not
understand. He saw the woman, standing quietly, turn her head and
spit once and spit twice in the driver’s face.
“She continued to stand quietly, like stone. But the driver flung off
toward the stockade, laughing terribly in his deep chest.
“Then Djeba would have returned and waited another chance at the man.
But the thought of Moa was strong on him, and the bush was at his
back. So he said to himself, ‘I will return with Moa,’ and he crept
away.
“All that night he walked swiftly. He hid himself and slept in the
day and advanced by night again. He did not know where he went, but
the image and affection of his milk-brother were so powerful in
Djeba that it seemed he would come truly to Moa. Because of that he
remained strong. His stomach was empty but his heart was fed, and he
penetrated the bush with the swiftness of a panther. He would have
wished to speak with others and know his way, but if he saw slaves in
the fields then he saw with them a white driver, and he was afraid.
“There came a time when he saw a Senegal man working at the edge of a
maize-planting, and no driver was in sight. So he showed himself, and
he asked, ‘Where then are the Yankis?’ And the man answered him, ‘Go
thou to Tlaanta. I know nothing, but at Tlaanta all things are known.’
“‘Where then is Tlaanta?’ Djeba demanded. And the man said, ‘If thou
knowest not Tlaanta then indeed thou art an ignorant _niggah_. Turn
thy face to the north, and at nightfall thou wilt behold a great
_ksar_ which is Tlaanta, which is the chief place of Djoja, where all
things are known--”
(“Tlaanta.” Something queer was happening down in the subconscious
regions of my brain. “Tlaanta, the chief place of Djoja.” The reader
may laugh, but so firmly was my attention fixed in the picture of
some fabulous tropical mid-African scene that the familiar syllables,
blurred in the Arab utterance, touched still too lightly to make a
breach. “Tlaanta Djoja--” I glanced uneasily at Borak, as though he
could help. He returned my stare with a supercilious grin, as much
as to say, “My word! you’re not letting yourself be taken in by this
fantastic claptrap!” “_Tlaanta_, the chief place of _Djoja_”--“_Maas
Djo_”--“_Yankis_”--“_Moz_”--“_Djim_”--The equatorial forest-walls
were trying their hardest to topple over in my dull brain. But there
was no time. I had to get back to the saga unfolding in the strong
voice of the orator in that ember-lit Sahara night.)
“--And when the night fell Djeba saw before him in the sky a pillar
of light. And he came on a hill and saw a great settlement in flames.
And then all about him came people fleeing in confusion through the
dark bush, carrying on their heads their mills and cooking-pots and
crying, ‘The Yankis! The Yankis are come!’
“Then Djeba was glad. He went down toward burning Tlaanta. The flame
was in his face and his heart was hot, and he stood and called aloud
the name of his brother of the milk. But he saw no man. A lad ran out
of a shelter that took fire. Djeba caught that lad by the arm and
cried, ‘Where are the Yankis?’ And the lad screamed, ‘Gone! Gone!’
and he fell down with his eyes wide open, and Djeba saw that he was
dead.
“And Djeba said to himself, ‘If the Yankis are gone and Moa with
them, then it will be his thought to lead them to that planting where
I was a slave, to kill that driver and set me free.’ So he turned his
back on the burning _ksar_. He ran all through that night. Others ran
with him; other slaves freed by the war-party’s passage. They turned
this way and that in the darkness, chanting the war-chants of the
Yankis, and their paths through the bush were ruin. In the night they
pillaged and burned stockades, in the morning they marched in bands,
in the afternoon they slept along the trails. But by day and by night
their minds were turned with freedom, and when Djeba ran amongst them
demanding word of Moa their answers were without sense.
“There was a night when Djeba came upon a clearing. He saw a stockade
in flames. The light of those flames showed him the fields, and then
he recognized that planting and his spirit leaped with joy. He said,
‘Now Moa has come here seeking me, and his revenge is before my eyes!’
“And Djeba ran bounding across the fields and came into the flame of
the stockade, and he called Moa’s name. He shouted the war-call of
their tribe. He shouted the hunting-call that had been fixed between
the milk-brothers in the old days in the bush.
“Then it seemed to Djeba that he heard the answer to the
hunting-call, but in the crackling of the flames he could not say
whence it came. Then he bounded on in the stockade. In that circle of
fire he saw a man standing. It was a white man he had never seen. His
breast was black with blood, his head hung down, and he wept. Djeba
went toward him boldly.
“‘Tell me, then, where is Moa?’
“The man looked at him with dull, heavy eyes from which the tears ran
down, and for answer he said, ‘Where is my wife, boy? Where are my
servants? I am Maas Djo. I have come home.’
“Then Djeba perceived that the man was possessed, so he did not harm
him, but ran on. He leaped like a panther through all the stockade.
He bounded through the wall and stood in the lighted field, and there
was nothing there but his shadow. Then he ran toward the bush, and
there he saw a figure. He pursued, and the figure ran into the bush,
but Djeba was too swift, and overtook it, and he saw it was that
woman, who crouched like a terrified gazelle and watched his coming
with large eyes.
“And he said, ‘It is I.’
“When the woman heard that she trembled with relief and took hold of
his arm and whispered, ‘It is thou, Djim! I thought it was _he_. I
thought thou wert that drunken monster pursuing me still!’
“When he heard that, there came into Djeba’s mind the memory and the
hate of that driver. And he said, ‘Where is he now?’ And the woman,
grasping his arm more tightly at that instant, whispered, ‘Hush,
thou, and hark! He comes!’
“Then near them Djeba heard the fall of feet and he saw the man
advancing through the bush. He saw his shape plain and black against
the glow beyond the leaves; the shape of that fur hat he remembered,
in the form of a deep drum, tilted wildly; the shoulders thrust out
with that tunic of silver buttons, the elbows swaggering. And he saw
that the figure was drunk and lustful and that he came in cunning
silence amongst the leaves, and he knew that the time of his revenge
was at hand.
“So Djeba sprang through the leaves and caught the man’s neck in his
fingers. They fell down in the dark on the ground, and there they
fought. But Djeba’s powerful hands were about the man’s throat, and
the man lay quiet and breathed no more. Then Djeba went back, but the
terrified woman was gone.
“Then Djeba returned across the field toward the stockade, calling
Moa’s name again, and in the field near the stockade he saw lying the
body of a man. The man was despoiled of his clothes and naked, and
his head cut three-quarters from his trunk. And Djeba looked and saw
that it was that driver.
“Then Djeba said to himself, ‘The night is full of infernal
creatures, witches and _djinoun_. I have slain the driver in his
finery in the bush, and here he lies an hour dead and naked in the
field. The night is red with devil-work.’ A fear came on him and his
teeth knocked together. Nevertheless he went back to the bush, laid
hold of that other man’s feet, and pulled him through the bush to the
field, and there he looked at the face of the man he had slain.
“_He looked at the face of the man he had slain!_”
The syllables of the loud repetition went away across the sleeping
floor of the square and played among the invisible arcades, echoes
deep-toned, momentous, tragic. And in the glow of the embers I saw
the lip of that oblivious clay pulsing, pulsing, with the same
laggard and monotonous beat. I continued to stare at it. You may be
certain now that I stared. The short hairs at the back of my skull
stood up and pricked the skin. For the wonder of it. Even to that
Senegal orator himself the saga he repeated remained fabulous, an
epic of equatorial rivers. Chanted first by son and then by grandson
at a hundred feasts and under a hundred village council-trees and
grown into the body of mid-African legendry, not till this night
had it come to ears that heard; to eyes that saw with the eyes of
that ancient, moribund, blind, black wanderer. For now I knew that
I had heard the tale of that incendiary night on a “Djoja planting”
before, not once, but many, many times; not in the glow of a Sahara
camp-fire, but in the ember light of a Hancock County chimney-nook,
where my own grandmother Peyton used to sit before bedtime thirty
years agone, reciting a saga of her own.
The narrator’s voice was heard again, rushing, staccato.
“Then Djeba ran through the bush to find that woman, his one thought
that he might now slay her too. For he perceived now that she must
be a witch-doctress, thus by compassion to have blinded his eyes. He
ran with all his power. How long he ran, what man can say? Sometimes
he seemed to see that woman as a shadow in the bush before him and
sometimes as a bird flying before him through the trees. In him there
was no hunger save the hunger for her killing, no thirst save the
thirst for her blood, no weariness save the weariness of the damned
soul.
“And then there was a time when it seemed to Djeba that he was in
the midst of many men. He saw that they were white men and that they
moved in a thousand ranks. Ruin lay behind them and thunder ran
around. And he remembered the words of Moz: ‘The Yankis are like the
leaves of the pepper-tree; they are small, but their number is beyond
count.’ And when the nights came Djeba saw their camp-fires, and even
their fires were beyond count.
“A forgetfulness came on Djeba. He ran from fire to fire, crying,
‘Where is Moa?’ And those men mocked him, saying, ‘Moa what?’ But
Djeba screamed at them and ran on. Or sometimes they named him
_Samboh_, saying, ‘Hold, _Samboh_. Sit down with us now and sing!’
Then Djeba thanked them, and sat down with them and sang, and the
war-chant of the Yankis filled the sky.
“And after many days Djeba came with the war-party to the banks of
that lake, and there he beheld a bearded chieftain sitting on a
horse, and he fell down on his face and wept. And he implored, ‘That
I come again to my own country beyond this water, where Moa, my
brother, has returned, and where he awaits me in the village of my
tribe!’ And that chieftain heard.
“In after-days then was Djeba placed in a boat, together with many of
the River and the Cameroun, and he returned across that lake where
the waters lay to the sky like the sands in the desert of Djouf. Then
they made a village on the shore. But Djeba left them. He penetrated
the bush through which he had marched many years before, bound to
that chain. He penetrated the country of enemies and he passed
through. Then Djeba came to his own village again. There were old men
there who knew him when he spoke his name. They rejoiced and made a
feast. All night they feasted. And one of the old men said to Djeba,
‘Moa, thy brother of the milk was taken with thee. Where then is Moa?’
“And Djeba said, ‘I do not know.’ And he took none of the feast.
“And in the years afterward, when Djeba had taken wives and got
sons, there came into our country the missionaries of God (to whom be
the prayer) and of his Prophet (may his bliss never decrease)----
“_La illah il allah!_
“And they spoke the word of the Koran to Djeba, and Djeba’s heart
turned in his breast. And he said then, ‘My heart can no longer
contain a lie. Hark all to the truth. Moa, my brother of the
milk--which bond is sacred--Moa, my brother, him I slew with my own
hands in that land which is beyond the great water. I slew him, being
tricked by a witch-woman. And that witch-woman I was not able to
slay! That then is my sin!’
“That then is the sin of Djeba. I have spoken, I, Belkano, who am the
son of his son!”
In the hush that followed that deep-toned verbal signature my breath
whistled small in my throat.
“Lord! Lord! Oh, my Lord!”
Borak eyed me with a smirk and a grunt. The black fellow showed his
shining teeth again. He took another breath into his lungs.
“For the length of thirty Ramadans the father of my father has not
opened his mouth to any man in speech. Because of that sin, because
he would not look at any man, his eyes have become blind. He would
not hear, and his ears are deaf. Thus men know that he is holy. So
they come for many marches to touch his hand. Sometimes then his lips
are opened, and for their ears he will sing again that war-chant of
the Yankis. And then those men will give him offerings against his
pilgrimage, that he may see Holy Mekka and ease him of that sin and
die----”
The voice was rising.
“They give him offerings of broad copper! They throw down pieces of
silver before him! _They throw down gold!_”
I heard the wind going out of Borak’s chest at that; an obscure
thoracic collapse. A snort.
“At last! At last the plot unfolds. Now the old bird will render that
popular ditty entitled, ‘The Unwritten War-song of the Wild Yankis of
Yankisland,’ and the company will contribute. And strangely enough
the ringmaster’s eye is fastened unerringly on _you_.”
“For God’s sake, man----”
“Yes, but you’ll see,” he persisted. “You’ll note that his toe even
now is prodding the old one in the ribs.”
It was true. I saw the nudging and peremptory toe. I stared at that
lip hanging in the ember-light. I beheld a disorder and quickening of
that fleshy pulse. I heard an obedient sound issuing forth. It was a
very small, shallow, creaking sound. It emerged from that emotionless
mask of senility; it rose and fell in mechanical lengths of tone like
a bent wire and went away and was lost in the night of the packed
Sahara square. It was a queer chant.
“Cock and bull!” grunted Borak.
“For God’s sake, man, hush!”
I stared and I listened. Yes, it was a very queer chant indeed. The
short hairs were beginning to stand up again at the back of my skull.
On the ground, red with the firelight, a copper sou was tossed. I
saw another fall, and another. I took out my wallet and found a
hundred-franc note, and I let it flutter into the circle over the
shoulder of Bou Dik.
Borak got hold of me.
“_Lord!_ I say, now! What’s _that_ for?”
“To help and ease him of that ‘sin.’”
“But my dear simple chap--all that rigmarole----”
“Of the greatest of all African wars----”
He tilted his head at me with the absurdest suspicion about my wits.
“Come away!” he said.
I got up and went with him out into the black ruck of the camels. He
was groaning audibly over that squandered bank-note. “Man, man, and
you were really taken in by that beggar’s claptrap. Why--look you--in
that old chap’s day there weren’t enough white men in Central Africa
all put together----”
“Borak!” I said. “_Will_ you listen to that song!”
In the hollow of the market, above the grunt and snore of the
caravan, the thin war-chant of the “Yankis” wound on, repeating,
repeating,
John B’own’s body lahs amoldin’ in the g’ave,
John B’own’s body lahs amoldin’ in the g’ave,
John B’own’s body lahs amoldin’ in the g’ave,
But his soul goes mahchin’ on----
In that Sahara darkness where the pale courses come from beyond the
South I saw Atlanta burning. Sherman was on the march.
[20] Copyright, 1922, by The Pictorial Review Company.
Copyright, 1923, by Wilbur Daniel Steele.
[21] The Napoleonic Messiah of Mohammedan prophecy.
[22] There is no god but God.