Van Rieten had logic on his side and he had a way with him. Etcham sat
there apologetic and deferential, like a fourth-form schoolboy before a
head master. Van Rieten wound up.
“I am after pigmies, at the risk of my life. After pigmies I go.”
“Perhaps, then, these will interest you,” said Etcham, very quietly.
He took two objects out of the sidepocket of his blouse, and handed
them to Van Rieten. They were round, bigger than big plums, and smaller
than small peaches, about the right size to enclose in an average
hand. They were black, and at first I did not see what they were.
“Pigmies!” Van Rieten exclaimed. “Pigmies, indeed! Why, they wouldn’t
be two feet high! Do you mean to claim that these are adult heads?”
“I claim nothing,” Etcham answered evenly. “You can see for yourself.”
Van Rieten passed one of the heads to me. The sun was just setting and
I examined it closely. A dried head it was, perfectly preserved, and
the flesh as hard as Argentine jerked beef. A bit of a vertebra stuck
out where the muscles of the vanished neck had shriveled into folds.
The puny chin was sharp on a projecting jaw, the minute teeth white and
even between the retracted lips, the tiny nose was flat, the little
forehead retreating, there were inconsiderable clumps of stunted wool
on the Lilliputian cranium. There was nothing babyish, childish or
youthful about the head, rather it was mature to senility.
“Where did these come from?” Van Rieten inquired.
“I do not know,” Etcham replied precisely. “I found them among Stone’s
effects while rummaging for medicines or drugs or anything that could
help me to help him. I do not know where he got them. But I’ll swear he
did not have them when we entered this district.”
“Are you sure?” Van Rieten queried, his eyes big and fixed on Etcham’s.
“Ve’y sure,” lisped Etcham.
“But how could he have come by them without your knowledge?” Van Rieten
demurred.
“Sometimes we were apart ten days at a time hunting,” said Etcham.
“Stone is not a talking man. He gave me no account of his doings and
Hamed Burghash keeps a still tongue and a tight hold on the men.”
“You have examined these heads?” Van Rieten asked.
“Minutely,” said Etcham.
Van Rieten took out his notebook. He was a methodical chap. He tore out
a leaf, folded it and divided it equally into three pieces. He gave one
to me and one to Etcham.
“Just for a test of my impressions,” he said, “I want each of us to
write separately just what he is most reminded of by these heads. Then
I want to compare the writings.”
I handed Etcham a pencil and he wrote. Then he handed the pencil back
to me and I wrote.
“Read the three,” said Van Rieten, handing me his piece.
Van Rieten had written:
“An old Balunda witch-doctor.”
Etcham had written:
“An old Mang-Battu fetish-man.”