Elmer Allen grunted bitterly.
"No," Homer Crawford said flatly. "I don't. But I like the goal."
"And the end justifies the means?"
Homer Crawford said slowly, "I've never answered that to my own
satisfaction. But I'll say this. I've never met a person, no matter how
idealistic, no matter how much he played lip service to the contention
that the ends do not justify the means, who did not himself use the
means he found available to reach the ends he believed correct. It seems
to be a matter of each man feeling the teaching applies to everyone
else, but that he is free to utilize any means to achieve his own noble
ends."
"Man, all that jazz is too much for me," Abe said.
They were entering the outskirts of Mopti. Small groups of obviously
excited Africans of various tribal groups, were heading for the center
of town.
"Abe, Jake," Crawford said. "We'll drop you here. Mingle around. We'll
hold the big meeting in front of the Great Mosque in an hour or so."
"Crazy," Abe said, dropping off the back of the truck which Kenny
Ballalou, who was driving, brought almost to a complete stop. The older
Jake followed him.
The rest went on a quarter of a mile and dropped Bey and Cliff.
Homer said to Kenny, "Park the truck somewhere near the spice market.
Preferably inside some building, if you can. For all we know, they're
already turning over vehicles and burning them."
Crawford and Isobel dropped off near the pottery market, on the banks of
the Niger. The milling throngs here were largely women. Elements of half
a dozen tribes and races were represented.
Homer Crawford stood a moment. He ran a hand back over his short hair
and looked at her. "I don't know," he muttered. "Now I'm sorry we
brought you along." He leaned on his staff and looked at her worriedly.
"You're not very ... ah, husky, are you?"
She laughed at him. "Get about your business, sir knight. I spent nearly
two weeks living with these people once. I know dozens of them by name.
Watch this cat operate, as Abe would say."
She darted to one of the over-turned pirogues which had been dragged up
on the bank from the river, and climbed atop it. She held her hands high
and began a stream of what was gibberish to Crawford who didn't
understand Wolof, the Senegalese lingua franca. Some elements of the
crowd began drifting in her direction. She spoke for a few moments, the
only words the surprised Homer Crawford could make out were _El Hassan_.
And she used them often.
She switched suddenly to Arabic, and he could follow her now. The drift
of her talk was that word had come through that El Hassan was to make a
great announcement in the near future and that meanwhile all his people
were to await his word. But that there was to be a great meeting before
the Mosque within the hour.
She switched again to Songhoi and repeated substantially what she'd said
before. By now she had every woman hanging on her words.
A man on the outskirts of the gathering called out in high irritation,
"But what of the storming of the administration buildings? Our leaders
have proclaimed the storming of the reactionaries!"
Crawford, leaning heavily on the pilgrim staff, drifted over to the
other. "Quiet, O young one," he said. "I wish to listen to the words of
the girl who tells of the teachings of the great El Hassan."
The other turned angrily on him. "Be silent thyself, old man!" He raised
a hand as though to cuff the American.
Homer Crawford neatly rapped him on the right shin bone with his
quarterstaff to the other's intense agony. The women who witnessed the
brief spat dissolved in laughter at the plight of the younger man. Homer
Crawford drifted away again before the heckler recovered.
He let Isobel handle the bulk of the reverse-rabble rousing. His bit was
to come later, and as yet he didn't want to reveal himself to the
throngs.
* * * * *
They went from one gathering place of women to another. To the spice
market, to the fish and meat market, to the bathing and laundering
locations along the river. And everywhere they found animated groups of
women, Isobel went into her speech.
At one point, while Homer stood idly in the crowd, feeling its temper
and the extent to which the girl was dominating them, he felt someone
press next to him.