“_I am so foolish and you are so wise._”
The Calabar River crept along sluggishly, bringing with it all the
drainings of a dark continent. A dense forest lined one bank right
down to its boulder-strewn edge; the other was a dreary, monotonous
stretch of mangrove and pandanus swamp.
No sound broke the quiet of the evening, except the sickly lapping of
water round the slimy, weed-grown piles of a wooden wharf. There was
no sign of human life save one woman standing ankle-deep in the river,
gazing intently across the stretch of steaming swamp.
She was tall and superbly made, a bronze statue in the swiftly fading
light, with features more Arab than negro. A cream-colored cloth
draped her from shoulder to knee. On her arms were a couple of ivory
bracelets; these and a necklace composed of many rows of gold chains
set with small nuggets, coral and charms, completed her attire.
Just as the brief African twilight was gathering into night, a canoe
crept out from the shadows of the opposite bank, and made straight for
the woman.
The boat had one occupant, a young man of about twenty.
When he reached her, the woman greeted him in a dialect not known in
that part of Southern Nigeria.
“He’s not back yet, Nanza. He has a great love for England now. He’s
been there twice within the last six months.”
For some minutes the two stood talking together. Then they turned
inland, to a trading factory standing just behind the wharf.
A light dribbled through one of the reed blinds screening a door
leading on to the balcony surrounding the upper part of the building.
Inside, busy writing, Cooper sat.
The unceremonious pulling aside of the reed blind made him look up
sharply. When his gaze fell on the entering couple, surprise and anger
came to his face.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded hotly, looking at the man. “You
were told not to come within four hundred miles of this place.”
Contemptuously, Nanza looked at him.
“Since when have I taken orders from you?” he asked.
“The order was not mine, but the Sultan’s.”
“You’ve a great liking for things English lately, both you and he.”
There was a threat in Nanza’s voice. Cooper was quick to hear it. His
next remark was in a cooler and more conciliatory tone.
“On each occasion lately, it was business that took our Sultan to
England,” he explained.
“And I suppose it was _business_ that made you marry one of an
accursed race,” Nanza sneered.
“My marriage was the Sultan’s command,” Cooper said after a moment’s
pause.
The answer appeared to leave Nanza nonplussed.
Yoni’s voice broke the silence.
“Is it the Sultan’s command too, that you sit of an evening toying
with that woman’s hair, and whispering love words into her ears?” she
demanded.
In an access of fury Cooper started up.
“By hell! I won’t discuss my wife with such as you.”
“Hark at him!” Yoni cried mockingly. “We hold his heart in our hand.
Squeeze it, Nanza, my brother. Ask all you wish. And if he won’t tell
you, threaten to expose everything. And he will tell you then, for
love has made a coward of him.”
In a menacing manner Nanza advanced towards Cooper.
“See here,” he cried angrily, “why am I kept in darkness? Twice have I
sent down asking why the Sultan doesn’t come. And twice I’ve been put
off by you. I will know the truth. What is the Sultan doing in
England?”
“I’ve told you,” Cooper replied in a dogged voice. “It’s business that
concerns him alone. I’ve been forbidden to say more.”
“What is the Sultan’s concern is my concern. Am I not his cousin and
his heir?”
At his words Yoni laughed scornfully, a laugh that had in it an
undercurrent of savage jealousy.
“But not his heir for much longer, Nanza,” she said. “For our Sultan
is afflicted with a love-sickness, of a fierceness that comes to men
but once. And he forgets, as men forget, that the dog which has licked
his hand for many years can bite.”
In scorn her brother turned on her.
“A pest on you for a jealous woman. Is it for a fool’s tale such as
this that you have dragged me down from Kallu?”
“It is no fool’s tale,” Yoni declared passionately. “Have I been his
slave and servant all these years for nothing? When our cousin
returned from his last visit to England he would have nothing to do
with me. Instead, he would pace at nights from sunset to sunrise, and
would bid me begone did I venture near him. What is it comes between
a man and his sleep? Soft sleep in arms such as these,” and a pair of
beautiful limbs were thrown out with a gesture of despair. “What but
the face of another woman!”
“You’re a mad, raving fool,” her brother said contemptuously. “Our
cousin has no need of women--as wives.”
“Cooper said the same of himself,” she cried, turning to the negro.
“Yet he has returned with a woman fairer than the morning, whose hair
is like gold. And she is his wife! I did not know these white women
could be so beautiful. All those I had seen before were as sticks,
dried and shriveled, and I, Yoni, in all my blackness, was fairer and
more to be desired. I said, ‘The whites breed fine men, but their
women--bah!’ In my ignorance I spat at them. They are ashamed of such
wives, I thought, that is why the white men always come alone. I was
wrong. They keep their fairest women safe at home and send here such
as are old and of no further use. It is love that has taken our cousin
again so soon to England. And he will return with a woman fairer than
the whitest star--his wife! It will be a short shrift for you then,
Nanza, for the Sultan will brook no heir save of his own breeding.”
This time his sister’s remarks left Nanza very quiet. The truth of her
last observation struck home with considerable force.
Apprehensively Cooper glanced at him.
“Yoni is crazy,” he said presently. “Between a man and his sleep come
other things than love. Vengeance, for instance.”
Nanza’s eyes came towards him.
“Vengeance,” he echoed.
“Vengeance that is all but completed,” Cooper said. “Now, as always,
our Sultan works alone and says no word until all is completed. Two
weeks from now he will be here with his victim, trapped in a way that
only he could have thought out.”
In the manner of a savage beast about to spring, Nanza took a step
forward.
“Not Lionel de Tourville’s son!”
“The Gods have granted even greater vengeance. His daughter!”
“His daughter! There was but a son!”
“The son our Sultan searched for has been dead many years. In his
place came a daughter of whose existence we knew nothing. She is
young. Hardly more than a child. To seize her forcibly might have
meant her death before she reached Kallu. The trapping has been long
and most skilful. My marriage was part of it--she is as a sister to my
wife. Under the guise of friendship our Sultan is bringing her out
here, on a visit to my wife. She is in his care, trusting him! Who but
the Sultan could have conceived a plan so deep?”
Nanza laughed, the great roar of some wild beast.
Then another aspect of the situation struck him.
“Why has this been told to you who are but a servant?” he asked
haughtily. “And not to me, his cousin and his heir?”
“It wasn’t told to me. I learnt it for myself. When we were in England
together he heard a rumor, but he did not mention the matter again,
and I thought, as often before, the scent had proved false. When I got
out here he was constantly urging me to get my wife a companion of her
own color. I was puzzled, for our Sultan has no love for the English,
man or woman. I plied my wife with judicious questions, and soon
guessed his reason.”
“Are you sure of all this?” Nanza asked.
“Quite sure. And remember, the Sultan has no liking for others to
discover his secrets. I should not have said anything about it had not
that woman’s foolishness put madness into you. It was no love business
that took the Sultan again to England. He was working for Kallu. For
the vengeance he promised twenty years ago. Vengeance for a murdered
queen. Vengeance for Irena. It was this that made him pace at night,
not love as this woman would have you think. And he has remained
unmarried because he would see his cousin Nanza heir. For your mother
claimed him kin when all his father’s race had turned against him.”
Yoni’s voice broke in sullenly.
“How like a man! Our Sultan has remained unwed because he has no real
love to give to women of my color. He would have a white wife, of the
class of his father’s people.”
“If the Sultan wished he could have a white wife, even as I have,”
Cooper retorted.
“Bah!” she said with intense scorn. “I’ve seen your wife. She is a
child of the people. I am Yoni, Keeper of the Stars, priestess of
Doomana, noble in my own land, and I know. There is a difference with
the whites as with the blacks. Our Sultan would not have a wife such
as yours. He would have a wife from the stock of his father, who was a
noble of England.”
Angrily, Nanza turned on his sister.
“A curse on you and your mad talk, Yoni,” he cried. “That I should be
afflicted with a fool for a sister! Go, this is man’s business and no
place for you.”
With blazing eyes Yoni faced her brother.
“I am Yoni, Keeper of the Stars. Night gives me many eyes, and I see
deep into the souls of men. Yet I am a fool as you please to say.”
With a haughty gesture she lifted the reed blind and went from the
room.
Going to the water’s edge, she stood there watching the night.
Blackness surrounded her. And high above, the white stars mocked and
twinkled.