Forty-eight hours later, the furious drumming, chanting and screaming
heralded the return of the victorious troops of Zalu Zako. Birnier from
his gaol on the hill watched the bronze flood pour like a stream of lava
out of the plantation and flood the village, spears flashing silver points
in the slanting rays of the sun. But what had happened to zu Pfeiffer and
the white sergeants? No sign of them could he see. Waves of sound lapped
continuously around the temple.
The long mauve shadow of the hill ate up the village. Fires began to
flicker amid the huts and away in the recesses of the plantation. The
lowing of cattle added to the general clamour. As the western sky was
still ablaze with incandescent colour stole the cold green of the
advancing moon in the east.
“Mungongo, what are thy brethren about to do?”
“It is the Festival of the Harvest, as I have told thee, O son of the
Lord-of-many-Lands.”
“But they have not the Bride?”
“Nay.” Mungongo glanced apprehensively towards the temple where in what
was to have been a bathroom, was Bakuma hidden.
“He-who-may-not-be-mentioned demands but blood. The Bride is the food of
the wizards. But to each warrior is every woman his bride this night.”
“Why didst thou not tell me this thing before?” demanded Birnier, who knew
that such was one of the customs of primitive tribes in all parts of the
world and in all ages.
“Thou didst not ask me,” retorted Mungongo, to whom the affair was such a
matter of course that it was not worth mentioning.
“Do they make sacrifice?”
“The Bride is married to the Banana, but of the manner of her nuptial know
I not. Am I a wizard?”
The divine king grimly watched his subjects. In the growing light flitted
gnomes around the huts in and out the sepia caverns of the plantation. As
a banana front was etched in sepia against the great moon, the ocean of
clamour was cleft by the high treble of the tribal troubadour. At the
bottom of the wide street appeared dancing figures. As they approached,
Birnier could distinguish Bakahenzie, Marufa and Yabolo in the van,
dressed in full panoply, whirling and leaping with untiring energy. Behind
them shuffled and pranced a vast mass of warriors, behind whom again
several hundred women shrilled and wriggled in the mighty chorus. The
rhythm of the drums increased to the maddening action impulse of the two
short—long beat:
Pm-pm—Pommmmm! Pm-pm—Pommmmm! Pm-pm—Pommmmm!
The treble solo of the chant darted above that throb and grunt like a mad
bird skimming the turbulent tops of a dark forest.
Pm-pm—Pommmmm! Pm-pm—Pommmmm! Pm-pm—Pommmmm!
The rhythm seemed like a febrile pulse within Birnier’s brain, dominating
him with hypnotic suggestion to action. An urge to scream and to yell, to
dance and to leap, plucked at his limbs. Resurgent desires from he knew
not what subconscious catacombs, wriggled and struggled furiously within
him. The great moon scattered blue stars upon the spears as if upon the
green scales of some leviathan squirming in delirious torment.
Control the twitching of his muscles to that rhythm Birnier could not. He
had to fight to resist the waves of hysteria permeating the air. He
glanced at Mungongo. The whites of his eyes were rolling. Birnier cursed
the insistency of the drums and the orgiastical grunts. Forcibly he kept
up a running fire of psychological explanations: “Annihilation of
inhibitions … dissociation of personality … triumph of the subconscious
animal,” as a wizard muttering incantations against evil spirits. He felt
dizzy. “God, I’m drunk with rhythm!” he exclaimed.
The priests were entering the large gate of the outer enclosure. In the
village and on the opposite hill the people resembled a swarm of black
locusts. The drums ceased. Bakahenzie and Marufa and Yabolo ran straight
towards him screeching. This was the cue.
Birnier walked back slowly. In awful silence they began to push the idol.
The wood creaked protestingly. Slowly the mass slid on to Birnier’s back.
He gripped it and began to walk to the entrance. As he passed Mungongo the
Sacred Fires shot up yellow tongues. A sound like a moan rose dripping
with screams and grew into a continuous thunder of noise. The drums
rippled a furious tattoo. The three wizards dashed before him, leaping
high in the air. Birnier shuffled a dozen yards to the left and turned. He
stopped.
Upon the ground, just within the outer gate in view of the multitude
beyond, green ivory in the moonlight, was the naked figure of a white man.
Above him pranced Bakahenzie in whose hand gleamed a knife.
The training of his life enabled Birnier to throw upon the screen of his
mind the essential points more rapidly than conscious thought. Bakahenzie,
as well as the others, was in an abnormal state of excitement. There was
no time to employ “magic” rockets or anything else. He swung the idol upon
one shoulder and ran forward. He saw the blue eyes move and the bracelet
wink in the moonlight as he stepped over the bound form. He bent,
balancing the image upon his shoulders, and seized zu Pfeiffer by the arm.
The throb of the drums and the roar of the people who knew not but that
this act was in accordance with the rules, continued. The priests remained
motionless: expectant. Bakahenzie stood rigid as if paralysed by the
unexpected: the knife was a blue snake in his hand.
Half blinded with sweat, with his muscles cracking, Birnier staggered on
with the heavy burden, dragging the nude body after him. Hours seemed to
pass, each second of which might bring a spear in his back before he
reached the place before the temple. He slid the idol into the hole and
turned.
From the tumult of sound the screech of Bakahenzie shot up like a snipe
from a rice field. The other wizards sprang with him. The moonlight kissed
a spearhead beside the stone figure of Mungongo by the Sacred Fires.
Birnier leaped, plucked the spear, caught zu Pfeiffer in his arms and
raised him shoulder high that all might see.
At the entrance of the enclosure Bakahenzie and the other two were
arrested by astonishment. Lowering the body to the base of the idol which
leaned sideways in a drunken leer, Birnier lifted the spear and brought it
down accurately between zu Pfeiffer’s left arm and breast, and dropping
swiftly upon his knees to cover his actions, slashed his own left forearm.
Then he jumped to his feet and held the blooded spear aloft as he cried
aloud:
“The god hath taken his own!”
Bakahenzie was the first to see that the white breast of the victim was
indeed deluged in blood; perhaps the veneration engendered by “the fingers
of Tarum” moved beneath the blood lust.
“The god hath taken his own!” he repeated in a piercing scream. Marufa
echoed the shout. As they turned the cry was ricocheted beyond the
farthest hill.
“The god hath taken his own!”