THE SOUL OF THE NATIVE WOMAN
Mail day is ever a day of supreme interest for the young and for the
matter of that for the middle-aged, too. Sanders hated mail days because
the bulk of his correspondence had to do with Government, and Government
never sat down with a pen in its hand to wish Sanders many happy returns
of the day or to tell him scandalous stories about mutual friends.
Rather the Government (by inference) told him scandalous stories about
himself--of work not completed to the satisfaction of Downing Street--a
thoroughfare given to expecting miracles.
Hamilton had a sister who wrote wittily and charmingly every week, and
there was another girl ... Still, two letters and a bright pink paper or
two made a modest postbag by the side of Lieutenant Tibbetts' mail.
There came to Bones every mail day a thick wad of letters and parcels
innumerable, and he could sit at the big table for hours on end,
whistling a little out of tune, mumbling incoherently. He had a trick of
commenting upon his letters aloud, which was very disconcerting for
Hamilton. Bones wouldn't open a letter and get half-way through it
before he began his commenting.
"... poor soul ... dear! dear! ... what a silly old ass ... ah, would
you ... don't do it, Billy...."
To Hamilton's eyes the bulk of correspondence rather increased than
diminished.
"You must owe a lot of money," he said one day.
"Eh!"
"All these...!" Hamilton opened his hand to a floor littered with
discarded envelopes. "I suppose they represent demands...."
"Dear lad," said Bones brightly, "they represent popularity--I'm
immensely popular, sir," he gulped a little as he fished out two dainty
envelopes from the pile before him; "you may not have experienced the
sensation, but I assure you, sir, it's pleasing, it's doocidly
pleasing!"
"Complacent ass," said Hamilton, and returned to his own correspondence.
Systematically Bones went through his letters, now and again consulting
a neat little morocco-covered note-book. (It would appear he kept a very
careful record of every letter he wrote home, its contents, the date of
its dispatch, and the reply thereto.) He had reduced letter writing to a
passion, spent most of his evenings writing long epistles to his
friends--mostly ladies of a tender age--and had incidentally acquired a
reputation in the Old Country for his brilliant powers of narrative.
This, Hamilton discovered quite by accident. It would appear that
Hamilton's sister had been on a visit--was in fact on the visit when she
wrote one letter which so opened Hamilton's eyes--and mentioned that she
was staying with some great friends of Bones'. She did not, of course,
call him "Bones," but "Mr. Tibbetts."
"I should awfully like to meet him," she wrote, "he must be a very
interesting man. Aggie Vernon had a letter from him yesterday wherein he
described his awful experience lion-hunting.
"To be chased by a lion and caught and then carried to the beast's lair
must have been awful!
"Mr. Tibbetts is very modest about it in his letter, and beyond telling
Aggie that he escaped by sticking his finger in the lion's eye he says
little of his subsequent adventure. By the way, Pat, Aggie tells me that
you had a bad bout of fever and that Mr. Tibbetts carried you for some
miles to the nearest doctor. I wish you wouldn't keep these things so
secret, it worries me dreadfully unless you tell me--even the worst
about yourself. I hope your interesting friend returned safely from his
dangerous expedition into the interior--he was on the point of leaving
when his letter was dispatched and was quite gloomy about his
prospects...."
Hamilton read this epistle over and over again, then he sent for Bones.
That gentleman came most cheerfully, full of fine animal spirits,
and----
"Just had a letter about you, Bones," said Hamilton carelessly.
"About me, sir!" said Bones; "from the War Office--I'm not being
decorated or anything!" he asked anxiously.
"No--nothing so tragic; it was a letter from my sister, who is staying
with the Vernons."
"Oh!" said Bones going suddenly red.
"What a modest devil you are," said the admiring Hamilton, "having a
lion hunt all to yourself and not saying a word about it to anybody."
Bones made curious apologetic noises.
"I didn't know there were any lions in the country," pursued Hamilton
remorselessly. "Liars, yes! But lions, no! I suppose you brought them
with you--and I suppose you know also, Bones, that it is considered in
lion-hunting circles awfully rude to stick your finger into a lion's
eye? It is bad sportsmanship to say the least, and frightfully painful
for the lion."
Bones was making distressful grimaces.
"How would you like a lion to stick his finger in _your_ eye?" asked
Hamilton severely; "and, by the way, Bones, I have to thank you."
He rose solemnly, took the hand of his reluctant and embarrassed second
and wrung.
"Thank you," said Hamilton, in a broken voice, "for saving my life."
"Oh, I say, sir," began Bones feebly.
"To carry a man eighty miles on your back is no mean accomplishment,
Bones--especially when I was unconscious----"
"I don't say you were unconscious, sir. In fact, sir----" floundered
Lieutenant Tibbetts as red as a peony.
"And yet I was unconscious," insisted Hamilton firmly. "I am still
unconscious, even to this day. I have no recollection of your heroic
effort, Bones, I thank you."
"Well, sir," said Bones, "to make a clean breast of the whole
affair----"
"And this dangerous expedition of yours, Bones, an expedition from which
you might never return--that," said Hamilton in a hushed voice, "is the
best story I have heard for years."
"Sir," said Bones, speaking under the stress of considerable emotion, "I
am clean bowled, sir. The light-hearted fairy stories which I wrote to
cheer, so to speak, the sick-bed of an innocent child, sir, they have
recoiled upon my own head. _Peccavi, mea culpi_, an' all those jolly old
expressions that you'll find in the back pages of the dictionary."
"Oh, Bones, Bones!" chuckled Hamilton.
"You mustn't think I'm a perfect liar, sir," began Bones, earnestly.
"I don't think you're a perfect liar," answered Hamilton, "I think
you're the most inefficient liar I've ever met."
"Not even a liar, I'm a romancist, sir," Bones stiffened with dignity
and saluted, but whether he was saluting Hamilton, or the spirit of
Romance, or in sheer admiration was saluting himself, Hamilton did not
know.
"The fact is, sir," said Bones confidentially, "I'm writing a book!"
He stepped back as though to better observe the effect of his words.
"What about?" asked Hamilton, curiously.
"About things I've seen and things I know," said Bones, in his most
impressive manner.
"Oh, I see!" said Hamilton, "one of those waistcoat pocket books."
Bones swallowed the insult with a gulp.
"I've been asked to write a book," he said; "my adventures an' all that
sort of thing. Of course they needn't have happened, really----"
"In that case, Bones, I'm with you," said Hamilton; "if you're going to
write a book about things that haven't happened to you, there's no limit
to its size."
"You're bein' a jolly cruel old officer, sir," said Bones, pained by the
cold cynicism of his chief. "But I'm very serious, sir. This country is
full of material. And everybody says I ought to write a book about
it--why, dash it, sir, I've been here nearly two months!"
"It seems years," said Hamilton.
Bones was perfectly serious, as he had said. He did intend preparing a
book for publication, had dreams of a great literary career, and an
ultimate membership of the Athenæum Club belike. It had come upon him
like a revelation that such a career called him. The week after he had
definitely made up his mind to utilize his gifts in this direction, his
outgoing mail was heavier than ever. For to three and twenty English and
American publishers, whose names he culled from a handy work of
reference, he advanced a business-like offer to prepare for the press a
volume "of 316 pages printed in type about the same size as enclosed,"
and to be entitled:
MY WILD LIFE AMONGST CANNIBALS.
BY
AUGUSTUS TIBBETTS, Lieutenant of Houssas.
Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society; Fellow of the Royal
Asiatic Society; Member of the Ethnological Society and Junior Army
Service Club.
Bones had none of these qualifications, save the latter, but as he told
himself he'd jolly soon be made a member if his book was a howling
success.
No sooner had his letters been posted than he changed his mind, and he
addressed three and twenty more letters to the publishers, altering the
title to:
THE TYRANNY OF THE WILDS.
Being Some Observations on the Habits and Customs
of Savage Peoples.
BY
AUGUSTUS TIBBETTS (LT.).
With a Foreword by Captain Patrick Hamilton.
"You wouldn't mind writing a foreword, dear old fellow?" he asked.
"Charmed," said Hamilton. "Have you a particular preference for any
form?"
"Just please yourself, sir," said a delighted Bones, so Hamilton covered
two sheets of foolscap with an appreciation which began:
"The audacity of the author of this singularly uninformed work is to be
admired without necessarily being imitated. Two months' residence in a
land which offered many opportunities for acquiring inaccurate data, has
resulted in a work which must stand for all time as a monument of
murderous effort," etc.
Bones read the appreciation very carefully.
"Dear old sport," he said, a little troubled, as he reached the end;
"this is almost uncomplimentary."
You couldn't depress Bones or turn him from his set purpose. He scribed
away, occupying his leisure moments with his great work. His normal
correspondence suffered cruelly, but Bones was relentless. Hamilton sent
him north to collect the hut tax, and at first Bones resented this
order, believing that it was specially designed to hamper him.
"Of course, sir," he said, "I'll obey you, if you order me in accordance
with regulations an' all that sort of rot, but believe me, sir, you're
doin' an injury to literature. Unborn generations, sir, will demand an
explanation----"
"Get out!" said Hamilton crossly.
Bones found his trip a blessing that had been well disguised. There were
many points of interest on which he required first-hand information. He
carried with him to the _Zaire_ large exercise books on which he had
pasted such pregnant labels as "Native Customs," "Dances," "Ju-jus,"
"Ancient Legends," "Folk-lore," etc. They were mostly blank, and
represented projected chapters of his great work.
All might have been well with Bones. More virgin pages might easily have
been covered with his sprawling writing and the book itself, converted
into honest print, have found its way, in the course of time, into the
tuppenny boxes of the Farringdon book-mart, sharing its soiled
magnificence with the work of the best of us, but on his way Bones had a
brilliant inspiration. There was a chapter he had not thought of, a
chapter heading which had not been born to his mind until that flashing
moment of genius.
Upon yet another exercise book, he pasted the label of a chapter which
was to eclipse all others in interest. Behold then, this enticing
announcement, boldly printed and ruled about with double lines:
"THE SOUL OF THE NATIVE WOMAN."
It was a fine chapter title. It was sonorous, it had dignity, it was
full of possibilities. "The Soul of the Native Woman," repeated Bones,
in an ecstasy of self-admiration, and having chosen his subject he
proceeded to find out something about it.
Now, about this time, Bosambo of the Ochori might, had he wished and had
he the literary quality, have written many books about women, if for no
other reason than because of a certain girl named D'riti.
She was a woman of fifteen, grown to a splendid figure, with a proud
head and a chin that tilted in contempt, for she was the daughter of
Bosambo's chief counsellor, grand-daughter of an Ochori king, and
ambitious to be wife of Bosambo himself.
"This is a mad thing," said Bosambo when her father offered the
suggestion; "for, as you know, T'meli, I have one wife who is a thousand
wives to me."
"Lord, I will be ten thousand," said D'riti, present at the interview
and bold; "also, Lord, it was predicted at my birth that I should marry
a king and the greater than a king."
"That is me," said Bosambo, who was without modesty; "yet, it cannot
be."
So they married D'riti to a chief's son who beat her till one day she
broke his thick head with an iron pot, whereupon he sent her back to her
father demanding the return of his dowry and the value of his pot.
She had her following, for she was a dancer of fame and could twist her
lithe body into enticing shapes. She might have married again, but she
was so scornful of common men that none dare ask for her. Also the
incident of the iron pot was not forgotten, and D'riti went swaying
through the village--she walked from her hips, gracefully--a straight,
brown, girl-woman desired and unasked.
For she knew men too well to inspire confidence in them. By some weird
intuition which certain women of all races acquire, she had probed
behind their minds and saw with their eyes, and when she spoke of men,
she spoke with a conscious authority, and such men, who were within
earshot of her vitriolic comments, squirmed uncomfortably, and called
her a woman of shame.
So matters stood when the _Zaire_ came flashing to the Ochori city and
the heart of Bones filled with pleasant anticipation.
Who was so competent to inform him on the matter of the souls of native
women as Bosambo of the Ochori, already a crony of Bones, and admirable,
if for no other reason, because he professed an open reverence for his
new master? At any rate, after the haggle of tax collection was
finished, Bones set about his task.
"Bosambo," said he, "men say you are very wise. Now tell me something
about the women of the Ochori."
Bosambo looked at Bones a little startled.
"Lord," said he, "who knows about women? For is it not written in the
blessed Sura of the Djin that women and death are beyond
understanding?"
"That may be true," said Bones, "yet, behold, I make a book full of wise
and wonderful things and it would be neither wise nor wonderful if there
was no word of women."
And he explained very seriously indeed that he desired to know of the
soul of native womanhood, of her thoughts and her dreams and her high
desires.
"Lord," said Bosambo, after a long thought, "go to your ship: presently
I will send to you a girl who thinks and speaks with great wisdom--and
if she talks with you, you shall learn more things than I can tell you."
To the _Zaire_ at sundown came D'riti, a girl of proper height, hollow
backed, bare to the waist, with a thin skirting of fine silk cloth which
her father had brought from the Coast, wound tightly about her, yet not
so tightly that it hampered her swaying, lazy walk. She stood before a
disconcerted Bones, one small hand resting on her hip, her chin (as
usual) tilted down at him from under lashes uncommonly long for a
native.
Also, this Bones saw, she was gifted with more delicate features than
the native woman can boast as a rule. The nose was straight and narrow,
the lips full, yet not of the negroid type. She was in fact a pure
Ochori woman, and the Ochori are related dimly to the Arabi tribes.
"Lord, Bosambo the King has sent me to speak about women," she said
simply.
"Doocidly awkward," said Bones to himself, and blushed.
"O, D'riti," he stammered, "it is true I wish to speak of women, for I
make a book that all white lords will read."
"Therefore have I come," she said. "Now listen, O my lord, whilst I tell
you of women, and of all they think, of their love for men and of the
strange way they show it. Also of children----"
"Look here," said Bones, loudly. "I don't want any--any--private
information, my child----"
Then realizing from her frown that she did not understand him, he
returned to Bomongo.
"Lord, I will say what is to be said," she remarked, meekly, "for you
have a gentle face and I see that your heart is very pure."
Then she began, and Bones listened with open mouth ... later he was to
feel his hair rise and was to utter gurgling protests, for she spoke
with primitive simplicity about things that are never spoken about at
all. He tried to check her, but she was not to be checked.
"Goodness, gracious heavens!" gasped Bones.
She told him of what women think of men, and of what men _think_ women
think of them, and there was a remarkable discrepancy if she spoke the
truth. He asked her if she was married.
"Lord," she said at last, eyeing him thoughtfully, "it is written that I
shall marry one who is greater than chiefs."
"I'll bet you will, too," thought Bones, sweating.
At parting she took his hand and pressed it to her cheek.
"Lord," she said, softly, "to-morrow when the sun is nearly down, I will
come again and tell you more...."
Bones left before daybreak, having all the material he wanted for his
book and more.
He took his time descending the river, calling at sundry places.
At Ikan he tied up the _Zaire_ for the night, and whilst his men were
carrying the wood aboard, he settled himself to put down the gist of his
discoveries. In the midst of his labours came Abiboo.
"Lord," said he, "there has just come by a fast canoe the woman who
spoke with you last night."
"Jumping Moses!" said Bones, turning pale, "say to this woman that I am
gone----"
But the woman came round the corner of the deck-house, shyly, yet with a
certain confidence.
"Lord," she said, "behold I am here, your poor slave; there are
wonderful things about women which I have not told you----"
"O, D'riti!" said Bones in despair, "I know all things, and it is not
lawful that you should follow me so far from your home lest evil be said
of you."
He sent her to the hut of the chief's wife--M'lini-fo-bini of Ikan--with
instructions that she was to be returned to her home on the following
morning. Then he went back to his work, but found it strangely
distasteful. He left nothing to chance the next day.
With the dawn he slipped down the river at full speed, never so much as
halting till day began to fail, and he was a short day's journey from
headquarters.
"Anyhow, the poor dear won't overtake me to-day," he said--only to find
the "poor dear" had stowed herself away on the steamer in the night
behind a pile of wood.
* * * * *
"It's very awkward," said Hamilton, and coughed.
Bones looked at his chief pathetically.
"It's doocid awkward, sir," he agreed dismally.
"You say she won't go back?"
Bones shook his head.
"She said I'm the moon and the sun an' all sorts of rotten things to
her, sir," he groaned and wiped his forehead.
"Send her to me," said Hamilton.
"Be kind to her, sir," pleaded the miserable Bones. "After all, sir, the
poor girl seems to be fond of me, sir--the human heart, sir--I don't
know why she should take a fancy to me."
"That's what I want to know," said Hamilton, briefly; "if she _is_ mad,
I'll send her to the mission hospital along the Coast."
"You've a hard and bitter heart," said Bones, sadly.
D'riti came ready to flash her anger and eloquence at Hamilton; on the
verge of defiance.
"D'riti," said Hamilton, "to-morrow I send you back to your people."
"Lord, I stay with Tibbetti who loves women and is happy to talk of
them. Also some day I shall be his wife, for this is foretold." She shot
a tender glance at poor Bones.
"That cannot be," said Hamilton calmly, "for Tibbetti has three wives,
and they are old and fierce----"
"Oh, lord!" wailed Bones.
"And they would beat you and make you carry wood and water," Hamilton
said; he saw the look of apprehension steal into the girl's face. "And
more than this, D'riti, the Lord Tibbetti is mad when the moon is in
full, he foams at the mouth and bites, uttering awful noises."
"Oh, dirty trick!" almost sobbed Bones.
"Go, therefore, D'riti," said Hamilton, "and I will give you a piece of
fine cloth, and beads of many colours."
It is a matter of history that D'riti went.
"I don't know what you think of me, sir," said Bones, humbly, "of course
I couldn't get rid of her----"
"You didn't try," said Hamilton, searching his pockets for his pipe.
"You could have made her drop you like a shot."
"How, sir?"
"Stuck your finger in her eye," said Hamilton, and Bones swallowed hard.