Part 18 (1/2)

Most of the men at the village displayed a good deal of pride, if not taste, in the arrangement of their hair. Some wore it long and twisted into a coil which hung down their backs; others trained and stiffened it in such a way that it took the form of buffalo horns, while some allowed it to hang over the shoulders in large ma.s.ses, and many shaved it either entirely, or partially in definite patterns. But the young dandy who now approached outdid all others, for he had twisted his hair into innumerable little tails, which, being stiffened by fillets of the inner bark of a tree, stuck straight out and radiated from the head in all directions. His costume otherwise was simple enough, consisting merely of a small kilt of white calico. He was accompanied by Antonio.

”We've be come from Kambira,” said the interpreter, ”to tell you for come to feast.”

”All right,” said Disco, rising; ”always ready for wittles if you only gives us an hour or two between times.--I say, Tony,” (he had by that time reduced the interpreter's name to this extent), ”ask this feller what he means by makin' sitch a guy of hisself.”

”Hims say it look well,” said Antonio, with a broad grin.

”Looks well--eh? and ask him why the women wear that abominable pelele.”

When this question was put to the black dandy, he looked at Disco evidently in surprise at his stupidity. ”Because it is the fas.h.i.+on,” he said.

”They wear it for beauty, to be sure! Men have beards and whiskers; women have none, and what kind of creature would woman be without whiskers, and without a pelele? She would have a mouth like a man, and no beard!”

The bare idea of such a state of things tickled the dandy so much that he went into roars of laughter, insomuch that all the radiating tails of his head quivered again. The effect of laughter and tails together was irresistible. Harold, Disco, and Antonio laughed in sympathy, till the tears ran down their cheeks, and then returned to the village where Kambira and his chief men awaited them.

While enjoying the feast prepared for them, Harold communicated his intentions and desires to the chief, who was delighted at the prospect of having such powerful allies on a hunting expedition.

The playful Obo meanwhile was clambering over his father's person like a black monkey. He appeared to be particularly fond of his father, and as love begets love, it is not surprising that Kambira was excessively fond of Obo. But Obo, becoming obstreperous, received an amicable punch from his father, which sent him headlong into a basket of boiled hippopotamus. He gave a wild howl of alarm as Disco s.n.a.t.c.hed him out of the dish, dripping with fat, and set him on his knee.

”There, there, don't blubber,” said the seaman, tenderly wiping off the fat while the natives, including Kambira, exploded with laughter. ”You ain't burnt, are you?”

As Obo could not reply, Disco put his finger into the gravy from which the urchin had been rescued, and satisfied himself that it was not hot enough to have done the child injury. This was also rendered apparent by his suddenly ceasing to cry, struggling off Disco's knee, and renewing his a.s.saults on his easy-going father.

Accepting an egg which was offered him by Yohama, Harold broke it, and entered into conversation with Kambira through the medium of Antonio.

”Is your boy's mother a--Hollo! there's a chick in this egg,” he exclaimed, throwing the offensive morsel into the fire.

Jumbo, who sat near the place where it fell, s.n.a.t.c.hed it up, grinned, and putting it into his cavernous mouth, swallowed it.

”Dem's betterer wid chickies,” he said, resuming his gravity and his knife and fingers,--forks being held by him in light esteem.

”Ask him, Antonio, if Obo's mother is alive,” said Harold, trying another egg, which proved to be in better condition.

The interpreter, instead of putting the question without comment, as was his wont, shook his head, looked mysterious, and whispered--”No better ask dat. Hims lost him's wife. The slave-hunters cotch her some time ago, and carry her off when hims away hunting. Hims awful mad, worser dan mad elerphint when hims speak to 'bout her.”

Harold of course dropped the subject at once, after remarking that he supposed Yohama was the child's grandmother.

”Yis,” said Antonio; ”she be Kambira's moder, an' Obo's gran'moder--bof at once.”

This fact was, we may almost say, self-evident for Obo's attentions and favours were distributed exclusively between Yohama and Kambira, though the latter had unquestionably the larger share.

During the course of the feast, beer was served round by the little man who had performed so deftly on the violin the previous evening.

”Drink,” said Kambira hospitably; ”I am glad to see my white brothers here; drink, it will warm your hearts.”

”Ay, an' it won't make us drunk,” said Disco, destroying Jumbo's peace of mind by winking and making a face at him as he raised the calabash to his lips. ”Here's long life to you, Kambira, an' death to slavery.”

There can be no doubt that the chief and his retainers would have heartily applauded that sentiment if they had understood it, but at the moment Antonio was too deeply engaged with another calabash to take the trouble to translate it.

The beer, which was pink, and as thick as gruel, was indeed too weak to produce intoxication unless taken in very large quant.i.ties; nevertheless many of the men were so fond of it that they sometimes succeeded in taking enough to bring them to the condition which we style ”fuddled.”