Part 10 (1/2)
”Simba!” he called.
”Yes, suh!”
”Take one man. Collect all water bottles. Take a lantern. Go as rapidly as you can to find water. Fill all the bottles and bring them back.
There are people in the hills. There will be people near the water. Get them to help you carry back the water bottles.”
Simba selected Mali-ya-bwana to accompany him, but this did not meet Kingozi's ideas.
”I want that man,” said he.
Simba and one of the other leading porters started away. Kingozi gave his attention to the members of the other safari.
They sat and sprawled in all att.i.tudes. But one thing was common to all: a dead sullenness.
”Why do you not obey the _memsahib?_” Kingozi asked in a reasonable tone.
No one answered for some time. Finally the man who had been shot at replied.
”There is no water. We are very tired. We cannot go on without water.”
”How can you get water if you do not go on?”
”_Hapana shauri yangu_,” replied the man indifferently, uttering the fatalistic phrase that rises to the lips of the savage African almost automatically, unless his personal loyalty has been won--”that is not my affair.” He brooded on the ground for a s.p.a.ce then looked up. ”It is the business of porters to carry loads; it is the business of the white man to take care of the porters.” And in that he voiced the philosophy of this human relation. The porters had done their job: not one inch beyond it would they go. The white woman had brought them here: it was now her _shauri_ to get them out.
”You see!” cried the Leopard Woman bitterly. ”What can you do with such idiots!”
Kingozi directed toward her his slow smile.
”Yes, I see. Do you remember I asked you once when you were boasting your efficiency, whether you had ever tried your men? Your work was done smartly and well--better than my work was done. But my men will help me in a fix, and yours will not.”
”You are quite a preacher,” she rejoined. ”And you are exasperating.
Why don't you do something?”
”I am going to,” replied Kingozi calmly.
He called Mali-ya-bwana to him.
”Talk to these _shenzis_,” said he.
Mali-ya-bwana talked. His speech was not eloquent, nor did it flatter the Leopard Woman, but it was to the point.
”My _bwana_ is a great lord,” said he. ”He is master of all things. He fights the lion, he fights the elephant. Nothing causes him to be afraid. He is not foolish, like a woman. He knows the water, the sun, the wind. When he speaks it is wisdom. Those who do what he says follow wisdom. _Ba.s.si!_”
Immediately this admonition was finished Kingozi issued his first command:
”Bring all loads to this place.”
n.o.body stirred at first.
”My loads, the loads of Bibi-ya-chui--all to this place.”