Part 24 (1/2)
It will not bring back your cattle. No, it is for the strong to show mercy. What shall be his doom? Let it be this, that he give to everyone who has lost cattle by this strange death one bull for every bull that died, you, O chief, to choose first among his beasts. And mark, if in the days to come any cattle die in the same way, let Mabruki give the owner two bulls for every one that so dies. My medicine is not concerned with cattle; but I think Mabruki has enough medicine left to preserve your cattle henceforth.”
The suggestion met with instant approval, and Mabruki himself dared not raise a protest. As he slunk shamefaced away, the a.s.sembly broke up, to discuss the wonderful occurrences with shouting and laughter for hours afterwards.
Tom walked quietly back to his hut.
”You did it very well, Mbutu,” he said.
Mbutu grinned.
”Like it berrah much, sah,” he said; ”jolly good bloony bloon.”
”Yes; and we must never repeat the performance. We will not stale our big medicine, Mbutu.”
The explanation of the wonderful event was simplicity itself.
When Tom had offered to pit himself against Mabruki, he had in his mind the trick of j.a.panese wrestling. But that was hardly sufficient, perhaps, to impress the people, and he resolved to attempt something even more startling. While thinking over the matter, he remembered how amazed he had been himself when, as a young child, he first saw a balloon. Could he make a fire-balloon? Suddenly he bethought him of a roll of Indian silk he had seen among the chief's possessions. Surely that would provide the very material he required. He persuaded the chief to give him a few lengths from the roll, and during the time of his seclusion in the hut he had, with Mbutu's a.s.sistance, cut the silk into strips, stuck them together with a natural gum obtained from trees near, st.i.tched the seams together, smeared the whole surface with gum to make it air-tight, and bent a thin sapling to hold open the mouth of the balloon, with a light pan dangling from it to hold combustible material steeped in spirit. Mbutu had smuggled the balloon into the plantation on the previous night, while Tom was engaged in practising his wrestling trick on the katikiro. When the performance began with the ringing of the bell, Mbutu had inflated the envelope with hot air over a large charcoal fire, and at the second drum-signal had ignited the spirit-soaked material, and let the balloon rise.
Before Tom retired to rest that night, the katikiro came to him and humbly begged to know how he had made fire come from the tree-tops.
”Msala, my friend,” said Tom, smiling, ”that is my secret. We cannot all do everything; too much learning, like too much museru, might turn your head. Be satisfied with getting your cattle replaced, and take my word for it that you will never lose your bulls in the same way again.”
CHAPTER XIII
Blood-Brotherhood
Fortifying the Village--The Enemy at the Gate--An Attack at Dawn--Bridging the Trench--Fireb.a.l.l.s--Invested
Tom's decisive victory over the medicine-man not only restored him to his former place in the estimation of the people, but raised him to a pitch of renown which he found somewhat embarra.s.sing. Presents of all kinds were thrust upon him by the admiring villagers, and even the chief, who, though always affable, had nevertheless stood a little upon his dignity, now opened his heart to him without reserve. He showed him one day, hidden carefully under the floor of his hut, a magnificent collection of elephants' tusks, some being family heirlooms handed down from generation to generation, others the spoils of his own chase. And then he ventured to make a proposal which he said would once for all fix the confidence of his people in the white man. Would Tom become his blood-brother?
”Most happy, I'm sure,” said Tom, who, however, looked a little blue when the details of the ceremony were told him by Mbutu. ”I don't mind having my arm lanced, but I'm hanged if I'll lick his blood; no, I draw the line at that.”
Barega a.s.sured him that a trifle like that need not stand in the way, and the ceremony was forthwith arranged. The people were again called together by tuck of drum. In the centre of the circle two mats of wild-cat skin were placed opposite to each other, and on these Tom and the chief sat cross-legged. The household officers stood around, holding s.h.i.+elds and spears and swords over Barega's head. Then the katikiro made a small incision in the forearm of each, half-way between the hand and elbow, from which a little blood oozed. If the rite had been strictly observed, each would then have licked the blood of the other, but in deference to Tom's scruple, the chief was satisfied with their rubbing the cuts together, so that their blood was commingled.
When this was done the katikiro began to knock two pieces of metal together, keeping up a monotonous tink, tink, tink, and talking all the time. He recited a sort of litany as the chief's representative: ”If you want shelter, my hut is yours; if you are in trouble, my warriors are yours; if you are hungry, the food of my land is yours; if you ever make war upon me, if you ever steal from me, if you ever wound me”,--and so on, the if-clauses continuing for half an hour, ”may you die!” Then Mbutu got up and followed in a similar strain on Tom's behalf, after which the chief presented Tom with a small cube of ivory, and Tom in return gave him the only thing he had of his own, a trouser-b.u.t.ton. The blood-brothers then heartily shook hands, and the a.s.sembled mult.i.tude shouted the name by which the new brother was to be known among them--Okubokokuru, which, being interpreted, means ”Strong in the Arm”.
Tom expressed his gratification at this mark of respect, but pleaded that his new name might be shortened; and the chief announced that his brother was to be officially known as Kuboko.
No further news had yet been received of the approaching enemy. Tom was longing to see a white face again, but he reflected that all his friends must now have given him up, and that a few days more would make little difference. Besides, he felt the military instinct alive in him. He was keen to set his wits once more against the Arab cunning, and when he seriously thought over it he did not regret his impulsive promise to stand by his new friends.
”Barega,” he said, with a familiarity justified by his new relations.h.i.+p, on the day after the ceremony, ”if we are to defeat these Arabs we must set about preparations in earnest. Your scout said they were twelve marches away; twelve has now become ten. We have ten days. How many fighting-men have you?”
The chief replied that he had one hundred and fifty Bahima spearmen, and four hundred and fifty Bairo, some of whom had spears, the rest bows and arrows. They all had small oval s.h.i.+elds, made of light basket-work, with a large central boss of wood. Tom had already seen and examined their weapons in the course of his walks about the village. The Bahima spear had a long wooden shaft and an iron head with two blood-courses, one on each side of the central rib. The Bairo spear was of ruder construction, the head containing a depression on one side answering to a ridge on the other. The bow was about four feet long, with a string of sheep-gut, and the arrows, eighteen inches in length, had barbed heads.
”Not poisoned, I hope?” said Tom, as Barega called up a Muiro to show his weapon. He was answered in the negative. The quiver was a long tube of hard white-wood, with a wooden cap at each end, and was worn slung by a string across the shoulder. Striking designs had been burnt out in a kind of poker-work on the wood, and Tom was delighted with the artistic taste they displayed. Inside the quiver, besides some dozen arrows, a fire-stick was kept.
”Your arms are pretty serviceable so far as they go,” said Tom. ”You haven't any guns, I suppose?”
The chief produced a few old rusty flint-locks, along with the three muskets taken from the Arabs, but as he had no ammunition they were in any case useless.
”Well now, how is the village prepared to stand an a.s.sault? It is impregnable on the north-east and east, I should say, owing to the precipice. The path up to the north gate is steep, and therefore an attack in that direction might be easily beaten off; but on the west and south, as well as on the south-east, your stockade, I am afraid, is easily scaleable. I would suggest that you dig a trench, Barega, outside the stockade, and fill it with water from the stream. And look here, don't you think you could make your men work? You'll never get things done if you leave them entirely to the women, and in my country, you know, we'd think precious little of a man who made his women do everything.”
Stimulated by Tom's energy, the chief set the whole of his people to work. Unluckily, the Bahima not being an agricultural people, they had only their broad knife-blades to use, though the Bairo were well supplied with crude implements. Making the best of things, and impressing even the children into the task, Tom had the satisfaction, after eight days' strenuous labour, of seeing the vulnerable part of the stockade defended by a trench six feet deep and fifteen across. It was not carried right up to the stockade for fear of loosening the fencing, but the interval was planted with sharp stakes, forming a _chevaux-de-frise_. Under Tom's supervision a drawbridge of wattles was rapidly constructed and thrown over the trench at the southern gate.