Part 15 (1/2)
”The price is, O Kalubi, that you hand over to us to be taken away the white wohter--”
”And,” interrupted Stephen, to who, ”the Holy Flower itself, all of it dug up by the roots”
When he heard these e of asped, ”do you understand that you are asking for the Gods of my country?”
”Quite,” replied Brother John with cal h he would fly froht his are thus You ask us, at great danger to ourselves, to kill one of the Gods of your country, the highest of them, in order to save your life Well, in pay Gods of your country, and to see us and them safe across the lake Do you accept or refuse?”
”I refuse,” answered the Kalubi sullenly ”To accept would mean the last curse upon my spirit; that is too horrible to tell”
”And to refuse means the first curse upon your body; nareat monkey which you call a God Yes, broken and chewed, and afterwards, I think, cooked and eaten as a sacrifice Is it not so?”
The Kalubi nodded his head and groaned
”Yet,” I went on, ”for our part we are glad that you have refused, since noe shall be rid of a troublesoerous business and return in safety to Mazitu land”
”Hoill you return in safety, O lord Macumazana, you who are doos of the God?”
”Very easily, O Kalubi, by telling Koainst this God of yours, and hoe have refused to listen to your wickedness In fact, I think this may be done at once while you are here with us, O Kalubi, where perhaps you do not expect to be found I will go strike upon the pot without the door; doubtless though it is late, some will hear Nay, man, stand you still; we have knives and our servants have spears,” and I ive you the Mother of the Holy Flower and her daughter; aye, and the Holy Flower itself dug up by the roots, and I swear that if I can, I will set you and the that I may come with you, since here I dare not stay Yet the curse will come too, but if so, it is better to die of a curse in a day to be, than to-s of the God Oh! as I born! Why was I born!” and he began to weep
”That is a question many have asked and none have been able to answer, O friend Kalubi, though mayhap there is an answer somewhere,” I replied in a kind voice
For my heart was stirred with pity of this poor wretch mazed and lost in his hell of superstition; this potentate who could not escape fros of a hateful power, save by the door of a death too horrible to contemplate; this priest whose doom it was to be slain by the very hands of his God, as those ent before him had been slain, and as those who came after him would be slain
”Yet,” I went on, ”I think you have chosen wisely, and we hold you to your word While you are faithful to us, ill say nothing But of this be sure-that if you attempt to betray us, ho are not so helpless as we seem, will betray you, and it shall be you who die, not us Is it a bargain?”
”It is a bargain, white lord, although bla, since the Gods know all, and they are devils who delight in huains and torment those ould injure them Yet, come ill, I swear to keep faith with you thus, by the oath that irdle, he thrust out the tip of his tongue and pricked it From the puncture a drop of blood fell to the floor
”If I break rows cold, and may it rot as that blood rots! Aye, and hosts as that blood wastes into the air and is lost in the dust of the world!”
It was a horrible scene and one that impressed me very much, especially as even then there fell upon me a conviction that this unfortunate man was doomed, that a fate which he could not escape was upon hi, and in another s over his face and slipped through the door
”I a it rather lon on that jumpy old boy,” said Stephen remorsefully
”The white wohter,” muttered Brother John
”Yes,” reflected Stephen aloud ”One is justified in doing anything to get thite women out of this hell, if they exist So one may as well have the orchid also, for they'd be lonely without it, poor things, wouldn't they? Glad I thought of that, it's soothing to the conscience”
”I hope you'll find it so e are all on that iron grid which I noticed is wide enough for three,” I reo to sleep”
I aht Want remained my ed to, think, and I thought very hard indeed
First I reflected on the Pongo and their Gods What were these and why did they worshi+p the that the probleions of this vast African continent, to which none could give an answer, and least of all their votaries That answer indeed htened human heart, which sees death and terror and evil around it everywhere and, in this grotesque form or in that, personifies them in Gods, or rather in devils who must be propitiated For always the fetish or the beast, or whatever it may be, is not the real object of worshi+p It is only the thing or creature which is inhabited by the spirit of the God or devil, the temple, as it were, that furnishes it with a home, which temple is therefore holy And these spirits are diverse, representing sundry attributes or qualities
Thus the great ape ht be Satan, a prince of evil and blood The Holy Flower rowth of the food of ht represent oodness, for which reason it was necessary that she should be white in colour, and dwell, not in the shadowed forest, but on a soaring ht, in short, as opposed to darkness Or she ht be a kind of African Ceres, a Goddess of the corn and harvest which were symbolised in the beauteous bloom she tended Who could tell? Not I, either then or afterwards, for I never found out
As for the Pongo the tribe, the last descendants of soe Probably, too, they were at first only cannibals occasionally and froious reasons Then in soious in that respect, and the habit overpowered the cannibals, at any rate in Africa, as I knew, this dreadful food is htest doubt that although the Kalubi hiht save him from a terrible death at the hands of the Beelzebub he served, Komba and the councillors, inspired thereto by the prophet called Motoned that we should beto the Gods Hoere to escape this fate, being unarine, unless some special protection were vouchsafed to us Meanwhile, we ht be
Brother John, or to give hiht name, the Reverend John Eversley, was convinced that the white woman imprisoned in the mountain was none other than the lost wife for whom he had searched for twenty weary years, and that the second white woht seeht and perhaps he rong But even in the latter case, if thite persons were really languishi+ng in this dreadful land, our path was clear We o on in faith until we saved theranted, not in Pleasure's round, Or even Love's sweet dream, to lapse, content; Duty and Faith are words of solemn sound, And to their echoes must the soul be bent,”
as some one or other once wrote, very nobly I think Well, there was but little of ”Pleasure's round” about the present entertainment, and any hope of ”Love's sweet dream” seemed to be limited to Brother John (here I was quite mistaken, as I so often am) Probably the ”echoes” would be my share; indeed, already I seeo to sleep and dreamed a very curious dreah I retained all ht and observation; in fact, dead and yet alive In this state I hovered over the people of the Pongo ere gathered together on a great plain under an inky sky They were going about their business as usual, and very unpleasant business it often was So a di -at that on which they feasted I would not look; so But I, who had the power of looking into them, saithin the breast of each a tiny likeness of the ht be, huether in an attitude of prayer, and with i upwards to the black heaven
Then in that heaven there appeared a single star of light, and froentle fire that spread and widened till all the i heart of the Glory, which so lips, fell countless flakes of snow, each of which followed an appointed path till it lit upon the forehead of one of the tiny, ie breasts, and made it white and clean
Then the Glory shrank and faded till there remained of it only the sih in blessing-and I woke up wondering how on earth I found the fancy to invent such a vision, and whether it
Afterwards I repeated it to Brother John, as a very spiritually s are often quite different-and asked hih to explain At the time he shook his head, but some days later he said to me: ”I think I have read your riddle, Allan; the answer came to me quite of a sudden In all those sin-stained hearts there is a seed of good and an aspiration towards the right For every one of theiveness, since how could they learn who never had a teacher? Your dream, Allan, was one of the ultiift of the Grace that shall one day glow through the blackness of the night in which they wander”
That is what he said, and I only hope that he was right, since at present there is so with the world, especially in Africa
Also we blas, but on the balance are we so hts and opportunities? Oh! the truth is that the devil-a very convenient word that-is a good fishere book full of flies of different sizes and colours, and well he kno to suit them to each particular fish But white or black, every fish takes one fly or the other, and then coaudy lure so much worse or more foolish than that which has fallen to the delicate white moth with the same sharp barb in its tail?
In short, are we not all miserable sinners as the Prayer Book says, and in the eye of any judge who can average up the elemental differences of those waters wherein ere bred and are called upon to swim, is there so much to choose between us? Do we not all need those outstretched Hands of Mercy which I saw in ht has a poor old hunter to discuss things that are too high for him?
CHAPTER XV
THE MOTOMBO
After ain, till I was finally aroused by a strong ray of light hitting ht in the eye
Where the dickens does that coht I to myself, for these huts had no s
Then I followed the ray to its source, which I perceived was a small hole in the mud wall some five feet above the floor I rose and examined the said hole, and noted that it appeared to have been freshly made, for the clay at the sides of it was in no way discoloured I reflected that if anyone wanted to eavesdrop, such an aperture would be convenient, and went outside the hut to pursue ations Its wall, I found, was situated about four feet fro reed fence, which showed no signs of disturbance, although there, in the outer face of the wall, was the hole, and beneath it on the liments of plaster I called Hans and asked him if he had kept watch round the hut when the wrapped-up ht He answered yes, and that he could swear that no one had come near it, since several times he had walked to the back and looked
Soh not satisfied, I went in to wake up the others, to who of this ood purpose A few minutes later the tall, silent women arrived with our hot water It seeht to us in such a place by these very queer kind of houseo, I may add, were, like the Zulus, very clean in their persons, though whether they all used hot water, I cannot say At any rate, it was provided for us