Black Ivory by R. M. Ballantyne (world of reading TXT) 📖

was doubtful, owing to the cookery. It would appear that in Africa, as in England, woman excels in the culinary art. At all events, the mapira meal was better managed by them, than by the men. On the present occasion the hunters tumbled in the meal by handfuls in rapid succession as soon as the water was hot, until it became too thick to be stirred about, then it was lifted off the fire, and one man held the pot while another plied the porridge-stick with all his might to prevent the solid mass from being burnt. Thus it was prepared, and thus eaten, in enormous quantities. No wonder that dancing and profuse perspiration were esteemed a necessary adjunct to feeding!

At the close of the second edition of supper, which went into four or five editions before morning, some of the men at the fire next to that of Kambira engaged in a debate so furious, that the curiosity of Disco and Harold was excited, and they caused Antonio to translate much of what was said. It is not possible to give a connected account of this debate as translated by Antonio. To overcome the difficulty we shall give the substance of it in what Disco styled Antonio’s “lingo.”

There were about a dozen natives round the fire, but two of them sustained the chief part in the debate. One of these was a large man with a flat nose; the other was a small man with a large frizzy head.

“Hold ’oos tongue,” said Flatnose (so Antonio named him); “tongue too long—far!”

“Boh! ’oos brains too short,” retorted Frizzyhead contemptuously.

An immense amount of chattering by the others followed these pithy remarks of the principals.

The question in debate was, Whether the two toes of the ostrich represented the thumb and forefinger in man, or the little and ring fingers? But in a few minutes the subject changed gradually, and somehow unaccountably, to questions of a political nature,—for, strange to say, in savage Africa, as in civilised England, politics are keenly discussed, doubtless at times with equal wisdom in the one land as in the other.

“What dat ’oo say?” inquired Flatnose, on hearing some muttered remarks of Frizzyhead in reference to the misgovernment of chiefs. Of course there, as here, present company was understood to be excepted.

“Chiefs ob no use—no use at all!” said Frizzyhead so vehemently that the men at several of the nearest fires ceased to talk, and began to listen.

“Ob no use?” cried Flatnose, with vehemence so superior that the attention of the whole camp was arrested.

“No!” replied Frizzyhead, still more energetically, “ob no use at all. We could govern ourselves betterer, so what de use of ’um? The chief ’ums fat an’ hab plenty wife, but we, who do all de hard work, hab hunger, an’ only one wife, prehaps none at all. Dis is bad, unjust, wrong.”

There was a general shout of “eehee!” from all quarters, which was equivalent to our “hear, hear.”

“’Oo know noting at all,” retorted Flatnose, who was a loyal subject. “Is not de chief de fader of de peepil? Can dere be peepil widout a fader—eh? God made de chief—who says dat chief is not wise? He is wise, but um’s child’n am big fools!”

Kambira nodded his head and smiled at this, and there was a general inclination on the part of most of the audience to applaud, for there, as elsewhere, men have a tendency to be blown about by every wind of doctrine.

It was amusing to observe the earnestness and freedom with which men of the lowest grade assaulted the opinions of their betters on this occasion. Unable at other times, or in any other way, to bring themselves into importance, they were glad of the opportunity to do so with their tongues, and, like their civilised types, they assumed an air of mock modesty.

“Oh!” cried one of these, in reply to Flatnose, “we is littil infants; we is still holdin’ on to de boosums ob our moders; we not able to walk alone; we knows notin’ at all; but on dis point, we knows that you old men speak like de ignorint peepil. We nebber hear such nonsense—nebber!”

No notice was taken of this, but Frizzyhead, whose passion was rising to white heat in consequence of the glibness of his opponent’s tongue, cried out— “’Oo cannot prove wat ’ou says?”

“Oh yes, can prove it well ’nuff,” replied Flatnose, “but ’oos no’ got brain for onerstand.”

This last was too much for poor Frizzyhead, who leaped up, stuttered, and cried— “Can ’oo outrun me, then?”

“Ye—ye—yes!” gasped Flatnose, springing up.

Away they went like two hunted springboks, and ran for a mile, then turned and came back into camp streaming with perspiration, little Frizzyhead far ahead of the big man, and rejoicing in the fact that he could beat his opponent in a race, if not in an argument. Thus was peace restored. Pity that civilised arguments cannot be terminated in the same way!

While these discussions were going on, Disco observed that hyenas were occasionally to be seen prowling near the verge of the bushes around them, as if anxious to join in the feast, which no doubt was the case.

“Don’t they do mischief sometimes?” he inquired of Antonio.

“No; him a cowardly beast. Him come at mans when sleepin’ or dyin’, but not at oder time. ’Oo like see me catch um?”

“Why, yes, if ’ee can do it,” answered Disco, with a slight look of contempt at his friend, who bore too much resemblance in some points to the hyena.

“Come here, den.”

They went together into the jungle a little distance, and halted under the branch of a large tree. To this Antonio suspended a lump of raw flesh, at such a height from the ground that a hyena could only reach it by leaping. Directly underneath it he planted a short spear in the earth with its point upward.

“Now, come back to fire,” he said to Disco; “’ou soon hear sometin’.”

Antonio was right. In a short time afterwards a sharp yell was heard, and, on running to the trap, they found a hyena in its death-agonies. It had leaped at the meat, missed it, and had come down on the spear and impaled itself.

“Well, of all the fellers I ever know’d for dodges,” said Disco, on reseating himself at the fire, “the men in these latitudes are the cleverest.”

By this time dancing was going on furiously; therefore, as it would have been impossible to sleep, Disco refilled his pipe and amused himself by contemplating the intelligent countenance of Kambira, who sat smoking bang out of a huge native meerschaum on the other side of the fire.

“I wonder,” said Harold, who lay stretched on a sleeping-mat, leaning on his right arm and gazing contemplatively at the glowing heart of the fire; “I wonder what has become of Yoosoof?”

“Was ’ee thinkin’ that he deserved to be shoved in there?” asked Disco, pointing to the fire.

“Not exactly,” replied Harold, laughing; “but I have frequently thought of the scoundrel, and wondered where he is and what doing now. I have sometimes thought too, about that girl Azinté, poor thing. She—”

He paused abruptly and gazed at Kambira with great surprise, not unmixed with alarm, for the chief had suddenly dropped his pipe and glared at him in a manner that cannot be described. Disco observed the change also, and was about to speak, when Kambira sprang over the fire and seized Harold by the arm.

There was something in the movement, however, which forbade the idea of an attack, therefore he lay still.

“What now, Kambira?” he said.

“Antonio,” cried the chief, in a voice that brought the interpreter to his side in a twinkling; “what name did the white man speak just now?”

“Azinté,” said Harold, rising to a sitting posture.

Kambira sat down, drew up his knees to his chin, and clasped his hands round them.

“Tell me all you know about Azinté,” he said in a low, firm voice.

It was evident that the chief was endeavouring to restrain some powerful feeling, for his face, black though it was, indicated a distinct degree of pallor, and his lips were firmly compressed together. Harold therefore, much surprised as well as interested, related the little he knew about the poor girl,—his meeting with her in Yoosoof’s hut; Disco’s kindness to her, and her subsequent departure with the Arab.

Kambira sat motionless until he had finished.

“Do you know where she is gone?” he inquired.

“No. I know not; but she was not in the boat with the other slaves when we sailed, from which I think it likely that she remained upon the coast.—But why do you ask, Kambira, why are you so anxious about her?”

“She is my wife,” muttered the chief between his teeth; and, as he said so, a frown that was absolutely diabolical settled down on his features.

For some minutes there was a dead silence, for both Harold and Disco felt intuitively that to offer consolation or hope were out of the question.

Presently Kambira raised his head, and a smile chased the frown away as he said— “You have been kind to Azinté, will you be kind to her husband?”

“We should be indeed unworthy the name of Englishmen if we said no to that,” replied Harold, glancing at Disco, who nodded approval.

“Good. Will you take me with you to the shores of the great salt lake?” said Kambira, in a low, pathetic tone, “will you make me your servant, your slave?”

“Most gladly will I take you with me as a friend,” returned Harold. “I need not ask why you wish to go,” he added,—“you go to seek Azinté?”

“Yes,” cried the chief, springing up wildly and drawing himself up to his full height, “I go to seek Azinté. Ho! up men! up! Ye have feasted enough and slept enough for one night. Who knows but the slavers may be at our huts while we lie idly here? Up! Let us go!”

The ringing tones acted like a magic spell. Savage camps are soon pitched and sooner raised. In a few minutes the obedient hunters had bundled up all their possessions, and in less than a quarter of an hour the whole band was tracking its way by moonlight through the pathless jungle.

The pace at which they travelled home was much more rapid than that at which they had set out on their expedition. Somehow, the vigorous tones in which Kambira had given command to break up the camp, coupled with his words, roused the idea that he must have received information of danger threatening the village, and some of the more anxious husbands and fathers, unable to restrain themselves, left the party altogether and ran back the whole way. To their great relief, however, they found on arriving that all was quiet. The women were singing and at work in the fields, the children shouting at play, and the men at their wonted occupation of weaving cotton cloth, or making nets and bows, under the banyan-trees.

Perplexity is not a pleasant condition of existence, nevertheless, to perplexity mankind is more or less doomed in every period of life and in every mundane scene—particularly in the jungles of central Africa, as Harold and his friends found out many a time to their cost.

On arriving at the native village, the chief point that perplexed our hero there was as to whether he should return to the coast at once, or push on further into the interior. On the one hand he wished very much to see more of the land and its inhabitants; on the other hand, Kambira was painfully anxious to proceed at once to the coast in search, of his lost wife, and pressed him to set off without delay.

The chief was rather an exception in regard to his feelings on this point. Most other African potentates had several wives, and in the event of losing one of them might have found consolation in the others. But Kambira had never apparently thought of taking another wife after the loss of Azinté,