VI. — THE WITCH-DOCTOR SEEKS
VENGEANCE
Lord Greystoke
was hunting, or, to be more accurate, he was shooting pheasants at
Chamston-Hedding. Lord Greystoke was immaculately and appropriately garbed—to
the minutest detail he was vogue. To be sure, he was among the forward guns,
not being considered a sporting shot, but what he lacked in skill he more than
made up in appearance. At the end of the day he would, doubtless, have many
birds to his credit, since he had two guns and a smart loader—many more birds
than he could eat in a year, even had he been hungry, which he was not, having
but just arisen from the breakfast table.
The
beaters—there were twenty-three of them, in white smocks —had but just driven
the birds into a patch of gorse, and were now circling to the opposite side
that they might drive down toward the guns. Lord Greystoke was quite as excited
as he ever permitted himself to become. There was an exhilaration in the sport
that would not be denied. He felt his blood tingling through his veins as the
beaters approached closer and closer to the birds. In a vague and stupid sort
of way Lord Greystoke felt, as he always felt upon such occasions, that he was
experiencing a sensation somewhat akin to a reversion to a prehistoric
type—that the blood of an ancient forbear was coursing hot through him, a
hairy, half-naked forbear who had lived by the hunt.
And
far away in a matted equatorial jungle another Lord Greystoke, the real Lord
Greystoke, hunted. By the standards which he knew, he, too, was vogue—utterly
vogue, as was the primal ancestor before the first eviction. The day being
sultry, the leopard skin had been left behind. The real Lord Greystoke had not
two guns, to be sure, nor even one, neither did he have a smart loader; but he
possessed something infinitely more efficacious than guns, or loaders, or even
twenty-three beaters in white smocks—he possessed an appetite, an uncanny
woodcraft, and muscles that were as steel springs.
Later
that day, in England, a Lord Greystoke ate bountifully of things he had not
killed, and he drank other things which were uncorked to the accompaniment of
much noise. He patted his lips with snowy linen to remove the faint traces of
his repast, quite ignorant of the fact that he was an impostor and that the
rightful owner of his noble title was even then finishing his own dinner in
far-off Africa. He was not using snowy linen, though. Instead he drew the back
of a brown forearm and hand across his mouth and wiped his bloody fingers upon
his thighs. Then he moved slowly through the jungle to the drinking place,
where, upon all fours, he drank as drank his fellows, the other beasts of the
jungle.
As
he quenched his thirst, another denizen of the gloomy forest approached the
stream along the path behind him. It was Numa, the lion, tawny of body and
black of mane, scowling and sinister, rumbling out low, coughing roars. Tarzan
of the Apes heard him long before he came within sight, but the ape-man went on
with his drinking until he had had his fill; then he arose, slowly, with the
easy grace of a creature of the wilds and all the quiet dignity that was his
birthright.
Numa
halted as he saw the man standing at the very spot where the king would drink.
His jaws were parted, and his cruel eyes gleamed. He growled and advanced
slowly. The man growled, too, backing slowly to one side, and watching, not the
lion's face, but its tail. Should that commence to move from side to side in
quick, nervous jerks, it would be well to be upon the alert, and should it rise
suddenly erect, straight and stiff, then one might prepare to fight or flee;
but it did neither, so Tarzan merely backed away and the lion came down and
drank scarce fifty feet from where the man stood.
Tomorrow
they might be at one another's throats, but today there existed one of those
strange and inexplicable truces which so often are seen among the savage ones
of the jungle. Before Numa had finished drinking, Tarzan had returned into the
forest, and was swinging away in the direction of the village of Mbonga, the
black chief.
It
had been at least a moon since the ape-man had called upon the Gomangani. Not
since he had restored little Tibo to his grief-stricken mother had the whim
seized him to do so. The incident of the adopted balu was a closed one to
Tarzan. He had sought to find something upon which to lavish such an affection
as Teeka lavished upon her balu, but a short experience of the little black boy
had made it quite plain to the ape-man that no such sentiment could exist
between them.
The
fact that he had for a time treated the little black as he might have treated a
real balu of his own had in no way altered the vengeful sentiments with which
he considered the murderers of Kala. The Gomangani were his deadly enemies, nor
could they ever be aught else. Today he looked forward to some slight relief
from the monotony of his existence in such excitement as he might derive from
baiting the blacks.
It
was not yet dark when he reached the village and took his place in the great
tree overhanging the palisade. From beneath came a great wailing out of the
depths of a near-by hut. The noise fell disagreeably upon Tarzan's ears—it
jarred and grated. He did not like it, so he decided to go away for a while in
the hopes that it might cease; but though he was gone for a couple of hours the
wailing still continued when he returned.
With
the intention of putting a violent termination to the annoying sound, Tarzan
slipped silently from the tree into the shadows beneath. Creeping stealthily
and keeping well in the cover of other huts, he approached that from which rose
the sounds of lamentation. A fire burned brightly before the doorway as it did
before other doorways in the village. A few females squatted about,
occasionally adding their own mournful howlings to those of the master artist
within.
The
ape-man smiled a slow smile as he thought of the consternation which would
follow the quick leap that would carry him among the females and into the full
light of the fire. Then he would dart into the hut during the excitement,
throttle the chief screamer, and be gone into the jungle before the blacks
could gather their scattered nerves for an assault.
Many
times had Tarzan behaved similarly in the village of Mbonga, the chief. His
mysterious and unexpected appearances always filled the breasts of the poor,
superstitious blacks with the panic of terror; never, it seemed, could they
accustom themselves to the sight of him. It was this terror which lent to the
adventures the spice of interest and amusement which the human mind of the
ape-man craved. Merely to kill was not in itself sufficient. Accustomed to the
sight of death, Tarzan found no great pleasure in it. Long since had he avenged
the death of Kala, but in the accomplishment of it, he had learned the
excitement and the pleasure to be derived from the baiting of the blacks. Of
this he never tired.
It
was just as he was about to spring forward with a savage roar that a figure
appeared in the doorway of the hut. It was the figure of the wailer whom he had
come to still, the figure of a young woman with a wooden skewer through the
split septum of her nose, with a heavy metal ornament depending from her lower
lip, which it had dragged down to hideous and repulsive deformity, with strange
tattooing upon forehead, cheeks, and breasts, and a wonderful coiffure built up
with mud and wire.
A
sudden flare of the fire threw the grotesque figure into high relief, and
Tarzan recognized her as Momaya, the mother of Tibo. The fire also threw out a
fitful flame which carried to the shadows where Tarzan lurked, picking out his
light brown body from the surrounding darkness. Momaya saw him and knew him.
With a cry, she leaped forward and Tarzan came to meet her. The other women,
turning, saw him, too; but they did not come toward him. Instead they rose as
one, shrieked as one, fled as one.
Momaya
threw herself at Tarzan's feet, raising supplicating hands toward him and
pouring forth from her mutilated lips a perfect cataract of words, not one of
which the ape-man comprehended. For a moment he looked down upon the upturned,
frightful face of the woman. He had come to slay, but that overwhelming torrent
of speech filled him with consternation and with awe. He glanced about him
apprehensively, then back at the woman. A revulsion of feeling seized him. He
could not kill little Tibo's mother, nor could he stand and face this verbal
geyser. With a quick gesture of impatience at the spoiling of his evening's
entertainment, he wheeled and leaped away into the darkness. A moment later he
was swinging through the black jungle night, the cries and lamentations of Momaya
growing fainter in the distance.
It
was with a sigh of relief that he finally reached a point from which he could
no longer hear them, and finding a comfortable crotch high among the trees,
composed himself for a night of dreamless slumber, while a prowling lion moaned
and coughed beneath him, and in far-off England the other Lord Greystoke, with
the assistance of a valet, disrobed and crawled between spotless sheets,
swearing irritably as a cat meowed beneath his window.
As
Tarzan followed the fresh spoor of Horta, the boar, the following morning, he
came upon the tracks of two Gomangani, a large one and a small one. The
ape-man, accustomed as he was to questioning closely all that fell to his
perceptions, paused to read the story written in the soft mud of the game
trail. You or I would have seen little of interest there, even if, by chance,
we could have seen aught. Perhaps had one been there to point them out to us,
we might have noted indentations in the mud, but there were countless
indentations, one overlapping another into a confusion that would have been
entirely meaningless to us. To Tarzan each told its own story. Tantor, the
elephant, had passed that way as recently as three suns since. Numa had hunted
here the night just gone, and Horta, the boar, had walked slowly along the
trail within an hour; but what held Tarzan's attention was the spoor tale of
the Gomangani. It told him that the day before an old man had gone toward the
north in company with a little boy, and that with them had been two hyenas.
Tarzan
scratched his head in puzzled incredulity. He could see by the overlapping of
the footprints that the beasts had not been following the two, for sometimes
one was ahead of them and one behind, and again both were in advance, or both
were in the rear. It was very strange and quite inexplicable, especially where
the spoor showed where the hyenas in the wider portions of the path had walked
one on either side of the human pair, quite close to them. Then Tarzan read in
the spoor of the smaller Gomangani a shrinking terror of the beast that brushed
his side, but in that of the old man was no sign of fear.
At
first Tarzan had been solely occupied by the remarkable juxtaposition of the
spoor of Dango and Gomangani, but now his keen eyes caught something in the
spoor of the little Gomangani which brought him to a sudden stop. It was as
though, finding a letter in the road, you suddenly had discovered in it the
familiar handwriting of a friend.
"Go-bu-balu!"
exclaimed the ape-man, and at once memory flashed upon the screen of
recollection the supplicating attitude of Momaya as she had hurled herself
before him in the village of Mbonga the night before. Instantly all was
explained—the wailing and lamentation, the pleading of the black mother, the
sympathetic howling of the shes about the fire. Little Go-bu-balu had been
stolen again, and this time by another than Tarzan. Doubtless the mother had
thought that he was again in the power of Tarzan of the Apes, and she had been
beseeching him to return her balu to her.
Yes,
it was all quite plain now; but who could have stolen Go-bu-balu this time?
Tarzan wondered, and he wondered, too, about the presence of Dango. He would
investigate. The spoor was a day old and it ran toward the north. Tarzan set
out to follow it. In places it was totally obliterated by the passage of many
beasts, and where the way was rocky, even Tarzan of the Apes was almost
baffled; but there was still the faint effluvium which clung to the human
spoor, appreciable only to such highly trained perceptive powers as were
Tarzan's.
It
had all happened to little Tibo very suddenly and unexpectedly within the brief
span of two suns. First had come Bukawai, the witch-doctor—Bukawai, the
unclean—with the ragged bit of flesh which still clung to his rotting face. He
had come alone and by day to the place at the river where Momaya went daily to
wash her body and that of Tibo, her little boy. He had stepped out from behind
a great bush quite close to Momaya, frightening little Tibo so that he ran screaming
to his mother's protecting arms.
But
Momaya, though startled, had wheeled to face the fearsome thing with all the
savage ferocity of a she-tiger at bay. When she saw who it was, she breathed a
sigh of partial relief, though she still clung tightly to Tibo.
"I
have come," said Bukawai without preliminary, "for the three fat
goats, the new sleeping mat, and the bit of copper wire as long as a tall man's
arm."
"I
have no goats for you," snapped Momaya, "nor a sleeping mat, nor any
wire. Your medicine was never made. The white jungle god gave me back my Tibo.
You had nothing to do with it."
"But
I did," mumbled Bukawai through his fleshless jaws. "It was I who commanded
the white jungle god to give back your Tibo."
Momaya
laughed in his face. "Speaker of lies," she cried, "go back to
your foul den and your hyenas. Go back and hide your stinking face in the belly
of the mountain, lest the sun, seeing it, cover his face with a black
cloud."
"I
have come," reiterated Bukawai, "for the three fat goats, the new
sleeping mat, and the bit of copper wire the length of a tall man's arm, which
you were to pay me for the return of your Tibo."
"It
was to be the length of a man's forearm," corrected Momaya, "but you
shall have nothing, old thief. You would not make medicine until I had brought
the payment in advance, and when I was returning to my village the great, white
jungle god gave me back my Tibo—gave him to me out of the jaws of Numa. His
medicine is true medicine—yours is the weak medicine of an old man with a hole
in his face."
"I
have come," repeated Bukawai patiently, "for the three fat—" But
Momaya had not waited to hear more of what she already knew by heart. Clasping
Tibo close to her side, she was hurrying away toward the palisaded village of
Mbonga, the chief.
And
the next day, when Momaya was working in the plantain field with others of the
women of the tribe, and little Tibo had been playing at the edge of the jungle,
casting a small spear in anticipation of the distant day when he should be a
full-fledged warrior, Bukawai had come again.
Tibo
had seen a squirrel scampering up the bole of a great tree. His childish mind
had transformed it into the menacing figure of a hostile warrior. Little Tibo
had raised his tiny spear, his heart filled with the savage blood lust of his
race, as he pictured the night's orgy when he should dance about the corpse of
his human kill as the women of his tribe prepared the meat for the feast to
follow.
But
when he cast the spear, he missed both squirrel and tree, losing his missile
far among the tangled undergrowth of the jungle. However, it could be but a few
steps within the forbidden labyrinth. The women were all about in the field.
There were warriors on guard within easy hail, and so little Tibo boldly
ventured into the dark place.
Just
behind the screen of creepers and matted foliage lurked three horrid figures—an
old, old man, black as the pit, with a face half eaten away by leprosy, his
sharp-filed teeth, the teeth of a cannibal, showing yellow and repulsive
through the great gaping hole where his mouth and nose had been. And beside
him, equally hideous, stood two powerful hyenas— carrion-eaters consorting with
carrion.
Tibo
did not see them until, head down, he had forced his way through the thickly
growing vines in search of his little spear, and then it was too late. As he
looked up into the face of Bukawai, the old witch-doctor seized him, muffling
his screams with a palm across his mouth. Tibo struggled futilely.
A
moment later he was being hustled away through the dark and terrible jungle,
the frightful old man still muffling his screams, and the two hideous hyenas
pacing now on either side, now before, now behind, always prowling, always
growling, snapping, snarling, or, worst of all, laughing hideously.
To
little Tibo, who within his brief existence had passed through such experiences
as are given to few to pass through in a lifetime, the northward journey was a
nightmare of terror. He thought now of the time that he had been with the
great, white jungle god, and he prayed with all his little soul that he might
be back again with the white-skinned giant who consorted with the hairy tree
men. Terror-stricken he had been then, but his surroundings had been nothing by
comparison with those which he now endured.
The
old man seldom addressed Tibo, though he kept up an almost continuous mumbling
throughout the long day. Tibo caught repeated references to fat goats, sleeping
mats, and pieces of copper wire. "Ten fat goats, ten fat goats," the
old Negro would croon over and over again. By this little Tibo guessed that the
price of his ransom had risen. Ten fat goats? Where would his mother get ten
fat goats, or thin ones, either, for that matter, to buy back just a poor
little boy? Mbonga would never let her have them, and Tibo knew that his father
never had owned more than three goats at the same time in all his life. Ten fat
goats! Tibo sniffled. The putrid old man would kill him and eat him, for the
goats would never be forthcoming. Bukawai would throw his bones to the hyenas.
The little black boy shuddered and became so weak that he almost fell in his
tracks. Bukawai cuffed him on an ear and jerked him along.
After
what seemed an eternity to Tibo, they arrived at the mouth of a cave between
two rocky hills. The opening was low and narrow. A few saplings bound together
with strips of rawhide closed it against stray beasts. Bukawai removed the
primitive door and pushed Tibo within. The hyenas, snarling, rushed past him
and were lost to view in the blackness of the interior. Bukawai replaced the
saplings and seizing Tibo roughly by the arm, dragged him along a narrow, rocky
passage. The floor was comparatively smooth, for the dirt which lay thick upon
it had been trodden and tramped by many feet until few inequalities remained.
The
passage was tortuous, and as it was very dark and the walls rough and rocky,
Tibo was scratched and bruised from the many bumps he received. Bukawai walked
as rapidly through the winding gallery as one would traverse a familiar lane by
daylight. He knew every twist and turn as a mother knows the face of her child,
and he seemed to be in a hurry. He jerked poor little Tibo possibly a trifle
more ruthlessly than necessary even at the pace Bukawai set; but the old
witch-doctor, an outcast from the society of man, diseased, shunned, hated,
feared, was far from possessing an angelic temper. Nature had given him few of
the kindlier characteristics of man, and these few Fate had eradicated
entirely. Shrewd, cunning, cruel, vindictive, was Bukawai, the witch-doctor.
Frightful
tales were whispered of the cruel tortures he inflicted upon his victims.
Children were frightened into obedience by the threat of his name. Often had
Tibo been thus frightened, and now he was reaping a grisly harvest of terror
from the seeds his mother had innocently sown. The darkness, the presence of
the dreaded witch-doctor, the pain of the contusions, with a haunting premonition
of the future, and the fear of the hyenas combined to almost paralyze the
child. He stumbled and reeled until Bukawai was dragging rather than leading
him.
Presently
Tibo saw a faint lightness ahead of them, and a moment later they emerged into
a roughly circular chamber to which a little daylight filtered through a rift
in the rocky ceiling. The hyenas were there ahead of them, waiting. As Bukawai
entered with Tibo, the beasts slunk toward them, baring yellow fangs. They were
hungry. Toward Tibo they came, and one snapped at his naked legs. Bukawai
seized a stick from the floor of the chamber and struck a vicious blow at the
beast, at the same time mumbling forth a volley of execrations. The hyena
dodged and ran to the side of the chamber, where he stood growling. Bukawai
took a step toward the creature, which bristled with rage at his approach. Fear
and hatred shot from its evil eyes, but, fortunately for Bukawai, fear
predominated.
Seeing
that he was unnoticed, the second beast made a short, quick rush for Tibo. The
child screamed and darted after the witch-doctor, who now turned his attention
to the second hyena. This one he reached with his heavy stick, striking it
repeatedly and driving it to the wall. There the two carrion-eaters commenced to
circle the chamber while the human carrion, their master, now in a perfect
frenzy of demoniacal rage, ran to and fro in an effort to intercept them,
striking out with his cudgel and lashing them with his tongue, calling down
upon them the curses of whatever gods and demons he could summon to memory, and
describing in lurid figures the ignominy of their ancestors.
Several
times one or the other of the beasts would turn to make a stand against the
witch-doctor, and then Tibo would hold his breath in agonized terror, for never
in his brief life had he seen such frightful hatred depicted upon the
countenance of man or beast; but always fear overcame the rage of the savage
creatures, so that they resumed their flight, snarling and bare-fanged, just at
the moment that Tibo was certain they would spring at Bukawai's throat.
At
last the witch-doctor tired of the futile chase. With a snarl quite as bestial
as those of the beast, he turned toward Tibo. "I go to collect the ten fat
goats, the new sleeping mat, and the two pieces of copper wire that your mother
will pay for the medicine I shall make to bring you back to her," he said.
"You will stay here. There," and he pointed toward the passage which
they had followed to the chamber, "I will leave the hyenas. If you try to
escape, they will eat you."
He
cast aside the stick and called to the beasts. They came, snarling and
slinking, their tails between their legs. Bukawai led them to the passage and
drove them into it. Then he dragged a rude lattice into place before the
opening after he, himself, had left the chamber. "This will keep them from
you," he said. "If I do not get the ten fat goats and the other
things, they shall at least have a few bones after I am through." And he
left the boy to think over the meaning of his all-too-suggestive words.
When
he was gone, Tibo threw himself upon the earth floor and broke into childish
sobs of terror and loneliness. He knew that his mother had no ten fat goats to
give and that when Bukawai returned, little Tibo would be killed and eaten. How
long he lay there he did not know, but presently he was aroused by the growling
of the hyenas. They had returned through the passage and were glaring at him
from beyond the lattice. He could see their yellow eyes blazing through the darkness.
They reared up and clawed at the barrier. Tibo shivered and withdrew to the
opposite side of the chamber. He saw the lattice sag and sway to the attacks of
the beasts. Momentarily he expected that it would fall inward, letting the
creatures upon him.
Wearily
the horror-ridden hours dragged their slow way. Night came, and for a time Tibo
slept, but it seemed that the hungry beasts never slept. Always they stood just
beyond the lattice growling their hideous growls or laughing their hideous
laughs. Through the narrow rift in the rocky roof above him, Tibo could see a
few stars, and once the moon crossed. At last daylight came again. Tibo was
very hungry and thirsty, for he had not eaten since the morning before, and
only once upon the long march had he been permitted to drink, but even hunger
and thirst were almost forgotten in the terror of his position.
It
was after daylight that the child discovered a second opening in the walls of
the subterranean chamber, almost opposite that at which the hyenas still stood
glaring hungrily at him. It was only a narrow slit in the rocky wall. It might
lead in but a few feet, or it might lead to freedom! Tibo approached it and
looked within. He could see nothing. He extended his arm into the blackness,
but he dared not venture farther. Bukawai never would have left open a way of
escape, Tibo reasoned, so this passage must lead either nowhere or to some
still more hideous danger.
To
the boy's fear of the actual dangers which menaced him—Bukawai and the two
hyenas—his superstition added countless others quite too horrible even to name,
for in the lives of the blacks, through the shadows of the jungle day and the
black horrors of the jungle night, flit strange, fantastic shapes peopling the
already hideously peopled forests with menacing figures, as though the lion and
the leopard, the snake and the hyena, and the countless poisonous insects were
not quite sufficient to strike terror to the hearts of the poor, simple
creatures whose lot is cast in earth's most fearsome spot.
And
so it was that little Tibo cringed not only from real menaces but from
imaginary ones. He was afraid even to venture upon a road that might lead to
escape, lest Bukawai had set to watch it some frightful demon of the jungle.
But
the real menaces suddenly drove the imaginary ones from the boy's mind, for
with the coming of daylight the half-famished hyenas renewed their efforts to
break down the frail barrier which kept them from their prey. Rearing upon
their hind feet they clawed and struck at the lattice. With wide eyes Tibo saw
it sag and rock. Not for long, he knew, could it withstand the assaults of
these two powerful and determined brutes. Already one corner had been forced
past the rocky protuberance of the entrance way which had held it in place. A
shaggy forearm protruded into the chamber. Tibo trembled as with ague, for he
knew that the end was near.
Backing
against the farther wall he stood flattened out as far from the beasts as he
could get. He saw the lattice give still more. He saw a savage, snarling head
forced past it, and grinning jaws snapping and gaping toward him. In another
instant the pitiful fabric would fall inward, and the two would be upon him,
rending his flesh from his bones, gnawing the bones themselves, fighting for possession
of his entrails.
* * * * *
Bukawai came
upon Momaya outside the palisade of Mbonga, the chief. At sight of him the
woman drew back in revulsion, then she flew at him, tooth and nail; but Bukawai
threatening her with a spear held her at a safe distance.
"Where
is my baby?" she cried. "Where is my little Tibo?"
Bukawai
opened his eyes in well-simulated amazement. "Your baby!" he
exclaimed. "What should I know of him, other than that I rescued him from
the white god of the jungle and have not yet received my pay. I come for the
goats and the sleeping mat and the piece of copper wire the length of a tall
man's arm from the shoulder to the tips of his fingers."
"Offal
of a hyena!" shrieked Momaya. "My child has been stolen, and you,
rotting fragment of a man, have taken him. Return him to me or I shall tear
your eyes from your head and feed your heart to the wild hogs."
Bukawai
shrugged his shoulders. "What do I know about your child?" he asked.
"I have not taken him. If he is stolen again, what should Bukawai know of
the matter? Did Bukawai steal him before? No, the white jungle god stole him,
and if he stole him once he would steal him again. It is nothing to me. I
returned him to you before and I have come for my pay. If he is gone and you
would have him returned, Bukawai will return him—for ten fat goats, a new
sleeping mat and two pieces of copper wire the length of a tall man's arm from
the shoulder to the tips of his fingers, and Bukawai will say nothing more
about the goats and the sleeping mat and the copper wire which you were to pay
for the first medicine."
"Ten
fat goats!" screamed Momaya. "I could not pay you ten fat goats in as
many years. Ten fat goats, indeed!"
"Ten
fat goats," repeated Bukawai. "Ten fat goats, the new sleeping mat
and two pieces of copper wire the length of—"
Momaya
stopped him with an impatient gesture. "Wait! she cried. "I have no
goats. You waste your breath. Stay here while I go to my man. He has but three
goats, yet something may be done. Wait!"
Bukawai
sat down beneath a tree. He felt quite content, for he knew that he should have
either payment or revenge. He did not fear harm at the hands of these people of
another tribe, although he well knew that they must fear and hate him. His
leprosy alone would prevent their laying hands upon him, while his reputation
as a witch-doctor rendered him doubly immune from attack. He was planning upon
compelling them to drive the ten goats to the mouth of his cave when Momaya
returned. With her were three warriors—Mbonga, the chief, Rabba Kega, the
village witch-doctor, and Ibeto, Tibo's father. They were not pretty men even
under ordinary circumstances, and now, with their faces marked by anger, they
well might have inspired terror in the heart of anyone; but if Bukawai felt any
fear, he did not betray it. Instead he greeted them with an insolent stare,
intended to awe them, as they came and squatted in a semi-circle before him.
"Where
is Ibeto's son?" asked Mbonga.
"How
should I know?" returned Bukawai. "Doubtless the white devil-god has
him. If I am paid I will make strong medicine and then we shall know where is
Ibeto's son, and shall get him back again. It was my medicine which got him
back the last time, for which I got no pay."
"I
have my own witch-doctor to make medicine," replied Mbonga with dignity.
Bukawai
sneered and rose to his feet. "Very well," he said, "let him
make his medicine and see if he can bring Ibeto's son back." He took a few
steps away from them, and then he turned angrily back. "His medicine will
not bring the child back—that I know, and I also know that when you find him it
will be too late for any medicine to bring him back, for he will be dead. This
have I just found out, the ghost of my father's sister but now came to me and
told me."
Now
Mbonga and Rabba Kega might not take much stock in their own magic, and they
might even be skeptical as to the magic of another; but there was always a
chance of SOMETHING being in it, especially if it were not their own. Was it
not well known that old Bukawai had speech with the demons themselves and that
two even lived with him in the forms of hyenas! Still they must not accede too
hastily. There was the price to be considered, and Mbonga had no intention of
parting lightly with ten goats to obtain the return of a single little boy who
might die of smallpox long before he reached a warrior's estate.
"Wait,"
said Mbonga. "Let us see some of your magic, that we may know if it be
good magic. Then we can talk about payment. Rabba Kega will make some magic,
too. We will see who makes the best magic. Sit down, Bukawai."
"The
payment will be ten goats—fat goats—a new sleeping mat and two pieces of copper
wire the length of a tall man's arm from the shoulder to the ends of his
fingers, and it will be made in advance, the goats being driven to my cave.
Then will I make the medicine, and on the second day the boy will be returned
to his mother. It cannot be done more quickly than that because it takes time
to make such strong medicine."
"Make
us some medicine now," said Mbonga. "Let us see what sort of medicine
you make."
"Bring
me fire," replied Bukawai, "and I will make you a little magic."
Momaya
was dispatched for the fire, and while she was away Mbonga dickered with
Bukawai about the price. Ten goats, he said, was a high price for an
able-bodied warrior. He also called Bukawai's attention to the fact that he,
Mbonga, was very poor, that his people were very poor, and that ten goats were
at least eight too many, to say nothing of a new sleeping mat and the copper
wire; but Bukawai was adamant. His medicine was very expensive and he would
have to give at least five goats to the gods who helped him make it. They were
still arguing when Momaya returned with the fire.
Bukawai
placed a little on the ground before him, took a pinch of powder from a pouch
at his side and sprinkled it on the embers. A cloud of smoke rose with a puff.
Bukawai closed his eyes and rocked back and forth. Then he made a few passes in
the air and pretended to swoon. Mbonga and the others were much impressed.
Rabba Kega grew nervous. He saw his reputation waning. There was some fire left
in the vessel which Momaya had brought. He seized the vessel, dropped a handful
of dry leaves into it while no one was watching and then uttered a frightful
scream which drew the attention of Bukawai's audience to him. It also brought
Bukawai quite miraculously out of his swoon, but when the old witch-doctor saw
the reason for the disturbance he quickly relapsed into unconsciousness before
anyone discovered his faux pas.
Rabba
Kega, seeing that he had the attention of Mbonga, Ibeto, and Momaya, blew
suddenly into the vessel, with the result that the leaves commenced to smolder,
and smoke issued from the mouth of the receptacle. Rabba Kega was careful to
hold it so that none might see the dry leaves. Their eyes opened wide at this
remarkable demonstration of the village witch-doctor's powers. The latter,
greatly elated, let himself out. He shouted, jumped up and down, and made
frightful grimaces; then he put his face close over the mouth of the vessel and
appeared to be communing with the spirits within.
It
was while he was thus engaged that Bukawai came out of his trance, his
curiosity finally having gotten the better of him. No one was paying him the
slightest attention. He blinked his one eye angrily, then he, too, let out a
loud roar, and when he was sure that Mbonga had turned toward him, he stiffened
rigidly and made spasmodic movements with his arms and legs.
"I
see him!" he cried. "He is far away. The white devil-god did not get
him. He is alone and in great danger; but," he added, "if the ten fat
goats and the other things are paid to me quickly there is yet time to save
him."
Rabba
Kega had paused to listen. Mbonga looked toward him. The chief was in a
quandary. He did not know which medicine was the better. "What does your
magic tell you?" he asked of Rabba Kega.
"I,
too, see him," screamed Rabba Kega; "but he is not where Bukawai says
he is. He is dead at the bottom of the river."
At
this Momaya commenced to howl loudly.
Tarzan
had followed the spoor of the old man, the two hyenas, and the little black boy
to the mouth of the cave in the rocky canon between the two hills. Here he
paused a moment before the sapling barrier which Bukawai had set up, listening
to the snarls and growls which came faintly from the far recesses of the
cavern.
Presently,
mingled with the beastly cries, there came faintly to the keen ears of the
ape-man, the agonized moan of a child. No longer did Tarzan hesitate. Hurling
the door aside, he sprang into the dark opening. Narrow and black was the
corridor; but long use of his eyes in the Stygian blackness of the jungle
nights had given to the ape-man something of the nocturnal visionary powers of
the wild things with which he had consorted since babyhood.
He
moved rapidly and yet with caution, for the place was dark, unfamiliar and
winding. As he advanced, he heard more and more loudly the savage snarls of the
two hyenas, mingled with the scraping and scratching of their paws upon wood.
The moans of a child grew in volume, and Tarzan recognized in them the voice of
the little black boy he once had sought to adopt as his balu.
There
was no hysteria in the ape-man's advance. Too accustomed was he to the passing
of life in the jungle to be greatly wrought even by the death of one whom he
knew; but the lust for battle spurred him on. He was only a wild beast at heart
and his wild beast's heart beat high in anticipation of conflict.
In
the rocky chamber of the hill's center, little Tibo crouched low against the wall
as far from the hunger-crazed beasts as he could drag himself. He saw the
lattice giving to the frantic clawing of the hyenas. He knew that in a few
minutes his little life would flicker out horribly beneath the rending, yellow
fangs of these loathsome creatures.
Beneath
the buffetings of the powerful bodies, the lattice sagged inward, until, with a
crash it gave way, letting the carnivora in upon the boy. Tibo cast one
affrighted glance toward them, then closed his eyes and buried his face in his
arms, sobbing piteously.
For
a moment the hyenas paused, caution and cowardice holding them from their prey.
They stood thus glaring at the lad, then slowly, stealthily, crouching, they
crept toward him. It was thus that Tarzan came upon them, bursting into the
chamber swiftly and silently; but not so silently that the keen-eared beasts
did not note his coming. With angry growls they turned from Tibo upon the
ape-man, as, with a smile upon his lips, he ran toward them. For an instant one
of the animals stood its ground; but the ape-man did not deign even to draw his
hunting knife against despised Dango. Rushing in upon the brute he grasped it
by the scruff of the neck, just as it attempted to dodge past him, and hurled
it across the cavern after its fellow which already was slinking into the
corridor, bent upon escape.
Then
Tarzan picked Tibo from the floor, and when the child felt human hands upon him
instead of the paws and fangs of the hyenas, he rolled his eyes upward in
surprise and incredulity, and as they fell upon Tarzan, sobs of relief broke
from the childish lips and his hands clutched at his deliverer as though the
white devil-god was not the most feared of jungle creatures.
When
Tarzan came to the cave mouth the hyenas were nowhere in sight, and after
permitting Tibo to quench his thirst in the spring which rose near by, he
lifted the boy to his shoulders and set off toward the jungle at a rapid trot,
determined to still the annoying howlings of Momaya as quickly as possible, for
he shrewdly had guessed that the absence of her balu was the cause of her
lamentation.
"He
is not dead at the bottom of the river," cried Bukawai. "What does
this fellow know about making magic? Who is he, anyway, that he dare say
Bukawai's magic is not good magic? Bukawai sees Momaya's son. He is far away
and alone and in great danger. Hasten then with the ten fat goats, the —"
But
he got no further. There was a sudden interruption from above, from the
branches of the very tree beneath which they squatted, and as the five blacks
looked up they almost swooned in fright as they saw the great, white devil-god
looking down upon them; but before they could flee they saw another face, that
of the lost little Tibo, and his face was laughing and very happy.
And
then Tarzan dropped fearlessly among them, the boy still upon his back, and
deposited him before his mother. Momaya, Ibeto, Rabba Kega, and Mbonga were all
crowding around the lad trying to question him at the same time. Suddenly
Momaya turned ferociously to fall upon Bukawai, for the boy had told her all
that he had suffered at the hands of the cruel old man; but Bukawai was no
longer there—he had required no recourse to black art to assure him that the
vicinity of Momaya would be no healthful place for him after Tibo had told his
story, and now he was running through the jungle as fast as his old legs would
carry him toward the distant lair where he knew no black would dare pursue him.
Tarzan,
too, had vanished, as he had a way of doing, to the mystification of the
blacks. Then Momaya's eyes lighted upon Rabba Kega. The village witch-doctor
saw something in those eyes of hers which boded no good to him, and backed
away.
"So
my Tibo is dead at the bottom of the river, is he?" the woman shrieked.
"And he's far away and alone and in great danger, is he? Magic!" The
scorn which Momaya crowded into that single word would have done credit to a
Thespian of the first magnitude. "Magic, indeed!" she screamed.
"Momaya will show you some magic of her own," and with that she
seized upon a broken limb and struck Rabba Kega across the head. With a howl of
pain, the man turned and fled, Momaya pursuing him and beating him across the
shoulders, through the gateway and up the length of the village street, to the
intense amusement of the warriors, the women, and the children who were so
fortunate as to witness the spectacle, for one and all feared Rabba Kega, and
to fear is to hate.
Thus
it was that to his host of passive enemies, Tarzan of the Apes added that day
two active foes, both of whom remained awake long into the night planning means
of revenge upon the white devil-god who had brought them into ridicule and
disrepute, but with their most malevolent schemings was mingled a vein of real
fear and awe that would not down.
Young
Lord Greystoke did not know that they planned against him, nor, knowing, would
have cared. He slept as well that night as he did on any other night, and
though there was no roof above him, and no doors to lock against intruders, he
slept much better than his noble relative in England, who had eaten altogether
too much lobster and drank too much wine at dinner that night.
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