Chapter 16
Changed was the City of the Snake, the place of kings. Upon the site where had been the hive of huts wrapped in the green arms of the banana plantation, laboured under the incandescent sun gangs of prisoners under armed guards upon the building of larger huts laid out in streets, broad and geometrical, lined with correct ditches for drainage. Around the outskirts here and there remained charred posts.
Upon the hill of MKoffo was a palisade enclosing the barracks of two companies of the askaris and two guns. No brown cones peeped like candle-snuffers above the sea of green fronds upon the hills of the tombs of kings, but from the sacred hill of Kawa Kendi commanding the approach to the valley rose, black against the sky, the triangle of the roof frame of a large bungalow; around the crown of the hill was a stout palisade through which grinned in the sun the muzzles of a Nordenfeldt and a pom-pom; and outside upon a levee strutted rigidly four sentries night and day, a perpetual reminder to the passer-by below of efficient vigilance.
Within was a methodical formation of round huts dominated by a square one; at the far end, and in solitary grandeur beneath the Imperial flag upon a roughly-hewn flag-pole, was a green marquee tent, the temporary quarters of the Kommandant.
Under the tent verandah at the rear where were his private quarters sat zu Pfeiffer with a towel tucked around his neck upon which was scattered inch-lengths of hair. Sergeant Schultz sheared deftly with clippers like a reaper in a field of corn. When he had completed the final trimming behind the ears, he stood aside with the air of an artist viewing his work.
“Is that pleasing to your Excellence?”
Zu Pfeiffer ran a hand around his skull.
“Ya, that is better and cooler, sergeant.”
With a professional air Schultz whisked around the Kommandant’s neck with a light brush, untucked the towel and brushed him down. As zu Pfeiffer rose Bakunjala appeared with a broom of small branches and a pan and proceeded to sweep the earthen floor. Schultz neatly folded up the towel, placed it on the chair, and stood at attention.
“Is that all, Excellence?”
“Ya, sergeant. Take a cigar.”
“Thank you, Excellence!”
The sergeant selected one, saluted and departed. Zu Pfeiffer lounged in a basket chair. The usual water bag and syphon were suspended at his elbow above sparklet and brandy bottles, and a box of cigars. Around him on the floor was a litter of papers, envelopes and documents. On his wrist sparkled the jewelled bracelet and between fingers, one of which bore the large diamond which had earned him his native name, was an official document bearing the Imperial Eagles.
As he read he smiled and patted his left moustache approvingly. Officially the authorities would not [pg 176] comply with his request made before leaving Ingonya for two more companies of askaris with white non-commissioned officers and two more guns; but unofficially he was informed that they would be supplied later and that the authorities were pleased. He picked up a private letter and re-read it. Then he smiled again, a sneering twist remaining at the corner of the mouth. Always he was informed by sympathetic friends and an agency of the whereabouts and doings of Lucille. On the 1st of August she had been due at Wiesbaden.
He threw the letter on the table with an irritable gesture and scowled as he drank. The arrival of the mail always brought vivid regrets for the glories and comforts he was missing by being condemned to war with “dirty swines of niggers.” That was part of the penalty he had had to pay for being a gentleman in a land of dollar grubbers, yet a matter to be written up against the account of Lucille, the entzückend Lucille. He must have been verrückt, he reflected savagely. The delicate lips softened in ludicrous contrast to the brutal outline of a cropped skull. The blare of a trumpet disturbed his reveries, reveries which were apt to rankle until among his satellites went the word that the Eater-of-men was possessed by the demon once more.
After he had elegantly finished a small cup of café cognac and a cigarette, Sergeant Schultz strutted up, saluted, and at a nod from zu Pfeiffer handed a document to the Kommandant, a roster of the chiefs who had submitted with the approximate number of their followers. Officially there were five chiefs with some six thousand men who had nominally accepted [pg 177] the new ruler, each one of whom had to leave as hostage for his fidelity a son, who lived under guard in the village beneath the guns.
Zu Pfeiffer needed the extra companies and white men to establish stations at various points with the object of gradually extending the sphere of military occupation. Zu Pfeiffer left nothing, as far as he could foresee, to chance; his maxim was to conserve his force to the utmost, to attain his objective at the least possible cost in men and material. The policy of terrorisation was based on the reasoning that eventually schrecklichkeit saved both the conqueror and the conquered bloodshed and trouble; for if the enemy were not so impressed with the fact that all resistance was utterly useless, he would resort to the sporadic risings which would entail more slaughter on both sides. Zu Pfeiffer, acting on the teachings of the German masters, sought to make war psychologically as well as militarily, economically as well as geographically. Hence his dramatic step in the overthrow of the idol in person, and the care with which he planned to impress each chief and native with his omnipotence and magic. This system of the application of political science as well as of military science, of course, was sound, save for a temperamental error: the lack of sufficient imagination to realize the unknown quantity of chance, the inevitable mistake of military scientists who are loath to admit the artist to their counsels, exemplified by men of genius, such as Napoleon and Leonardo da Vinci, who were both mathematicians and artists.
In zu Pfeiffer’s case, as in others of his type, the motivating principle was not bourgeois greed of material [pg 178] gain for himself; gain he could afford to despise in his wealth; such would have been contrary to the code of a gentleman. While he had not hesitated for a moment to destroy his rival, Birnier, he would not touch with one finger any of his goods; for that reason had he given permission to the corporal to take Birnier’s equipment, so that he would not even be contaminated by the possession of them, a temperamental error again which had led to Birnier’s escape.
The driving power in his caste and tribe was love of power to an excess masked with portentous solemnity under the cloak of benefiting this people and the peoples of the world; forcing them to have broad streets and sanitary arrangements, compelling them to laugh, to sing, and to be happy whether they would or no: an urge which is the curse of the world, the impulse to interfere in other folk’s affairs, to teach them, to make them to know the true God, the right way of living, the right way of doing everything from the rising of the first sun of consciousness to that happy crack of doom when our planet tries to enforce its orbit upon some other planet.
Zu Pfeiffer pinched a cigar tip, lighted it meticulously and considered the roster.
“Sergeant, this man—what’s the animal’s name? Kalomato—has his son surrendered himself?”
“No, Excellence. The man says that he has fled the country.”
“Where does he come from?”
“The neighbourhood, Excellence.”
“That means that his son is with the rebels?”
“Probably not, Excellence. He is very young, they say.”
“That does not matter. Sequester all the chief’s property. If he won’t give it up let the askaris deal with him. If that doesn’t work, have him shot.”
“Excellence!”
For such obstinate cases zu Pfeiffer had fallen upon the custom of serving two purposes by handing over the victim to the mercies of his askaris which whetted their sadistic appetites and usually secured the desired revelation of the whereabouts of the hidden ivory or other goods under the torture of the burning feet, and divers other ingenious methods. Of late this practice had proved so satisfactory that the mere threat was usually sufficient.
“This man,” continued zu Pfeiffer tapping the roster with his long nail, “his son is here?”
“Ja, Excellence.”
“Has he paid the tithe due?”
“No, Excellence. He refuses.”
“Have the son shot.”
“Excellence!”
“Any report this morning?”
“Ja, Excellence. A Wamungo spy brings news that a white man entered the country from the south.”
“Description?”
“They say he is a trader, Excellence, coming from the Kivu direction, but the savage cannot give any satisfactory description. It is the first white he has seen, he says.”
“He won’t be the last!” snapped zu Pfeiffer with a twitch of the left sentry moustache. “Saunders, [pg 180] possibly. If so he should be here shortly to report. Well?”
“The King and the few men left with him are in hiding, Excellence, in dense forest. They are demoralized and quarrel among themselves. Many are coming to surrender, for they say that you, Excellence, have eaten their god.”
“Ach!” said zu Pfeiffer with satisfaction. “What did I tell you, sergeant?”
“Your Excellence was correct in every respect.”
“Um! Pity I can’t spare a company. That would settle them before they have a chance to reorganize. Ach, but they haven’t the sense, the animals, to do that.… Parade, sergeant.”
Schultz saluted.
“Ready, Excellence.”
Zu Pfeiffer rose, took up his gold-mounted sjambok, and the two walked around the big marquee to the front where between the orderly lines of huts those askaris not on duty were drawn up for inspection. The sergeant barked. Bayonets flashed as they presented arms. Another bark and they ported arms. Zu Pfeiffer walked down the line inspecting buttons, bolts, and rifles as meticulously as he had lighted his cigar. The fifteenth barrel he thrust away petulantly and flicked the askari’s face with his sjambok. The muscles of the man’s face twitched as the blow came and the eyes bulged, but he did not flinch.
“Twenty-five, sergeant!”
“Excellence!”
Zu Pfeiffer passed on. When the inspection was finished he stood rigidly smoking, coldly watching [pg 181] Schultz dismiss the men. Then he stalked down the hill with Schultz slightly in the rear, followed by a big black Munyamwezi sergeant-major, towards the opposite hill, of MKoffo. But at the bottom of where there were some half-constructed huts he paused.
“The women, sergeant?”
“The large hut, Excellence. Two hundred as ordered.”
“No women of chiefs?”
“No, Excellence. Those attending on the hostages are housed apart.”
Zu Pfeiffer strode towards the hut indicated which stood near to the edge of a rased banana plantation. Two sentries without the fence presented arms stiffly and remained immobile. Within the compound were some sixty or more young girls, mostly having the black complexion of the slave type. The chattering and giggling ceased as the tall form of the dreaded Eyes-in-the-hands stood in the gate. A slight smile flirted his lips.
From the deep violet of the hut interior darted a young girl into the sunlight. At the sight of the white men she poised on her toes, one foot forward and hands extended as if about to whirl into a dance, staring with the curiosity of a fawn.
Tall for a native maid, the light bronze of her immature breasts revealed that she was of the Wongolo ruling caste. Around her slender neck was a circlet of bright blue beads. As zu Pfeiffer stiffened and stared she wheeled and fled into the hut.
“Gott im Himmel!” he muttered. “The body of Lucille in Carmen!”
“Who is that woman?” he demanded of Schultz.
“I don’t know, Excellence,” replied the sergeant and spoke to the black sergeant-major. “She is the daughter of the chief Bamana, Excellence, visiting these other women. I will have her removed.”
“I will not have the sense of caste abused,” said zu Pfeiffer, gazing into the hut. “That is not policy. Have her sent to the fort, sergeant, and placed under guard.”
“Excellence!”
Zu Pfeiffer swung on his heels and strode out and up the hill of MKoffo. The inspection was more hurried than usual that day. Then he returned to the hill of Kawa Kendi to hold court in the big marquee tent. After a lunch and a long siesta in the heat of the noonday he strolled around the village superintending the rasing of huts and the staking out of the new village which was to rise upon the ashes of the old one, a concrete example of the wisdom and power of the new lord, Eyes-in-the-hands.
Under squads of askaris gangs of prisoners, criminal and political, bound by a light chain about each neck, laboured at clearing away charred stumps and debris, while other natives portered in saplings and loads of grass, each village which had submitted sending its allotted quota.
Trumpets blared. The keepers of the coughing monsters made magical dances with their fire sticks up on the hill of Kawa Kendi. The black, white and red totem of the conqueror fluttered to earth like a wounded bird. Night closed like a black lid placed upon the steaming cauldron of the sun.
After dinner zu Pfeiffer sat in his private tent at [pg 183] the rear of the marquee drinking brandy. Upon a camp table covered by a violet cloth was the portrait in the ivory frame at which he gazed as he smoked. The blue eyes and the feminine lips softened as sentimentally as any sex-starved Puritan virgin; perhaps not in spite of, but because of, a mediæval code as senseless as the native system of tabu, for natural emotions suppressed find an outlet in some form.
From outside came the twitter and hum of the forest, the rhythm of frogs, the dim bleating of a goat and the distant wailing of the women’s death lament. Zu Pfeiffer drank and smoked and stared at the portrait in the ivory frame. Once he slapped irritably at a mosquito which had escaped the double net over the tent door. A wave of emotion seemed to well within him. He looked as if he were about to blubber as leaning over the table he peered intently at the pictured face and whispered:
“Nur einmal noch möcht ich dich sehen,
Und sinken vor dir aufs Knie
Und sterbend zu dir sprechen:
‘Madam, ich liebe Sie!’ …
“Lucille! … Ach, Lucille!”
He drew himself back with a jerk, drank his brandy at a gulp and called angrily:
“Bakunjala!”
The flutter of sand preceded a gasped:
“Bwana!”
Zu Pfeiffer gave him an irritable command. Four [pg 184] minutes elapsed during which he gazed steadily at the portrait. He turned at the slither of feet. Bright blue beads glittered in the lamplight as the daughter of Bamana sank upon her heels.