Chapter 30
Forty-eight hours later, the furious drumming, chanting and screaming heralded the return of the victorious troops of Zalu Zako. Birnier from his gaol on the hill watched the bronze flood pour like a stream of lava out of the plantation and flood the village, spears flashing silver points in the slanting rays of the sun. But what had happened to zu Pfeiffer and the white sergeants? No sign of them could he see. Waves of sound lapped continuously around the temple.
The long mauve shadow of the hill ate up the village. Fires began to flicker amid the huts and away in the recesses of the plantation. The lowing of cattle added to the general clamour. As the western sky was still ablaze with incandescent colour stole the cold green of the advancing moon in the east.
“Mungongo, what are thy brethren about to do?”
“It is the Festival of the Harvest, as I have told thee, O son of the Lord-of-many-Lands.”
“But they have not the Bride?”
“Nay.” Mungongo glanced apprehensively towards the temple where in what was to have been a bathroom, was Bakuma hidden. “He-who-may-not-be-mentioned demands but blood. The Bride is the food of the wizards. But to each warrior is every woman his bride this night.”
“Why didst thou not tell me this thing before?” [pg 308] demanded Birnier, who knew that such was one of the customs of primitive tribes in all parts of the world and in all ages.
“Thou didst not ask me,” retorted Mungongo, to whom the affair was such a matter of course that it was not worth mentioning.
“Do they make sacrifice?”
“The Bride is married to the Banana, but of the manner of her nuptial know I not. Am I a wizard?”
The divine king grimly watched his subjects. In the growing light flitted gnomes around the huts in and out the sepia caverns of the plantation. As a banana front was etched in sepia against the great moon, the ocean of clamour was cleft by the high treble of the tribal troubadour. At the bottom of the wide street appeared dancing figures. As they approached, Birnier could distinguish Bakahenzie, Marufa and Yabolo in the van, dressed in full panoply, whirling and leaping with untiring energy. Behind them shuffled and pranced a vast mass of warriors, behind whom again several hundred women shrilled and wriggled in the mighty chorus. The rhythm of the drums increased to the maddening action impulse of the two short—long beat:
Pm-pm—Pommmmm! Pm-pm—Pommmmm! Pm-pm—Pommmmm!
The treble solo of the chant darted above that throb and grunt like a mad bird skimming the turbulent tops of a dark forest.
Pm-pm—Pommmmm! Pm-pm—Pommmmm! Pm-pm—[Pommmmm]!
The rhythm seemed like a febrile pulse within Birnier’s brain, dominating him with hypnotic suggestion [pg 309] to action. An urge to scream and to yell, to dance and to leap, plucked at his limbs. Resurgent desires from he knew not what subconscious catacombs, wriggled and struggled furiously within him. The great moon scattered blue stars upon the spears as if upon the green scales of some leviathan squirming in delirious torment.
Control the twitching of his muscles to that rhythm Birnier could not. He had to fight to resist the waves of hysteria permeating the air. He glanced at Mungongo. The whites of his eyes were rolling. Birnier cursed the insistency of the drums and the orgiastical grunts. Forcibly he kept up a running fire of psychological explanations: “Annihilation of inhibitions … dissociation of personality … triumph of the subconscious animal,” as a wizard muttering incantations against evil spirits. He felt dizzy. “God, I’m drunk with rhythm!” he exclaimed.
The priests were entering the large gate of the outer enclosure. In the village and on the opposite hill the people resembled a swarm of black locusts. The drums ceased. Bakahenzie and Marufa and Yabolo ran straight towards him screeching. This was the cue.
Birnier walked back slowly. In awful silence they began to push the idol. The wood creaked protestingly. Slowly the mass slid on to Birnier’s back. He gripped it and began to walk to the entrance. As he passed Mungongo the Sacred Fires shot up yellow tongues. A sound like a moan rose dripping with screams and grew into a continuous thunder of noise. The drums rippled a furious tattoo. The three [pg 310] wizards dashed before him, leaping high in the air. Birnier shuffled a dozen yards to the left and turned. He stopped.
Upon the ground, just within the outer gate in view of the multitude beyond, green ivory in the moonlight, was the naked figure of a white man. Above him pranced Bakahenzie in whose hand gleamed a knife.
The training of his life enabled Birnier to throw upon the screen of his mind the essential points more rapidly than conscious thought. Bakahenzie, as well as the others, was in an abnormal state of excitement. There was no time to employ “magic” rockets or anything else. He swung the idol upon one shoulder and ran forward. He saw the blue eyes move and the bracelet wink in the moonlight as he stepped over the bound form. He bent, balancing the image upon his shoulders, and seized zu Pfeiffer by the arm.
The throb of the drums and the roar of the people who knew not but that this act was in accordance with the rules, continued. The priests remained motionless: expectant. Bakahenzie stood rigid as if paralysed by the unexpected: the knife was a blue snake in his hand.
Half blinded with sweat, with his muscles cracking, Birnier staggered on with the heavy burden, dragging the nude body after him. Hours seemed to pass, each second of which might bring a spear in his back before he reached the place before the temple. He slid the idol into the hole and turned.
From the tumult of sound the screech of Bakahenzie shot up like a snipe from a rice field. The other wizards sprang with him. The moonlight kissed a [pg 311] spearhead beside the stone figure of Mungongo by the Sacred Fires. Birnier leaped, plucked the spear, caught zu Pfeiffer in his arms and raised him shoulder high that all might see.
At the entrance of the enclosure Bakahenzie and the other two were arrested by astonishment. Lowering the body to the base of the idol which leaned sideways in a drunken leer, Birnier lifted the spear and brought it down accurately between zu Pfeiffer’s left arm and breast, and dropping swiftly upon his knees to cover his actions, slashed his own left forearm. Then he jumped to his feet and held the blooded spear aloft as he cried aloud:
“The god hath taken his own!”
Bakahenzie was the first to see that the white breast of the victim was indeed deluged in blood; perhaps the veneration engendered by “the fingers of Tarum” moved beneath the blood lust.
“The god hath taken his own!” he repeated in a piercing scream. Marufa echoed the shout. As they turned the cry was ricocheted beyond the farthest hill.
“The god hath taken his own!”