“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