“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.