Over the city of the Snake the sun sank red dry, leaving the Place of Kings hot in the electric air of magic and world happenings. The people were still confined to their huts, trembling in the knowledge that for three days love must be eschewed, no water drawn nor any food cooked with fire; nor might any man, woman or child leave the precincts of the compound.
All the night Bakuma crouched in her hut listening in awe to the swish of the ghosts through the air, to the moans, groans and howls of the wizards doing battle with them. Tightly did she hold the amulet as she strove to conceal curiosity regarding the welfare of Zalu Zako; for did her mother suspect the presence of this evil spirit would she cause Bakuma to take a decoction of the castor-oil plant in order that the demon might be expelled; and the more to aid her conquer this unlawful impulse to peep without did she most persistently recite to herself the fate of the daughter of MTasa, the foolish Tangulbala whose body had been discovered impaled upon a tree by the angry spirits of the dead, because she had rashly ventured forth the third day after the death of the grandfather of Zalu Zako. Bakuma dared not mention the name of one who had died, for, as everybody knows, such an impious person runs the risk of summoning the ghosts to their presence.
The “putting out of the fire” had changed Bakuma’s prospects, had made Zalu Zako heir-apparent, implying half a hundred responsibilities, the chief of which was that now he was compelled to choose his official first wife, she who would be the mother of the “divine” Son of the Snake: an alteration that excited Bakuma to frantic clutching at the amulet. Would the charm work or would it not? How to insure that it would be efficacious? Marufa’s greedy demands worried her. She feared even if she obtained the goat that he might require something else as well. Anybody knows how greedy doctors are and how wealthy. He would be sure to increase the fee, knowing the value of the prize. Bakuma only possessed one really valuable article, and that was a charm against sterility; but this was the last thing that she wished to part with as the only possible occurrence that could ever divorce her from the position of chief wife, once she had won Zalu Zako, would be failure to provide the male heir. She was impatient, too, at the delay caused by the three days’ tabu. Time was important. Soon she would be under the ban of the unclean which entailed the curtailment of her liberty again, and she dreaded that possibly the charm might grow stale. The greatest need for speed was MYalu’s suit. As her father was dead she belonged to his brother. Already MYalu had offered four tusks of ivory and three oxen for her. Her uncle was lazy, mean, and greedy. Fortunately he thought that by waiting he could get double that amount. Yet MYalu might decide to pay the price demanded. Once Zalu Zako had selected her as his bride, her uncle dared not accept any other man’s offer, no matter how wealthy he might [pg 53] be; besides, the old man would not wish to refuse a relationship with the heir to the king-godhood.
Again her cousin was sick. The diagnosis of Yabolo, the wizard, was that her soul had wandered in sleep down to the river and had been swallowed by a fish. Yabolo had caught the fish and lured the soul into a tree, but now he demanded such a big price to restore the errant soul to the girl that her father, Bakuma’s uncle, would not pay it, so she would surely die; then they would all have to be exorcised, which inferred a further loss of relative freedom for another four days. Indeed with all these actual and possible delays it seemed to Bakuma that some one had made much magic against her. Unless she knew who he or she was, how could she employ the same means to annul the terrible effects? And more, how could she obtain the wherewithal to pay the fees of the best doctors? Life was very complicated to the daughter of Bakala.
Up on the hill of MFunya MPopo had the magicians been busy all the afternoon after the “putting out of the fire.” Zalu Zako and the chiefs also were barred from the sacred enclosure; for being mere laymen they could not hope to withstand the evil spirits of the dead. Even Bakahenzie and the inner circle of the cult were compelled to employ the most potent methods of protection to preserve them from being bewitched or slain outright.
After Bakahenzie, Marufa, Yabolo and two other master magicians had released the souls of the dead King by making incisions in the body with a sacred spear to the thrumming of the drums, the mighty groaning of the other wizards, and the persistent wailing of the dead man’s wives, the corpse was borne by [pg 54] twelve doomed slaves to the temple and there interred with the gouts of blood shed by the prophetic goat, the nail parings and hair clippings of his lifetime, and his personal effects.
Upon the hill of MFunya MPopo, soon to be a temple and sanctuary, sat Kawa Kendi beside the New Fire tended by Kingata Mata, facing Zalu Zako, MYalu and the lay chiefs, while upon his own hill slaves were tearing down his old hut, erecting a temporary palisade around the quarters of his wives who were forever forbidden to him, and beginning the building of the new temple.
As the violet shadows were creeping from one hut to another did Bakahenzie and his satellites return from the ghoulish offices of the dead. Zalu Zako, the chiefs and magicians arose to the wild beating of the drums and the wailing chant of the hereditary troubadour with the five stringed lyre. With Kingata Mata carrying a brand of the newly lighted sacred fire, was Kawa Kendi led in procession through the deserted village to his sacred home.
Under the hard stars set in a dry sapphire, the fire cast yellow flickers upon the carven features of Kawa Kendi. In the still heat the distant wailing of the women from the opposite hill drifted into the continuous throb of the drums, the plaintive wail of the singer, and the hysterical groaning of the magicians, yelling ferociously ever and again to intimidate the baulked spirits around the magic circle.
Then was a white goat, previously selected from the flock of Kawa Kendi, slain by Zalu Zako, disembowelled by Bakahenzie, and the entrails rubbed upon the brow, the chest and the right arm of the slayer [pg 55] of man, a ceremony of purification designed to protect the royal executioner by appeasing the justly angry spirits of the dead; to Marufa were given other parts of the slain beast to smear likewise upon Zalu Zako, the son; and Yabolo ran screaming with portions to the quarters of the women of Kawa Kendi: for must every blood relative be so enchanted lest the vengeful ghost seek substitute victims.