MYalu smiled and touched her upon the shoulder.
“Thy flesh is cooler than the dew.”
“Nay, nay, O Chief, thou hast not tied my girdle,” she protested, as she backed away from him, her eyes wide like a terrified deer’s.
“Nay, but will I untie it soon,” he retorted.
But as he stepped towards her she turned and fled. As MYalu watched her running as swiftly as a pookoo [pg 101] into the plantation he grinned and called out: “Even now is the cooling draught steaming in the breath of the Unmentionable One! But the goblet shall hold a sweeter draught for me!”
“Aie! Aie-e!” wailed Bakuma, her heart beating furiously, “what devil hath bewitched me! O, that father of many goats hath betrayed me! Aie! Aie-e! O, the cry of the Baroto bird! Aie! Aie-e!”
And when Bakuma, distraught with terror by the menace that she had only procured the nail paring and hair to give her lover into the hands of the false magician who, of course, had been bought by MYalu, arrived at the “pastures” by the river, as MYalu had foretold, no buck walked there.
The sun spilled blue shadows on the village from the sacred hill where another scene was being enacted, and it was not as imagined by the amorous MYalu.
In the council house, which was within the outer fence and before the sacred enclosure, was in progress a meeting of the doctors. In the door of the enclosure squatted Kawa Kendi, with Kingata Mata in attendance tending the royal fires. Before him, in front of their fellows, were seated Bakahenzie and Marufa in full dress of green feathers and the scarlet plume. The left side of the idol, which was so set that the shadow never fell upon the entrance to the compound, was gilded by the sun; the mouth grinned in one corner, one eye was closed in shadow, seemingly like a prodigious wink.
To the thrumming of the sacred band Bakahenzie was rocking himself to and fro mumbling incantations. Kawa Kendi squatted immobile, but the others swayed and grunted softly in rhythm. Then on a sudden did [pg 102] Bakahenzie lift up his head and cry in a great voice. The drums ceased and the body of witch-doctors remained motionless, expectant. Bakahenzie dropped his head and began to chant: