An old man named D'wiri, who knew every step of every dance, saw this and said in his stern way that it was shameless. But he was old and was, moreover, in fear for the decorum of his own obsequies if these outrageous departures from custom were approved or allowed to pass without reprimand.
When M'lama, the wife of G'mami, had seen her lord depart in the canoe for burial in the middle island and had wailed her conventional grief, she washed the dust from her body at the river's edge and went back to her hut. And all that was grief for the dead man was washed away with the dust of mourning.
Many moons came out of the sky, were wasted and died before the woman M'lama showed signs of her gifts. It is said that they appeared one night after a great storm wherein lightning played such strange tricks upon the river that even the old man D'wiri could not remember parallel instances.
In the night the wife of a hunter named E'sani-Osoni brought a dying child into the hut of the widow. He had been choked by a fish-bone and was in extremis when M'lama put her hand upon his head and straightway the bone flew from his mouth, "and there was a cry terrible to hear—such a cry as a leopard makes when he is pursued by ghosts."
A week later a baby girl fell into a terrible fit and M'lama had laid her hand upon it and behold! it slept from that moment.
Ahmet, chief of the Government spies, heard of these happenings and came a three days' journey by river to Isongo.
"What are these stories of miracles?" he asked.
"Capita," said the chief, using the term of regard which is employed in the Belgian Congo, "this woman M'lama is a true witch and has great gifts, for she raises the dead by the touch of her hand. This I have seen. Also it is said that when U'gomi, the woodcutter, made a fault, cutting his foot in two, this woman healed him marvellously."
"I will see this M'lama," said Ahmet importantly.
He found her in her hut tossing four bones idly. These were the shanks of goats, and each time they fell differently.