“A black Apollo,” whispered Jack.
The music swelled, the note of savagery became more insistent. It was as if the invisible orchestra were playing for this particular audience, as if into the players had crept the very spirit of this night in a remote corner of central Africa. Jack and Frank both felt a strange stirring within them as if a response to the music, to the occasion. But what they experienced in their cultivated minds was but a trifle, the merest breath, compared to the effect of the music upon the savage, uncivilized minds, of the blacks about them.
Wimba and Matse began to sway with the rest. A glassy look came into their eyes.
But they were strangers in this community. They did not dare to get to their feet.
Not so the young men of the Kikuyus. As the black Apollo ceased pivoting and began to circle the fire with arms rigid against his sides, body swaying, knees lifting high like those of a horse on parade, other young warriors leaped from the audience into the cleared space about the fire. Falling into line behind the leader, they circled in a dance at first rather stately but soon becoming madder and madder in movement until, upon the concluding strains of the record, they were flashing by the boys in a whirling, swirling mass of legs and gleaming ebon bodies.
“Wow,” said Frank, expelling a long breath as, following the subsidence of the music, the dancers ceased and melted back into the audience. “That was some sight. What a shame Niellsen wasn’t here to take a movie of that?”
“Certainly is a shame,” agreed Jack. “Can’t you just see the audience in some movie palace back home, sitting there in the dark, when suddenly this moonlit village square with its fire and its circle of blacks flashes on the screen? Then the dancers begin! Can’t you just see it? Oh, boy.”
The Hawaiian records had been the last number of the programme. At Jack’s prompting, Wimba bowing low to Chief Ruku-Ru made this announcement. In reply, the chief spoke at such length that the boys, unable to understand a word of what was said, became impatient. Then Wimba turned to them, his eyes big.
“Chief Ruku-Ru, him say tomolla him Kikuyus give warrior dance for um baas,” interpreted Wimba. “Him say white wizards give um good time tonight, him give white wizards good time tomolla. Warrior dance when sun come up.”
Jack let out a low whistle. “Tell Chief Ruku-Ru we are very much pleased,” said Jack, “and we’ll be there.”