Soon after dark the white man’s personal boy came and informed us that his master had taken some tea and gone to bed with a bad fever, and he had sent to say that he could not talk with any of the lads that night, and begged them not to make much noise, as his head ached severely. A quietness fell upon us all, and although the stone house was some distance off, the boys spoke in whispers for fear of disturbing their teacher. When the light was put out that night, one of the elder boys timidly suggested we might pray to God on behalf of their teacher. As no one dissented he falteringly prayed: “O God, we do not know much about you, for we are foolish and do not learn quickly what our white man tells us about you; but we beg you to cure him of his fever, so that he may teach us every day. O God, take a sharp hoe, dig into our hearts, pull up all the weeds and sow Thy good seed there. In the name of Jesus we beg it. Amen.”
Two or three days after the above events Bakula heard some shouting in the town, and hurried in the direction of the voices. There, in the centre of a crowd, was a witch-doctor, dancing and prancing about in the most ridiculous, though approved, fashion.
In his hand was a bunch of feathers, which he flourished in the air and then darted at the grass wall of a hut near by. Every time he threw it the bunch of feathers stuck in the wall, and everybody shouted with admiration because they thought it was a great charm, as otherwise simple feathers would not fly with such accuracy and stick tightly on a wall. The witch-doctor danced in triumph, and the crowd of onlookers shouted and clapped.
Again the feathers are thrown, and, wonder of wonders, they stick; but before the witch-doctor has finished his fandango of exultation, a school-lad darts from the crowd and, grasping the feathers, he drags them from the wall.
A scream of horror arises from the men and women, for they expect him to fall dead or paralyzed on the ground as a punishment for touching another’s fetish.
But, no, there he stands nervously pulling at the feathers; and before the witch-doctor can reach him he extracts from amid the feathers a sharp iron prong, and throws it and the feathers at the feet of their maddened owner.
Then the people see the trick that has been played upon them and, turning on the witch-doctor, drive him from the town amid hooting, hisses and laughter.
A SCENE IN THE CATARACT REGION OF THE CONGO.
