My owner, Bakula, now went forward with set face and steady step to where the saucepan of oil was sending up jets of steam. I could feel his chest heaving, his breath coming and going in quick, short gasps, his body trembling with the excitement of the hour, and his heart pulsating turbulently.
The tension was great, the sea of faces seemed to crowd about and press in upon him; and as he drew near the saucepan he could see the glint of hatred and triumph in the nganga’s eyes, but he answered them with a look of defiance.
The nganga rubbed something on the lad’s arm and hand, and dropped the piece of kwanga in the bubbling oil.
Every head in that great crowd was bent forward, and, as a hush fell on the assembly, every eye was fixed on the lonely, slim, young figure standing before that saucepan of fiery oil.
Without hesitation, for he was absolutely sure of his guiltlessness, Bakula boldly dipped his hand in the boiling liquid, but before he could reach the kwanga at the bottom of the saucepan, a paroxysm of pain seized him and, with a scream of agony, he fell fainting to the ground.
His friend Tumbu and the chief hurried to him and warded off, by their bodies, any intended blows upon the prostrate, unconscious lad; and between them they carried him to his hut.
When Bakula returned to consciousness he was lying on his rough bamboo bed, and his mother, with unskilled kindness, was trying to bind up that burning arm in poultices of leaves, and Tumbu was weeping by his side.
Tumbu told his suffering friend that Satu had paid the five pieces of cloth and the nganga’s fee, and the matter was therefore settled.
“And,” continued he, “although everybody in the town thinks you stole the cloth, I know you did not.”
Bakula then told his faithful companion how the nganga’s assistant had come to him before the ordeal, and had asked for money; that there was no doubt the Nenkondo had given a bribe, and so had passed the ordeal without a burn; and, emphatically asserted the lad, “After this I will never again believe in ngangas, nor in charms, nor in ordeals. I am innocent, but look at my arm.”