The Black Phantom

by Leo E. Miller

Oomah was young, tall and strong. As he walked there was the rippling play of well-formed muscle under his brown skin. His black eyes, set at a slight angle somewhat like an Oriental’s, glowed with the fire of determination from under the heavy shock of hair that covered his head.

The women peeped out of the doorways as he passed, with looks akin to veneration. Liked by all, the sacred mission on which he was about to depart enhanced the esteem in which he had been held. And while their eyes were filled with admiration, their hearts were full of pity and sadness. For, with the coming of night Oomah would pass from among them like the fading of a shadow when the sun sets.

Preparations were at once started for the parting feast. Hunters had gone in quest of game. The women ground yuca roots for fresh cassava bread. And the children, with tear-stained faces, gathered wood that had been stranded along the edge of the sandbar. But the youth wandered about listlessly, barely conscious of the activities that were going on all around him.

Choflo had gone to the forest early in the forenoon. At mid-day he returned, carrying a bundle of slender stems in his hand. Looking neither to right nor to left, he entered his hut and drew a curtain woven of rushes across the doorway so that none might behold him plying his sacred calling.

Safe in the seclusion of his abode, he dug a hole in the sandy floor and buried the stems he had brought so ostentatiously from the forest; then he took down a bundle of arrows from under the thatched roof and selected one after a good deal of scrutiny of the lot. It was long—six feet or more, with a slender, reed shaft and a needle-like point of tough palmwood fitted and glued into the stem. A short thorn, fastened to the point with fine twine, formed a barb so that the arrow could not be withdrawn once it had entered the flesh. On each side of the base was a split eagle’s feather attached with colored thread. The feathers were not fastened in a line parallel with the shaft, but curved slightly; this gave the arrow a rotary motion in flight like that imparted to the bullet by a rifled gun barrel and made for accuracy in shooting. He now took a lump of resinous gum from his charm-bag and rubbed it on the point of the arrow until the latter was covered with a thick, black coat, resembling old beeswax. A cap of a joint of slender bamboo was fitted over the end of the missile to prevent the rain from washing away the supposed poison, and it was ready to be delivered to Oomah.

Choflo had been guilty of treachery of the vilest kind. Instead of the deadly pua poison contained in the stems of the creepers he had brought from the forest he had used the harmless gum which so closely resembled it that the eye could not distinguish between them.

Oomah started on his perilous mission that night, after the feast had been eaten and all the members of the tribe had bade him a solemn farewell.

It was a silent group that watched him depart, for they felt that he would not return; and in their grief they entirely forgot Choflo’s dire predictions for themselves in the event that Oomah was unsuccessful in his quest. In their hearts they rebelled at the dictum of their leader but the long habit of obedience caused them to suppress their resentment. So they merely looked sad and said nothing.

“Now go,” Choflo said, ceremoniously presenting the magic arrow, “and return when you have slain the Black Phantom. Bring back the ears, the claws and the tail so that we may have the proof. And do not return until your mission has been fulfilled.”

Oomah gathered up his bow, a pack of arrows of various types to use in procuring game, and a small bag of food, and without a word vanished into the night. The last thing the watchers saw was the tuft of white feathers which had been inserted in his head-band.