"Crazy," Abe said, dropping off the back of the truck which Kenny Ballalou, who was driving, brought almost to a complete stop. The older Jake followed him.
The rest went on a quarter of a mile and dropped Bey and Cliff.
Homer said to Kenny, "Park the truck somewhere near the spice market. Preferably inside some building, if you can. For all we know, they're already turning over vehicles and burning them."
Crawford and Isobel dropped off near the pottery market, on the banks of the Niger. The milling throngs here were largely women. Elements of half a dozen tribes and races were represented.
Homer Crawford stood a moment. He ran a hand back over his short hair and looked at her. "I don't know," he muttered. "Now I'm sorry we brought you along." He leaned on his staff and looked at her worriedly. "You're not very ... ah, husky, are you?"
She laughed at him. "Get about your business, sir knight. I spent nearly two weeks living with these people once. I know dozens of them by name. Watch this cat operate, as Abe would say."
She darted to one of the over-turned pirogues which had been dragged up on the bank from the river, and climbed atop it. She held her hands high and began a stream of what was gibberish to Crawford who didn't understand Wolof, the Senegalese lingua franca. Some elements of the crowd began drifting in her direction. She spoke for a few moments, the only words the surprised Homer Crawford could make out were El Hassan. And she used them often.
She switched suddenly to Arabic, and he could follow her now. The drift of her talk was that word had come through that El Hassan was to make a great announcement in the near future and that meanwhile all his people were to await his word. But that there was to be a great meeting before the Mosque within the hour.
She switched again to Songhoi and repeated substantially what she'd said before. By now she had every woman hanging on her words.
A man on the outskirts of the gathering called out in high irritation, "But what of the storming of the administration buildings? Our leaders have proclaimed the storming of the reactionaries!"