The Country of the Dwarfs

by Paul B. Du Chaillu

Strange rumors came from the Otando country: the news was that the people did not want me to come, as I carried with me the eviva (plague) wherever I went.

Several weeks passed away; no tidings of my men, no tidings of Arangui, or of the Ashiras who had gone with them. The plague was now diminishing in virulence for want of victims, for, except Macondai and myself, every body had been attacked with it, and those who did not succumb had recovered or were fast recovering. In the beginning, every body attacked was sure to die.

I began to feel suspicious, for three Otando men had come to me and told me they had important intelligence to communicate, but could not give it just then, and had promised to come back after two days. Three days had passed away, and I heard one night somebody talking in a hut; I listened outside, and was rewarded by finding out that the Ashiras had frightened away the three Otando men, who had gone back to Mayolo.

At length three of my Commi men suddenly made their appearance from Mayolo by themselves. I was thunderstruck; the Ashiras of the village were frightened. What did all this mean?

Rebouka, Mouitchi, and Rapelina were the good fellows. Though it had taken four days to come from the Otando country, they had found their way back. They were armed to the teeth, and looked like terrible warriors. Igala, tired of waiting for me, had sent them back to see what was the matter.

I now learned that the Ashiras had returned long ago, and, though weeks had passed away, I had seen none of them. I heard also that several of the loads had never reached Mayolo; that the porters had gone back to their plantations with them; that Arangui was at the bottom of all the thieving; and that Igala, with all his threats, could not make the porters sleep together near him at night. Then, to cap the whole thing, they told me that Arangui had seized one of the Otando men that had come to see me, and that this was the reason why the other two had fled.

"What is to be done?" said I to myself. "I must be crafty and cunning, and as wise as a serpent." It would never have done to get in a rage.

I told my men to keep quiet, and not to say a word about the robbery. I did not want to frighten them—I wanted more porters.

It did, indeed, require a great amount of self-control for me to keep cool when I was quite certain that all the men of the village knew that I had been plundered by their own people, and that probably most of them had been sharers of the plunder. Even Ondonga, who now was chief of the village and a cousin of Arangui, knew all about it. It is wonderful how savages can keep secrets: not a child, not a woman, not a man in the country had breathed to me the slightest word on the subject.

That night I kept revolving in my mind how I must act to get out of the scrape. I said to myself, "I must become a hypocrite, and fight cunning with cunning, in order to win."