CHAPTER XXI.
WITCHCRAFT.—ACCUSATION OF PENDÉ.—RESULT OF HIS TRIAL.
War is looming on the banks of the Ovenga. Witchcraft is at the bottom of the trouble. The Bakalais have met from every vale and from every hill, and chiefs and elders and warriors have come to ask for the head of Pendé. I am alone of all my race in this turmoil.
Pendé was a younger brother of King Obindji, and was himself the chief of a village. Pendé was disliked by every body. The fearful accusation which the Bakalais brought against him was this. Pendé was said to have stolen the bones of dead persons in the forest and to have made a fetich with them, which fetich was to keep trade away from a particular village. Pendé was an aniemba (a wizard); for who ever heard of men who went and stole human bones and kept them, that were not sorcerers? Pendé’s ways were strange and mysterious. People could not understand them, and he must be killed. Obindji being the eldest brother, they called on him to issue an order for the killing of Pendé.
Obindji must give up his brother. Quengueza being in the country, the discussion took place before him. I and Quengueza stood on two stools in the midst of the two opposite camps. One camp demanded Pendé’s life, while the people of the other said Pendé was not guilty of what he had been accused. Hence these latter were unwilling to deliver him to be killed.
With the exception of Quengueza, every man there was armed to the teeth. They were all covered with fetiches and war-charms; they were painted in all sorts of fantastic colors. How ugly many of them looked! how devilish, how blood-thirsty many of them seemed to be! O God, how kind thou art! Thou makest the rain fall on the evil, and on the good; thou makest the dew of heaven fall on the poisonous plant, and on the plant that feedeth man. Still, in despite of the blood-thirstiness of these people; in despite of their superstitions and horrid customs, now and then the better nature of man would get possession of them, and their hearts were susceptible of better feelings.
So a man of the name of Mashamamai came forward; he was thin and wiry, tall and slender; his features were sharp, his eyes sunken, his cheeks somewhat prominent, and his filed teeth showed themselves every time he opened his mouth to speak. His body was tattooed all over; he wore round the waist a leopard’s belt, which he himself had entrapped and killed, a necklace of leopard’s and gorilla’s teeth; on his side hung a huge war-knife. His eyebrows were painted yellow; on his forehead there was a broad white mark, while one of his cheeks was painted red, and the other yellow. He certainly had succeeded in his attempt to look horrid.
He began in a hollow, sonorous voice, and said—
