Obianga gives expression to his surprise in a long, low whistle. It is quite evident to him that no ordinary person could command such wages; and in a tone of utmost compliance he says: “What was it you told me to do, Makuba? I forget.”
“I forget too,” says Makuba. “O, yes,” he adds, “I told you to haul on the peak halliards.”
Again, it is night, dark and stormy: a tornado seems to be approaching. Captain Makuba shouts the order to Obianga, to “make fast the jib-sheet.”
Obianga, who is no more afraid of a tornado than anything else, and whose head is nodding with sleep, tells him to mind his own business.
Makuba, losing his patience, of which he has not a large stock, calls him a cannibal—the worst insult he could offer him, and adds: “You especially like to eat us Kombi people: you say our flesh is the best.”
“You lie,” says Obianga (the current form of polite contradiction), “we like the Bekeli people better than the Kombi; there is more salt in the Bekeli.”
Do not conclude from this that Obianga himself is a cannibal. He probably never tasted human flesh; but it is not so long since his fathers emerged from cannibalism but that tradition still distinguishes between the flesh of the surrounding tribes; nor was Obianga at this moment disposed to admit that Makuba would make a more savoury dish than any of the rest of us.
In spite of Makuba’s anger it strikes him as very funny that his intended insult should fall so wide of the mark, and he laughs “in linked thunder long drawn out.” There is nothing more contagious in Africa than laughter, and Obianga joins in it; and then of course he obeys the order. Soon after this, the storm having passed, they are singing together “I have a Father in the Promised Land,” singing it well, too; and while they sing I fall asleep.
But if a tornado should swoop down upon us, as it happens so often, or a drenching rain should catch us, the half child nature in Makuba would disappear immediately and reveal a whole man, strong, fearless and resourceful. In a tornado no man knew better than he just what to do for safety; and in a rain-storm his only anxiety seemed to be for the health of the white man—lest he should get wet, while at such times it was almost a matter of politeness with him not to protect himself.
Once on a journey of three days on the open sea, from Benito to Gaboon, I was miserably sick the second day and could not eat. Neither would Makuba eat, because I did not. The wind was contrary, and he sat at the stroke oar pulling hard until two o’clock in the afternoon without food. At last almost in tears (speaking in Kru English in which he and I always conversed) he said: “Mr. Milligan, hunger no catch you? All this day I look you and you never chop. Suppose you no chop you go die.”