"What is it to be?"
"Ceremonial dances, I fancy."
"I think I shall stay," she said slowly.
In her heart she thought it extremely unlikely that the performance would last all night. Indeed her own opinion was that Kingozi would be a prisoner within an hour.
Kingozi settled himself stolidly in his chair before the fire that was now beginning to eat its way through an immense pile of fuel, where, during all subsequent events, he remained in the same attitude.
The Leopard Woman, on the contrary looked with all her eyes. The torches came nearer. People began to pour out from the woods. There were warriors in full panoply; lithe, naked men carrying only wands peeled fresh to the white; women hung heavily with cowries; other women with neither garment nor ornament, their bodies oiled and glistening. A deep, rolling chant arose from hundreds of throats, punctuated and carried by a sort of shrill, intermittent ululation. The drums were there, but for the moment they were not being beaten in cadence, only rubbed until they roared in undertone to the men's chanting.
All these people divided to right and left in the clearing of the guest camp, and took their stations. More and more appeared. The space filled, filled solidly, until at last there was no break in the mass of humanity except for a circle forty feet in diameter about the fire.
Suddenly a group of fifteen or twenty men detached themselves from the main body and leaped into this cleared space. The great chant still rolled on; but now a varied theme was introduced by a chorus of the nearby women. The dancers were oiled to a high state of polish, naked except for a single plume apiece and a sort of tasselled tail hung to a string belt. They clustered in a close group near the fire, facing a common centre. In deep chest tones they pronounced the word goom, at the same time half crouching; then in sharp staccato head tones the word zup, at the same time rising swiftly up and toward their common centre. It was like the ebb and surge of a wave, the alternate smooth crouch and spring over and over again--goom, zup! goom, zup! goom, zup!--and behind it the twinkle of torches, the gleam of eyes, the roll of the deep-voiced chanting.
Endlessly they repeated this performance. The Leopard Woman, watching, at last had to close her eyes in order to escape the hypnotic quality of it. In spite of herself her senses swam in the rhythmic monotony. All outside the focus of the dancers turned gray--goom, zup! goom, zup!--was it never to end? And then it seemed to her that it never would end, that thus it would go on forever, and that so it was just and right. The men were tireless. The sweat glistened on their bodies, but their eyes gleamed fanatically. She floated off on a tide of irrelevant thoughts.
Hours later, as it seemed to her, she came to herself suddenly. Kingozi still sat stolidly in his chair. The dancers were retiring step by step, still with unabated vigour, continuing their performance. They melted into the crowd.