“ ‘How does it happen you never mentioned your high connections before, Ruth,’ he demanded.
“ ‘No savvy, boss,’ she replied, uncomfortably. ‘You no ask me, mebbe-so.’
“After the messenger had departed, first being duly kicked by myself—Markley was too shaky—things began to happen. Trade slackened abruptly. A houseboy was found badly cut up just outside the compound and several of the Kroo boys stole a canoe and deserted downriver.
“To cap the climax Markley called me into his room and, pointing to an entirely imaginary black panther cat which he swore was squatting on his bed, asked me if I wanted to shoot it, or tame it.
“It was a week later, I think, that another messenger arrived. This time he came, not directly from Tolo, but from the chief witch doctor of the realm, one Buhu, I gathered, who had heard of the magic of the god-who-talks.
“The messenger sat circumspectly at a distance and explained his errand. Buhu, it seemed, had conceived some very potent ideas as to the powers of Markley’s magic. Now, in effect, he proposed a sort of bout between them.
“As the messenger explained:
“ ‘Chief Tolo he say mak’ so-so little-bit palaver, Buhu and Boss Markley upriver. Take ’long juju big mouf, mebbe so. Mebbe so he not come talk juju belong along Buhu, trade not come along company house. Mebbe so he come, Tolo not ask dash for Eta. Palaver set.’
“Which, freely translated, meant that Buhu was becoming anxious about the presence of bigger gods than his own on the Niger, and had persuaded Tolo to put the screws on Markley so that he could get a look-see at this strange spirit. If we came, Tolo would agree to let bygones be bygones, withdraw his request for the marriage price of his thirty-second cousin and allow trade to return to the compound. If not, things would be rather dull at Maraban in the future. Also I rather suspected that Buhu was planning a coup of some kind to get the loud mouf juju into his possession, for there is no more jealous person in the world than a witch doctor when he thinks some one is stealing his thunder. I suppose they live so close to the edge of discovery that they become jumpy.
“Markley had listened to the message from his usual seat on the veranda, leaning forward and trying to focus his eyes on the messenger. I expected him to roundly curse the black, and slump back in his chair. In that world of whisky haze in which he was living those days, nothing seemed to matter very much. Instead, he wobbled to his feet and replied loudly: