Part 4

The wretched woman took the garment from her shoulders and laid it on the mat beside the bangles.

"And why," said Sikoro, "do you sit on the Chief's mat?"

Mironda slowly rose to her feet.

"And is not this the Chief's hut?"

This was the last word, the full sentence of divorce; she, now a common woman, had no right to stand where she stood. She looked hastily round the compound and then walked silently to the gate and so out.

The man gathered up the ivory bangles and tied them in the shawl. He rolled up the mat upon which Mironda had been sitting and tucked it under his arm. Then, spitting contemptuously on the ground, he followed.

* * * * *

Some years later I saw Mironda, clothed in the rags of a slave woman, begging food at the Mission station.

When the wife of the Chief is divorced, her fall is gradual. For a space she becomes the wife of a head man, who presently passes her on to someone lower in the social scale, and so from hand to hand she passes until she becomes the consort of a slave.

In Mironda's case she first became the wife of Sikoro; surely a no more cruel punishment could have been devised for her.

MAN AND BEAST.

PROTECTIVE COLOURING.

Mobita had views on protective colouring. Who is Mobita? Oh, an elephant hunter, a black man; a very good fellow--as black men go. Mobita used to say that elephants, and big and small game generally, could not see black and white. Black they could and white they could, but not a judicious combination of the two. His usual hunting kit was a black hat with a white feather in it, a black waistcoat over a white shirt, a black and white striped loin cloth. His thin arms and legs were dull ebony. There you have Mobita.

Mobita's theory worked very well for a time, but as he had missed an essential he paid the penalty in the end. A zebra is black and white--more or less--and in the bush is practically invisible so long as it stands still. That, then, is the essential adjunct to protective colouring--you must keep still.

This is what happened to Mobita.

Just before the war I was hunting on the edge of the Great Swamp. Early one afternoon, when the day was at its hottest, I heard a shot fired. Later, I met a freshly-wounded tusker and dropped him. I went up to have a look at him, and found dry blood on his ground tusk and a hole behind his near shoulder; someone had just missed his heart. My shot took him in the ear.

I left some of my men to cut out his tusks, and, out of curiosity, went back along his spoor. I had not far to go. Sitting round a pile of green branches I found a dozen of Mobita's people, looking very glum.

They told me their yarn, which I did not believe until I had had a look round for myself. The spoor told me their story was true enough.

It appears that Mobita had followed the bull since early morning. He got in a moderate shot; the bull saw him and gave chase. The ground was unbroken, with no large ant-hills or big trees to dodge behind. Here and there they went, this way and that, but the tusker kept his eye on Mobita--on his protective colouring, I should think. Then somehow Mobita tripped and fell, and the game was up. The elephant stamped on him, knelt on him, put his tusk through him. Then--and here is the strange part of it all--went from tree to tree picking green branches and piling them up on what was left of Mobita.

Then he moved off and shortly met me.

Did I bury Mobita? Why, no. People came around presently--as natives will when meat is about--and I made them pile stones on him; quite a hill they made. I paid them for their trouble with elephant meat, and handed the tusks to Mobita's men, as the custom is.

Protective colouring is all right, no doubt--if you keep still.

DARWIN--A BIRD.

When the railway construction reached to within reasonable distance of my camp, I realised how tired I was of living in a mud hut, and acquired sufficient material from the contractor for a small house. I also asked him to spare one of his carpenters to erect it for me.

The man sent to me was a German named Fritz Kunst. He was not only a carpenter, but a mason, bricklayer, plumber, and painter as well. He was an excellent workman, a member of no union, and intent only on finishing his job quickly and well. I hasten to explain that this was many years before the war.

In build he was very short, almost deformed. His head was abnormally large; so, too, were his hands and feet, especially his feet. He looked upon his feet as his salvation. He was flat-footed, and on that account had never served in the German army. He referred to his feet as, "My goot luck, isn't it?"

I had but one fault to find with him. He was rough with his native servant. The boy sometimes complained to me, and when I remonstrated with Kunst or threatened him with the law he would burst into a flood of tears and offer to pay cash for his lapse. One day the boy complained to me that Kunst had beaten him severely and without cause. He could, however, show no mark, but I sent for his master and demanded an explanation. Kunst was evidently very angry with the boy, for he shook his fist in his face and bellowed in his coarse, guttural voice: "Zo, you make er tam vool of me, eh? I will your head break. You spoil my money. Gott tam you!"

In broken English, but with considerable fluency and force, Kunst told me the source of his indignation. It appeared that from time to time he commissioned his boy to make small purchases for him--eggs, fowls, milk, fish, and the like. On the previous evening the boy produced a very large egg for which he said he had paid sixpence. As eggs were then never more than sixpence a dozen in that country, Kunst charged him with cheating. The boy explained that the egg was a very large one. It was large--huge, in fact--for a hen's egg, so Kunst did not press the charge, but went to bed, telling the boy to boil it for breakfast next morning.

On the breakfast-table the egg looked larger than ever. It couldn't sit in the tin egg-cup, so lay on the table beside it.

Now Kunst was a greedy man and attacked the egg in the best of good spirits. He tried to crack it in the usual way with a spoon, but without success. He banged it on the table. The shell did crack then, but, to Kunst's indignation, the egg proved to be hard set. Whether he thought parts of it might be good I cannot say, but the German broke open the egg and examined it more closely. He then became very angry indeed, for what he found satisfied him that the egg was not a hen's egg at all. The creature upon which he gazed was three-parts beak and most of the rest was made up of feet. Kunst had never seen anything like it. In a rage of disappointment he beat the boy. He had so looked forward to eating that very large egg which the boy assured him was a hen's egg. Had not his trusted servant declared that the egg had cost sixpence?

I soothed Kunst's ruffled feelings, and persuaded him to go to his work and forgive the boy.

When I had settled the little differences between the German and the native, I cross-questioned the latter. It transpired that the giant egg was that of a marabout stork which had nested in a tree a few miles away. As one egg still remained in the nest, I told the boy to let a week or two go by, and if by then the egg had hatched out to bring the chick to me.

In due course Darwin arrived. I did not call him Darwin for several weeks; the name occurred to me later. Darwin was the queerest of objects. He was a large ball of fluff based on two very long legs, and surmounted by a huge beak protruding from a bald head. He was wise from birth; it was when I had fully realised how very wise he was that I christened him Darwin.

When he first came to me he made no proper use of his legs. He could not stand erect, but sat awkwardly with his bird equivalent to knees protruding behind and his large feet, with toes spread out, in front. He resembled a downy globe on rails. He crawled about my bungalow almost from the first day I had him. This he managed by sliding first his right hand rail along the floor and then his left, clapping his huge beak after each movement. I suppose I subconsciously accepted this beak clapping as the crooning of a baby bird, for I soon found myself indulging in baby talk with him.

His appetite was amazing; moreover, he was omnivorous.

When it was neither his meal time nor mine, he would sit on the floor in front of me blinking up at me with wisdom in his eyes. He winked. There is no doubt about it. It was as if he had just remarked: "What you and I don't know isn't worth knowing." I soon dropped the baby talk with Darwin, and discussed with him Affairs of State.

He grew rapidly. One day I detected a feather. By degrees feathers replaced the down, but the most important sign of Darwin's growing up was when he took his first step. One morning without warning he heaved himself up, and, by using his beak as a third leg, actually stood on his feet. For the space of a full minute he remained in this position, then, suddenly lifting his head, he was erect. For one moment only; then, overbalancing backwards, he fell with a crash full length on the floor. He appeared stunned at first. I picked him up and placed him on his rails again, and there he sat, thinking the matter over. Presently he repeated the manoeuvre, but with no better success, falling this time on his "front" as a child would say. Again I gathered him up, and apparently, after mature consideration, he decided that his time for walking had not yet come, for he made no more attempts that day.

About a week later, as if the idea had struck him for the first time, he got up quite suddenly, and coolly walked out of the back door into the yard; he stood there sunning himself, and chattering to and at everybody and everything in sight.

Darwin never looked back. He quickly developed a curiosity as insatiable as his appetite. He became playful, too. He made friends with the dogs, and romped with them. He noticed that the doctor paid a daily visit to the compound, and hid behind the fence in wait for him. As the doctor sped past on his bicycle, Darwin would shoot out his heavy beak at him. So sure a marksman did the bird become--he always narrowly missed the saddle, but hit the doctor--that the good man complained, and approached the compound by the long way round.

The day arrived when certain puppies had to lose their tails. Darwin took a proper interest in the operation, and gobbled up each tail as it fell. He appeared to like dogs' tails, and went in search of more. He found a nice long one which he tried to swallow, but it happened to be still attached to an elderly greyhound. Poor Darwin met with his first serious rebuff in life; he came to me for sympathy with a large puncture in his beak. The mark of the dog's displeasure was permanent.

When natives came, as they did in hundreds, to sell the produce of their gardens, woods, and streams, Darwin inspected their wares. With a twist of his beak he would filch a pinch of meal from a bowl to see, so the natives declared, whether it was of uniform whiteness throughout. Eggs had to be protected with outstretched arms, so, too, had baskets of little fishes, for he was very partial to them both, and only a very full sample would satisfy him. The natives declared him possessed. Judging by the way he first abused and then assaulted any one of them bold enough to resist his inspection, I think they were right.

I have already mentioned his curiosity. He permitted this defect in his character to carry him too far when he became a common thief. A traveller stayed with me for a few days. In spite of warning, he left the door of his hut open when he came across to the mess hut for breakfast. Darwin entered to inspect. It is surmised that he swallowed my guest's shaving brush and tooth brush, for they have never been found. It is only surmise, but there was circumstantial evidence to support the charge in the form of the stick of shaving soap which was found on the floor with marks on it which might have been made by the beak of a large bird.

Again, the contents of two boxes of cigars were found scattered far and wide; each cigar had been nipped in half. Darwin was questioned; he looked wise but said nothing. A native witness swore he had seen the accused walking in the yard with the white man's pipe in his mouth. This was a wicked slander, for the white man had that pipe in his pocket, and it was his only one.

The case was not proven, but Darwin left the court without a shred of character.

I have referred to his appetite. One day the cook missed a piece of lamb's neck, weighing probably half a dozen pounds. He couldn't blame the cat, because there wasn't one, so he pointed the finger of accusation at Darwin. The evil bird was sent for. I felt he was guilty, and, although he winked at me for sympathy, I had to say so. Besides, he had not been sufficiently careful to hide the loot; even a professional detective could have recognised the meat by the very large, irregular bulge in the bird's pouch. In places the mutton bones threatened to pierce the thin disguise.

Darwin certainly had his uses. No nasty-smelling scrap could lie undetected for long. His scent was keen and his eye sharp. I never found a snake in the house after Darwin grew up, nor were there many rats about the place.

Once a huge swarm of locusts fell upon us, and all hands turned out to destroy them. Darwin joined in the fray, and soon we retired and left him to finish the job, as he disposed of thousands to our joint hundreds. His method was simplicity itself. He dashed here, there, and everywhere with his huge beak wide open. Only now and then, and for a moment, did he close it to gulp down what had fallen in.

The doctor, who lived a mile away, did not like Darwin; partly because of his stupid trick of pecking at him as he cycled by, but chiefly because he seemed to know what was going on in the hospital. If an operation was being performed, Darwin could be heard tramping about impatiently on the corrugated iron roof of the building. As the marabout stork mainly lives on carrion scraps, there was, the doctor considered, questionable taste in Darwin's visits.

Alas! Darwin met with a violent death in his early prime.

Like all others of his kind, he grew those beautiful downy feathers so highly prized by women who dress well. There was a demand throughout the country for the feathers, and many of these delightful and useful birds died at the hands of the natives in consequence.

An operation was going on at the hospital, and Darwin was hurrying thither on foot, as I had recently cut the feathers of one of his wings. In the road he met a strange native, who despatched him with his assegai, stripped him of his feathers, and walked on.

The spoiler soon came up with two of my servants who, on hearing of the man's good luck, as he put it, took him back to the scene of the outrage.

Yes, it was "Da-wi-ni"; was not that the hole in his beak which the angry greyhound made?

My servants decided that Darwin had been most foully murdered, and acted according to their lights.

* * * * *

It was well that the doctor knew his job. After six anxious weeks the native was so far recovered from the beating as to be pronounced out of danger.

THE LION'S SKIN.

In the year 1898 Sergeant Johnson, the one with the bright red beard, was sent up country to establish and to remain in charge of the new out-station of Likonga. Likonga, a little-known spot in Central Africa, was, and still is, miles away from civilisation. Sergeant Johnson's command was cut to small dimensions by malaria at headquarters. He had but a corporal and two men. Likonga in those days consisted of nothing but a name on the map, and nothing at all in the way of buildings or anything else to show you when you had got there. The Commandant of Police had dotted vaguely the imperfect sketch map with his pencil, and had instructed Sergeant Johnson to go there. The Sergeant had glanced at the map as it lay on the office table, and had said, "Yes, sir."

"You will take with you Corporal Merton and Privates Hay and Hare. I cannot spare more."

Again the Sergeant said, "Yes, sir."

"You will take rations for ninety days, the small buck waggon, and the black span of oxen."

For the third time Sergeant Johnson said, "Yes, sir."

Now, this man with the bright red beard had been a soldier elsewhere before he became a policeman in the middle of Africa. His old training had not encouraged questions, so he never asked any now. When, therefore, the Commandant of Police glanced up from the map, the Sergeant saluted, turned about, and left the office.

He wasted no time. He took Corporal Merton, Privates Hay and Hare, the small waggon, ninety days' rations, a span of fourteen black oxen, the Zulu Jacob to drive, and the Kaffir boy "Nine-thirty" to lead.

Just before sundown he pulled out of camp. It is hardly necessary, perhaps, to say that the leader of a waggon is the native who walks in front of the oxen, but it is necessary to explain that a leader of oxen in Africa answers to any name flung at him. This particular one was called "Nine-thirty" because, without any apparent effort, he stood and walked with his feet splayed at what should have been an impossible angle to his legs. If his right big toe pointed east, his left one pointed west, whilst he himself faced north or south, as the case might be.

For seven days the party travelled in a northeasterly direction, Sergeant Johnson spending most of the time on his back on the waggon, Corporal Merton tramping immediately behind, whilst Privates Hay and Hare followed at any distance ranging between a hundred yards and half a mile.

The party was not a cheery one; it might have travelled for yet another day, or even more, had not the Sergeant dropped his looking glass off the tail end of the waggon. He was devoted to his big red beard. While lying on the waggon he spent his time fondling and trimming this beard, smearing vaseline on it and admiring it in his little lead-framed looking glass.

When, therefore, he dropped his glass, he said: "Damn," and then, more loudly, "This is Likonga; outspan, Jacob!"

The driver shouted "Ah, now!" to the oxen, and the outfit came to a halt.

As a camping place, the spot so casually chosen was not a bad one. There was wood and there was water, good grazing for the cattle, and obviously some game about. Moreover, there were some granite boulders on the left, set round in the form of a rude circle. Under the Sergeant's direction all were soon roughly housed. The cattle had been made secure at night by a skilful reinforcement of the circle of boulders, here a thorn bush and there a few poles. Patrol tents, protected by a straggling fence, satisfied the Sergeant and his men. Jacob spent the day in the lee of his waggon and the night under it. "Nine-thirty" slept on the other side of the cattle kraal, under the propped-up roof of an abandoned native hut; during the day he herded the cattle. The making of this very primitive out-station occupied less than a couple of days, and then the question, "What the devil shall we do now?" fell upon the party like a blight.

But, as is so often the case, the devil decided.

All had turned in for the night. The Sergeant had taken a last look at his beard. Corporal Merton had read something of Kipling's. Private Hay, after a long-winded argument with Private Hare, in which neither seemed to gain advantage, had told his adversary to go to hell. Private Hare had found satisfaction in saying, "Ditto, brother." Jacob had retired under his waggon, and, like most natives, fell asleep immediately, with his head well covered by his blanket.

The leader with the silly name, alone of all the party, remained awake in his solitude on the other side of the cattle kraal. His evening meal of maize porridge was bubbling in his small cooking pot, perched on a handful of embers. He was playing a minute native "piano," a trumpery, tinkling thing, made of half a gourd, a strip of hard wood, with a few tongues of metal affixed to it.

The tinkle, tinkle, tink, tink; tinkle, tinkle, tink, tink, sounded very plaintive and lonely in Africa's wide expanse. The boy was singing, too--if his wail could be called singing.

The crocodile, Floating near the bank, Sleeps in the river. Tinkle, tinkle, tink, tink. The fish, Floating on the water, Sleeps in the river. Tinkle, tinkle, tink, tink. The hippopotamus, Floating in mid-stream, Sleeps in the river. Tinkle, tinkle,...

The music stopped. Africa was deadly still, save for the croaking of a frog.

"Nine-thirty" sat motionless, looking straight before him, out beyond his little fire. Immediately opposite stood a large, black-maned lion. The pair faced each other, a yard or so apart. The only movement was the lion's tail, which switched from side to side. The huge beast looked steadily at "Nine-thirty," who, full of fear, stared back at the lion.

Where life and death are concerned, things happen very suddenly. The lion took one step forward and seized "Nine-thirty" by the knee. The boy reached for his assegai and plunged it into the lion's ribs.

The Sergeant heard the cry and a roar of pain in his sleep, and woke up to fumble with his beard. Corporal Merton, from an interrupted dream, cried out: "Halt! Who goes there?" Private Hay, if awake, said nothing, whilst his companion in arms muttered: "What's up?" Jacob answered from under his blanket: "It's a lion, master, and he has killed my leader." At any rate, it was certain something serious had happened. A lion, uncomfortably close, was making such a din that the leaves of the trees near by seemed to flutter, and "Nine-thirty" was moaning on the other side of the cattle kraal.

"Stand to arms!" commanded the Sergeant.

All tumbled out of their blankets, rifle in hand, shirttails flapping in the night wind. They were not cowards, neither were they fools. The four listened to the sound of a lion growling and retreating as he growled. The moaning came from one place, so it was evident that Nine-thirty was for the moment safe. Then, hastily lighting a lantern, the policemen picked their way round the cattle kraal to Nine-thirty's little fire. The Sergeant knew something of first aid. He lifted the mauled native carefully and carried him back to the waggon. The boy's knee was in a bad state--the joint was crushed. A "tot" of brandy, a thorough wash of the wound, a bandage, a blanket or two, and a bed of grass near the camp fire made Nine-thirty as comfortable as possible. After making up the fire, all turned in again.

At daylight the Sergeant mustered his men, and thus addressed them:

"We will now go and blot out this accursed lion. Load, and remember no one fires until I give the word. Put on your boots, don't bother about your bags."

The four lined up.

"March!"

They hadn't far to go--barely a couple of hundred yards. The lion raised his head and growled. Nine-thirty's assegai, broken off short, still protruded from the beast's ribs.

"Fire!" commanded the Sergeant. Four shots rang out as one, and the lion's head sank upon his paws. The men reloaded, and approached with caution, but the marauder was dead.

The Sergeant instructed Jacob to skin the beast, and the four returned to camp for breakfast and to think out the problem which had arisen out of the killing of this lion.

All things being equal in sport, and rank apart, and as man to man, to whom belonged the skin? Someone had missed, because there were only three holes in the skin. Someone had made a rotten bad shot, because there was a bullet hole in the lion's rump. Someone had killed the beast outright, because a bullet had passed through the lion's brain. Someone had done for him, because another shot had taken him behind the shoulder.