Page:In Desert and Wilderness (Sienkiewicz, tr. Drezmal).djvu/365

 Rh paid homage to the 'Good Mzimu'; therefore rise, gaze, and fill your eyes, for whoever does that gains the blessing of the Great Spirit. Drive away, also, fear from your breasts and bellies and know that wherever the 'Good Mzimu' sojourns, human blood cannot be shed."

At these words, and particularly as a result of the announcement that in the presence of the "Good Mzimu" no one can meet death, M'Rua rose, and after him the other warriors, and began to gaze, bashfully but eagerly at the kind divinity. Indeed, they would have to acknowledge, if Kali again should ask them about it, that neither their fathers nor they ever had beheld anything like it. For their eyes were accustomed to monstrous figures of idols, made of wood and shaggy cocoanuts, and now there appeared before them on an elephant's back a bright divinity, gentle, sweet, and smiling, resembling a white bird, and at the same time a white flower. So, too, their fears passed away, their breasts breathed freely; their thick lips began to grin and their hands were involuntarily stretched out towards the charming phenomenon.

"Oh! Yancig! Yancig! Yancig!"

Nevertheless, Stas, who was watching everything with the closest possible attention, observed that one of the negroes, wearing a pointed cap of rats' skin, slunk away from the ranks immediately after Kali's last words and, crawling like a snake in the grass, turned to an isolated hut standing apart, beyond the enclosure, but surrounded likewise by a high stockade bound by climbing plants.

In the meantime the "Good Mzimu," though greatly embarrassed by the role of a divinity, at Stas' request stretched out her little hand and began to greet the negroes. The black warriors watched with joy in their eyes each movement of that little hand, firmly believing it