Page:Under the Sun.djvu/171

Rh off, when my ears were nearly split by a shout from behind me — “Soko! Soko!” and the next instant I found myself flung violently to the ground, and struggling with — Mabruki! The pain caused by the sudden fall at first made me furious at the mistake that had been made; but the next instant, when the whole absurdity of the position came upon me, I roared with laughter.

The savage is very quickly infected by mirth, and in a minute, as soon as the story got round how Mabruki had jumped upon the master for a Soko, the whole camp was in fits of laughter. Sleep was out of the question with my aching back and aching sides; and so, mixing myself some grog and lighting my pipe, I made Mabruki shampoo my limbs with oil. While he did so he began to talk, —

“Does the master ever see devils?”

“Devils? No.”

“Mabruki does, and all the Wanyamwazi of his village do, for his village elders are the keepers of the charm against evil spirits of the whole land of Unyamwazi, and they often see them. I saw a devil to-night.”

“Was the devil like a Soko?” I asked, laughing.

“Yes, master,” he replied, “like a Soko; but I was always asleep, and never saw it, but whenever it came to me it said, ‘I am here,’ and then at last I got frightened and got up, and then I saw you, master, and ” —

But we were both laughing again, and Mabruki stopped.

It was strange that he, too, should have felt the same uncanny presence that had afflicted me. But under Mabruki’s manipulation I soon fell asleep. I awoke with a start. Mabruki had gone. But much the same