Tomtom Tragedy

THE RIVER gleamed like polished jade. Tangled lianas streamed out from walls of jungle into the broad, slow current. Ripples of green slime turned up by the high prows of the canoes folded back on themselves and were still. Occasionally a gossamer of butterflies, caught in the rays of the setting sun, hovered over the heads of the canoe-boys like a multi-colored veil floating in a breeze.

A tall Makua of classic physique stood in the bow of the foremost of the three canoes, shielding his eyes against the glare of the sun. Just as it sank into the green depths of the river, he pointed ahead and shouted:

"Mahango, Bwana!"

"Mahango—Mahango!"

The crews of the following canoes repeated his shout. Then a lively chant was started, breaking the brooding silence. The canoe-boys rose to one knee and drove their paddles into the green slime. The bowman began to beat time with two halves of a coconut shell. The canoe lurched from side to side and there was a wild joyous play of muscles as the crews raced for an out jutting bend in the river. Spray from the flying paddles slapped into Gordon Corby's face as he crawled from under the rattan shelter amidships.

Mahango was situated a few miles East of the triangle formed by the Gazaland-Transvaal-Rhodesian border at the confluence of the Limpopo and Muanetsi rivers. It was, therefore, a strategically placed factory, and the most Westerly post under the Companhia de Mocambique.

As the Company's senior agent, it was Corby's job to inspect the isolated factories and to see to it that the petty black despots who held sway along the banks of the great jungle waterway, kept the treaties they had made with the chartered company.

Trouble shooting along the Limpopo was apt to be more than a mere figure of speech in Corby's day. Portuguese control of the remote districts was more nominal than effective. The Makuas were still restless after the revolt under Gungunhana, or as many thought, Corby among them, under the real leadership of the Zanzibar Arab Sef Mejid, Gungunhana's viser whose grasping ambition had reached out for the whole of Gazaland and whose cowardly desertion in the hour of crisis had brought war and death to the Makuas.

Corby himself had taken a spear-thrust from the doughty Makua war chief when at long last he had been brought to bay and had died as he had lived, killing men with the utmost enthusiasm. His great war drum had been silent now for ten years, but not the tongues that extolled him. He died to the long grief of his tribe. A truly great man, the Makuas said, so brave and of such infallible power that a man's name drummed out by him flew to the heart of its owner as swift as an arrow and lo, the man was dead!

Mahango stood upon an eminence in a clearing about a mile from the South bank of the river. As the canoes swept around the bend, the thatched roofs of the wattle and daube huts showed above the green, like the peaked straw hats of Chinese peasants. The cargo sheds stood at the far end of the stockaded compound, the factor's white-painted bungalow in the centre. The flag of Portugal drooped from the head of the tall staff that stood in front of it.

As the canoes slanted shoreward. Corby's attention became fixed on the flag. All was not well at Mahango or it would have been hauled down at sunset. It was a ritual religiously performed wherever the white man's fetish flies far from his homeland.

The canoe-boys saw and felt the signs of ill-omen. Without a word of command, they rested their paddles and began to talk among themselves in soft whispers. Where were the store-boys who were wont to come down to meet them and the girls with their provocative, swaying hips and mocking laughter? It was an evil thing for men to come to the end of a long trek and to be greeted by even less than the bark of a dog. Aie, only the bewitched or the dead could be so silent!

CORBY uttered a sharp command. The paddlers started again, but with evident reluctance. The under-brush had been cleared from the bank. A wide path led up the slope from the cleared space and faded into the misty green. Corby was the first ashore. While his crew beached the heavy dug-out, he walked up the path for a short distance, rifle in hand, then stopped and looked up the trail.

As the last canoe drove its nose into the soft ooze of the bank, Corby's headman, wearing a red fez, khaki shorts and a tunic that showed a row of greasy battle ribbons, leaped out and ran up the path.

Mahri Hanna, or Maryanne, as Corby called him, was a Somal in the prime of his manhood, and he was as punctilious as an hidalgo upon what touched his own and his master's honor. He had served with Corby against Gungunhana; and according him his merit, Corby had raised his status to that of a Companion-in-arms.

"We've got trouble!" said Corby, as the Somal came to stand beside him. "Those canoe-boys are scared for one thing, and if you don't watch 'em, they'll shove off and leave us stranded."

"Who knows what has happened here, sar? It would be folly to go up to the factory alone."

Corby grinned: "The same thought occurred to me just now," said he. "And the surest way to keep the boys is to take them with us. Get them moving, Maryanne!"

Shouting and flicking his cane, Maryanne marshalled the thirty odd boys and started them up the trail. Corby placed himself at the head of the column. Maryanne remained at the rear to assist the too reluctant, with his cane.

Night came as they made their way up the slope of the hill. A brilliant moon silvered the path and the mist that came with the chill of night, hung in shreds among the trees. The drone of insects flowed into the silent spaces and the weird cry of the kunha bird began to sound down the scale. The trail broadened as it debouched from a rustling grove of banana trees and approached the gates of the deserted, silent compound.

Suddenly a hoarse voice, coming from the bungalow that faced the open gates, broke out into song:

"Oh, bring my terung die ou Transvaal——"

The rest was drowned out by the startled yells of the canoe-boys as they stampeded back down the trail. Corby took a deep breath of relief. Piet Dervoort's people had deserted him, but evidently the young Boer was still very much alive. A good man was Dervoort, Corby thought. Of a hard-riding, straight-shooting breed. There was always trouble somewhere along the river, but it was uncommon when Dervoort couldn't keep his boys. He strode up the moonlight path. A spurt of flame flared on the veranda of the bungalow. A bullet fanned Corby's cheek. He flung himself down on the path and rolled out of the line of fire, swearing fluently.

Maryanne came racing up the trail. Corby waved him down:

"It's Dervoort," said he as the other crawled up to him. "He must be blind drunk or he wouldn't have missed me. "Ho, Piet!" he bellowed. Nee skeit! It's Corby!"

HE WAS answered by a wild whoop, then Dervoort came running and stumbling down the path, tattered pants napping about his legs. Corby rose to meet him.

"Alamagtag!" the young fellow stood swaying on his feet and peered at Corby with blood-shot eyes. "I took you for a damned spook! Wat dink jy—" He broke off laughing hysterically. Then fear leaped into his eyes and he clamped his hand over his bearded mouth while his body shook as he stifled his mad laughter. Suddenly he threw his arms about Corby and sobbed like a woman.

"How long have you been alone, Piet?"

"A month, perhaps—I cannot tell. It was the drum—always at sunset it started. It sounds hollow like a voice from a tomb. Alamagtag, my boys went mad with fear, I tell you!"

"Did you hear it tonight, Piet?"

"No, no!" cried the boy wildly. "I am not sick! It is not an ordinary drum—I know drums. Was I not born among the Zulus? You did not hear it because it has done its work. It called my boys away; called each by name, I tell you!"

"Sure it did!" said Corby soothingly. His Makua canoe-boys were coming back up the trail, urged to it by Maryanne's cane. Several of them were staring at Dervoort with big, curious eyes. Corby took Dervoort's arm and walked him toward the bungalow, lest his wild appearance and excited gestures communicate his fear to the gaping Makuas.

The familiar odor of palm oil and dried fish, coming from the shed, greeted Corby as he approached the bungalow. A row of empty gin bottles stood in a neat line along the rail of the veranda. Dervoort's rifle lay on the floor; there was an open box of cartridges near it and the brass of empty cases gleamed on the floor. It was the old story—a very old one for Corby, almost conventional in its details. A White agent deserted, isolated and feeling the jungle closing in on him like a palpable mass—fear fed by imagination until every sound and object was magnified and distorted. Usually the victim, afraid to sleep at night, kept a vigil upon his veranda, blazing away at shadows. It could end in one of two ways. The poor devil went crazy and shot himself, or he got drunk and stayed that way until Corby came and sent him down river for a rest, while he remained behind to root out the trouble and get trade started again.

While Maryanne herded the Makuas into their quarters and barred the gates of the compound, Corby, with the tolerance that comes of understanding, drank with Dervoort. The truth was that there was a softness under Corby's hard exterior. He took a paternal interest in the well-being of the young agents that came under his charge, if they measured up to what he thought was desirable in a good one. And it was pleasant to drink with a man whose corpse, at this very moment might be buried under the red earth of the compound. He nodded sympathetically as Dervoort babbled incoherently about the drum and witchcraft. And when the Boer slid from his chair he picked him up and tucked him into his bamboo cot.

On the following morning Dervoort was up before Corby. He was on the veranda when Corby came out for coffee, clean and fresh-looking and apparently none the worse for the night's debauch.

"Senhor," said he diffidently in Portuguese. "I think we should drag the canoes up to the compound. Also we should divide the night into two watches. You to take one; myself, the other."

"Eh?" Corby was startled. "Why the devil should we do that?"

"Because if we do not, there will be no Makuas and no canoes in the morning, Senhor."

"Well, I'll be damned—the drum, eh, Piet? Well, don't worry about it. The kind of experience you've just been through can leave a man with very vivid impressions."

Dervoort colored: "I do not imagine things," said he. "And I will bet a month's pay that you hear the drum tonight!"

"I'll take your money!" Corby laughed. "And just to put your mind at rest, I'll have Maryanne lock the boys in their quarters tonight."

"Good enough!" Dervoort grinned at him boyishly and went off to start the day's work.

Later Corby sauntered through the sheds. He found everything in good order. The heat in the cargo shed was heavy with the sour, nutty smell of palm oil, native and dried fish. He noted with satisfaction the number of tins filled with the orange-colored oil and the neat casks, the work of Dervoort's coopers, piled high in tiers ready for shipment. Despite desertion, Dervoort would show a better record for the year than any other man along the river. He left the shed with a thoughtful look in his eyes. Dervoort had lost none of his grip on things and he wasn't the type to be troubled by too vivid an imagination.

Just before sunset Dervoort and Corby came out on the veranda. Neither of the men spoke. Dervoort stood with his gaze fixed on a gap in the trees through which a strip of the river could be seen gleaming like burnished tin. The opposite bank was a green fringe against the sky brilliantly blue, shading into a band of purple where distance blurred the outline of a range of mountains. With half-closed eyes, Corby studied the Boer's good-looking profile; noted the tenseness of his pose, the supple grace of his young body. A Makua was standing by the pole waiting for the signal to lower the flag. Maryanne came to report all secure for the night. Corby jerked his thumb at the bottle that stood on a table at his elbow and Maryanne poured himself a brimmer.

Just as he lifted the glass to his lips the drum spoke. Its tone did sound hollow and yet each note was distinct. Thrice the call was repeated. The booming notes hovered over the tree-tops and died in the limitless silence of the jungle at the precise moment of sunset. Then everything was as still as death. Not a leaf or a twig stirred.

The crash of shattered glass broke the spell. Liquor slopped over Corby's shoes. He turned to stare into the Somal's bulging eyes, his own face twisted into a grimace of astonishment. Maryanne's lips moved but no words came.

"Gungunhana's drum!" said Corby.

MARYANNE burst into his native speech; "It called thy name, master! Even as it did long ago when we marched against him and he challenged you to battle. Oh, we know that the Makuas say in their hearts: 'Gungunhana will return!' It must be so, else how could this thing be?"

"Gungunhana is dead!" said Corby sharply. He held out his big hand. "Is this not the hand that slew him. You talk like a wizard!"

But Maryanne knew his privilege and was disposed to speak his mind. No good could come of his master's fine contempt for the wisdom of the forest people, and it troubled his loyal heart. How was it that one so wise could not understand that the soul of an enemy slain, might take up its abode in the body of another man, or in that of a jungle beast, the better to wreck its vengeance?

"Bwana," he began. "Drums cannot speak with the same voice no more than people can—"

"That's true, Maryanne."

"It's also true that no Makua would dare to beat the drum of a chief so powerful as Gungunhana—"

"Ha!" Dervoort, who had been watching Corby's face, interposed with the triumphant note of the vindicated. "Wat dink jy daarvan?"

What did he think of it? Corby looked out across the river whence the sound had come. What should a man think when a drum, silent for ten years, boomed out a challenge from the grave? According to his emotional bias, he supposed. Just as it was natural for Maryanne and Dervoort, who had some Zulu blood in his veins, to think of witchcraft, it was natural for him to think in terms of flesh and blood, from the effect to the cause.

"A man who is not a Makua is beating that drum," said he. "Fact is, Piet, the drum has stopped trading at your post and it's our job to stop the drum. I want—" He broke off and jumped to his feet with an oath. The Makua who had been standing by the flag-pole had disappeared. The subdued babble of voices came from the native quarters, gradually increasing in volume until it became a confused roar.

"Come on!" Corby shouted and vaulted the veranda rail. "They're going to make a break for it!"

He raced across the compound with Maryanne and Dervoort at his heels. They had covered half the distance to the gates when the Makuas burst from their quarters and streamed out in a black flood. The three were caught in the mad, screaming panic and swept on toward the gates. Corby's head bobbed above the mass like a white float in a stream, while he roared and struck out to right and left. Then the tide reached the gates, crashed them and swept on down to the river.

Corby picked himself up from the path, gasping for breath and spitting out dirt. He felt as if a steam roller had passed over him. Dervoort ran up to him, his automatic in his hand.

"Put it away!" snapped Corby. "A dead porter's no damn good to anybody. Where's Maryanne?"

The Somal came staggering up the path, wiping blood from a gash in his cheek.

"Maku dogs!" he spat, disgustedly. "They have taken the canoes, Sar!"

"Well!" Corby squinted at Dervoort. "I'll listen to you next time, Piet. Anyway, we couldn't have got any work out of those fellows; they'd have sat around all day babbling about Gungunhana's ghost. There's a village a few miles down river. We'll try to get another gang there."

Dervoort gave him a puzzled look: "But the drum—"

"To hell with the drum!" Corby exploded. "The drummer, not the drum, is our trouble, Piet. I'm going to start looking for him right now. Man or ghost, nobody can scare the wits out of my boys—stop trade in my territory!"

As he turned to walk up the path, Dervoort started after him with his mouth open to protest, but Maryanne caught his arm.

"It cannot be otherwise, Sar," said the Somal gravely. "The drum has called him. You know it must be obeyed."

"The devil, but that is not what he thinks!"

"Does it matter what he thinks, Sar? The drum calls; we go. We will come to the same place by different roads."

"Alamagtag, yes! But I think death is the end of this road, Maryanne."

"It is here at Mahango, too, Sar. If we try to leave, it will catch us on the river and we will die like cowards."

"You will follow him into the jungle, Maryanne?"

"Oh, yes, Sar! He is never so far from me that I could not reach out my hand and touch him."

Dervoort rubbed his chin, thoughtfully, then suddenly he laughed: "Good enough! When the predikant caught me making love to his daughter back home, he said I was ripe for hell's fire. And a preacher cannot lie!"

THEY STARTED for the village two hours before sunrise and marched for a while under the dripping of the dew-laden trees. They followed one of the game trails that threaded the forest. The river was hidden by a dense screen of bush, but its noise was audible; a soft gurgling over-tone to the throaty grunts of beasts and the cackling of birds disturbed by the passage of men. A troop of monkeys flitted across their path like grey shadows; the old dogs that formed the rear guard scolded and showed their teeth. As the sun climbed, burning shafts of light pierced the gloom; miasma, reeking with the droppings of water beasts, rose from the black mud wallows and the trail ahead faded into soaking mist. But soon the mist cleared. The heat became oppressive and the three rested in a pool of sunshine, easing their rifles and heavy packs from their shoulders while the steam rose from their damp clothing.

"What's your explanation for the drum, Piet?" Corby asked suddenly.

"Alamagtag, does it need one? I tell you I would feel better if we were trekking the other way!"

"Afraid of spooks, Piet?"

"It is not the same thing. I have never seen a spook, but I have seen much that I cannot explain. Witchcraft may be trickery and superstition, as you say. But I have seen men die of it. And if trickery kills a man, what good does it do him to know it?"

"That's true enough. Witchcraft is a weapon in this country, and a dangerous one. But you'll admit that the wizard kills by poison, not by magic."

"I do not admit it. Say now, if you are killed today, or tomorrow, would the Makuas be wrong if they said: 'The drum called him and he could not stay?' "

Corby knocked the ashes from his pipe and rose: "We're out after the drummer because it's our job to keep trade moving in these parts, Piet," said he with a scowl. "Besides, there's damn little else we can do until we get canoes and boys to paddle them!"

"Truly!" muttered Dervoort as Maryanne helped him to shoulder his pack. "There is nothing we can do. The wizards have turned their trick!"

By noon the red flare of dying banana fronds were showing among the green, indicating the proximity of a village. It was a small village of several sorry-looking huts clustered about a palaver house. There was no broadening of the trail that approached it and no man came out to greet them, which was an insult if it was not indicative of open hostility.

"The devil!" swore Dervoort and unslung his rifle. "We might be lepers."

"We are worse!" said Maryanne, looking gloomily at the deserted hut. "They know a ju-ju curse is upon us. Put up your rifle, Sar, no man will hinder us."

"Keep your rifle handy and keep moving!" Corby barked at him.

Aware that eyes were watching them from behind the screen of bush, Corby led the way through the center of the village, expecting to hear the whizz of deadly, poisoned arrows with every pace. But they reached the river unmolested. There were several canoes drawn up on the muddy bank; worm-eaten, battered relics for the most part. Maryanne chose one that looked as if it might stay afloat.

Luckily the river was only about two hundred yards across at this point, the current slow and the water as tranquil as that of a pool. To the South its channel was visible for about a mile. To the North, the channel was straight for several miles until it was lost in a void of shimmering green where it made its Westward turn below Mahango.

BEFORE they were half way across, dark figures began to show on the trail behind, and the village drum commenced to throb. Soon it was answered by others, up and down the river, and deep in the jungle. Corby swore softly under his breath. Evidently his movements were being broadcast and he didn't doubt it some Makua wizard,              with more daring and originality than his black-hearted brethren, was building up a reputation for himself at the expense of what Gordon Corby valued most, his prestige. No white man in Gazaland was treated with more diffidence by the Makuas than he was. That was due to an accident of war; to the fact that the butt of his rifle had felled Gungunhana. But he had come to think of it as his due, nevertheless. It was prestige that made his work possible and his work was his life.

Though nothing of it showed on his hard, lined face, Corby was thoroughly roused and he was worried. He knew that Dervoort had stated the native viewpoint correctly. If anything happened to him, the Makuas would say that Gungunhana's ghost had called him to account. The odd thing was that he was compelled to answer the call; he couldn't ignore it. If the damned drum wasn't stopped, it would break him! It was just that the calculated cleverness of the thing that worried him. Somewhere he had an unknown enemy, one whose intelligence was above witchcraft.

They found a path on the opposite bank and followed it until they could see the flag-pole at Mahango on the hill above the trees. Corby called a halt:

"It's about sunset," said he. "We'll get our direction from the drum."

Dervoort nodded and Maryanne started a fire for the evening meal.

Again at, the exact moment of sunset, the call reverberated over the jungle. In spite of himself, Corby felt the hair on his spine bristle. It was the silence that followed it, that would get under a man's skin in time. But the jungle was always silent for a brief moment at sunset. He wondered if it was coincidence or a conscious striving for psychological effect.

"About ten miles North-east," observed Dervoort.

"That's where I figured it would be," Corby agreed. "It's not generally known, but there is a valley back there called Umakosini. The Burial Place of Chiefs."

"Alamagtag!" breathed Dervoort and stared at him.

Corby chuckled and answered the other's unspoken question:

"You're right, Piet; they say Gungunhana is buried there. But I'm not asking you to go along. You'll stay here with Maryanne. If I'm not back by this time tomorrow, start down-river. D'you understand, Maryanne?"

"Oh, yes, Sar!"

"And you, Dervoort?"

"Yes, Sar!" said the Boer, and spat.

After he had eaten and rested, Corby started up the trail. The soft leaf mould of the forest cushioned his feet. When he had covered a couple of hundred yards, he looked back. Dervoort and Maryanne were on the trail behind him. A warm light came into his eyes. He waited for them, and then, without exchanging a word, the three trudged on.

Now the path followed a shallow stream that gurgled over a sandy bottom. The night was full of whirring and cacklings. The underbrush thinned and patches of starlit sky began to appear in the leafy canopy overhead and, presently, an early moon climbed above the trees and dappled the path with silver and shadow. The subdued beat of a drum sounded in the distance. A wooded bluff loomed ahead. The stream led them to a deep ravine. They entered it in single file, moving swiftly and silently with the damp, live smell of fertile loam rising from under their feet.

After they covered another hundred yards, a hiss from Maryanne at the rear, brought them to an abrupt, tense halt. They stood motionless.

"What is it?" whispered Corby.

The Somal motioned him to silence and pointed. Corby looked back along the trail. Pools of moonlight made it visible for many yards until it vanished into shadowy perspective. At first he was aware of no movement; then he saw black shadows flit across his line of vision and the flash of light on metal.

"It is a trap, this kloof," said Dervoort calmly. "There will be more of them ahead of us."

Corby wiped the sweat from his face as: he said slowly: "Well, the fellow that's beating that drum has got more on his mind than killing us just yet, I think."

"You think he wants you alive?"

"I've got it figured that way," Corby murmured.

Dervoort did not answer for a moment, but stood looking up the trail ahead, his handsome face set in hard lines.

"Shoot it out with them," said Dervoort. "A Makua and a Zulu is the same thing. I have seen men die slowly. Look!" he broke off, pointing.

A STALWART Makua had come out of the shadow a few yards in advance of them. He was an induna, a proud, stern-visaged commander of a regiment. A metal ring, symbolic of his rank, gleamed around his bull neck, and another ring crowned his white, woolly head. He was unarmed and he extended cupped hands in formal greeting.

"I know you, Bwana Sadari," said he. Corby looked into the grim face and smiled:

"Do I look upon Sala, who was senior captain among the Makuas?"

"Even so. But I come in peace, Sadari."

"I see that you are unarmed, Sala. But I saw spears behind me and, doubtless, there are spears behind you."

"Think no evil of that, Sadari. My master sent me thither to wait for you. And now that you have come, I must take you to him."

"Who is this master, warrior?"

"Ha! You will know him when you see him, Bwana Sadari! If you come with many, he bade me to drive them. If you come with few, he bade me to bring you to his house in peace. He has words for you."

"I, too, have words for him, Sala. Let it be as your master says. Show us the way, warrior!"

The induna turned and stalked up the trail. As the three followed there was a faint rustling of leaves on either side of them and Corby guessed that they were flanked by unseen warriors moving through the bush parallel to their line of march.

An hour's march brought them to a right-angled turn in the ravine. A gorge opened before them, closed in by high walls of black rock. The ground was sandy underfoot and fairly clear of bush. The gorge was manifestly the ancient bed of a river, perhaps the Limpopo itself. The stream they had followed meandered between huge boulders, rounded and smooth. The sound of drums increased in volume.

"This must be it," said Corby. "We are the first white men to enter the Burial Place of Chiefs, Piet!"

The young Boer smiled wryly: "If we are not first white men to be buried among them, I will go home and marry the predikant's daughter. Even that, I swear it!"

Maryanne crowded Corby. He looked about him while he clutched in his hand the charm he wore about his neck. Unintelligible words came from his moving lips muttered incantations to appease the Great Shades.

Suddenly Sala halted and raised his hand. A terrible cry rang through the gorge. Corby turned in time to see the Makua warriors burst from the cover of the bush behind them. He fired from the hip into the black mass. Dervoort's rifle exploded at the same instant. Then the Makuas were upon them and they were in the center of howling, black chaos. For a time they stood their ground, fighting back to back with clubbed rifles. But grasping hands clawed them apart. Corby saw Maryanne and Dervoort go down, and he roared like a wounded beast. His heavy boot cracked the skull of a Makua that clung to his leg. His rifle had been torn from his grasp and blacks clung to his arms like limpets. A jolt from his knee freed his right arm and his big fist smashed into a snarling face. With his gun hand free, his automatic began to spit death, and space opened around him. A knobkerry whizzed and thudded between his shoulders. He staggered and went down at last under a mass of stinking, sweating bodies.

Swiftly the Makuas bound him, hand and foot. A slender pole was passed through loops at his feet and shoulders. Among yells of triumph he was lifted like a slaughtered beast and borne away.

Face down and with his head bobbing a foot above the ground, the dust that rose from under the splay feet of his bearers choked him. By the time they had covered a mile he was conscious only of the agony in his muscles which were drawn with every swing and jolt as if he were being racked.

The dust had blinded him, but the frenzied clamor of drums, savage yells, the bedlam that came suddenly to swirl around him, told him that they had arrived at a village. The swaying stopped. His head struck the ground and the stench of mould and dung filled his nostrils. He waited until there was silence near him, then rolled over on his back. Great tears streamed down his lined face as he opened his eyes and some of the grit was washed from them.

A stifled Boer oath and a groan sounded close to him. Dervoort, Maryanne? He called the Somal by name. Dervoort answered him in a choked voice:

"They left him back there dead!"

Corby began a mad struggle with the bonds about his arms and legs. The hut was filled with his gasps and groans until, bathed in sweat, he lay exhausted and sank into a kind of coma.

THE SOUND of men talking outside the hut awakened him. Pencils of sunlight pierced the noisesome blackness. The rattan door of the hut was open. Light and air streamed and was blotted out again as two Makuas crawled in. One bent over Corby, the other over Dervoort, steel flashing in their hands. The bonds about Corby's legs were slashed. Cramped and unable to stand, they were dragged out into the sunlight, where they were allowed to kick until the life came back into their limbs. A dozen Makuas stood in a circle around them, leaning on their spears, jabbering and laughing. Corby saw a few of his own boys among them and got some consolation from their glum looks. They, at least, were not enjoying their Bwana's humiliation. Then the two whites were heaved up onto their feet and marched along a path between two rows of huts that looked fresh and new.

At the far end of the path there was a bungalow, raised on a foundation of piled stones. Its extended eaves, supported by four poles, shaded a wide stoop. A heap of dried mud, bundles of raffia and saplings recently slashed, attested the newness of the structure.

As they approached it, two figures came out on the veranda. One wore a white turban with a fringed knot over his left ear and his obesity was made prominent by his loose, white robe and the green cummerbund around his belly. The other was a woman, tall and full-breasted. At the distance of twenty paces, she looked like a white woman, but as they came to stand at the foot of the veranda steps, Corby saw Arab blood in the olive sheen of her skin bared by her white sleeveless abaiyia, and in her black, flashing eyes. A golden-haired marmoset, at the end of a length of silver chain attached to her wrist, sat on her naked shoulder with his prehensile tail coiled around her neck. The grotesque little creature grimaced at them and bared its teeth.

"Alamagtag!" whispered Dervoort. "She is something to look at."

But Corby's eyes were fixed on the fat Arab's face. It was a flabby black-and-white mottled face with sagging jowls like the dewlaps of a hound. A close-cropped, grey beard only half concealed full lips and a mouth of discolored teeth.

"I see that you have not forgotten me, Bwana Sadari," said the Arab in a high, sibilant voice. "I have prayed that we two should meet again. Behold, my prayer is answered—it is the will of Allah!"

"No, I have not forgotten you, Saf Mejid—it were easier to forget the devil!" Corby retorted. "And truly, the will of Allah is beyond all understanding or surely he would have answered the prayers of better men and sent you to hell long since, to await me there!"

Mejid's belly shook with silent mirth: "Doubtless all will be answered," said he. "We shall meet there again in the end. But now it is a matter of precedence. It is fitting that Bwana Sadari should go before me. I have so arranged it—in sha Allah!" Then his yellow-flecked eyes glowed with venom. He jerked his head toward the girl: "This is Nanan. Her mother was French—"

Corby turned curious eyes upon the girl. She stood looking at Dervoort with a faint smile on her full lips as if pleased by the frank admiration she saw in the young Boer's eyes. Corby had heard of Mejid's French wife. Some said he had stolen her, others Mejid's voice recalled him:

"—She was my great happiness until you came to Gungunhana's kraal with soldiers and drove us forth into the wilderness. She died of hunger and thirst!"

The last words were spoken with peculiar emphasis and Corby felt the chill of them in the pit of his stomach:

"She took her death at your own hands, Mejid," said he calmly. "You preached war and when it came you ran like a coward and left brave men to pay for your folly with their lives."

Mejid's hand flew to the hilt of the kumia thrust into his sash: "No more words!" he shouted. "I did not call you here to palaver! No, you have come to judgment and to death, as I knew you would when I called you on the drum, because you are as vain of glory as other men. Yes, you will die, but not quickly!" He pointed to a large hut that stood at the edge of the clearing: "There is your prison. It is comfortable and its walls are strong. You will live there unbound for as long as life seems good to you." He broke off, his eyes gloating, then went on: "Every day my servants will bring you fresh food and water, Sadari. But one day your food or your water will be poisoned—which day, who knows? Perhaps tomorrow; perhaps when the moon has waned. When hunger groans in your belly; when thirst burns as fire in your throat—Ah, then think of the poison, Sadari, and think of me! Men say you are fearless," he sneered. "But I think that you will cling to life. Allah grant that it may be long! I have—"

HE BROKE off with a startled yell that mingled with a scream from the girl. Like something shot from a catapult, Dervoort had bounded up the three steps. His lowered head struck Mejid full in the stomach. They crashed to the floor together. Dervoort kicked savagely at the Arab's head. Two Makuas flung themselves upon him and pinned him down. Surprised by the unexpectedness of the attack, Corby was thrown down before he had moved.

Mejid was helped to his feet: "Take them away!" he gasped.

Sef Mejid lounged on his veranda at sunset on the following day. He savored the cool breeze and sucked his long-stemmed narghile contentedly. Occasionally his gaze turned toward the hut at the edge of the clearing before the heavy, barred door by which two armed men stood guard, and as often as he did so, he laughed softly.

Oh, yes, it was a pleasant thing and, by Allah, it was a shrewd thing to avenge himself and to establish his authority over the Makuas, at one stroke! With what patience and cunning he had planned it! No white man could trace the deed to him. When the two were dead of poison or starvation, it mattered not, there would be no marks of violence. He would have their bodies carried back to Mahango. Nothing would be disturbed. Months would pass before the Portuguese infidels came to look for them. By that time the ants and vermin would have finished the work. Who could say how they had died?

Wallai el Adhim, it was a flawless thing of beauty! Already the Makuas believed that the soul of Gungunhana had entered his body and spoke through his mouth, as if a shensi could have a soul—but Allah keep them in the darkness of the unbelieving! Soon he would be the Bwana Sadari, Lord of the River. Even the great Company would pay for peace, the hongo he would impose on their caravans.

"It is an evil thing you do, my father," a soft voice broke in on his thoughts. Startled, he turned to scowl at his daughter. She moved gracefully across the veranda and sat at his feet. The marmoset jumped from her shoulder and tugged at his chain, striving to reach the fruit that lay on a table at Mejid's elbow.

"Is it an evil thing to avenge your mother, girl?" he asked.

"Were the words of this man, Bwana Sadari, true?" She answered him with a question.

"He lied! I was ill with fever. My servants bore me away against my will. Is the word of a stranger and an infidel more to you than a father's?"

A troubled look came into the girl's eyes. She shook her head as she said: "But the other—he is young. He could not have been your enemy. What wrong has he done?"

"Allah give me patience! It is not what he has done, girl, but what he might do. He has a tongue to tell a tale with!"

The girl's black eyes flashed: "That is the evil you do! And my heart tells me that it is not for the love of my mother that you do it. He is young and brave—"

"Ah, the young one! So, there a hot wind blows!" Mejid patted her shoulder. "Put him out of your mind, girl. Soon better men, and richer, will look upon you with desire."

"Is your heart fixed upon this thing, my father?"

"Wallai, it is! Go, leave me, girl!"

For a moment she watched her pet's frantic efforts to get at the fruit, her expression enigmatical. Then she picked up the whimpering little monkey and went into the house.

"HOW LONG is it now?" Dervoort looked up at Corby and wiped the sweat from his face. It was night and a band of moonlight struck down through the smoke-vent in the high roof, lighting the interior of the hut dimly.

"Three thousand by my count," said Corby.

"Then it is not tonight!" Dervoort took up the gourd of water that stood on the floor between them and drank greedily. "But it may be in the food, eh? Alamagtag, what a way to live! A mouthful of water, then count the seconds have you no nerves?" he almost shouted at Corby. His hands trembled.

Corby's big hands clenched and drove the nails into his palm. For the first time he knew fear, not the natural, healthy fear that clings to life, but the kind that seeks death. He insisted on tasting the food and water first, not because he hoped that Dervoort might live, but because he was afraid to see him die.

Dervoort jumped to his feet suddenly: "I can stand no more of it!" he cried. "There is no hope for us. It will not be tomorrow or the next day. That fiend out of hell will keep us alive until the thing drives us mad!" He caught Corby's arm in a hard grip. "Let us rush the guards when they come in next, my friend. A spear-thrust is quick!"

Corby shook his head: "They wouldn't kill us, Piet. Give it another day. Maybe we'll think of something."

The young man looked into his face and suddenly smiled: "I am not a fool," said he. "I know how it is with you. But I am here because I did not obey your orders to go down river. It is not your fault, I would do it again." He pointed to the earthen pot filled with a savory mess of rice, mutton and greens. "We will eat together tonight, my friend. And when—what the devil!"

He broke off as Nanan's marmoset scampered between their legs, its silver chain jingling behind. The pet went straight to the earthen pot and clung to its rim; fascinated, the two watched the little beast stuff rice into its mouth, like a grotesque caricature of a greedy old man. Then Corby uttered an exclamation and grabbed the chain. There was a string around the marmoset's neck and attached to it, almost hidden by the long hair, was a small cylinder of paper. With the bad temper of the pampered, the marmoset bit his finger as he detached the paper.

"Don't let him get away!" Corby sucked his bleeding finger as he went to the shaft of light and opening the paper, puzzled over the Arabic characters: "Well, I'll be damned!" he said at last. "Listen to this, Piet!" He read:

" 'I looked upon thy youth and beauty and pity kindled a flame in my heart. I give you my pet. I have kept him in hunger. When he dies, know that the servants of my father, whom Shaitan has made mad, will come for you. I know well that thy courage is equal to what lies before thee. May the mercy of Allah be thy shield. His wisdom thy council. Farewell!' "

"Piet, here's a woman who knows her mind and speaks it!"

"That is a rare thing, I tell you!" said Dervoort wonderingly. "But to whom does she speak it and what the devil is the meaning of it?"

"Well, she wouldn't be talking to me, Piet. I'd say it's plain enough. She liked the look of you and she's sent her monkey to taste your food. The girl's got brains! She figures if we know just when we're supposed to die, we've got a fighting chance. By thunder, that's it!" Corby lapsed into silence and the furrows on his face deepened with thought.

"Alamagtag, look!" Dervoort's voice broke the silence.

The marmoset was rolling on the floor. The two men exchanged glances as the animal began to whimper piteously.

"It was tonight!" breathed Dervoort.

Corby stripped off his jacket, threw it over the tiny creature and smothered it. He looked up at Dervoort: "There's a chance, if you want to take it, Piet."

The light of hope was in Dervoort's eyes and he laughed: "Less than a chance is good enough for us, my friend. Already we should be as dead as the monkey!"

A few moments' groans and cries of mortal agony came from the hut. The two Makua guards, squatting before a fire that burned close to the hut, sprang to their feet and stared at each other, their rolling eyes showing white in the darkness. They waited until all was quiet within. Then one picked up a burning brand from the fire, lifted the bars from the heavy, wooden door and entered the hut. The flickering light of his torch showed two figures stretched out on the floor. The Makua shuddered as he looked into the face of one whose teeth were bared in a horrible grimace of death. He called to his companion:

"The big one is too heavy," said the other guard, as he entered and looked about him nervously. "I will go—aie—e!"

He started to yell as one of the figures rose and sprang at him. Corby's big hand caught him by the throat and the life was quickly throttled out of him. Corby got to his feet. The embers of the torch glowed on the floor. The hut was filled with heavy breathing.

"Piet!" he called softly.

"Verdomp skelm!" Dervoort rose out of the darkness, rubbing his throat. "For a moment I was not sure whether it was to be me or him."

Armed with their dead guards' spears, they went out into soft moonlight. An orange light showed in one of the windows of the bungalow. Jackals were howling close to the clearing. Goats and sheep bleated nervously in the nearby huts and the lowing of cattle and the shouts of herdsmen came from the thorn-bush boma. Evidently prowlers had attacked the stock and the men of the village had been called out to drive them off.

"This is luck!" said Corby.

"The devil, you say!" Dervoort answered with his reckless laugh. "It is the shield of this Allah, my friend!"

SWIFTLY they made their way across the open space to the bungalow. Dervoort circled around the rear. Corby cautiously mounted the steps to the veranda. The murmur of voices came from the rear of the house. A screen of mosquito net was all that barred entrance. Corby ripped it with the point of his spear and went in. Light streamed from a curtained doorway, dimly lighting the passage that ran the length of the bungalow. Suddenly a cry, followed by a thud, echoed through the house.

"Musto!" Mejid's voice called from behind the curtain.

Corby waited tensely with his back against the wall.

"Musto, what is it?" Boards creaked under heavy footfalls. The curtains parted and Sef Mejid came out into the passage. Corby stepped in front of him. His spear flashed and drove at the pit of the Arab's stomach, but stopped with the point denting the mass of flesh.

"Merciful Allah!" gasped Mejid, his eyes bulging.

"Another word and you're a dead man!" hissed Corby and backed him against the wall.

Dervoort came out into the passage followed by the girl, Nanan: "One," said Dervoort, "the others are at the boma."

The girl's eyes were fixed on Corby's face.

"I will not kill him, Lady," said Corby, reading the question in her eyes. "If he obeys."

Mejid's fat body quivered. His dewlaps showed green and white and sweat oozed from his pores: "I will do as you say," he piped.

"Are you the drummer?" demanded Corby.

Mejid nodded: "Who else? A shensi would not dare to beat Gungunhana's drum."

"Where is it?"

"In the gorge, the Burial Place of Chiefs, Sadari."

"Good! We'll go there. If we meet with anyone on the road, you will tell them to go away." Corby increased the pressure on the point of his spear.

"Merciful Allah, yes!"

"Good! March!"

"One moment!" The girl's voice detained them. She beckoned to Dervoort and he followed her through the curtained doorway.

It seemed to Corby that they were gone for a long time. He called softly. They came out carrying rifles and cartridge belts. Dervoort looked guilty.

"Did you have to pick a lock?" asked Corby sarcastically.

Dervoort grinned: "No, it was freely given, my friend. This one is clever. She discovered that it would be tonight and she put bait, meat, down by the boma. They will be busy for the rest of the night! I tell you—"

"Come on!" growled Corby. "Or you won't live long enough to make a fool of yourself!"

They left by the rear door. There was a cultivated patch of ground between the house and the bush. Corby spurred Mejid to a run. They gained the cover of the forest, then circled around the clearing and came out on the trail half a mile beyond the village.

As the moon rose above the kopjie they came to the gorge. Dervoort, who had been lagging behind with the girl, fell into step beside Corby:

"This thing does not seem as good to me now as when we planned it," said he with a scowl.

Corby stopped dead in his tracks and caught the young Boer by the shoulder: "You'll do what you're told, Piet!" said he with an oath. "If you follow me this time, I'll shoot! Take that girl and trek for the river, now!"

Dervoort's mouth set stubbornly: "I can see how a message on the drum will lay Gungunhana's ghost. Yes, it will stop the war talk along the river. But I do not see how you are going to get away from Sala and the Makuas back there."

"Hell!" exploded Corby. "I've told you. According to Mejid, he hasn't got more than twenty of his own men. That means the rest are your own boys and mine. I'll swing 'em over to me all right. All I've got to worry about is Sala. And if I can't handle him, then I can't handle my job on this river. Now, get to hell out of here!"

"Yes, Sar!" Dervoort beckoned to the girl and they started off down the trail toward the river. Corby watched them until the white of the girl's robe was lost in the gloom.

He gave Mejid a prod with the barrel of his rifle.

"Move fast, you bag of wind and corruption!" he ordered.

THEY CROSSED the gorge to its opposite wall. Mejid led the way up a steep, narrow trail. They came to a cave, the mouth of which was screened by flowering vines that fell over the cliff like a curtain of scarlet and green. Close to the entrance stood Gungunhana's drum. It was a hollowed log, trimmed to an oval shape, its ends plugged with softer wood. The slot measured about the span of a hand at the wide end, or male voice, tapering to a mere slit at the narrow end, the female voice. Worn, splintered drumsticks lay beside it.

The cave was not deep. Corby's nostrils quivered: evidently it was the lair of jungle cats not long departed, the air was heavy with their fetid stench. Sef Mejid sat on the drum, breathing heavily and wiping the sweat from his face with the wide sleeve of his robe.

"Gungunhana is not buried here," Corby stated rather than questioned.

"Who knows where he is buried?" Mejid wheezed. "I brought the drum here."

"And it was you who started the story that this was Gungunhana's grave?"

"Even so. When the war came I fled to the mountains with my women and a few servants." He shook his head dolefully. "It was a hard life. It seemed good to return but it was many years before I saw the way."

Corby looked at him curiously: "What were you trying to do? Build up a new cult, make a fetish of the drum and yourself the high priest?"

For a moment the spirit that long ago had made him all but master of Gazaland, burned behind Mejid's eyes. He drew himself up:

"But for you and treachery in my own house—" the light faded in his eyes and he slumped back on the drum. "It is the will of Allah!"

Sudden anger twisted Corby's face into an ugly grimace. Maryanne was dead, and but for the promptings of a woman's heart and wits, he and Dervoort would have died in agony, the first sacrificial victims to a new superstition. He wanted to give Dervoort and the girl time to reach the river before the village was roused by the drum. He waited for half an hour, then:

"All right, Mejid, get started. You will say that Bwana Sadari has palavered with the spirit of Gungunhana. We are very good friends, understand. Say that Gungunhana bids Sadari's servants who deserted him, to return to his service. There is peace between Gungunhana and Sadari. There is peace on the river. Now, go to work!"

Sef Mejid rose and stood posed for a moment like a virtuoso about to strike the opening chord of a symphony. Then the great drum boomed. Crashes of sound filled the cave and rolled out across the jungle as from a great sounding trumpet. Drumming was an art passed on from father to son, and Sef Mejid was its master. Fascinated, Corby watched the sticks flying in his sensitive hands. The Arab's eyes were glazed and sweat streamed from his fat, quivering face as he forced rhythm and space to speak his mind. There were pauses and rippling notes like the sound of the river cascading over the rocks. Suddenly Mejid stood tense while the end of his message floated over the tree-tops in dying echoes.

Then out of the silence came an answering call—tak-tak-boom-tak-a-tak-boom—

Mejid flung the sticks from him: "It is done!" said he.

Corby went to the mouth of the cave and looked out across the gorge. Drums sounded faintly in the distance, relaying the message down river; and, presently, the village drum began to beat out an alarm. Corby turned: "Come on Mejid, come on," said he.

"Where?" the Arab's jowls quivered.

"Back to the village."

"No!" whimpered Mejid. "Merciful Allah, Sala will know that I have tricked him. He was Gungunhana's captain. He will kill me!"

Corby smiled grimly. At least Mejid's fear made it clear that he had drummed out the right message.

"In sha Allah!" said he, and there was bitter mockery in his tone, "Stay, or try to make it to the river, as you will."

When Corby reached the village, the Makuas were holding a big palaver. They sat in a circle in the cleared space before Mejid's bungalow. The induna, Sala, stood in the center haranguing them. He wore the plumes of a chief and shook his spear. He stopped abruptly and stood with his mouth open as he caught sight of Corby walking up the moonlit path.

There was a rustle of movement and excited jabbering, as Corby elbowed his way into the circle.

"Let me hear your lies, Sala," said he coldly.

THE INDUNA'S eyes flashed: "Beware, White man!" said he, insolently. "Else I silence thy tongue! Aie, I would do so, but perchance I see now things that were hidden from me before." He swept out his arm in a grand gesture. "These are my people. I am their chief. Let Bwana Sadari say that it is so, and I will let him go in peace. I have spoken!"

Sweat trickled down Corby's spine. He wished he could see what was going on behind his back. Sala was offering him a way out, but it was not in his nature to accept it. Compromise and prestige didn't mix. In a matter of seconds he'd be a dead man or Bwana Sadari, Master of the River.

"Sala," said he sternly. "Once before you offered me peace but you attacked me and killed my servant. My answer is this!" His hand shot out and plucked the plumes from the astonished induna's head and flung them to the ground. A shocked cry burst from the Makuas. Sala snarled and faded back for a few paces like a boxer. His spear flashed upwards.

Corby stood his ground, his rifle still resting in the crook of his arm. A look of consternation came to Sala's face. It seemed to Corby that his eyes were fixed on a point beyond him, but he dared not turn his head. Slowly the spear was lowered. Corby took a pace forward and struck the spear from Sala's hand. Then, offering up a silent prayer of thanksgiving, he turned to look around the circle of black faces until his eyes came to rest on his own boys who sat in a group apart.

One by one they stood up as his eyes singled them out. He called them by name.

"Let the Bwana Dervoort men stand," said he.

When they were all lined up he looked them over and shook his head: "What is to be done with such children as you?" he asked: "Shall I send you back to your kraals and take Dondi boys in your place?"

A wail of protest came from the Makuas. The Dondi were their hated rivals.

"But I must punish you. To desert a White Bwana is an evil thing. You will work for five days for nothing. I have spoken! March!"

As the last of the column filed past him, Corby was startled to see a figure in a white shirt come sliding down the roof of the nearest hut. He swore volubly as Dervoort walked up to him, grinning.

"That was a good thing to watch," said the Boer. "But don't try it again, my friend!"

"How long have you been up there—where's the woman?"

"After you left the cave I was never more than twenty paces from you."

"Why the devil didn't you show yourself?"

Dervoort laughed and patted the butt of his rifle: "It was enough that Sala saw this," said he. "Did you think your ugly face frightened him, my friend?"

"Blast you, Piet! You've got no respect for a man's ego!"

Back at Mahango Corby sat on the veranda of the bungalow. Dervoort and the girl sat close together talking in whispers.

Just before sunset, it came throbbing from across the river. As silence crept back to the surrounding jungle, his new head-man came running across the compound and up onto the veranda.

"Bwana," whispered the black, his voice hoarse with excitement: "Sef Mejid is dead! Sala has killed him!"

Corby nodded and touched the headman's shoulder: "There must be no loud talk of this thing. Go now!"

As the light failed and the flag came down, Corby bent his head.