The Rape of Venice (26 page)

Roger followed promptly on their heels and saw them deposit her upon a pile of newly caught fish. This living, slimy, silver couch was hardly one a European invalid would have chosen, yet it was dictated by common sense, since the boat was a most primitive affair with neither thwarts, stern seats nor bottom boards. Roger and Bodkin climbed in, the old man took the tiller, his crew of brawny negroes ran the boat back into the pounding surf, then like a team of acrobats leapt into her.

For the best part of two hours the boat tacked along the coast, while her crew displayed a mixture of shyness, friendliness and curiosity. The whites of their eyes showing up vividly in their coal-black faces, they chattered away in their strange clicking language, their gaze riveted on their passengers and, now and then, hesitantly put out a hand to feel the texture of their garments.

At length the boat rounded another promontory and entered the mouth of a small river. Half a mile up it they arrived at a clearing in which stood one great conical roofed hut and half a hundred smaller ones grouped about it. The midday sun was now blazing down from almost immediately overhead and apart from a few tethered goats and some naked children playing in the dust, the native village appeared deserted. But the
old man at the tiller blew loudly on a conch shell and almost immediately the place came to life.

Tall warriors armed with hastily snatched up spears, knob-kerries and hide shields, women of all ages, with their pierced ear lobes stretched six or eight inches by the insertion of brass ornaments, and innumerable children, came streaming out of the huts. Pushing and jostling they formed an excited, jabbering concourse at the riverside as the boat drew in and her three passengers were landed.

After a few moments the crowd fell back and made a space for an old, old wizened man. He addressed the strangers, but they could not understand him. All Roger could do was to lift his right hand open and with its palm outward, in the knights gesture from which the salute originated, indicating that it held no weapon and that they came in peace.

Several other elderly men joined the wizened one. They held a swift palaver, then the three Europeans were beckoned forward and led to an empty hut. Presently women brought them bowls of stew, fruit and a fermented liquor that tasted rather like sour beer; but they signed to Clarissa that she should take none of these and, instead, gave her a half-coconut filled with a strong, but not unpleasant smelling, porridge. In spite of these attentions, Roger noted with some misgivings that a big negro with a tufted spear had been placed on guard outside the hut.

After the meal, in spite of their anxieties, they all fell asleep in the close hot darkness. They were woken by the rhythmic beating of drums, and soon afterwards their guard shouted to them to come out of the hut. Clarissa was now recovered and as the three of them emerged from the low doorway, they saw that night had come. A group of a dozen warriors, some holding torches and others spears, were waiting for them outside and closed round them immediately they appeared. Emitting high piercing cries and doing a dance-march of two steps forward, stamp, one back, this formidable escort conducted them to an open space in front of the great hut, where the whole tribe had now assembled and was squatting cross-legged on the ground.

There, too, enthroned upon a pile of bleached skulls, and surrounded by a score of wives, the Chief was sitting. He was a huge man with a broad fleshy face and an enormous stomach. On his head he wore a fan-shaped crown of ostrich-feathers, round his neck were half a dozen necklaces of beaten gold,
and his loin-cloth was of leopard skin. Otherwise he was naked and his ebony stomach, knees and bulging arms glistened from the oil with which they had been massaged.

Beside him was an even more terrifying figure, and Roger had little doubt but that it was the old, wizened man who had met them at the landing place, now dressed in his ceremonial trappings. His feet were in shoes each made from the head of a baby alligator, the jaws with their long rows of teeth pointing forward and wide open. His skinny calfs disappeared under a grass skirt, above which he was girdled by a large living snake that flickered its tongue and slowly waved its head to and fro. His naked chest was painted with white and ochre markings, the most prominent of which were two ovals on his nipples, and with lighter strokes below, obviously intended to represent two huge eyes. His wrists and elbows were tufted with monkey fur and from his shoulders there arose a huge mask surmounted by a pair of bull's horns.

A hush fell on the assembly; the Witch Doctor sprang forward. With clicking tongue and falsetto voice echoing strangely from inside his great hollow mask, he addressed the Chief, but from time to time swung round towards the people as though appealing for their support. From the way in which he pointed to the three prisoners, stamped his alligator-shod feet, and frequently waved a short glittering knife threateningly in front of their faces, it was inescapably clear that he was demanding their deaths. And Roger, grimly eyeing two great cauldrons with fires ready lit below them, a little distance away outside the great hut, decided that the tales of cannibalism he had heard must be true and that, if they were slaughtered, they would afterwards be eaten.

While the hideously apparelled priest raved and ranted, the Chief remained impassive. Seated cross-legged on his throne of skulls he might have been an obese ebony idol, but for the fact that he now and then stretched out a hand to one of his women, who handed him a calabash from which he swilled down a gulp or two of some whitish liquid.

At first the people, too, while watching the proceedings intently, remained silent; but, after a little, appreciative murmurs began to run through them. Soon these increased until each of the Witch Doctor's violent outpourings met with a great shout of endorsement. Suddenly he ceased, stopped dead in front of the Chief and flung wide his arms, clearly asking that the prisoners should be given to him to kill.

Roger, Clarissa and Bill Bodkin stood before the throne of skulls in their tattered rags, just as they had been washed ashore. Nothing had been taken from them and Bodkin was wondering how many of the warriors he could kill with his cutlass before he was killed himself. He doubted if it would be more than one, as all of them had spears in their hands. In two swift moves, he reckoned, he could draw and nearly decapitate a painted brave who stood within a yard of him, but it seemed unlikely that he would have time to raise his blade again before a shower of spears pierced him and forced him to the ground. He was not afraid of death, but the thought of the spears, piercing his body made him break out into a sweat. His lips moved in a prayer that it would be over quickly, for he had no doubt at all that his last hour had come.

Clarissa was standing between the two men. Although she was a little above the average height for a woman, with the heels of her shoes broken down and her hair scragged back flat on her head, she looked small and frail. She had never been given to deceiving herself, and like Bodkin, felt that there was no hope for them. Only one thought comforted her a little. When they had first been brought before the Chief she had seen his eyes run over her, openly appraising her as if she were a head of cattle. Too many men had looked at her with desire for her to mistake the expression in his eyes. It was not desire, but contempt. She had only death to fear, and if Roger was to die she had no wish to live. Her heart was pounding heavily, but she was clasping
his left hand with her right hand which her will was strong enough to prevent from trembling.

Almost from the beginning of the Witch Doctor's oration, Roger had felt sure that his worst fears were to be realised. Whether or not the tribe were cannibals and intended later to feast upon their flesh was immaterial. The croaking and gestures of the hideously masked old man made it clear beyond all doubt that he was demanding to be allowed to butcher them as a sacrifice to some obscene jungle god; and, since the whole tribe were obviously in favour of his demand, there seemed no reason whatever why the Chief should refuse it.

Like Bodkin, Roger meant to go down fighting—if he had time; for, unlike Clarissa he had not taken in the Chief's appraisal of her, so he meant to kill her first. He would have time for that, but it seemed doubtful if he would afterwards be able to make another move before a spear was thrust through his back or a knobkerrie smashed in his head.

That, of course, was if he waited for the Chief to give the Witch Doctor the signal to proceed with their butchery. He could act first and, although there was no possible hope of cutting their way to safety, it meant that before killing Clarissa he would have dealt the whole tribe a blow that they would not soon forget. It was, too, a blow that his shrewdness told him might just possibly lead to saving their lives.

As the grotesquely masked old man stood with arms outspread before the Chief, Roger drew his pistol and shot him in the back.

The result of his act was beyond his wildest hopes or expectations. The pistol flashed, its loud report shattered the tense silence that had fallen on the assembly. The Witch Doctor gave a screech, threw up his clawlike hands and collapsed at the foot of the pile of skulls. He gave one convulsive jerk that threw his mask off and sent him rolling over on his back. Then he lay still, his wizened face contorted in a grin of death.

Next moment pandemonium broke loose. The Chief's wives sprang to their feet; screaming and fighting, they tumbled over one another to get back inside the great hut. The warriors, the whites of their eyes rolling with terror in their painted faces, leapt away from the captives, turned and mingled with the crowd of women, older men and youths who were already stampeding away between the huts. With wails of fear and lamentation, as though expecting their village was about to be
destroyed by a succession of thunderbolts, they fled helter skelter into the jungle.

Within two minutes there was not a soul to be seen except the Chief and five of a group of elders who had been squatting near him. They were now all on their feet and, although too brave to run, huddled round him eyeing Roger with mingled fear and amazement.

Roger had thought that if he killed the Witch Doctor there was a chance in a hundred that instead of being slaughtered immediately they might gain a night of grace while another Witch Doctor was installed and, perhaps, in the early hours while the tribe was sleeping, kill any sentries that had been set to guard them and escape into the jungle. But the moment panic seized the tribe, it flashed upon him that they could never have seen a fire-arm; so, to them, he had worked a greater magic than any ever accomplished by his victim.

As the terror-stricken natives fled, his mind became a whirlpool of jostling thoughts. This heaven-sent reprieve could be only temporary, unless he used it rightly. On that the saving of their lives still hung. And he must act quickly. If he showed hesitation or weakness now, the ascendancy that had been so miraculously thrust upon him would be lost, and lost for good.

They had a free field for escape. No one would dare to stop them if they walked quickly off. But what then? They would be no better off in the jungle than they had been on the shore that morning when the fisherman had found them. He had his second pistol and that, too, was loaded. He could threaten the Chief with it. But to what useful purpose could he threaten him? And for how long could he keep up the threat? Soon, some of the braver warriors might recover from their panic and come creeping back. It needed only one well-aimed spear, thrown from the cover of the huts, and he would be as dead as the Witch Doctor.

With sudden resolution he took a few steps forward. Reversing the empty pistol he went down on one knee, smiled at the Chief and, holding the weapon by the barrel, offered it to him.

Astonishment, suspicion, pleasure chased one another over the big negro's bloated features. Smiling he stepped forward to accept the proffered gift. But Roger stood up, waved him back, returned the pistol to his belt then, still smiling, drew his sword.

With its sharp point he began to rip a series of furrows in
the hard trampled dirt of the ground. First he drew a tall gateway with towers on either side of it, then long lines on either side to represent walls, and above one of them the dome and minaret of a mosque, such as he had seen in pictures of Eastern cities.

The Chief and his elders looked on with puzzled expressions, but as soon as Roger had done he resheathed his sword and proceeded to explain in a series of gestures. With a sweep of the hand he included Clarissa, Bodkin and himself, then he pointed first at his picture of a town, then up river. Next he tapped the pistol and pointed at the Chief. Even a child could not have mistaken his meaning. ‘Send us to a town and the magic weapon is yours.'

The thick red lips of the Chief parted in a grin. Three times he brought his head forward in a slow nod and the spreading crown of ostrich feathers upon it waved gently to and fro. Pointing to himself he said ‘Kobo' several times, and Roger in turn pointed to himself saying ‘Brook'. Then Chief Kobo issued a sharp command to one of his elders. The old man blew upon a conch shell that was slung from his waist and, within a few minutes, the members of the tribe, still showing much nervous apprehension, began to trickle back into the clearing.

As soon as a good part of the tribe were reassembled, the Chief began to bellow at them, evidently reproving them for their cowardice, but a few moments later he said something that was greeted with a great shout of laughter. In an instant, the whole atmosphere had changed and, their fright forgotten, they were chattering away like happy children.

The Witch Doctor's body was carried away and Kobo, now treating Roger, Clarissa and Bodkin as honoured guests, made them sit beside him while cooking pots and calabashes were brought from the huts.

The feast that followed lasted far into the night. All the cooked food was very highly spiced and, from fear of offending their host, the guests had to eat something from each pot offered to them; but they made their main meal off fruit. At intervals there were dances, first by the stamping warriors, then by the young women, and finally one in which a long line of each sex swayed, postured and stamped facing each other. During the dances the white liquid was passed round and Roger warned his two companions to drink sparingly of it.
That was just as well, for it was palm spirit beaten up with ground cereal and highly intoxicating.