Witch-Doctors Part 39

He gripped it and began to walk to the entrance. As he pa.s.sed Mungongo the Sacred Fires shot up yellow tongues. A sound like a moan rose dripping with screams and grew into a continuous thunder of noise. The drums rippled a furious tattoo. The three wizards dashed before him, leaping high in the air. Birnier shuffled a dozen yards to the left and turned. He stopped.

Upon the ground, just within the outer gate in view of the mult.i.tude beyond, green ivory in the moonlight, was the naked figure of a white man.

Above him pranced Bakahenzie in whose hand gleamed a knife.

The training of his life enabled Birnier to throw upon the screen of his mind the essential points more rapidly than conscious thought. Bakahenzie, as well as the others, was in an abnormal state of excitement. There was no time to employ "magic" rockets or anything else. He swung the idol upon one shoulder and ran forward. He saw the blue eyes move and the bracelet wink in the moonlight as he stepped over the bound form. He bent, balancing the image upon his shoulders, and seized zu Pfeiffer by the arm.

The throb of the drums and the roar of the people who knew not but that this act was in accordance with the rules, continued. The priests remained motionless: expectant. Bakahenzie stood rigid as if paralysed by the unexpected: the knife was a blue snake in his hand.

Half blinded with sweat, with his muscles cracking, Birnier staggered on with the heavy burden, dragging the nude body after him. Hours seemed to pa.s.s, each second of which might bring a spear in his back before he reached the place before the temple. He slid the idol into the hole and turned.

From the tumult of sound the screech of Bakahenzie shot up like a snipe from a rice field. The other wizards sprang with him. The moonlight kissed a spearhead beside the stone figure of Mungongo by the Sacred Fires.

Birnier leaped, plucked the spear, caught zu Pfeiffer in his arms and raised him shoulder high that all might see.

At the entrance of the enclosure Bakahenzie and the other two were arrested by astonishment. Lowering the body to the base of the idol which leaned sideways in a drunken leer, Birnier lifted the spear and brought it down accurately between zu Pfeiffer's left arm and breast, and dropping swiftly upon his knees to cover his actions, slashed his own left forearm.

Then he jumped to his feet and held the blooded spear aloft as he cried aloud:

"The G.o.d hath taken his own!"

Bakahenzie was the first to see that the white breast of the victim was indeed deluged in blood; perhaps the veneration engendered by "the fingers of Tarum" moved beneath the blood l.u.s.t.

"The G.o.d hath taken his own!" he repeated in a piercing scream. Marufa echoed the shout. As they turned the cry was ricocheted beyond the farthest hill.

"The G.o.d hath taken his own!"

CHAPTER 31

The reflection of a shaft of moonlight through the half-completed thatch upon zu Pfeiffer's "magic" mirror, which the natives had not dared to remove, set afire the sapphires upon his bracelet as he sat rigidly in a camp chair in a suit of pyjamas. Upon the bed lay Birnier, nursing his bandaged left arm. Now and again the thrumming, chanting and the shrilling of the saturnalia without rose into discordant yells like a gust of wind whipping tree-tops into fury.

Zu Pfeiffer appeared taciturn and suspicious. Perhaps the slackening of his will, tautened to meet death as his caste demanded that he should, and the confrontation of the object of his violent hate, had completely unnerved him. When Birnier had dragged him within and cut his bonds, he had grunted curt, official thanks for the rescue. As sullenly he had hesitated at the offer of the pyjamas, but as if deciding that he could not retain any dignity in his own bloodied skin, had accepted them, as well as a sorely needed drink of water.

The reaction after the crisis, and possibly the influence of the general hysteria in the air, had distorted Birnier's vision of things. He was very conscious of a neurotic desire to laugh unrestrainedly. Thus it was that for nearly half an hour the two men remained in the gloom in silence.

Birnier had a psychological comprehension of the highly nervous tension of his guest. For he had long ago realized that the only solution of zu Pfeiffer's crazy statement that he was engaged to the wife of a man to whom he was speaking, indicated a form of insanity.

A psychological law is that natural emotions must have an outlet; if they are repressed they are apt to cause a state of mental disease which in an aggravated form may lead the patient to the asylum, but in the incipient stage are as common as jackals in Africa. Zu Pfeiffer was suffering from such a case of mild psychosis. Brought up under an iron code which did not permit his instincts to react, the repressed emotions bubbled out in the form of a deification of his Kaiser and the adoration of Lucille, both states being absolutely apart from all reason, indeed approached to a state of dissociation of consciousness. The desired unattainable is projected into the dream plane, the realm of myth. Such a case is the historical one of the man who, keenly intelligent upon every subject mentioned, startles the visitor by the demand for a piece of toast, gravely explaining that he is a poached egg and that he wishes to sit down; or as Pascal, who ever had beside him the great black dog. To attempt to rationalise with such an one was merely to excite the insane part of him. So it was that Birnier determined to ignore the subject entirely, perfectly aware that the sullenness of the man sitting in the camp chair opposite to him was caused by an exaggerated terror that he would insist upon speaking of the one subject which should be tabu.

The a.s.sociative suggestion of Lucille diverted his mind until he became immersed in thoughts of her. A queer vision of a well-fed tiger playing with a kid entered his mind. More conscious than ever of her attraction by reason of the intensified sense of her wrought by her letter, he glanced surrept.i.tiously at the rigid form in the chair and a wave of pity mixed with a half conscious pride that she belonged to him, rose within him.

Then Birnier started as he was brought back to a realization of the pa.s.sing of time by a harsh voice that told of creaking nerves:

"Herr Professor, what is your pleasure to do with me, if you please?"

"I beg your pardon!" Birnier sat up. "Er-naturally I shall endeavour to get you away as early as possible. It would be as well if you took advantage of the present-er-saturnalia to escape. I cannot do much. I can provide you with a gun and food. As you are not injured you should be able to get a reasonable distance from here by morning; for the rest I am afraid you must fend for yourself. I wish that I could do more, but I'm afraid that my power is not yet sufficient to ensure any help from the natives."

An inarticulate sound emerged from zu Pfeiffer's mouth. Birnier's eyes caught the sheen of the photograph upon the wall. Escape! Lucille! Almost involuntarily he stretched out a hand and took Lucille's letter from the table. Again came zu Pfeiffer's voice:

"I thank you, Herr Professor, but I cannot accept-for myself." Birnier stared at him. "I wish you to understand that for myself that is impossible." The tall figure seemed to straighten in the chair. "But as I have the honour to serve his Imperial Majesty I am bound to preserve to the best of my ability my body in order to answer for my culpable negligence which has resulted in the loss of my two companies. Most distinctly, Herr Professor, I wish you to know that I accept your offer in order to place myself before the Court Martial that awaits me."

Birnier almost gasped. That this anomaly of a man, who was capable of cold-blooded murder at the prompting of an hallucination, and who now appeared equally capable of the utter annihilation of self at the service of his Imperial Master, meant what he said, Birnier did not doubt. Yet it was not anomalous. Logical in fact; the capability of supreme sacrifice for either of his idols.

"I understand you, Lieutenant," said he courteously. "I--" The two letters in his hand crackled. Before he could master the mean desire he had handed the second letter to zu Pfeiffer with the words:

"Forgive me, I have here a letter which it is my duty to return to you."

The sapphires winked as zu Pfeiffer held up the letter in the shaft of moonlight. There was a suppressed grunt as of pain. Zu Pfeiffer rose stiffly and walked to the door. His tall figure was silhouetted in profile against the green sky and as Birnier watched he saw a gleam as of crystal upon an eyelash. Birnier, ashamed of his sole vengeance, turned away.

But as if revenge were recoiling upon him came in the wake of that satisfied primitive instinct a surge of longing for Lucille. Lucille!

Lucille! G.o.d! how he desired to see those eyes again! Feel those lips and hear the gurgle of her laughter! Sense the perfume of her hair as she murmured: "_Mon pet.i.t loup!_" Birnier sat holding the letter. He fought with an impulse to abandon everything to go to her-if he could get out!

How stale and monotonous the adventure and the scientific interest suddenly seemed! After all, what had he accomplished? What could he accomplish? Even yet he had learned but little of the secrets of the witch-doctor's craft. Perhaps there was little or nothing to learn? And zu Pfeiffer? He stared across at the portrait of Lucille. And as he gazed a wave of pity rose within him for this boy made mad by the witchery of those eyes and the music of that voice. A sentence in Lucille's letter appeared to stand out from the context: "_Mon Dieu, they are as thick as the blackberries!_"

And yet-and yet-- Why the devil had she taken it into her head to come out to Uganda above all places? he asked himself. She was so d.a.m.nably near to him. He smiled satirically as he recollected her phrase about those fools who made of love a nuisance, and yet now what was she doing? After all the suspicion in his mind that love is everything to a woman seemed proven true.

But how adorable she was! He fingered the letter as if it were part of her. Well, she was young; success and adulation from one capital to another had interested and amused her for a few years, but when Milady had suddenly discovered that the Career bored her she had thrown up everything and logically-to her mind-expected her mate to do likewise! With what insouciance had she treated the affair of zu Pfeiffer and the youngster whom he had struck. When Birnier had met her she had had a story of a young fool count in Paris who had shot himself, merely because she would not listen to his suit; and she had protested with one of those wonderful shrugs and a moue, saying that she could not marry all the men in the world! That apparently bloodthirsty indifference had of course tended to make more men "crazy wild," as she put it, about her. And that reputation had added to her numerous attractions even to Birnier.

He could escape if he wished-with zu Pfeiffer. He could take Mungongo with him. Yet would Mungongo dare the tabu at his bidding? Birnier doubted it.

Would Mungongo even consent to let him, Birnier, who was now in his eyes the King-G.o.d, go and so imperil the foundations of the native world?

Birnier was certain that he would not. They were all dominated by this confounded idol of wood, he reflected. Bakahenzie, or even Mungongo, would cheerfully sacrifice him if either imagined that the d.a.m.ned Unmentionable One desired it, at the suppositious bidding of something which was nothing.

Through the sweet scent of her in the air like a compelling aura about him, came suddenly zu Pfeiffer's voice speaking in the accents of agony; yet all he said was:

"Herr Professor Birnier-I am compelled-to-to apologise for ..."

The voice failed and the haughty blond head turned away, unable to complete to the uttermost the greatest sacrifice he had ever attempted.

"Please don't," said Birnier comprehendingly. "I understand."

And Birnier did comprehend; realised the small h.e.l.l in zu Pfeiffer as a higher developed tabu did a childish tabu unto death. Zu Pfeiffer, white man, had been just as guilty of an attempt to commit murder at the suppositious inversion of a thumb of an idol as Bakahenzie; not an idol of wood but the projection of his subconscious desires. Zu Pfeiffer would sacrifice a million at the bidding of his Kaiser, whose divinity was the same myth, the projection of himself. Yet what had been Birnier's object in undertaking all these pains and penalties but to study mankind in the making, the black microcosm of a white macrocosm; to aid them to a better understanding of themselves and each other? Was not Bakahenzie an embryonic zu Pfeiffer? How could one aid a zu Pfeiffer if one did not know a Bakahenzie?

From the saturnalia in progress outside came another swirl of sound seeming to lap mockingly against the motionless figure of zu Pfeiffer silhouetted against a green sky; and above him towered the idol leaning sideways.

As if in drunken laughter of the follies of black and white humanity!

mused Birnier. Yet what am I doing? At the crook of a dainty finger am I, too, to bow to an idol? Am I to pity zu Pfeiffer and these children?...

Savages! Good G.o.d, what am I?