Chapter 4. Sobito, the Witch-Doctor
TWO white men sat before a much patched, weatherworn tent. They sat upon the ground, for they had no chairs. Their clothing was, if possible, more patched and weatherworn than their tent. Five natives squatted about a cook-fire at a little distance from them. Another native was preparing food for the white men at a small fire near the tent.
'I'm sure fed up on this,' remarked the older man.
'Then why don't you beat it?' demanded the other, a young man of twenty-one or twenty-two.
His companion shrugged. 'Where? I'd be just another dirty bum, back in the States. Here, I at least have the satisfaction of servants, even though I know damn well they don't respect me. It gives me a certain sense of class to be waited upon. There, I'd have to wait on somebody else. But you-I can't see why you want to hang around this lousy Godforsaken country, fighting bugs and fever. You're young. You've got your whole life ahead of you and the whole world to carve it out of any way you want.'
'Hell!' exclaimed the younger man. 'You talk as though you were a hundred. You aren't thirty yet. You told me your age, you know, right after we threw in together.'
'Thirty's old,' observed the other. 'A guy's got to get a start long before thirty. Why, I know fellows who made theirs and retired by the time they were thirty. Take my dad for instance-' He went silent then, quite suddenly. The other urged no confidences.
'I guess we'd be a couple of bums back there,' he remarked laughing.
'You wouldn't be a bum anywhere, Kid,' remonstrated his companion. He broke into sudden laughter.
'What you laughing about?'
'I was thinking about the time we met; it's just about a year now. You tried to make me think you were a tough guy from the slums. You were a pretty good actor-while you were thinking about it.'
The Kid grinned. 'It was a hell of a strain on my histrionic abilities,' he admitted; 'but, say, Old Timer, you didn't fool anybody much, yourself. To listen to you talk one would have imagined that you were born in the jungle and brought up by apes, but I tumbled to you in a hurry. I said to myself, 'Kid, it's either Yale or Princeton ; more likely Yale.''
'But you didn't ask any questions. That's what I liked about you.'
'And you didn't ask any. Perhaps that's why we've gotten along together so well. People who ask questions should be taken gently, but firmly, by the hand, led out behind the barn and shot. It would be a better world to live in.'
'Oke, Kid; but still it's rather odd, at that, that two fellows should pal together for a year, as we have, and not know the first damn thing about one another-as though neither trusted the other.'
'It isn't that with me,' said the Kid; 'but there are some things that a fellow just can't talk about-to any one.'
'I know,' agreed Old Timer. 'The thing each of us can't talk about probably explains why he is here. It was a woman with me; that's why I hate 'em.'
'Hooey!' scoffed the younger man. 'I'd bet you fall for the first skirt you see-if I had anything to bet.'
'We won't have anything to eat or any one to cook it for us if we don't have a little luck pronto,' observed the other. 'It commences to look as though all the elephants in Africa had beat it for parts unknown.'
'Old Bobolo swore we'd find 'em here, but I think old Bobolo is a liar.'
'I have suspected that for some time,' admitted Old Timer.
The Kid rolled a cigarette. 'All he wanted was to get rid of us, or, to state the matter more accurately, to get rid of you.'
'Why me?'
'He didn't like the goo-goo eyes his lovely daughter was making at you. You've sure got a way with the women, Old Timer.'
'It's because I haven't that I'm here,' the older man assured him.
'Says you.'
'Kid, I think you are the one who is girl-crazy. You can't get your mind off the subject. Forget 'em for a while, and let's get down to business. I tell you we've got to do something and do it damn sudden. If these loyal retainers of ours don't see a little ivory around the diggings pretty soon they'll quit us. They know as well as we do that it's a case of no ivory, no pay.'
'Well, what are we going to do about it; manufacture elephants?'
'Go out and find 'em. Thar's elephants in them thar hills, men; but they aren't going to come trotting into camp to be shot. The natives won't help us; so we've got to get out and scout for them ourselves. We'll each take a couple of men and a few days' rations; then we'll head in different directions, and if one of us doesn't find elephant tracks I'm a zebra.'
'How much longer do you suppose we'll be able to work this racket without getting caught?' demanded The Kid.
'I've been working it for two years, and I haven't been nabbed yet,' replied Old Timer; 'and, believe me, I don't want to be nabbed. Have you ever seen their lousy jail?'
'They wouldn't put white men in that, would they?' The Kid looked worried.
'They might. Ivory poachin' makes 'em sorer than Billy Hell.'
'I don't blame 'em,' said The Kid. 'It's a lousy racket.'
'Don't I know it?' Old Timer spat vehemently. 'But a man's got to eat, hasn't he? If I knew a better way to eat I wouldn't be an ivory poacher. Don't think for a minute that I'm stuck on the job or proud of myself. I'm not. I just try not to think of the ethics of the thing, just like I try to forget that I was ever decent. I'm a bum, I tell you, a dirty, low down bum; but even bums cling to life-though God only knows why. I've never dodged the chance of kicking off, but somehow I always manage to wiggle through. If I'd been any good on earth; or if any one had cared whether I croaked or not, I'd have been dead long ago. It seems as though the Devil watches over things like me and protects them, so that they can suffer as long as possible in this life before he forks them into eternal hell-fire and brimstone in the next.'
'Don't brag,' advised The Kid. 'I'm just as big a bum as you. Likewise, I have to eat. Let's forget ethics and get busy.'
'We'll start tomorrow,' agreed Old Timer.
* * * *
Muzimo stood silent with folded arms, the center of a chattering horde of natives in the village of Tumbai . Upon his shoulders squatted The Spirit of Nyamwegi. He, too, chattered. It was fortunate, perhaps, that the villagers of Tumbai could not understand what The Spirit of Nyamwegi said. He was hurling the vilest of jungle invective at them, nor was there in all the jungle another such master of diatribe. Also, from the safety of Muzimo's shoulder, he challenged them to battle, telling them what he would do to them if he ever got hold of them. He challenged them single and en masse. It made no difference to The Spirit of Nyamwegi how they came, just so they came.
If the villagers were not impressed by The Spirit of Nyamwegi, the same is not true of the effect that the presence of Muzimo had upon them after they had heard Orando's story, even after the first telling. By the seventh or eighth telling their awe was prodigious. It kept them at a safe distance from this mysterious creature of another world.
There was one skeptic, however. It was the village witch-doctor, who doubtless felt that it was not good business to admit too much credence in a miracle not of his own making. Whatever he felt, and it is quite possible that he was as much in awe as the others, he hid it under a mask of indifference, for he must always impress the laity with his own importance.
The attention bestowed upon this stranger irked him; it also pushed him entirely out of the limelight. This nettled him greatly. Therefore, to call attention to himself, as well as to reestablish his importance, he strode boldly up to Muzimo. Whereupon The Spirit of Nyamwegi screamed shrilly and took refuge behind the back of his patron. The attention of the villagers was now attracted to the witch-doctor, which was precisely what he desired. The chattering ceased. All eyes were on the two. This was the moment the witch-doctor had awaited. He puffed himself
