From the window, the man said, “He's afraid, Marie. Can't you hear it in his voice?”
“There is no fear for those who wear the sign of the Proud One! His breath is the mist that hides the infant uakaris from the claws of the margay!”
“Robert, if you won't do something about this, I will. Isangoma, be silent. Or leave and never return here again.”
“The Proud One knows Isangoma loves the Preceptress. He would save her if he could.”
“Save me from what? Do you think there's one of your dreadful beasts here? If there were, Robert would shoot it with his gun.”
“The tokoloshe, Preceptress. The tokoloshe come. But the Proud One in his condensation will protect us. He is the mighty commander of all tokoloshe! When he roars, they hide beneath the fallen leaves.”
“Robert, I think he's lost his mind.”
“He has eyes, Marie, and you don't.”
“What do you mean by that? And why do you keep looking out that window?” Quite slowly, the man turned to face us. For a moment he looked at Agia and me, then he turned away. His expression was the one I have seen our clients wear when Master Gurloes showed them the instruments to be used in their anacrisis.
“Robert, for goodness' sake tell me what's wrong with you.”
“As Isangoma says, the tokoloshe are here. Not his, I think, but ours. Death and the Lady. Have you heard of them, Marie?”
The woman shook her head. She had risen from her seat and opened the lid of a small chest.
“You wouldn't have, I suppose. It's a picture — an artistic theme, rather. Pictures by several artists. Isangoma, I don't think your Proud One has much authority over these tokoloshe. These come from Paris, where I used to be a student, to remonstrate with me for giving up art for this.” The woman said, “You have a fever, Robert. That's obvious. I'm going to give you something, and you'll feel better soon.”
The man looked toward us again, at Agia's face and my own, as though he did not wish to do so but found himself unable to control the motion of his eyes. “If I am ill, Marie, then the diseased know things the well have overlooked. Isangoma knows they're here too, don't forget. Didn't you feel the floor tremble while you were reading to him? That was when they came in, I think.”
“I've just poured you a glass of water so you can swallow your quinine. There are no ripples in it.”
“What are they, Isangoma? Tokoloshe — but what are tokoloshe?”
“Bad spirits, Preceptor. When man think bad thought or woman do bad thing, there is another tokoloshe. He stay behind. Man think: No one know, everyone dead. But tokoloshe remain until end of world. Then everyone will see, know what that man did.”
The woman said, “What a horrible idea.”
Her husband's hands clenched the yellow stick of the windowsill. “Don't you see they are only the results of what we do? They are the spirits of the future, and we make them ourselves.”
“They are a lot of pagan nonsense, that's what I see, Robert. Listen. Your vision is so sharp, can't you listen for a moment?”
“I am listening. What do you want to say?”
“Nothing. I only want you to listen. What do you hear?” The hut fell silent I listened too, and could not have not listened if I had wanted to. Outside the monkeys chattered, and the parrots screamed as before. Then I heard, over the jungle noises, a faint humming, as though an insect as large as a boat were flying far away.
“What is it?” the man asked.
“The mail plane. If you're lucky, you should be able to see it soon.” The man craned his neck out the window, and I, curious to see what he was looking for, went to the window on his left and looked out as well. The foliage was so thick that at first it seemed impossible to see anything, but he was staring almost straight up past the edge of the thatch, and I found a patch of blue there.
The humming grew louder. Into view came the strangest flier I have ever seen. It was winged, as if it had been built by some race that had not yet realized that since it would not flap wings like a bird in any case, there was no reason its lift, like a kite's, could not come from its hull. There was a bulbous swelling on each argent pinion, and a third at the front of the hull; the light seemed to glimmer before these swellings.
“In three days we could be at the landing strip, Robert. The next time it comes, we would be waiting.”
“If the Lord has sent us here —”
“Yes, Preceptor, we must do what the Proud One wishes! There is none like he!
Preceptress, let me dance to the Proud One, and sing his song. Then it may be the tokoloshe will depart.”
The naked man snatched her book from the woman and began to beat it with the flat of his hand — rhythmic claps as though he played a tambour. His feet scraped the uneven floor, and his voice, beginning with a melodic stridulation, became the voice of a child:
