“There’s no room for both those things in the mtumbwi,” Msumu said stubbornly.
“Then we’ll throw the damn pots in the river!” Mgaru said. “If the Jabali won’t take them, they’re useless, anyway.”
Stern gaze softening, Mgaru laid his hand on the older man’s shoulder.
“I know this has not been a good trip, Uncle,” he said. “But perhaps the stranger can tell us something about the Silent Ghosts. And the head of a nsanga! Even my father never brought back such a thing.”
“There is, perhaps, too much of my brother in you,” Msumu said gruffly.
Bending down, he grasped the legs of the young woman as Mgaru held her beneath her shoulders. Some of the Bagara set to work on the nsanga with their broad-bladed daggers, while other jettisoned the surplus pots. Soon, both Zuriye and the head of the nsanga were loaded into the dugout.
At Mgaru’s command, the mtumbwi shot away from the riverbank and sped downstream. Not long after the watercraft was gone, crocodiles swarmed toward the carcass of the deposed monarch of the Zaikumbe ...
BY THE TIME THE mtumbwi reached the bend in the Zaikumbe that marked the site of Bagara, Zuriye had passed from slumber to delirium. Despite her slight frame, she struggled so strenuously that it took three men to prevent her from hurling herself overboard. She cried out in a tongue unfamiliar to Bagara ears. To Mgaru, the language sounded sweetly musical. Even so, the delirium marked an advance in the course of the jaculi’s poisoning.
Arm-weary but giving their utmost effort in response to Mgaru’s urging, the paddlers continued their rapid pace. When the dugout came within sight of the docks of the river-town, the kiboko-boys – forewarned by the drum-talk of watch-posts lining the riverbank – had already guided their gargantuan steeds into the water.
There were two kiboko-boys, each straddling the broad back of a full-grown hippopotamus. Thick leather bands circled the girths of the hippos. Heavy ropes tipped with iron hooks were tied to iron rings attached to the bands at the center of the beasts’ backs. As their mounts swam ponderously toward the mtumbwi, the kiboko-boys whirled the weighted ends of the ropes above their heads.
Then the boys tossed the hooked ends of the ropes toward the prow of the dugout. Men at the front of the mtumbwi caught the ropes and attached the hooks to raised rings on the boat. This done, the boys kicked at the sides of the hippos, and the beasts turned and swam shoreward. The current rushed swiftly at the bend of the river, but the trained beasts swam effortlessly.
Almost before the mtumbwi was towed to the wooden dock, Mgaru leaped from the deck, carrying Zuriye in his arms as though she were weightless. Slinging her across one shoulder, he climbed the ladder of the dock and hurried to the center of the town. Msumu and the other crewmen followed.
As they burst into the main open square of the town, Mgaru and his crew created a commotion that roused more than a few Bagara from their daily pursuits. The men of the tribe dropped their carpentry and ironwork, and the women left their cooking and pottery-making, to see who Mgaru was bearing so precipitously to the house of the rootman.
Word traveled swiftly to the shambas – the cultivated fields of yams, millet, melons and cassava that stretched from the edge of the town to the rampart of uncleared forest that reached for the sun. By the time the women and children who worked the shambas arrived at the square, Mgaru had already entered the house of Mkimba the rootman.
The healer was startled when Mgaru burst through the cloth curtain shielding his doorway. He had been abstractedly receiving the complaints of a matron who bewailed her lost ability to arouse her husband. Before Mkimba could respond to the woman, Mgaru laid Zuriye down on the mat Mkimba used for examining the sick.
“Quickly, Mkimba!” Mgaru cried. “She is dying from the bite of a jaculi. I sucked out all the poison I could, but she still needs your aid – now!”
Gently but firmly, the rootman eased Mgaru away from the stranger, who had slipped back into a comatose state. Then he bent to her side, moving his hands skillfully across her feverish skin.
“What are you doing, Mkimba?” the Bagara matron demanded indignantly. “You have not yet finished with me!”
Turning his graying head toward the woman, the rootman said: “If you would stop belittling your husband’s abilities, Ktibi, you just might find that he’ll perform better. Now, get out. I have serious work to do here.”
While Ktibi’s full-lipped mouth ovaled in outraged shock, Mkimba waved his hand toward the onlookers crowding the entrance to his house.
“Go away, all of you,” he said irascibly. “I can’t work with every fool in Bagara staring at me. And Ngai knows, there are enough of you.”
Indignantly, Ktibi gathered the voluminous folds of the shuka that covered her from waist to feet. She wore no other garment.
“You haven’t heard the last of this, rootman,” she threatened as she flounced through the doorway.
The others followed her example. Mkimba was a healer, but his tongue was as sharp as any weapon’s edge.
Mgaru stayed. So fascinated was he by the young woman he hoped he had rescued that Mkimba’s wrath meant nothing to him. The rootman looked not unkindly at Mgaru. Then he reached for a bowl of cool water.
“You are very much concerned about this stranger,” he remarked as he applied the water to her face and limbs.
“Yes,” Mgaru said. “Let me help you, Mkimba. I have not forgotten everything you taught me before ...”
“Before your father, the diop, the ‘King of All Bagara,’ decided that his son was not born to be a healer,” Mkimba said sourly. “Now, how long ago did you find her?”
Mgaru told him.
“Very well,” said Mkimba. “In a few moments, she will begin to thrash and scream
