fully expected to see a shiny monarch, totally out of reach, perhaps sitting high on a throne, which all must prostrate themselves before. Instead, Daranje Kawat sat at a table, waiting for them. He was dressed beautifully. His robe shone with newness and had large orange and white diagonal stripes for a print. He wore no hat, but his hair was a beautiful braidwork in patterns of flowers with stand-up loops of braided hair for petals. His robe covered his physique, which looked powerful, and surely his personality emanated a strength, the like of which, Julie had never before felt. Then she remembered hearing how these men became kings. They nearly died in the trials that gave them absolute power. She had always wondered why they did such things, why they put a man through such cruel and abusive treatment before letting him become king… if he survived, and many did not! Her father said it was just superstitious savagery, but she was curious.
Without even realizing that she was doing it before she did, she found herself bowing her head before this imposing man. Oh, if her father ever saw her do that! Yet she felt a supreme gentleness descend upon her when she did, a sturdiness like complete acceptance. What a strange feeling! How mysterious! Never in her life had she felt so a part of anything as she now felt with these men at this table! What secret power was this? And was it of God or of the devil, she wondered, feeling her heart quake. All sat down at the table where the king sat, and they placed her directly opposite.
She scrutinized his face as much as she dared but saw no smile. She didn't dare speak up, and she noticed that no one else started a conversation so she guessed that it was necessary to let the king speak first. Finally he did smile and speak.
'Your king is as powerless as the feathered spirits who serve him. We have taken you from your father, but your great God-King comes not. Where is he?'
Julie's jaw could only drop helplessly. His command of English surprised her.
'We brought you here as a challenge, to make him show himself, and to bargain with him if he were one to respect. But we see he is a coward as we have long suspected. He sends the feathered spirits to pluck out our souls and drop them in the great water so we cannot find them when we have need of them. Or shall I say, he tries to do that. But we have hiding places.' He paused then and seemed to be waiting for her to say something. She didn't know where to begin.
'My… my father is not God, and he would come if he knew where I was.' She stopped and no one interrupted the silence. It was as though the king could feel the knot of inexpressible information that was lodged in her chest. He was patiently waiting for her to find the words. 'God is…' How could she express it? 'I don't think he is what you think.' Did he mean angels by the term 'feathered spirits'?
'He is not the king of the feathered spirits? My people have seen pictures of the feathered spirits serving your God!'
'Well…'
'He does not send them to pluck our souls? Yet, my people have been told to give up their souls to this king!'
'Well, yes, but…' She was stymied again.
'What does he do with the souls he takes if not to drop them in the great water?' Julie was perplexed. Did the 'great water' mean the oceans or the heavens?
'It's to keep them, you see,' she said in agony of desperation. She had no idea but what her answer might determine her fate.
'For what purpose?'
'Well… well… for you!' Oh, if only her father were here to answer these questions! She didn't really know the answers at all. She heard a kind of snicker among the four men who sat with her before the king, but it subsided quickly although the king himself did not seem to notice and did nothing to stop it.
'The first man of our people who visited in friendship with your father had his soul plucked by your God. He told me that the place for his soul was empty in his head and that his ears were ringing with the hollowness of the wind, and he went and jumped from the Cliff of Doom because your father said his soul was in a place of after- death and he wanted his soul back.'
Julie's breath caught in her throat. She remembered the man. For a long time he was the only one who would come, and then he was gone and the others began to come.
'These men,' King Daranje Kawat said, nodding toward the four, 'have come to you for the words and books that I needed with which to speak to you. Others went to the marketplace and brought back words. We will give you back to your father if he will leave here and take his God of the feathered spirits with him. We care for our own souls. It is a way to know where they are and it is better.'
The king clapped his hands then, and a beautiful, willowy black woman entered. The king looked straight at Balloo.
'Take her,' he invited, then smiled a beautiful, white-toothed smile. 'She is for a great feast tonight. The turtle is a good sign of pleasure and gratitude on our people. You have done well, and we will be rid of the God of the feathered spirits at last!'
The king then rose and disappeared in a ripple of orange and white into a room off this main one. Julie was aghast and ashamed of the disappointment she felt to see him go. She had actually been playing with the idea that he might be curious about a white woman's body. She discovered that she had been hopeful! Oh, God, how she had changed! Yet she had acquired a new respect for physical power now, and he certainly had the most she had ever been in contact with. Part of his charisma was inexplicable. It seemed to have nothing to do with his physique. Perhaps it was a kind of psychic strength from the ordeals he had gone through to be king, or maybe it was just because he felt he had defeated the strong thieving God who had come among his people.
Now she was back to Balloo again. She must be satisfied with his protection. Yet, the tail willowy black woman was obviously for Balloo because he was the leader, Julie supposed. Well, in a way, it might be just as well. She was quite exhausted, and what she really wanted to do more than anything else at the moment was catch up on her sleep.
It seemed she was not alone in this desire. Balloo said something to the black woman, and she changed the direction in which they were walking, leading them to another hut in the trees behind the palace. While they walked, Julie managed to ask Balloo who the woman was. Her name was Kinche and she was one of the king's favorites, bestowed upon them for today and tonight in return for their services. It was a very great service to be present in ridding the area of her father and influence of the feathered spirits, Julie was assured of nothing. She couldn't. All she could hope that her father would take her home and not relocate elsewhere. She didn't want to stay in Senegal anymore than the people there wanted her to stay!
Kinche quickly unrolled mats for everyone. Just the sight of the rush mat on the ground was enough to make Julie's legs almost buckle under her and to make her eyes close while still standing up. Balloo saw that she was tired and he told her to go to sleep. For a moment she looked at him not just in gratitude but with strange feelings that she had never felt before. She was jealous of this Kinche! It was incredible, but she found herself beseeching the muscular Balloo silently with her eyes to remain faithful to her, Julie! Recognizing the idiocy in her own heart, Julie turned toward the mat he had indicated was for her and threw herself down on it, keeping her face against the grass wall of the hut.
When she awoke, she didn't feel slept out but still tired. Yet there were strange noises going on and she couldn't keep from rolling over to see what was happening. The fat Enhar, half-crazed with frustration, eyes bulging from uncontrolled animal lust, was pulling the beautiful willowy body of Kinche up to himself and slamming his large thick rubbery lips on hers. The rest of the men were sitting around chortling or just grinning, but obviously enjoying the lovely woman's struggles with the brutish Enhar. Julie's instinct made her want to cry out and help the girl but she was helpless and knew it. Her mind would not really work and she lay frozen, green eyes agape at the terrible spectacle transpiring before her horror-stricken face. Perhaps the men in this society were in no need of the God of the feathered spirits, Julie thought, but the women apparently were!
Everything Enhar did, he did with savagery and brutality, it seemed to Julie. Already Kinche's body was half limp, and the white onlooker watched in stunned horror as the crazed Enhar, frothing at the mouth from his passion, began brutally tearing at Kinche's clothing. The now half-insensible girl did not stand a chance as Enhar grabbed her robe and pulled it violently over her head and off so that her full black titties fell free from their modesty and quivered nakedly in the air. The now naked woman tried to rise but he mashed her back onto the floor again, half on the mat and half on the ground. Here there was no polished wood for a floor. Kinche was completely naked and helpless before Enhar's brutal attack. She looked almost lifeless. There was no resistance
