Chapter XIX

“‘_Our burdens are heavy, our natures weak,_ _Some pastime devoid of harm_ _May we look for? Puritan elder, speak!_’ ‘_Yea, friend, peradventure thou mayest seek_ _Recreation singing a psalm._’”

The Kubu Mission had a new convert. His industry was a marvel; his progress a matter that afforded a never-ending topic of conversation to the teachers of the Mission.

He had come to them some eight months before, clad only in a loin-cloth, speaking an uncouth African dialect, and with a habit of squatting on his heels. Now, he was sitting out on the veranda of the schoolhouse, in a civilized manner, on a chair, attired in a full-blown suit of white drill, with his large feet encased in a pair of canvas shoes.

He was reading the “Pilgrim’s Progress” in English; and in a stiff, stilted, negro manner, he could now speak this language very well.

For hours this young convert would sit at the feet of his pastors while they told him of the wonders and glories of England. And he would listen in round-eyed astonishment, asking them endless questions--most of them on purely secular subjects.

When they were tired of talking he would thank them humbly and then go and perform lowly tasks about the place. But as he worked he smiled to himself with a depth of ferocity that would have startled the gentle missionaries had they seen it.

For motives known only to himself Nanza was doing what is vulgarly called “learning the ropes.”

This particular afternoon as he sat in the shade of the schoolhouse reading, he put down his “Pilgrim’s Progress” and drew from his pocket a string of nondescript objects, and stayed studying it intently.

It looked like a kite’s tail. There were half-a-dozen cowrie shells of varying sizes, beads of different hues, several nuts and dried berries, punctuated with feathers and strips of rag of divers colors, all threaded and tied together on a single piece of string.

To Nanza it represented a letter. A letter, moreover, from the high-priest Mhaki.

The barbaric message worried him extremely. First by the fact that the high-priest knew his whereabouts, secondly by its contents.

It left him undecided whether to answer in person, or whether to fly from this seat of learning. He knew the cunning of his cousin the Sultan, and this might be a trap.

When Nanza had fled from Calabar his one object had been self-preservation. As soon as this was accomplished, his mind turned to other subjects, chief among them being vengeance.

Sometimes he wondered whether he would reveal the whereabouts of Kallu to the authorities. But to do this meant the downfall of the power to which he was still direct heir, and that would sweep away all chance of supreme sultanship even more surely than his cousin’s marriage.

For a long time he sat on the veranda considering whether or not he would respond to Mhaki’s overtures. Finally he decided it was worth risking. He knew his ground and could back out at the first sign of a trap.

About a fortnight later Nanza was approaching an up-country village some two hundred miles removed from the Kubu Mission. However, he showed no immediate desire to enter. Instead, he hid himself away in the undergrowth and awaited nightfall. When darkness gathered he entered the little town.

There was an air of stealth about him as he crept through the muddle of mud huts, palm trees, drinking pools and heaps of débris; an obvious desire to avoid meeting any of the inhabitants.

The place lay in darkness, the silence broken only by the snores that issued from some of the huts and the squeaks and rustles of uneasy domestic animals.

Nanza went along in a manner that suggested his surroundings were not entirely new, his objective the guest-house in the middle of the village. Out of the purple darkness, lying like a pall over the market-square, a light flickered and disappeared and flickered again at regular intervals in the open door of the little hut in the center.

For some time Nanza watched the light. So far as he could see the hut was empty save for one old figure, nor did there appear to be any one lurking in the vicinity.

Presently, with the stealthy tread of a leopard, he went forward.

Just inside the door of the guest hut was a negro of about sixty, who, squatting on his heels on the mud floor, was busy pulling to and fro the shutter of a battered dark lantern.

Nanza’s approach made him look up. On seeing his visitor, he gave a grunt of satisfaction.

“So you recognized my signal?” he said by way of greeting.

Nanza nodded. He entered the hut, and, drawing the palm-leaf shutter screening the doorway into position, seated himself opposite the high-priest.

“How are things in Kallu, Mhaki?” he asked. “Is there any sign as yet of a new heir? And how is it that _you_ are plotting against the Sultan? Have my words proved true? Or is the Sultan so enamored with the Star he has caught that he forgets the rites of the temple?”

Mhaki cast a glance at his blustering visitor. Then he rolled a portion of tobacco he was chewing across his tongue, and expectorated with great deliberation before replying.

“There is no bride in Kallu,” he said.

The remark left Nanza amazed. He knew nothing of the final happenings of that tragic night, nothing of Leslie’s escape or Molly’s death.

“What do you mean?” he asked excitedly.

Mhaki told how the Star had fled back to the night and had not returned.

Nanza laughed, a great roar of savage mirth.

“So my cousin is not so successful in love as in war. And what did the Ruler of the Night do when the Star he loved fooled him?”

“It’s because of what he did and what he did not do that I searched for you,” Mhaki answered. “I am his servant, but, before him, I have sworn to serve the gods. It may be the Sultan spoke falsely, for the girl he held was fair enough to melt even the heart of hatred.”

The old man paused.

“We of Kallu have almost forgotten that the Sultan’s father was _not_ one of us, but of a race who make no war on women,” he continued a moment later. “In past days I learnt much of the ways of white men from Irena’s consort. Who knows what goes on in the heart of man when eyes such as the Star’s have looked into it? Now, hearken, Nanza, Heir of all Darkness. I will tell you my story, and when suspicion first entered my heart, and all that has happened since.”

Mhaki moved a little closer to his companion. The feeble light of the lantern played on him fitfully, making him look like a gigantic black toad shuffling along in the semi-darkness.

Into Nanza’s ears was poured an account of what had taken place in Cooper’s bungalow, when the first seed of doubt concerning Lebrassa’s statements had been sown in Mhaki’s mind.

“Yet,” he finished, “when I told the Sultan how Bhessu had killed the woman who was his wife rather than give her to us, it was as nothing. There was nothing in the Sultan’s mind but the lost Star; no thought or regret for the vengeance that had been swept from him. Now, what do _you_ think of that?” Mhaki asked.

“A Sultan of Kallu does not take so lightly the passing of vengeance, unless all thought of vengeance has long since passed from his mind,” Nanza answered.

Mhaki nodded to himself.

“That was exactly what I thought,” he said. “And another thing. Had not the love of Bhessu for the Sultan always been a byword in Kallu, even where all worship him? Had not Bhessu as great a hatred for the Queen Irena’s murderer as had the Sultan? Yet this faithful servant of the Royal House did not turn from his wife when the truth was told him. He swore the Sultan had lied! He, Bhessu, to whom the Sultan was a god! He tried to save his wife, swearing she was not the daughter of Irena’s murderer. Yet I saw the woman had the eyes and hair of that foul traitor. Bhessu tried to prove to us by her age that she could not have been a child of that thief. And I did not believe him, for in my ears the Sultan’s words were still ringing.”

Pausing, Mhaki laid a black, wrinkled hand on Nanza’s shoulder.

“Yet there was a flaw somewhere,” he continued. “With the next sunrise I went with the Sultan, who had been injured in his efforts to get the Star from the white men, to a Mission where his wound was dressed. I saw a white woman there, a teacher. Of a servant I inquired her age. To me she looked a girl. And I was told she was over thirty! Three years older than the woman who was Bhessu’s wife. There is no reason why that servant at the Mission should have lied to me. And then I began to wonder who had lied, Bhessu or the Sultan?”

Silence reigned in the hut as Mhaki finished speaking. The wind moaned around the deserted market square, bringing with it distant forest howls and the gentle sigh of the palms.

Nanza heard nothing of these noises. He was thinking over all the high-priest had told him, glowing with inward satisfaction at the thought of the white man’s learning which was now his, and which would help him to prove the suspicions lingering in his companion’s mind.

“What do you want of me?” he asked, finally.

“I am an old man,” Mhaki answered. “A faithful servant of Doomana. And I would know the truth, yea, even if it means my death. For in Kallu we have no use for traitors.”

“Even so,” Nanza agreed. “Tell me what I can do, and I will do it.”

“If you knew the ways and speech of the English, the plan I have thought of would be robbed of half its difficulties. There is always gold and to spare at Kallu. For that white men will tell you all you care to ask.”

Evilly Nanza smiled.

Then he told Mhaki how he had been occupied since his hurried flight from Calabar.

In a calculating manner the high-priest looked at him.

“It’s no child’s game we’re playing. And I am still the servant of the reigning Sultan. It is the truth alone I seek. If it be proved the Sultan Essel has spoken truly then it will be well for you, O Nanza, to keep from this country. There will be ten thousand watching lest you betray Kallu. Yet, if it be proved that the Sultan Essel loves where he should hate, then he dies, and I am the faithful servant of the Sultan Nanza.”

“The stakes are high, but I am willing to venture all,” the younger man answered.

“Think well. I am setting you no light task. Nor am _I_ easily deceived,” Mhaki said pointedly. “I, too, can read and write after the manner of the white men. In the dead days Irena’s consort taught me these things. All knowledge is good, and I have not forgotten my white lore. The proof you bring must be no proof of mouth alone, but white man’s proof with seals and documents and signatures. And I must have time to ponder, to write and ask for myself the truth of what you may bring.”

With some eagerness Mhaki awaited Nanza’s reply, sufficiently acquainted with his man to know that the fact of his return would prove the truth of the papers he brought with him.

“I am no child now, but Heir of Doomana,” Nanza answered proudly. “That night when I accused my cousin, Essel, of treachery, I was saying what Bhessu had told me more than a month before, when I arrived in Calabar, sent by _you_ to inquire into the reason of the Sultan’s long absence. What my sister said made me stay. When she first spoke, I considered her words only a jealous woman’s madness. Then I saw for myself that the Sultan was infatuated with the girl he had brought with him. And I pondered on the matter, wondering if what Yoni said were true. For it struck me that a woman sees deeper into the heart of a man than does a man.”

“That’s so,” Mhaki agreed.

“I watched the Sultan with the maid he had sworn to kill. Love made him deaf, for often I stood close by, spying. And there is a saying in Kallu, did a fly but crawl the Sultan heard it! Yet none would believe what I said. And now you, Mhaki, have doubts, even as I had.”

Mhaki nodded.

“Now, Nanza, listen,” he said, “and I’ll put my plan before you.”

In the dim light the two drew closer together.

“If the Sultan has lied, it would be vain for us to trace the lost Star. He will have destroyed all evidence against her. If he is a traitor, we have need of her, so that he may see her die first. The Ruler of the Night has searched for her in vain these nine months. We will let him search. If he can’t find her, the task is beyond us. But we will go to work in another manner. We will find out more about the other woman, the one Bhessu held as wife. Go first to Calabar. Learn all you can about her from his friends there. Afterwards proceed to England and probe further. If you can prove she was _not_ the daughter of that foul murderer, then ten thousand will call you Sultan of Kallu.”

Pausing, the high-priest drew a small leather bag from his loin-cloth and dropped it in front of his visitor.

“This bag of pebbles means great wealth in England. Take it, and remember there is short shrift for traitors, you or the Sultan Essel.”

With that Nanza rose and passed out into the night.