Chapter XIX: An Accusation and the Ordeal

Old Plaited-Beard charges Bakula with stealing--The accusation is
denied--Bakula declares his disbelief in charms and
witch-doctors--Satu saves him from immediate death--The missing
cloth is found in Bakula’s house--Tumbu exposes the accuser’s
trickery--He is ridiculed--Bakula submits to the ordeal of the
boiling oil--His arm is badly scalded--During the night Bakula
escapes to the mission station.

A few days after the return of the trading caravan, the whole town was startled to hear that some one had stolen two pieces of cloth from Old Plaited-Beard’s house. He was most emphatic and circumstantial as to when and where he had left the cloth, and the disappearance of the pieces. He borrowed a strong fetish from a friend, beat it soundly to arouse it to action, held it three times above his head that its spirit might rush through the air in pursuit of the thief, held it also three times head downwards near the ground to enable the fetish spirit to run along the earth after the robber, and then hung it by the neck to the roof of his house. Then the old man waited a day or two, but the cloth was not returned.

Old Plaited-Beard fumed in pretended rage about the loss of his cloth, and at last accused Bakula of stealing it. The lad indignantly denied the charge.

The old man said: “Ever since you met that white man in Tonzeka’s town you have been a different lad. You do not enter into our fetish palavers, you laugh at the witch-doctors, you destroyed the power of my charms so that I did not kill a single animal through the whole of the hunting season, you bewitched my carrier, thus causing the breaking of all my crockery ornaments, and now you have stolen my cloth.”

“I am not guilty of any of these charges,” stoutly maintained the lad. "I have not stolen your cloth! Search my house if you like, for since our return from the trading journey to the coast I have not been to a market, nor have I been out of the town except to bathe in the river, so I have had no opportunity of disposing of the cloth. It is true that since the white man put medicine on my wound, and talked to me about God’s palaver I have lost my faith in charms and ‘medicine men.’"

A great crowd by now was surging round the two principal persons in this strange scene, and a howl of derision went up from scores of throats when the brave lad daringly avowed his disbelief in charms and witch-doctors.

“He is a witch! Give him the ordeal!” shouted some. “Kill him!” screamed others, “or he will bewitch all of us.”

And women held their children tightly to their bosoms, and begged them not to follow the example of “that wicked boy.”

Satu came hurrying up to learn the cause of all the excitement, and when the whole case was laid before him he felt a great pity for the lad, and determined that he should have fair play; for he liked him, and had admired his smartness in trade, and alertness in games, dancing and hunting. Besides, he knew that his accuser, Old Plaited-Beard, hated the boy for some unknown reason.

When, therefore, the mob again demanded either the ordeal or death for the undaunted boy, the chief at once said: “No, let us search his house as he desires, and if we find the cloth in it, then we will have a palaver and punish him according to our laws.”

A rush was instantly made for Bakula’s house, where he lived with his mother; but no one entered until the chief actors arrived, and then Satu, Old Plaited-Beard, Bakula, and one or two others entered the house; and after searching about the hut for a very short time Old Plaited-Beard pulled the two pieces of cloth from a corner of the roof, in the dark inner room, where they were concealed by some grass.

The discovery of the cloth was hailed with screams of laughter, shouts of derision, and whistles of contempt. And if Satu had not been there, my poor owner, Bakula, would have been torn to pieces by the infuriated crowd, not because stealing was such a heinous crime in their eyes--there was not an honest man, woman or youth among the whole mob of screamers and shouters; but the discovery of the cloth in the house was taken as a proof of his witchcraft and utter stupidity.

In a very short time Satu was seated with his head men ready to judge the case. Old Plaited-Beard sat there with a snigger of triumph on his evil face, and Bakula, crestfallen, confused, but undaunted, stood, the centre of all eyes, the object of ridicule and contempt.

“Why did he not hide the cloth in the bush? Why was he such a fool as to leave the cloth in his own house?” were questions everybody was asking. The crowd derided Bakula for being a fool, rather than blamed him as a thief.

The court was held on an open space in the centre of the town, beneath the wide-spreading branches of a wild fig-tree. In a simple case like this there were no advocates, and no sides taken as in a big law-suit. Old Plaited-Beard told of the loss of the cloth, of his charging Bakula with the theft, and the discovery of the cloth by himself in the accused person’s house.

Bakula strenuously denied the theft, and gave a very clear account of all that he had done and the people with whom he had been since his return a few days ago. He appealed to Satu to state how he had accounted for every yard of cloth he had used when trading on the markets for him, and finished by saying that for some reason the _Nenkondo_ (the new title of Old Plaited-Beard) hated him, and had more than once threatened to do him some harm.

Old Plaited-Beard scornfully asked: “Do you think I should steal my own cloth and put it in your house?”

Just then a lad, by name Tumbu, asked Satu for permission to speak, and, trembling with excitement, said: “The other day, when the town was nearly empty of people, I was lying down in my house, being too ill to go with Bakula and the other lads to bathe in the river; and while I was lying there I saw Nenkondo come along, and, after looking around on every side, enter Bakula’s house, which is right opposite mine. I watched him, and saw that he had something under his cloth; but when he came out the something was gone, for his cloth was flat on his thighs. Why did he go into Bakula’s house? and what did he leave there?”

Old Plaited-Beard was furious, and, choking with rage, he snapped out the question: “Is Bakula a friend of yours?”

“Yes,” bravely answered the lad. “I am, as you know, a slave, and Bakula has always been kind to me. He has given me food when I have been hungry, and defended me from the taunts of the other boys and girls of the town.”

Bakula, as soon as his friend had finished speaking, instantly sprang forward, and said: “I accuse Nenkondo of stealing his own cloth and putting it in my house. Tumbu is my witness to that; but there is no witness to show that I have been in his house. He is the thief, not I!”

Satu consulted his head men for a considerable time; but at last said: “There are two persons before us who accuse each other of thieving, and it is difficult for us to decide. We will therefore call the _nganga_, and will try the case to-morrow by the ordeal of the boiling oil; and whichever one is proved guilty must pay a fine of five pieces of cloth.”

After this decision the crowd at once broke up, and that night around the fires there was much speculation as to which of the two would prove the guilty one.

Early the next afternoon a _nganga_ arrived with a deep vessel filled with palm-oil. This was placed on a fire and attended to, while the _nganga’s_ assistants walked about the town. One of these assistants called to Bakula and asked him to show the way to the stream. When they were a little out of the town the assistant turned, and said to Bakula: “If you will give me fifty brass rods my master will put something on your hand and arm so that the boiling oil will not burn you, and you will be proved innocent. Will you pay me the money?”

“No; I am perfectly innocent of the charge,” replied Bakula, “and if there is any truth in the ordeal, it will show all the people that I am guiltless. For many moons now I have doubted witch-doctors, and believed that they tricked us, laughed at us and robbed us.”

“You had better pay the money,” sneeringly retorted the _nganga’s_ assistant, “otherwise you will have to pay the five pieces of cloth.”

“Yes, I know your way,” replied the lad. “It is like this: I promise you fifty rods, then you go to the other and he promises you sixty, and after that you come to me and I promise seventy rods, and he offers eighty, and it is the one who eventually gives you the largest amount that wins the case by ordeal. No, I will not promise a single brass rod, for I know I am innocent, and if the ordeal does not prove it I shall know for a certainty that your _ngangas_ are liars and cheats, and your ordeals trickeries and swindles.”

The assistant, heaping on him much abuse, and throwing at him many epithets of reproach, called him an utter fool, and returned to the town.

Later in the afternoon the drum sounded, and the people hurried to the judging-place. Women had not been to the farms that day or had returned very early; the men had not been to either market, forest or bush; and people had come in from the surrounding villages, for everybody who could be there was present, because no one wanted to miss so sensational a sight as the ordeal by boiling oil.

Satu and his head men sat by themselves a few yards from the saucepan of oil. Bakula and Old Plaited-Beard were at opposite sides of the circle of people that watched the proceedings intently. Old Plaited-Beard was called first, and approached the saucepan with a jaunty air, smirking face, and anticipated triumph in every movement. He submitted his right hand and arm to be rubbed with some decoction[63] by the _nganga_; a piece of _kwanga_, or native bread, was dropped in the oil, and then, with an insolent flourish, Old Plaited-Beard dipped in his hand and arm and brought out the piece of _kwanga_. His skin was not scalded, he had passed the ordeal successfully, and was thus proved innocent of the charge.

Footnote 63:

See note 51, p. 357.

On the plea that the first ceremonial use of the oil had cooled it too much to be a proper test, the _nganga_ and his assistants heaped fire about the pot, and it was not until the oil began to bubble that the “medicine man” pronounced it ready for the other accused person.

My owner, Bakula, now went forward with set face and steady step to where the saucepan of oil was sending up jets of steam. I could feel his chest heaving, his breath coming and going in quick, short gasps, his body trembling with the excitement of the hour, and his heart pulsating turbulently.

The tension was great, the sea of faces seemed to crowd about and press in upon him; and as he drew near the saucepan he could see the glint of hatred and triumph in the _nganga’s_ eyes, but he answered them with a look of defiance.

The _nganga_ rubbed something on the lad’s arm and hand, and dropped the piece of _kwanga_ in the bubbling oil.

Every head in that great crowd was bent forward, and, as a hush fell on the assembly, every eye was fixed on the lonely, slim, young figure standing before that saucepan of fiery oil.

Without hesitation, for he was absolutely sure of his guiltlessness, Bakula boldly dipped his hand in the boiling liquid, but before he could reach the _kwanga_ at the bottom of the saucepan, a paroxysm of pain seized him and, with a scream of agony, he fell fainting to the ground.

His friend Tumbu and the chief hurried to him and warded off, by their bodies, any intended blows upon the prostrate, unconscious lad; and between them they carried him to his hut.

When Bakula returned to consciousness he was lying on his rough bamboo bed, and his mother, with unskilled kindness, was trying to bind up that burning arm in poultices of leaves, and Tumbu was weeping by his side.

Tumbu told his suffering friend that Satu had paid the five pieces of cloth and the _nganga’s_ fee, and the matter was therefore settled.

“And,” continued he, “although everybody in the town thinks you stole the cloth, I know you did not.”

Bakula then told his faithful companion how the _nganga’s_ assistant had come to him before the ordeal, and had asked for money; that there was no doubt the Nenkondo had given a bribe, and so had passed the ordeal without a burn; and, emphatically asserted the lad, “After this I will never again believe in _ngangas_, nor in charms, nor in ordeals. I am innocent, but look at my arm.”

The two friends sat talking all the evening, and at last Bakula said: “To-night I am going to escape to the white man’s station. He will heal my scalded arm, and teach me God’s palaver.”

“Wait until the morning,” pleaded Tumbu. “Don’t travel in the dark, or the evil spirits will throttle and squeeze the life out of you.”

“Who talks about evil spirits?” asked Bakula. "Only the ‘medicine men,’ and perhaps what they tell us about them is as great a lie as their charms, fetishes and ordeals. I will test that to-night as I have tested their other teaching to-day." And a look of undaunted determination came into the brave fellow’s face, which, being seen by Tumbu in the flickering firelight, stopped his further arguments.

It was towards midnight that Bakula took farewell of his mother, and creeping from his house with stealthy steps, passed through the sleeping town and into the darkness of the silent, tangled, spirit-haunted bush. What lay before him? Would it always be the darkness, the tangled paths environed with fearful spirits? Or would he come into the light, that would show him the straight, clear road, and, chasing away the evil spirits of darkness, reveal the ministering angels of the white man’s God?