Chapter XVIII: The Alarm Drum

As soon as they felt safe from pursuit, the tribesmen who had been guarding Warok hastened to Sura and Menud with their story. An incredible tale of a ghost leopard, or of Warok transforming himself into a leopard, they poured out, panting and shaken, before the incredulous Menud and his father. Interested but puzzled, neither Sura nor Menud was quite convinced. But as one after the other of the shaken guard arrived and told the same story, the obvious belief of the eyewitnesses and the constant repetition of it gave proof.

A hurried visit to the hut where Warok had been imprisoned showed only a dying watch fire and no traces of the prisoner. Something of the tale, Menud felt, must be true. Moreover, the unwillingness of the guard to revisit the scene and their obvious terror showed better than words that this was not a tale concocted to account for a release obtained by bribery.

Boaster, liar, and traitor as he was, Menud was supported in his ambition by considerable ability as a plotter. Swiftly he weighed up the situation. With Warok free the game was no longer entirely in his hands. He knew only too well that the old chief had a considerable following in the tribe whom he would now get together and organize.

Menud felt that his next move must be to gather all his sympathizers from as many villages as he could in the time at his disposal, and have himself declared chief. Then, with this usurped authority in his support he would have the tribal organization at his disposal.

But, swiftly as his dispositions were made, they should have been swifter.

At dawn the old Rainmaker had already assembled a nucleus of Warok’s followers. He had sent for these before Garram’s message had reached him. They were a last desperate hope to free Warok by force of arms. Fully armed and experienced warriors had come at the old man’s bidding from every village of the tribe. In twos and threes, so as not to attract too much attention, they had been converging on the village since dawn. Outside the village they had been met and directed to the Sacred Grove.

Even after dawn more and still more men were climbing to the flat-topped hill which was the meeting place of the great Council of the People. The Sacred Grove seemed to swallow them up, singly and in groups, and none outside could tell how many there were.

Garram, no longer in his leopard skin and armor, had had a series of thrilling escapes from Menud’s followers while searching the village for the Rainmaker. At dawn he ran the old man to earth in the Sacred Grove. Swiftly he told his tale, while the Rainmaker nodded approval. “It is well done! But this I already knew. For even as you sought me in the village, Warok, your father, has himself come and is here waiting.”

“Then as soon as enough are assembled we shall attack the followers of Sura and Menud and kill those two traitors?” Garram’s eagerness, in spite of his twenty-four hours of strain and effort, made the old man smile.

“Not so. For that would be to give all honor to youth who have already earned enough,” the Rainmaker soothed his impatience. “Now is the time when old heads may make a plan instead of young arms striking.”

Garram hopped on one foot in eagerness, and Kon strolled up in hope of excitement. “The plan, then, O Great One, the plan, what is the plan?”

“Is it not easier to snare the hare than to run after it with sticks? Have patience a moment, and you will see the snare catch the hare. Come, see!”

Speaking together the two had moved farther into the grove. And Garram saw. For two of Warok’s warriors with threatening spears were forcing one of Menud’s followers to yield up his weapons. Silently and without outcry, so that others might not be warned. In the broken country round the village there was only one clear space where a force could easily be assembled--the flat-topped hill on which grew the Sacred Grove. The Rainmaker’s plan was indeed skilful.

Warok’s followers had gathered first. Sura’s men came unprepared, in little groups and singly in too small numbers to offer resistance. And those who had come first had already been disarmed and could render no help to later comers.

The ring of trees, which was the Sacred Grove, crowned the hill and masked it from people below. The barren slopes of the hill gave no chance to anyone to escape unseen and carry the news back to the village. As neat a little trap as could have been devised, and grim smiles played upon the faces of the old warriors who followed the chief as they noted the chagrined expressions of Menud’s followers, disarmed and helpless.

On the farther side of the stone circle Warok sat in his accustomed place. Dressed in Garram’s shirt of mail, the new leopard skin thrown loosely over the stone seat, and Garram’s steel-shafted spear planted by his side, he was the center of an interested throng. At once the hunter recognized the skill with which his father put even such details as these to their most effective use. For such armor, rarest of heirlooms even among the Fulani was unknown among the primitive Hillmen. The rays of the rising sun rose over the encircling Sacred Grove and struck down into the clearing, ruddy and glowing, upon the motionless figure of the chief. All eyes turned to the flashing golden figure, and a deep-toned murmur of awe boomed from the people.

Then Menud and his father, with a handful of his followers, were seen approaching.

No attempt had been made to disarm them. Instead way was made for them, so that even as they passed through the wood chatting and boasting, they were unaware of the changed situation. With self-conscious dignity they paced out from the cover of the trees into the clearing. Then something of the truth flashed upon them. Jaws dropped upon unfinished remarks, and there was a movement among the party as if to turn and run. But already the guards had closed in behind them. In paralyzed surprise they rendered up their arms.

Then Warok spoke. “You have called a council. Behold, your men are here! What will you say to them?”

Silence fell.

One by one the party that had come with Menud and Sura drifted away and were lost in the crowd which stood behind the seats of the stone circle. Elders one by one sought their appointed seats. Scowling their useless anger, Menud and his father stood helpless, isolated in the center of the ring.

An elder rose in his place and spoke. “O Warok, and people of the Hills, it is time that the voice of truth was heard. For many years men have grumbled saying that you oppress them when you make them do the things needed for the safety of the land. Sura has followed the trail of discontent with gifts, preaching more discontent. Speaking against you. Promising no work and many gifts if the discontented will make him chief.” The father of Menud made as if to speak. “Do not protest, O Sura, for there are surely a thousand men here who would know your denial a lie.”

“This I have known for many years,” answered Warok. “We all know that after many years of peace people will say, ‘There will be no more war in our days, why should we keep the defence hedges of cactus in repair? Why should we train ourselves to defend our families? Why should we do aught save gather wealth or eat and drink?’ Yet we, who bear scars of many ancient battles against the slave-raiders from the east, know that when they think to find us unprepared they will come again.”

Menud spat disdainfully upon the ground. “If the chief fears the Fulani raiders let him not think we are all cowards! Have I not myself killed many and escaped from the very city of their Emir? Pah!” Again he spat his feigned disgust.

“Your story of your adventure at Yelwa is a lie, as all men will know in due course. Moreover, it is not those Fulani who are our enemies, but those of the east. As to your courage, have you ever shown it except in words? And the raiders require more than words to drive them off!”

The situation was a difficult one. To Garram it seemed simple. With the men who had tried to kill him here at his mercy, why did not Warok dispatch them out of hand? All this talk seemed dangerous delay. But the old man knew his trade. Summary execution of Menud and Sura might be justice and would draw the sting of the conspirators for a time, but in the end it might turn them into first-class martyrs for liberty and lead to civil war in the tribe.

“Bring in the followers of Menud,” directed the chief, “but bring them one by one and let the others wait beyond earshot.” The chief’s bidding was done.

Now, with Menud helpless, his followers no longer feared to tell the truth. The story soon came out: his attempt to murder Garram, even the punishment of the dye pit, which till now had appeared in various forms but never as punishment for treachery. Menud’s cowardly attack was not to the liking of the brave and simple Hillmen. A roar of anger broke from the throats of the crowd, from followers of Warok and Menud alike, and they shook threatening arms at their recent leader. Twice the old chief had to still the tumult as he sat watching the effect produced. Little by little, doubtingly at first the followers of Sura and Menud turned upon their leader and would follow Warok. His enemies were at his mercy.

Skilfully the old chief guided affairs. The last witness withdrew beyond the circle of the elders and from the outermost ring, reaching far beyond the Sacred Grove to Sura and Menud, standing scowling and uneasy in the center, came silence and no movement. The sun was nearly at midday; no breath of wind stirred the heavy leaves of the tall enfolding trees.

Strained and more strained grew the hush--the hush of waiting.

Garram, like a true hunter, having played his part, was resting, almost sleeping with eyes open in preparation for the next move. Kon, stretched out, basked in the sun. Nothing of the old chief’s thoughts or feeling could be guessed from his face. It seemed set, carved in stone, but his keen old eyes lost nothing of what passed before them.

Then a group of elders rose from their stone seats and spoke together in whispers. The eldest, leaning on his staff, his shriveled skin lying in folds upon his body, led the group before the chief.

“Father of our tribe, ourselves, our families, and our villages are at your service, to follow you in war and to hear your words in peace. Ours is the blame that, forgetting that these two were runaway slaves from the Plains, we believed their word as though they had been of the tribe.”

The old man paused and sought the eyes of his comrades as if in support of what he was about to say. Grimly they nodded their assent.

“We are not able to make conditions with you whose father was chief of our fathers, but one thing we would beg.”

Again the old man paused. Something of his intention seemed to be divined by Menud and Sura, whose eyes searched vainly among the assembly for sign of support. But anger was on the faces of the followers they had once duped, and on the faces of Warok’s men, triumph.

As the old one spoke a buzz of whispering carried his words out to the farthest fringe of people beyond the grove. Now the hush of expectancy caught and gripped anew the tight-packed throng. The ancient felt the weight of the words that he was about to speak. Proudly his old frame straightened, and his shriveled skin seemed for the moment to hang less loosely on him. He turned from Warok and stretched out his arms to the people. “Let our shame be healed by the death of these two, Sura and Menud! Let their death be such that men, aye, even hardened warriors, shall speak of it with terror and shuddering!”

No whispers now. His old voice rose to a clear ringing summons which carried to every man there. In answer the Hillman’s killing call rose from a thousand warrior throats. Then, more dreadful still, for by tribal custom the women only may torture, grew the eerie death wail of the women. It was the answer. Gray and trembling, Sura and Menud awaited their fate.

Then, like a sea, the mob surged in to snatch its prey. With a shout Warok, Garram, and a handful of old warriors sprang forward. Exile, possibly death the chief had planned for the two, but not this. This almost forgotten death by lingering public torture. Swiftly a ring of armed men was flung between the mob and the groveling figures on the ground.

Then a small boy, dusty, gasping, almost falling with weariness, burst somehow through the throng. At a stumbling run he came to Warok, then spoke a hurried message.

Garram, at a sign, ran up to receive a short order, and even as he turned at a run toward the village, Warok, a glittering figure in his chain mail, swung toward the people.

The din was so great that at first his words could not penetrate. The guard, though heavily reinforced was being pressed back and forth by the unarmed mob, who, once Menud’s followers, now wanted his life. Then, as those near the chief heard his news, the shouts began to cease. Packed and jumbled the mob stood still, froze almost to hear and catch the words.

“O People of the Hills, we have been attacked from within the tribe by these two traitors who writhe in fear before you, groveling on the ground imploring mercy. Do not waste your time upon them! Even now word has come that more worthy foes await us. The Fulani of the East, whom we have not seen for a generation, have sacked, burned and ravished our southern villages on the foothills, and seek a way into our Hills themselves.”

The old warrior chief waited for the news to be whispered out to the edges of the crowd. But time was not being wasted. Already Garram had been sent hurrying to sound the alarm drum in the village below.

“Until we have met and hurled back the Fulani raiders we need not trouble ourselves with this scum. Only by lies can they do harm, not by their own strength! Now that you know the truth, what harm can they do? Now let the women prepare the food to follow, while all true Hillmen take only their weapons and cast these vermin of the Plains back from the Hills of our ancestors. Now is not the time for talk. Let us travel swiftly and strike hard! Brothers, we have had a generation of talk! Let us now fight. Come!”

Somewhere in the dense mass of people were Sura and Menud, but already forgotten as the crowd ebbed and flowed through the encircling trees crowding toward the southward leading track.

And as they jostled came the steady rhythmical boom from the village below.

Deep, continuous, and ever louder, strange and unheard for a generation, still none could mistake it, it was the wooden war drum of their ancestors. Beaten only in case of tribal extremity, and then only by order of the chief himself, it could be heard for ten miles in any direction. In each village was a similar drum made of a hollowed hardwood tree. Each village, as soon as it heard the deep note, would transmit the message.

And the deep tone varied as the tone of the Hill language varied, so that words and sentences could be sent in the tone language itself.

Every marching man could hear the call to arms. Then came the names of the villages that the enemy had attacked. And like a stop between each sentence came the two-toned word of their language meaning war. War--young men gripped their spears with determination. War--grizzled, hardened warriors dreamed awhile of their youth. War--again the drum thundered out, and women hastened to soothe the children and prepare food to send after their husbands and fathers.

THE CHIEF RETURNS