Chapter XII: A Voice in the Forest

Things were very unsatisfactory to the trader on the last night of his stay as a guest in the village. He had intended it to be the last night that he or any of the people of the village should sleep in those huts. But if he carried out his first plan, and fell upon them in the dark hours just after midnight, killing, burning, and plundering, and then taking up his march to the next village to do the same thing, he would have to give up all hope of the ivory. While he was sitting by himself, trying to think of a way out of the difficulty, Mpoko stole up to him in the dark and pulled at his sleeve. “Come quickly,” he murmured, “there is a palaver going on behind the ruined huts, and it is about ivory.”

The Arab was naturally suspicious, and the life that he had led had made him more so. He had been almost sure in the last day or two that there was something he had not yet found out about that ivory. He knew a great deal about native tribes, and he was aware that they are very good at hiding anything they do not wish to have known. He remembered that Mpoko had been limping about the village as if suffering from a severe beating; indeed, the boy seemed hardly able to walk now. That was just what would have happened if he had heard something his elders were saying and they had found it out. And what could be more natural than that he should revenge himself by telling what he had heard? The trader would have done that himself in Mpoko’s place.

Mpoko slid along in the shadow and dropped on all fours, signing to the trader to do likewise. They wormed along through tall grass and thorn bushes and thickets for what seemed hours and hours, in the dark. Mpoko would have liked to lead the Arab round and round the village all night. As it was, they followed a very roundabout cattle track, and the trader’s clothes, which were not made for crawling, suffered a great deal from thorns and mire.

At last they reached a pile of ruined thatch and mud wall, and sure enough, there were men on the other side of the heap, talking together in low tones. Mpoko ducked into the shadow and vanished like a scared rabbit. The trader crouched motionless, his hand on his dagger, listening.

“Then everything is ready?” said the chief.

“Everything,” said the smith.

“And the stranger does not suspect?” said the oldest of the villagers.

“I think,” said Mpoko’s father, “that he has quite given up any thought of the ivory now. We have scared him very well.”

“What a joke it will be?” said the smith, “when we tell people that the stranger was afraid of Tswki!”

“A feeble old man without sons,” said one of the hunters, “and all that ivory which the trader, with his strong men armed with the weapons that kill far off, does not dare to go and take!”

“It is all the better,” said the chief, rising. “When the trader has gone, we will get the ivory and carry it to the trading station ourselves.”

Then the group of men went away, and the Arab, gritting his teeth with rage, found his way back to his own tent. His mind was quite made up. He would break camp early in the morning and go straight over the mountain into Tswki’s country and get that ivory and, if possible, a gang of slaves. Then he would come back and punish the villages, and if there were any joke to be told it would be on them, not on him.

He got Mpoko into his hut while his porters were packing, and questioned him closely. It was not for nothing that Mpoko had played biti and other games in which he had learned not to show his feelings. He said that what the trader had heard of Tswki was indeed true. He had not given them any trouble for a long time--many years. Mpoko had heard that there was a stockade of elephant’s tusks, all picked for their great size, round the group of huts in which Tswki lived with his family. Remembering what the Alo Man had told of the riches of the king whom he had visited, Mpoko described the carved ivory oil dishes and knife handles, the war trumpets and combs and bowls, which he said he had heard that Tswki had. White men would give many, many brass rods for such things, but until now it had not been safe to try to get them. Now the villages had agreed to forget all private quarrels and join in raiding Tswki’s country. Yes, Mpoko knew the road up the mountain. No, it was not very easy to find. One might get lost in the forest. He would not like to show the trader the way, because it might get him into trouble with his father.

The trader pulled at his black beard impatiently. It would not do to get lost in the forest. Neither would it do to arouse suspicion. Mpoko suggested that the Alo Man also knew the road up the mountain. The trader asked if the Alo Man would be the guide. Mpoko thought he would hardly do that, but he was going to visit Tswki, and Mpoko might get leave to go with him for a few miles and then slip away and join the trader. This seemed a good idea, and the trader agreed. He was glad that the Alo Man would be out of the way when the villages were raided, for he had an uneasy notion that with a good leader the people might give him some trouble. If they traveled fast, they could overtake the Alo Man before they got to Tswki’s country and could make sure that he would give them no further trouble.

The Alo Man had already gone when the trader and his men set forth. In fact, he had gone the night before, although nobody knew it but the chief and one or two other people. Mpoko kept a little ahead of the trader’s party, swinging from tree to tree like a monkey, or peering back from behind a thorn bush or grass clump. Just as the trail began to be hard to find, he dropped to the ground and stood waiting for them as they came panting up the path.

Very little was said as the Arab and his men followed the slim brown figure of the boy through the jungle. Every man had firearms, and they had given a little shooting exhibition the day before that had impressed the people deeply. The Arab felt sure that when he got ready to take his prisoners, they would be too scared to make any fight. He expected to have some trouble getting the ivory, but he was not a coward and did not mind fighting when he was sure that he would win in the end. He counted very much on the surprise he would give the old chief when he made the attack. Each one of his men, with gun and revolver, was equal to many Africans armed only with spears, and according to all accounts Tswki depended on the strength of his town there on the hillside and not on a strong guard.

Of course the trader did not know that about an hour after he left the village, Mpoko’s father, with every fighting man he could muster, in full war dress, with feather headdresses, long spears, round hide-covered shields and horn-handled knives, had started up that very trail. The men of the village had come on at such a pace that they had to check themselves for fear of catching up with the men they were following. A scout was sent on now and then to make sure that the Arab was still going up the mountain.

From time to time other parties of warriors came in from trails that branched off into the forest. By the time the belt of forest began to grow thinner and the trail came out on the rocky open ground above, there was a very considerable band of grim, fierce-looking spearmen crowding up through the trees and crouching behind bushes.

Mpoko looked back and caught a glimpse of the flutter of plumes. He pointed up the mountain to a pile of boulders clear against the sky on the top of the ridge.

“That is the way to Tswki’s country,” he said. “I do not dare to go any farther. I may get beaten as it is.”

“You will get something worse than a beating if you don’t come,” said the Arab. “Come with us and we will give you a share in the ivory. Go back and you will be killed.”

Mpoko had not counted on this. He looked at the pile of rocks far above, and at the sunburnt bare slope strewn with boulders. He looked at the forest behind. He was sure from what he had seen of the Arab’s shooting that he would not live to get back to the shelter of the trees. He dug one toe into the earth and whimpered. “Do not shoot,” he said. “I will go.”

Laden with their guns, the Arab’s men could not climb as fast as Mpoko could, and he kept some distance ahead. The trail made a turn toward the right, about halfway to the top, and here the elephant pit had been formed by the washing out of a deep hole in the rainy season. It was covered over with woven grass and boughs, and it looked as if the long grass had blown over the trail just there. Mpoko scampered across and ducked behind a boulder beyond. Out from the woods came streaming a company of tribesmen, shouting and waving their spears. The Arab looked at the pile of rocks above, and saw that behind those rocks he and his men could defy any number of enemies with spears. The warriors behind them were not yet within range of the firearms, but they soon would be. The slave traders began to run. If they could not get to the top, at least they could get behind the boulders where the road made that turn.

Then down they tumbled into a great hole. The woven screen of foliage held long enough to let them all get on, and then gave way, exactly as it would do if an elephant were to step on it. The trader’s men went down all in a heap, and a revolver or two went off in the confusion. They could hear the yells of the men coming up the hill.

The Arab could not make out at first what had happened. He knew he had been trapped, but he could not see how it had been done. The walls of the hole were of solid rock, much too high to climb, and overhung the bottom of the pit.

Of course, no one could get at him and his men to kill them without taking a chance of being shot, but they could be left there to starve or die of thirst. The Arab had left many of his prisoners to starve or die of exhaustion by the roadside, and now he knew how they had felt. It was not at all pleasant.

A cheerful jabbering seemed to be going on outside. After some time the Alo Man’s voice could be heard, speaking alone. “Listen, men!” it said. “We can do nothing as long as they have their weapons. Let us give them a chance to live. If they give up their weapons, we can talk to them.”

The Arab made up his mind quickly. “Let down a rope,” he shouted in the clearest Bantu he knew, “and we will tie our guns to it.”

After a little talk, a couple of long leather thongs were flung over the edge of the pit. The Arab thought he might be able to keep back some of the weapons, but he found that whoever was in command seemed to know exactly how many there ought to be. Then the edge of the pit was ringed with fierce, feather-crowned faces looking down at the captives, and there was more talk. Finally the slave traders were pulled out and set in the midst of the crowd, each guarded by a tall and active spearman, and feeling very much depressed and frightened. They knew that if the villagers chose to be disagreeable, they could be very disagreeable indeed.

One of the chiefs, a very tall and commanding figure in a splendid leopard-skin robe, was Tswki himself, as the Arab discovered with horror and dismay. The Alo Man was talking to this chief and trying to make him agree to something.

“Hear now this plan,” said the Alo Man, persuasively. “It is true that these men have planned to come into your country and make war, and steal your ivory, and you have seen for yourself that they came with weapons in their hands and sent no messenger to tell you of their coming and ask permission to enter your village. You know also that they are taking slaves wherever they can, against the new law. If you kill them, as they deserve, they will do no more harm, it is true [the Arab’s teeth began to chatter]; but they will do you no good. On the other hand, if you tie them and march them under guard across your country to the white men, they will do you great good. You will then be able to say to the white men: ‘See, I have kept your words in my heart. I found these men, who are wicked and sell men and women against the law, coming to catch slaves in my country. If you search their packs you will find fetters that they intended to put on the slaves they captured. I did not kill them, although I could have done so. I did not let them go free to carry off the people of some other chief. I have brought them to you for punishment, because you have said that this is right. I have done this so that you may know that I am a good man and speak the truth.’ Then the white man will believe that you are a good man, and he will be your friend. It is very good when one has powerful friends.”

This was probably the first chance that Tswki had ever had to be thought a good, honest man. The newness of it may have interested him. He was surprised that the village people had not killed the slave traders themselves without calling on him, but really it was much more clever to have done this. They could not have taken their prisoners to the white men without going through his country. Now he would get the credit of it all. Tswki was not called “The Snake” for nothing. He saw that the plan was a wise one. The snake is thought by African tribes to be very wise.

“Your plan is good,” said Tswki finally, after thinking it over. “That is what I will do.”

“Listen, you men,” said the Alo Man in Swahili to the trader’s party. “You came into our country pretending friendship and planning wickedness. We know that you tried to come into this chief’s country and steal his ivory and his people, because you thought that he was old and feeble and could not fight you. [Tswki gave a kind of grunt.] You have weapons which kill with a noise from a long way off, and you trust in these to make you strong, like the elephant raging in the jungle. But you have fallen into a pit through the plan of a boy, and your strength has been taken from you as the Elephant’s skin was taken by the little Hyrax. You are to be sent to the officers in the white man’s country, who have made laws to stop the stealing of men and women and children, and the spoiling of our country with the drink in the square-faced bottles. Your men will wait for you awhile and go away. If they try to come up the river, we will stop them. Now we have no more to do with you, for you belong to Tswki.”

Tswki had been listening attentively to this speech, for he understood some Swahili. He had a word to add.

“If the other men come up the river to steal your people,” he said, “we will take them also to the officers to be punished.”

This showed how Tswki’s ideas had changed in the last hour or two. He had never before said “we” when speaking to a chief of the river villages.

Well pleased with their day’s work, Tswki and his men moved off down the other side of the mountain. Well pleased with themselves, the Alo Man, the chiefs, and their people moved off down the slope on this side. They carried with them the goods of the traders, including the guns, revolvers, powder, and shot, which they tumbled into the river.

The Alo Man was happy because, for once, the people of the different villages had united against an enemy; even Tswki had shown signs of friendliness! His white teeth flashed in a joyous smile as he began making a song of triumph about the trader and the elephant pit.

Mpoko also was happy. He was thinking that when he was a chief he would rule wisely and keep his people safe from all enemies, as his father and the other chiefs and the Alo Man had done that day. He was wondering also about those strange new rulers who had said that the stealing of men and women and children must stop, and who did not approve of the drink that took away a man’s senses and made him do silly things. Mpoko felt that he had seen and heard and done a great deal since last night.

The people in the village, waiting to catch the first sound of the Alo Man’s drum, heard far away the tap-tap-tapping that sent through the forest the glad news that all was right. The women began to prepare all sorts of good things for the evening meal, and as the sun went down upon the peaceful village and the shining river and the great mountain standing up out of the level country beyond the forest, the Alo Man and his company came home.

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Transcriber’s Note:

This book was written in a period when many words had not become standardized in their spelling. Words may have multiple spelling variations or inconsistent hyphenation in the text. These have been left unchanged.

Words and phrases in italics are surrounded by underscores, _like this_. Obvious printing errors, such as backwards, upside down, or partially printed letters, were corrected. Final stops missing at the end of sentences and abbreviations were added.