“What did they say?”
“The Mazitu said that the Pongo people are devils who came by the secret channels through the reeds in canoes and stole their children and women, whom they sacrificed to their gods. Sometimes, too, they made raids upon them at night, ‘howling like hyenas.’ The men they killed and the women and children they took away. The Mazitu want to attack them but cannot do so, because they are not water people and have no canoes, and therefore are unable to reach the island, if it is an island. Also they told me about the wonderful flower which grows in the place where the ape-god lives, and is worshipped like the god. They had the story of it from some of their people who had been enslaved and escaped.”
“Did you try to get to the island?” I asked.
“Yes, Allan. That is, I went to the edge of the reeds which lie at the end of a long slope of plain, where the lake begins. Here I stopped for some time catching butterflies and collecting plants. One night when I was camped there by myself, for none of my men would remain so near the Pongo country after sunset, I woke up with a sense that I was no longer alone. I crept out of my tent and by the light of the moon, which was setting, for dawn drew near, I saw a man who leant upon the handle of a very wide-bladed spear which was taller than himself, a big man over six feet two high, I should say, and broad in proportion. He wore a long, white cloak reaching from his shoulders almost to the ground. On his head was a tight-fitting cap with lappets, also white. In his ears were rings of copper or gold, and on his wrists bracelets of the same metal. His skin was intensely black, but the features were not at all negroid. They were prominent and finely-cut, the nose being sharp and the lips quite thin; indeed of an Arab type. His left hand was bandaged, and on his face was an expression of great anxiety. Lastly, he appeared to be about fifty years of age. So still did he stand that I began to wonder whether he were one of those ghosts which the Mazitu swore the Pongo wizards send out to haunt their country.
“For a long while we stared at each other, for I was determined that I would not speak first or show any concern. At last he spoke in a low, deep voice and in Mazitu, or a language so similar that I found it easy to understand.
“ ‘Is not your name Dogeetah, O White Lord, and are you not a master of medicine?’
“ ‘Yes,’ I answered, ‘but who are you who dare to wake me from my sleep?’
“ ‘Lord, I am the Kalubi, the Chief of the Pongo, a great man in my own land yonder.’
“ ‘Then why do you come here alone at night, Kalubi, Chief of the Pongo?’
“ ‘Why do you come here alone, White Lord?’ he answered evasively.
“ ‘What do you want, anyway?’ I asked.
“ ‘O! Dogeetah, I have been hurt, I want you to cure me,’ and he looked at his bandaged hand.
“ ‘Lay down that spear and open your robe that I may see you have no knife.’
“He obeyed, throwing the spear to some distance.
“ ‘Now unwrap the hand.’
“He did so. I lit a match, the sight of which seemed to frighten him greatly, although he asked no questions about it, and by its light examined the hand. The first joint of the second finger was gone. From the appearance of the stump which had been cauterized and was tied tightly with a piece of flexible grass, I judged that it had been bitten off.
“ ‘What did this?’ I asked.
“ ‘Monkey,’ he answered, ‘poisonous monkey. Cut off the finger, O Dogeetah, or tomorrow I die.’
“ ‘Why do you not tell your own doctors to cut off the finger, you who are Kalubi, Chief of the Pongo?’
“ ‘No, no,’ he replied, shaking his head. ‘They cannot do it. It is not lawful. And I, I cannot do it, for if the flesh is black the hand must come off too, and if the flesh is black at the wrist, then the arm must be cut off.’
“I sat down on my camp stool and reflected. Really I was waiting for the sun to rise, since it was useless to attempt an operation in that light. The man, Kalubi, thought that I had refused his petition and became terribly agitated.
“ ‘Be merciful, White Lord,’ he prayed, ‘do not let me die. I am afraid to die. Life is bad, but death is worse. O! If you refuse me, I will kill myself here before you and then my ghost will haunt you till you die also of fear and come to join me. What fee do you ask? Gold or ivory or slaves? Say and I will give it.’
“ ‘Be silent,’ I said, for I saw that if he went on thus he would throw himself into a fever, which might cause the operation to prove fatal. For the same reason I did not question him about many things I should have liked to learn. I lit my fire and boiled the instruments—he thought I was making magic. By the time that everything was ready the sun was up.
“ ‘Now,’ I said, ‘let me see how brave you are.’
“Well, Allan, I performed that operation, removing the finger at the base where it joins the hand, as I thought there might be something in his story of the poison. Indeed, as I found afterwards on dissection, and can show you, for I have the thing in spirits, there was, for the blackness of which he spoke, a kind of mortification, I presume, had crept almost to the joint, though the flesh beyond was healthy enough. Certainly that Kalubi was a plucky fellow. He sat like a rock and never even winced. Indeed, when he saw that the flesh was sound he uttered a great sigh of relief. After it was all over he turned a little faint, so I gave him some spirits of wine mixed with water which revived him.
“ ‘O Lord Dogeetah,’ he said, as I was bandaging his hand, ‘while I live I am your slave. Yet, do me one more service. In my land there is a terrible wild beast, that which bit off my finger. It is a devil; it kills us and we fear it. I have heard that you white men have magic weapons which slay with a noise. Come to my land and kill me that wild beast with your magic weapon. I say, Come, Come, for I am terribly afraid,’ and indeed he looked it.
“ ‘No,’ I answered, ‘I shed no blood; I kill nothing except butterflies, and of these only a few. But if you fear this brute why do you not poison it? You black people have many drugs.’
“ ‘No use, no use,’ he replied in a kind of wail. ‘The beast knows poisons, some it swallows and they do not harm it. Others it will not touch. Moreover, no black man can do it hurt. It is white, and it has been known from of old that if it dies at all, it must be by the hand of one who is white.’
“ ‘A very strange animal,’ I began, suspiciously, for I felt sure that he was lying to me. But just at that moment I heard the sound of my men’s voices. They were advancing towards me through the giant grass, singing as they came, but as yet a long way off. The Kalubi heard it also and sprang up.
“ ‘I must be gone,’ he said. ‘None must see me here. What fee, O Lord of medicine, what fee?’
“ ‘I take no payment for my medicine,’ I said. ‘Yet—stay. A wonderful flower grows in your country, does it not? A flower with wings and a cup beneath. I would have that flower.’
“ ‘Who told you of the Flower?’ he asked. ‘The Flower is holy. Still, O White Lord, still for you it shall be risked. Oh, return and bring with you one who can kill the beast and I will make you rich. Return and call to the reeds for the Kalubi, and the Kalubi will hear and come to you.’
“Then he ran to his spear, snatched it from the ground and vanished among the reeds. That was the last I saw, or am ever