In Search of the Okapi Part 48

"Doesn't help us much."

"No; but when I took it off the rock I could hear a faint rumbling from below, over here to the left, between our gorge and the canon where the river disappears."

"Come, that's something."

"Yes; but as far as I could make out, there was not an opening in the cliff on that side big enough to hold a swallow's nest."

"Better luck to-morrow. Now, lads, if that old woman puts any leading questions about the pool, don't give yourselves away."

But when the chief's mother came up the next day, she never breathed a word about the pool. She talked of the "good white man" who had lived in the cave when Muata was a boy.

"Often have I sat here and talked with him, and well do I remember his teaching."

"Let us hear, mother," said Compton.

"He taught us how to till the land, so that it would produce other crops than manioc. The men he showed how to win iron from the rock, and how to forge the spear-heads and the hoes for the tilling.

Medicine he made from the leaves and the juices of the trees, and he bade the women keep clean the huts and the place around the village.

But the thing he said most was that living here in peace, in a place set aside for the weak, it was well we saw that no strangers who came in should ever leave. For, said he, the strong will take from the weak."

"This is a small place," said Venning--"too small for any people to fight over."

"I thought I heard the sound of battle in the valley but two days since."

"It might serve Ha.s.san as a robber's den; but I spoke of other people--white men, mother."

"Since I had ears to hear the meaning of words," she said, "the talk was ever of white men, and one 'white man' warned us against those very men who eat up the land and the waters."

"But what use would this little spot be to them? In a short time it will be too small for your own people."

"When that day comes, O Spider, we would be free to go to the land of my fathers, where my son will find his kraal."

"You will want many canoes, mother, when that day comes."

"And they tell me," said the woman, with a keen glance, "that you white men are good boat-builders. Aye, I have seen your boats on the great river, with wings and with fire."

"Our boat--the one you sat in--the boat down in the pool, has wings," said Venning, innocently.

"Muata the chief tells me the boat has gone. Wow! The place is taboo; I knew the spirit people would take it; but you can build others."

"We have no tools."

"Wow! You could make them."

"We have no skill in such work."

The wise woman pondered. "He, the white man who lived here, consulted a familiar he carried much with him; he would find from it how to build boats and to forge iron."

Compton produced his log-book. "See, mother, was it like that?"

"Wow! It was like."

"Bring me the 'familiar' of the white man, for he was my father, as you know, and you will hear his voice again. Maybe we will learn from it how to make tools for the building of boats."

"I will search, O son of my white man."

She sat awhile, then produced a cob-pipe, and, after getting a fill of tobacco, went off smoking with the bowl against her cheek.

"Humph!" said Venning. "Wants to keep us as boat-builders. I bet she's taken the Okapi as the first of the fleet for the great exodus."

"And intends that we should be the navigators as well as the builders."

Mr. Hume was of the same opinion when he joined them later on and was in possession of the wise woman's remarks.

"She is the power behind the throne," he said musingly, "and I have been wondering for some time what was her object. Now I see. I have been giving my consent as chief to laws which are framed evidently to keep us here."

"Making laws?"

"Been doing nothing else. There was a law making it a crime for any man to leave the valley without the consent of the people. Another law calling on all--men as well as women--to work for the good of the clan. Another making it a crime to withhold knowledge that would be for the general good. There was another declaring that the vice- chief must have at least two wives."

"But you have not one wife."

"That is easily remedied," said the Hunter, with a groan.

"What do you mean, sir?"

"See that?" and Mr. Hume pointed at a spot in the valley where many women were at work.

"They are building a hut," said Venning.

"My hut!" Mr. Hume filled his pipe with great deliberation, took a coal from the fire, and stared at his two companions till his hand was scorched. "I am to be married at the full moon!"

Venning sn.i.g.g.e.red.

"You can't mean it, sir," said Compton.

"It's true enough," said the Hunter, solemnly. "I was pa.s.sing the acts, as it were, without paying much attention when the women clapped their hands. 'What was that last law?' I said to the chief councillor, whose duty it is to keep the laws in his mind. 'The great chief,' he said, 'will take to himself two wives at the full moon.' 'I repeal that act,' I said; but they would not understand.

A law was a law when it became a law, and no one could alter it, but considering my position they would build my hut for me. And, as you see, they are building it."

He stared gloomily down into the valley; while Venning and Compton made singular grimaces in the effort to keep becomingly grave.

"It is a great honour," said Compton, presently.

"And two of them!" said Venning. "I don't know, I'm sure. I'm no lawyer, but I rather think that you, as an Englishman, would not be allowed to take two. Polygamy would become bigamy."

"I never thought of that," said the Hunter, brightening up.

"On the other hand," went on Venning, with a judicial air, "as you have been sworn in as a member of the clan, you become of course amenable to the laws, and it may be that two wives will not meet the requirements of your exalted rank."