Tahara: Among African Tribes Part 27

"Lost your appet.i.te?" laughed d.i.c.k.

"No, not exactly. I just--think I've had--enough! Guess I'll take a little walk!" And Dan disappeared on the trot.

Ray gave d.i.c.k a reproachful look. "Is that nice?" she asked. But she was unable to keep back a smile.

"Dan Sahib is bound to the wheel of fleshly enjoyment," remarked the Mahatma. "He must learn to restrain his appet.i.tes."

"Especially his appet.i.te for stew, when dining with jungle blacks!"

laughed d.i.c.k.

The meal was prolonged far into the night and broken by exhibitions of tribal dances. First the Gorols pranced about the fire in single file.

They bent low, shuffling along and uttering monkey-like cries, while to make the resemblance perfect they had tied long twigs to their belts, so that they waggled like tails during the dance.

With their dark skins, long thin arms and legs and primitive features, they looked more like ape-men than ever and Ray and d.i.c.k shouted with laughter.

Dan Carter returned to the circle, attracted by the noise.

"Get in line, Dan, you are all that's needed to complete the picture,"

his friend kidded him.

"I don't--think I feel--like dancing," replied Dan, still a little greenish about the gills. "I'm not feeling very well."

"Have some more stew!"

Ray slapped d.i.c.k's arm and cried, "Don't tease the poor boy!"

"All right," d.i.c.k extended his hand. "Come on, Dan! Shake on it!

We'll change the subject."

The Taharans were the next to dance and with a great brandis.h.i.+ng of flint knives and stone axes they went through an imaginary battle. Two warriors would break away from the line and face each other like duellists, while the rest danced about them, uttering war cries that made the forest ring.

"These mock battles look like the real thing!" said d.i.c.k. "Look at that! I thought sure that the tall fellow was going to split the other one with his axe."

"I don't like it," said Ray. "What if he got excited and landed a blow?"

"Then there would be one Taharan the less.--Watch out! Now the Kungoras are going to it!"

With a howl like jungle beasts, the black men were on their feet and rus.h.i.+ng to the firelight with spears and painted s.h.i.+elds waving above their heads.

At the same time the boom-boom-boom of the hollowed log resounded, the huge drum that the Muta-Kungas used for sending alarms through the forest.

"Now it's getting good!" exclaimed Dan, forgetting his attack of indigestion. "I wondered whether the natives were going to forget the old tom-tom."

"Boom-boom-boom," went the big drum like a challenge, and at that the Kungora dancers lined up in two bands facing each other and howled defiance and threats back and forth.

"What's going to happen?" whispered Ray clinging to d.i.c.k's arm. "Are they really going to kill each other?"

"Can't say. Ask the Mahatma. He knows this tribe."

"If they do slay a few warriors, it will be an accident," said Mahatma Sikandar. "This is a dance of battle and they sometimes forget it is not the real thing."

"How terrible!" cried Ray.

"Can't you make them be reasonable?" asked d.i.c.k as the Hindu watched the apparently enraged savages.

"Reasonable? What human being is ever reasonable?" asked the wise man.

"Are your own people reasonable when they slaughter each other with guns and poison gas? No, the savages are on a low plane, but the civilized men are also far from the path of wisdom."

"Go it, Mutaba!" shouted Dan, clapping his hands.

The guide and chief warrior of the Kungoras was dancing in front of his own band, shaking his spear in the face of the rival leader. The pair rushed together furiously, leaped back and returned to the attack, while their rolling eyes and thick snarling lips expressed murderous hatred.

Behind each leader swept the warrior ranks, brandis.h.i.+ng their weapons, guarding with their s.h.i.+elds and pretending to attack and retreat in wild convulsive rhythms.

Their bodies, dripping with sweat, gleamed in the firelight, the whites of their eyes flashed furiously and foam gathered in the corners of their mouths as they jerked and writhed in mimic warfare.

All the time the drum kept up its beating, ever faster and wilder, like the pulse of a fever patient. To this boom-boom-boom was added the yells and shrieks of the frenzied Kungoras, and above the din rose the excited chatter of monkeys in the tree tops and the shrill outcries of parrots and other birds. Even the beasts in the depths of the forest had caught the tense excitement from afar, and the black jungle echoed with the roar of lions and the trumpeting of elephants.

"What a night!" gasped Ray, tightening her grasp on d.i.c.k.

"It's a grand show!" exclaimed Dan. "Wouldn't miss it for a big league ball game!"

"Reminds me of the witch-hunt," said d.i.c.k in a low voice. "Remember the night Cimbula was picking out victims for sacrifice?"

"Gee, I thought I was a goner when that black fellow grabbed me," Dan e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "Say, let me tell you I have dreamed of that many a night and started up in a cold sweat."

"That was horrible!" Ray answered. "Every second I expected that witch-doctor to pounce on me."

"Well, Mahatma," said Dan, "you did a good job to tame those wild Kungoras. How did you ever teach them to be good? How did you make them obey you?"

"By the power of the mind," answered the Hindu. "The spirit of the wise is master of the wildest savage. Watch me, and you shall see."

Fascinated, the two boys and Ray looked on, while the Mahatma leaned back, closed his eyes and seemed to put the force of his mind upon the frenzied dancers.

At first there was no response. The dance was more furious than ever.

Then, one at a time, the warriors seemed to come to their senses. Man after man lowered his weapons, dropped quietly out of the ranks and returned to squat before the fire, all pausing to make a hasty prostration in front of the wise man before they sat down.

The Mahatma did not open his eyes until the notes of the big drum had faded out into silence. By that time all the blacks were seated and once more eating quietly.

"It's a miracle," said d.i.c.k.

"It sure is," answered Dan. "Listen. Even the wild beasts in the jungle have quieted down."

"There is more to this than I can understand," whispered Ray.

"Those Hindus know plenty of things that are beyond me," d.i.c.k answered.

"I thought it was all the bunk, at first," said Dan, "but now I think the old man is the real article."