Smith and the Pharaohs, and other Tales Part 19

Then he turned to his confederates, as Thomas called them, and began to ask them questions which need not be set out in detail. Was it an animal that the Little Flower had lost? No, it was not an animal, the Spirits told him that it was not. Was it an article of dress? No, they did not think it was an article of dress, yet the Spirits seemed to suggest that it had something to do with dress. Was it a shoe? Was it scissors? Was it a comb? Was it a needle? No, but it was something that had to do with needles. What had to do with needles? Thread. Was it thread? No, but something that had to do with thread. Was it a silver s.h.i.+eld which pushed the needle that drew the thread?

Here Tabitha could contain herself no longer, but clapped her hands and cried out delightedly:

"Yes, that's it. It's my thimble."

"Oh! very well," said Menzi, "but it is easy to discover what is lost and hard to find it."

Then followed another long examination of the a.s.sessors or acolytes, or witch-doctor's chorus, by which it was established at length that the thimble had been lost three days before, when Tabitha was sitting on a stone sewing, that she believed it had fallen into a crevice of rocks, and so forth.

After this the chorus was silent and Menzi himself took up the game, apparently asking questions of the sky and putting his ear to the ground for an answer.

At length he announced: (1) That the thimble was not among the rocks; (2) That it was not lost at all.

"But it is, it is, you silly old man," cried Tabitha excitedly. "I have hunted everywhere, and I cried about it because I haven't got another, and can't buy one here, and the needle hurts my finger."

Menzi contemplated her gravely as though he were looking her through and through.

"It is _not_ lost, Little Flower. I see it; you have it now. Put your hand into the pocket of your dress. What do you find there?"

"Nothing," said Tabitha. "That is, nothing except a hole."

"Feel at the bottom of your dress, there on the right. No, a little more to the front. What do you feel there?"

"Something hard," said Tabitha.

"Take this knife and cut the lining of your dress where you feel the hard thing. Ah! there is the silver s.h.i.+eld which you have been carrying about with you all these days."

The crowd murmured approval. Dorcas exclaimed: "Well, I never!" and Thomas looked first puzzled, then angry, then suspicious.

"Does the Teacher think that the Floweret and the old doctor have made a plot together?" asked Menzi. "Can a sweet Flower make plots and tell lies like the old doctor? Well, well, it is nothing. Now let us try something better. My bags, my bags."

Thomas made as though he would go away, but Menzi stopped him, saying:

"No, doubters must stay to see the end of their doubts. What shall I do?

Ah! I have it."

Then from one of the bags he drew out a number of crooked black sticks that looked like bent ebony rulers, and built them up criss-cross in a little pile upon the ground. Next he found some bundles of fine dried gra.s.s, which he thrust into the interstices between the sticks, as he did so bidding one of his servants to run to the nearest hut and bring a coal of fire upon a sherd.

"A match will not do," he said. "White men have touched it."

Presently the burning ember arrived, and muttering something, Menzi blew upon it as though to keep it alight.

"Now, White Teacher," he said in a voice that had suddenly become commanding, "think of something. Think of what you will, and I will show it to you."

"Indeed," said Thomas with a smile. "I have thought of something; now make good your words."

Menzi thrust the ember into the haylike fibres and blew. They caught and blazed up fiercely, making an extraordinarily large flame considering the small amount of the kindling. The ebony-like sticks also began to blaze. Menzi grew excited.

"My Spirit, come to me; my Spirit, come to me!" he cried. "O my Spirit, show this White Teacher Tombool that I am not a cheat!"

He ran round and round the fire; he leapt into the air, then suddenly shouted: "My Spirit has entered into me; my Snake is in my breast!"

All his excitement went; he grew quite calm, almost cataleptic. Holding his thin hands over the fire, slowly he let them fall, and as he did so the fierce flames died down.

"It's going out," said Tabitha.

Menzi smiled at her and lifted his hands again. Lo! the fire that seemed to be dead leapt up after them in a fierce blaze. Again he dropped his hands and the fire died away. Then he moved his arms to and fro and it came back, following the motions of his arms as though he drew it by a string.

"Have you thought, White Teacher? Have you thought?" he asked. "Good!

Arise, smoke!"

Behold, instead of the clear flame appeared a fan-shaped column of dense white smoke, behind which Menzi vanished, all except his outstretched hands.

"Look on to the smoke, White people, and do you, Little Flower, tell me what you see there," he called from behind this vaporous veil.

Tabitha stared, they all stared. Then she cried out:

"I see a room, I see an old man in a clergyman's coat reading a letter.

Why, it is the Dean whom we used to know in Natal. There's the wart on his nose and the tuft of hair that hangs down over his eye, and he's reading a letter written by Father. I know the writing. It begins, 'My dear Dean, Providence has appointed me to a strange place'----"

"Is that what you see also, Teacher?" asked Menzi. "And if so, is it what you pictured in your thought?"

Thomas turned away and uttered something like a groan, for indeed he had thought of the Dean and of the letter he had written to him a month before.

"The Teacher is not satisfied," said Menzi. "If he had seen all he thought of, being so good and honest, he would tell us. There is some mistake. My Spirit must have deceived me. Think of something else, Teacher, and tell the lady, and the child Imba, and Kosa, and another, what it is you are thinking of. Go aside and tell them where I cannot hear."

Thomas did so--in some way he felt compelled to do so.

"I am going to think of the church as I propose it shall be when finished according to the plans I have made," he said hoa.r.s.ely. "I am going to think of it with a belfry spire roofed with red tiles and a clock in the tower, and I am going to think of the clock as pointing to the exact hour of noon. Do you all understand? It is impossible that this man should know of how I mean to build that spire and about the clock, because until this moment no one knew except myself. If he can show me that, I shall begin to believe that he is inspired by his master, the devil. Do you all understand?"

They said they did, and Menzi called out:

"Be quick, White Teacher. Be quick, I grow tired. My Spirit grows tired.

The smoke grows tired. Come, come, come!"

They returned and stood in front of the fire, and in obedience to Menzi's motions once more the fan of smoke arose. On it grew something nebulous, something uncertain that by degrees took the form of a church.

It was not very clear, perhaps because Thomas found it difficult to conceive the exact shape of the church as it would be when it was finished, or only conceived it bit by bit. One thing, however, was very distinct in his mind, and that was the proposed spire and the clock. As a result, there was the spire standing at the end of the shadowy church vivid and distinct. And there was the clock with its two copper hands exactly on the stroke of noon!

"Tell me what you see, Little Flower," said Menzi in a hollow voice.

"I see what Father told me he would think of, a church and the spire of the church, and the clock pointing to twelve."

"Do you all see that," asked Menzi, "and is it what the Teacher said he would think about?"

"Yes, Doctor," they answered.

"Then look once more, for _I_ will think of something. I will think of that church falling. Look once more."