Francis Brett Young

“ Eva had often heard the echoes of Godovius’s rifle in the bush; but it was quite a different thing to feel that she was being fired at. She shivered and touched M‘Crae’s arm.
“Where are they?” she whispered. “Can you see them?”
“No. . . . You mustn’t be frightened,” he said. “The bush magnifies the sound. They are quite a long way away.”
But with the next shot something droned with the flight of a beetle above them, and a severed twig dropped on Eva’s hair.
“It’s all right,” said M‘Crae; “they’re firing on chance, and they’re firing high. They always fire high. Are you rested now? Come along.” ”

“ I sat there until the sun had set, and on the remotest horizon the shadow of Kilimanjaro, a hundred miles away, rose against the sky. I sat there till it grew dark, and the great plains faded from me, thinking of the three men who died at Luguru: of James the martyr predestinate; of Godovius consumed in the flames which he had kindled; of M‘Crae whom Eva Burwarton had loved. It was very still. All the shallow life of Nairobi might have been as far away as the great mountain’s filmy shadow. And then, when I turned to make my way back in the darkness to the club, a sudden sound startled me. ”

“ Eva mounted the steps. Over the floor of white stone a big lizard moved noiselessly. There was a fluttering sound in the masses of bougainvillea above the porch, a clapping of wings, and a little flight of doves fluttered out above the moon-flower blossoms and vanished into the forest. “This place is full of doves,” she thought. It was so quiet that she began to wonder if they were the only tenants.
She remembered that in Africa people do not wait for an invitation to enter the houses of their friends, nor for servants to announce their coming. ”

“ They sat there for a long time together, speaking in whispers, as if they were afraid of waking James, although, in fact, they were most anxious that he should wake. It was a very strange night for M‘Crae. Removed at last from the gloom of the banda, it seemed to him that he had never really seen Eva before. In this light and spacious room she was quite a different creature from the gentle presence which had haunted his prison; endowed, in some way, with a more beautiful freedom of movement . . . more alive. More hopelessly unattainable. ”

“ Through the garden of the moon-flowers down those oblique paths which climbed the Sabæan terraces into the blackness of deep kloofs in which the track could only be felt. She was too overwhelmed by one fear to take count of any others. In her return she quite forgot the anxiety and fatigue which had marked her coming . . . she had almost forgotten James and the reason of her adventure. At length, not knowing why she did so, she stopped. Careless of what might be beneath her, she sat down, pressing her hands to her beating temples, alone in the middle of Africa. ”

“ But what most deeply filled the heart of James with dread was the expression of the faces of the naked men and women who danced about the flame. They were not the faces, the pitiable human masks of the Waluguru, but the faces of devils. He saw the transformed features of men whom he knew well: the mouth of the mission boy Hamisi, opened wide in horrible laughter, the red eyes of the headman, M’zinga. M’zinga was carrying the stolen chisel, waving it as his muscles twitched to the rhythm of the drums. ”

“ They halted there for a moment, and Eva bathed her face, her arms and her bruised feet. In all her life she had never known water so wonderful; but they could not linger there, for already the sky was beginning to darken. So at length they came to the edge of the bush, and saw beneath them the valley in which the railway ran, an ordered green plantation of rubber, some fields of sisal, a cluster of homely, white-washed houses, and a little compound in which stood a group of paw-paw trees burdened with gourdlike fruit. ”

“ In the gloom of the evening, when the sun which bathed the hills in amber light could no longer penetrate the thick curtains of the forest, when the thin song of innumerable mosquitoes thrilled the air and the liquid trilling of frogs arose from every creek and cranny of the swamp, he would leave them and set out for the mission with a sense of exaltation in the work accomplished and horrors overpast. The mere physical relief of emerging into the open air of the thin bush, scattered with slades of waving grasses in which herds of game were grazing, coloured his mood. ”

“ After their evening meal they sat out there together, and while Eva nearly fell asleep from sheer tiredness, he talked as much to himself as to her. It was a night of the most exquisite calm. Beneath them the thorn bush lay soft and silvered in the light of the moon. The upper sky was so bright that they could even see beyond the forest the outlines of the hills. In all that vast expanse of quiet land only one spot of violent colour appeared, in a single patch of red sky above the German camps.
“You see it burning there,” said James. “That is War. That is what War means. ”

“ At last they had come to a little crest (Eva knew it well) where the green lane falls to a valley through the slant of a grove of beeches. All the time the moving stream of people with averted faces never ceased, and at the bottom of the hill, where, in reality, the grass lane cuts down beside a stream into a piece of woodland, a sudden change came over the scene. It was night. People were brushing past them in the darkness. And instead of Shropshire it was Africa; he could have been sure of that from the peculiar aromatic odour of brushwood in the air. ”

“ No one would have believed that any rain had lately fallen; for the bush was full of dry and brittle sound; the leaves of the undergrowth were of the same ashen hue; the straggling candelabra cactus stood as withered as if they were dying of drought; the hornbills were calling on every side. Only on the higher mountain slopes, where the grassland had been burnt to a shade of pale amber, a sudden and surprising flush of the most tender green appeared, as transitory, alas! as it was beautiful.
There could have been no more lovely or affecting augury for James’ return to work. ”

“ Even so this welter of the Waluguru boiled and sweated; and to add to the fantastic horror of the scene, which resembled some ancient picture of a corner in hell, the flames in the central kiln crackled and flared, casting immense shadows from the black forms which leapt around them, flinging tongues of light to search the dark sky and lighten the swaying crowns of the forest trees. Sometimes, in this upper darkness, the vagrant lights would pick out the wings of pale birds that fluttered there. These were the doves which had nested within crevices of the walls. ”

“ At the end of three miles she would see the lights of Godovius’s house and not be frightened any longer. She made up her mind to travel as fast as she could, looking neither to left nor right, for fear of eyes which might be watching her from the thickets. She comforted herself with the thought that it was here that the Waluguru lived; that they had lived here for centuries and were as unprotected as herself; that there were actually women and children living there in the heart of the forest. ”

“ His interest confused her, and she slipped into the house to see if James would see Godovius.
He was greatly agitated. He, too, flushed.
“Herr Godovius?” he said. “Why does he come here when I am in bed? A man who has slaves! No . . . No . . .”
She protested that he had come with the kindest intentions.
“No . . . not that man,” he said.
She made her excuses to Godovius. He looked at her in a way that revealed their hollowness, then laughed and rode away. “I am not a favourite of your brother? Now why is that? Mr. Bullace and I were the best of friends. Do you think we had more in common?” ”

“ In the front of the mission there was a great commotion and M‘Crae roused Eva from her sleep. Now that the game of secrecy was over there seemed to be no point in concealment; and Eva was far too sleepy to question what he did. They stepped out together into the pale night. The sky was very high and clear, but immense billows of milky cloud were ranged along the hill horizons, which in their huge whiteness overpowered the little earth. Beneath the stoep a crowd of Waluguru were setting up a kelele. Most of them were naked and their polished skins shone in the moonlight. ”

“ Then one came to a zone in which tree trunks had been felled on every side, where often a smouldering fire might be seen in the heart of a doomed but living tree: and in the spaces between the Waluguru had planted vast groves of the plantains on which they live: for they are a forest people, and the maize which feeds so great a part of Africa will not flourish in the dank air which they breathe. ”

“ A branch, back-springing, tore Eva’s cheek. They must have moved more quickly than she had imagined, for her heart was fluttering violently, but M‘Crae never hesitated, and still she followed after.
She wondered often how in the world he knew which way he was taking her, for all the trees in this wilderness seemed to her alike, and she had no knowledge of the stars. Somewhere on the right of them she heard shots, and when the firing started he stopped to listen. A ridiculous thing, that any man who was running for his life should waste time in that way. ”

“ Flying scuds of snow, driven through the darkness, spat upon his sweating chest. Over there, in the heart of that wild darkness, Arran lay. The shoulders of Goat Fell stood up against the storm; Kilmory Water should be in a brown spate; there, in the Clachan, they would all be sound asleep, all but the two sheep-dogs lying with their noses to the hearth, where fiery patterns were stealing through white ashes of peat. M‘Crae stood waiting in the cold for the expected thrill. ”

“ There’s no one else to stand between you and the world. You know nothing of the world’s wickedness. No doubt, in your inexperience, you would trust the first man you met with your honour. Thank God I am here, and ready to do my duty.”
“It’s your duty that I am showing to you,” said M‘Crae. “Evidently you haven’t taken in what I’ve been telling you. Godovius’s natives have got out of hand. They’re armed. If you stay here we shall all be butchered, all three of us. Of course I should stay with you. And I should rather kill your sister with my own hands than let her be taken by the Waluguru. ”

“ No man with a small or faltering faith could have faced it; but there was never any doubt but that James was of the stuff of which heroes, and martyrs, are made.
All day he moved among the people of Godovius, and little by little he began to think that he was getting nearer to them. Their squalor, their loathly diseases, the very grotesqueness with which their faces were modelled—things which in the beginning had filled him with bewilderment rather than distaste—became so familiar that he thought no more of them. ”

“ So she took the forest road. In the open Park Steppe there were already signs of night: most of all a silence in which no voices of birds were heard, and other dry rustlings, which would have been submerged beneath the noises of day, heralded the awakening of another kind of life. In the branches of thorn-trees on every side the cicalas set up vibrations: as rapid and intense as those of an electric spark: a very natural sound, for it seemed to be an expression of that highly charged silence. ”

“ He was impressed with the patience and helplessness of vegetable life, seeing an aged and enormous tree strangled where it grew by the writhing coils of some green parasite. And yet it seemed to him that life must be far easier for a tree than for a man. A light breeze, herald of the evening, threw the plumes of the forest edge into tossing confusion. The ways of the wood were full of gentle sound. ”

“ He wished now that he had kept to his post on the stoep within call of Eva in James’ room. He gave the matter a moment of serious thinking. It was a pity, he thought, that he had come into the banda, where he could see nothing: for now there was no need of concealment, and a man was a poor creature without the use of his eyes. His ears, indeed, had been so long attuned to the condition of silence that they were quick to notice the least sound of moving beast or bird and to distinguish these from the noises which are made by men. Now he instinctively felt that men were near. ”

“ If I behaved as a hireling I could not bear to live.”
“There is such a thing as reason,” said M‘Crae; “I beseech you to listen to it. A dead shepherd is of very little use to his flock.”
James glowed. It was extraordinary to see the pale creature expand.
“Ah,” he cried, “Mr. M‘Crae, that is where you make the greatest of mistakes. It was a dead Shepherd who redeemed the world. If you are a Christian you cannot suggest that that sacrifice was of no use.”
“It is not a matter for argument,” said M‘Crae. ”

“ No more loads of fuel were brought to it from the outer woods, and though the drumming never ceased, it seemed as though the wilder ecstasy of the dancers had worn itself out. They lay stretched out, many of them, on the sandy ground in attitudes of abandonment and fatigue, their sweaty bodies shining like wet ebony. James noticed a thing which he had not seen before: a group of women, swathed in the black cloth, which the Waluguru affect, who had been sitting patiently on the right hand of the opening in the temple wall. ”

“ Hamisi grinned, being satisfied that he had taken part in an excellent piece of work.
All the time that M‘Crae was questioning the Waluguru he had his eye on Eva. He watched the splendid way (as he thought) in which she suddenly adapted herself to the demands of the moment. Once again, as on the night when he had staggered out to waylay her, she was showing him her deft, practical side: the aspect which appeals most strongly to a man who has made a woman the vehicle of a tender ideal. ”

“ The Waluguru know well enough that it is a tragedy to be born. Most of the small creatures which he saw lolling their great heads were scabbed with yaws and tragically thin. An atmosphere of hopelessness descended on him as soon as he set foot within their clearings. It seemed to him that in these sinister recesses some devil had been at work trying malignantly to stamp out the least flicker of humanity in the souls or bodies of these people, and beneath this intangible menace he was powerless. ”

“ All through the heat of the day they lay there listening to the sleepy calling of the hornbills until they fell asleep themselves. In the first cool of the evening they set out again, leaving the country of tall grasses as golden as ever behind them, and entering a zone of Park Steppe scattered with trees from which the nests of the bottle-bird were hanging in hundreds. Eva was beginning to be very thirsty: but M‘Crae would not let her drink. ”

“ Life . . . all seething up under the tree-tops, with different degrees of aspirations, ideals. Life, like a great flower pushing in the sun . . . Isn’t it?”
James said yes, it was. He reined back Godovius to the business in hand: his business. Why, he asked, were the Waluguru difficult? Why? But the matter was ethnological. Mr. Burwarton was a student of ethnology?
James wasn’t.
Godovius was quick with offers of help. “It’s a habit with me,” he said. “I can lend you books if you wish them. Perhaps you don’t read German? Ah . . . all the best ethnology is German. ”

“ Ritual of any kind was abhorrent to him. Personality, example . . . those were the things that counted, said James. Personality! Compare the force of his personality with that of Godovius. Think of him dashing out milk and water ethics to the Masai, and then of Godovius with his deep knowledge of the origins of religion in man, with his own crazy enthusiasms added to a cult the most universal and savagely potent of any that has ever shaken humanity. I wish that James were not such a pathetic figure. I can’t help seeing his pale face with Eva Burwarton’s eyes. It’s the very devil . ”