Robert Keable

“ That is all there is to tell in a way. For inside the grave, if grave it were, there was nothing at all that it was given to our eyes to see—not a bone, not a shred of a habit, nor book nor beads. If ever a body or treasures of any sort had been there, the receptacle had been rifled long before, and entirely forgotten. So there is literally no more to tell. Of course the affair made great excitement. The chief and all his people came to see, and came once again the day after when I lowered Mwezi into the grave and replaced the altar stone. ”

“ Anyway, he smiled, as I say, and shook his head. “I have lived too long in Africa to have theories, my friend,” he said, “but to me the memory of Mwezi and his chapel is a very precious thing. We are all of us souls on pilgrimage, and we rarely understand why or how, or remember that we have a Guide. But I like to think in the end, the Good God willing, we shall find a hidden sanctuary and that we have been led to a place prepared.” ”

“ The way led through the native huts and without them. It was downhill going, as the village, in African fashion, was built on the side of a rise which culminated in the chief’s hut, while Mwezi lived, very close to the source of the river I have mentioned. We emerged through trees into a grassy open space of perhaps thirty paces wide, and I saw at once the old fellow sitting at the door of his hut beneath the shade of a wild vine which grew luxuriantly over the porch and roof. ”

“ He had grown old waiting; had married, and had begotten sons and daughters. Now he was too old to move; all but too old to live; but still he waited. Still he believed he would see his white man again before he died; indeed, he could not die until he had seen. My coming had seemed to the whole place the fulfilment of his vision, but I was not the man. Mwezi was sure of that and no one doubted him. And maybe, now, added the councillor, he would never see him. That was all.
“Now I had been long enough in Africa to set little store by native dreams as a rule. ”

“ And I was eagerly looking forward to a visit to my married sister in India, and a journey home after that. Stupidly enough, it took me a few seconds to swallow those twenty-seven years; but for all that my mind worked quickly. Twenty-seven years of tinned food, mosquitoes, heat, natives, and packing-case furniture! That was how I read it. “Well,” I said at last, “I should think you were glad to go anywhere after all that time.”
“Eh? Oh, I don’t know. No, that’s wrong; I do know. I’m sorry, that’s the truth.”
“You like Africa?” ”

“ For that, the space about the sanctuary is to be kept clear of undergrowth, by order of the chief. For that old Mwezi waits beneath the altar, and maybe he whom he saw waits also.”
The dinner bugle had sounded a few moments before Père Etienne had finished, and now we rose to go. We stood a second, and I gazed over the side at the star-shine on the water, for the night was fine. When I looked up, Père Etienne was staring out into the darkness, a far-away look on his face, but he must have felt my eyes on him, for he turned quickly and smiled. ”

“ His face was long and thin, and his nose bigger. Am I a child that I should not know one man from another? Thou art not he.’
“It was foolish of me, but I was surprised out of all caution. ‘How could you see so much in the dark of your hut?’ I exclaimed.
“Mwezi rose to his feet and made a pathetic effort to hold his head erect. With true native dignity, he ignored me and turned to the chief. ‘With the leave of the chief, I go,’ he said. ‘I am old and would rest in my place. Fare thee well, father of thy people. The Heavens guard thee. ”

“ There are some people who carry an atmosphere with them as they go their own individual way about the world, and there are others who can instantly perceive it. I am not speaking of clairvoyance; I dislike that jargon; but I do know that I was conscious of Père Etienne if he did but pass the smoke-room door when I was about to play a doubled four in No Trumps. ”

“ Fear of some kind drove out a family who wandered, like Abram from Charron, until they found a promised land. These folk knew that they came from the south and east a long long time ago; more they neither knew nor cared to know. They were not many in number, and although Arab safaris had passed by, they were not enough to tempt a permanent trader to cross the barren lands north and south, or dare the mountain way from Mweru. The chief’s oldest councillor spoke to me of a slave-raid that had been defeated when he was a young man, but since then they had dwelt in peace. ”

“ Does the father not remember him at all?’
“He pointed down the path that led up to us from the town, into which had come a small crowd of natives who were eagerly following three or four figures, jostling each other to get a better view. It soon became plain that a young man led the way, and that after him came three of whom I guessed the central person to be Mwezi. I think he was the oldest native I have ever seen, bent, shrivelled, and stiff-jointed, but with keen dark eyes which, a little later, fixed themselves inquiringly on my face and then clouded with acute disappointment. ”

“ Of course I know the native habit of cleaning a house by putting down a fresh layer of mud mixed with a little dung, which in time raises the floor considerably. But I was not to be put off by that. Below the smearing of the old man’s time might be a layer of earth thrown in to hide something. I glanced round. ‘May I borrow a spear?’ I asked. ”

“ This individual glanced at the chief for permission, and having received it, told me this story at considerable length.
“He said that, very many years before, in the time of the late king, the village had been one day thrown into a state of great excitement by the advent of a stranger. This had been Mwezi, at the time a man of middle age. He had come from the south and west—from Central Africa, that is—and he had said that he was seeking a white man whom it had been shown him he should find in that village. ”

“ And so I reached my hidden town, stayed a while, and returned another way, to find that the other explorer had a report to make of more peopled and easier lands which found greater favour with his lordship. And rightly. When labourers are so few and the field is so big, it is necessary to settle where the work offers most prospect of large returns. ”

“ There is stone in the hills, and the natives have drawn and worked it for their huts—not a usual thing in tropical Africa. They may, of course, have learned the lore themselves, or some wandering Arab traders may have taught them ”

“ On either side his sons helped him with a hand beneath his arm-pits, and he himself walked by means of a great stick. The crowd of hangers-on stopped respectfully below, but these four climbed up to the dais. A stool was brought for the old man, but at first he would not sit. ”