by Don Wilcox
I looked at myself in my pocket mirror, and I continued to apply the grape stains to my face, neck, arms, and hands, until I was as deeply pigmented, apparently, as the jungle natives.
Why didn’t Sandra return?
Did I dare call to her? I was on the verge of doing so when I heard voices talking to her from only a few yards away. Not voices from the approaching party, but from the other direction. They were calling her by name. Then I knew. They were the tall handsome warrior, Parroko, and his beautiful smiling wife—the friends we had become acquainted with on the trail a few hours before, who had favored us with food and water and had warned us of the cruelties of their own people to the west.
I could understand Parroko’s simple Hazzwart expressions, now, as I overheard him talking with Sandra:
“What? . . . Have we overtaken you so soon? How slowly you must travel . . . As we told you, tribal business brings us to the village on this day But where is your husband?”
I almost called an answer before I thought. But Sandra was on her wits. “He has gone on ahead.”
Parroko’s wife exclaimed with dismay. “What? And left you to pass through the dangerous village alone? I myself would not think of it, yet I am a Hazzwart.”
Parroko commented sharply, “That, my wife, is because the King himself has his eyes on you. Indeed you would not be safe. It is my prayer that when a Kisqv comes this way he will warn the King to forget you.”
These were disturbing words. Sandra might have asked all about this trouble if her mind hadn’t been knotted with troubles of her own. I knew she was trying to convey her warning to me, speaking loudly enough that her words would carry, making sure that I wouldn’t walk out of concealment in my Kisqv disguise.
“John and I thought it best for him to hurry on to our destination,” she was saying. “He could make so much better time alone. He’ll be able to hold the sky ship until I get there?
Yes, I could see that she was right in keeping me out of the picture. It wouldn’t do to let anyone know I had just shot a Kisqv, much less that I had committed the sacrilege of stealing his clothes with the intention of panning myself off as a Kisqv myself.
“But aren’t you at all frightened?” Parroko’s beauty asked in her soft, smiling voice.
“I have a song that I sing to keep from being frightened.” And Sandra began to sing, making up the words and melody, in a language they couldn’t understand—perfectly good English to me. The song went:
“Husband, dear, are you hearing me? I can’t go native with you now. These friends have me. You know I will be safe with them, but you must either change back or stay out of their sight. Play safe, dear. I’ll gather up the things. You may follow.
They hushed her song.
“The village folk are coming up the path,” said Parroko. “They must have passed your husband.”
“I am sure he dodged them.”
“Look!” said Parroko’s beauty. “They bear an honor seat. They must expect a Kisqv.”
The fifteen or twenty villagers coming over the rise, four husky men were carrying a sort of portable throne fastened between two long poles; but no one was riding in it—yet.
I would have succeeded in getting back to the wild grapes and my packages if three or four youngsters hadn’t been chasing along above the trail, just a good stone’s throw away from the rest of the party. I didn’t hear them until they were literally upon me.
“The Kisqv! The Kisqv!” they cried. “Here he is.”
I must have reached for my pistol automatically. But Sandra had the pistol. I had nothing—well, almost nothing. I remember discovering a folded piece of parchment. But no gun, no knife, nothing that was any comfort.
“Don’t kill me,” one of the native men called. “Not me!”
“Spare me!” a native woman wailed. “I am not the one.”
“Not me! Not me!” A half dozen of these villagers were approaching me with the same plea.
What was this all about? Had my reputation for quick murders spread over this mountainside ahead of me? But that was impossible. This strange greeting was something that belonged to the rites of the Kisqv. It was my costume that was earning me all this respect.
“Take it easy,” I whispered to myself. “To these people you’re the sure-nuff article. They’ve made a god out of you on the spot. Righto, don’t disappoint them. As for what you did with the real Kisqv, mum’s the word.” The next thing I knew they had loaded me into the wooden car with a great show of doing me honors, at the same time shying around me as if I might take a notion any moment to punish one of them with Death.
Four husky natives, dressed in loin cloth and bone ornament, picked up the ends of the poles. Away I went for a free ride down the mountain trail.
“Jeepers,” I said aloud, for I didn’t mind talking to myself in English, “I wonder if Sandra sees what’s happening to me.”
My words had a marvelous effect upon the throng following. In their Hazzwart tongue they mumbled excitedly, “Listen to the Kisqv. He speaks words of magic.”
CHAPTER III
A Piece of Parchment
The King and Queen will have you for dinner,” I was informed by one of my bearers. “They are waiting now.”
An ambiguous announcement like that, doesn’t exactly put you at your ease. But there wasn’t any other way I could translate the Hazzwart words. The King and Queen were going to have me for dinner.
How? The way we used to have the preacher for dinner? Or the way cannibals would have a preacher for dinner? I could worry about things like that; especially when I recalled that eating a man is one way, among many primitives; of getting his strength. If a lion, a tiger, an enemy, or a missionary is fierce with courage, eat his heart to receive his fierceness.
Well, they needn’t eat me for that reason. If it came to technicalities, I was one scared kitten. A few bites of roasted John Baxter would probably devitalize the tribal bravery for days to come.
“Could I stop and get a drink of water?” I asked.
“Water, indeed. We will bring you a drink as soon as we reach the village.”
I was snatching at straws. I had some vague notions of breaking out of this jog-cart, I wasn’t sure, how. All those old cowboy stunts of leaping off horses or jumping for overhanging branches were no help in this situation. So they’d bring me water, would they? That wasn’t the point. I wanted to get out and get water.
“I also desire to wash before I meet the King and Queen.”
This suggestion caught on. Of course I should have the privilege. One noisy old native woman assured me she would be honored to have me stop at her place, right at the outskirts of the village. “That will be a great favor,” I said. “Ah, but you can do me a great favor,” she replied, now walking alongside my jog-wagon. “You will change my pig-son into the boy he used to be—if I am deserving
The pleading in her voice struck through me. I gathered that there had been foul play on the part of some predecessor of mine, and that I was sup-, posed to undo the mischief. I got it from one of my bearers, the tall elderly fellow with the grizzled hair and the square bone carvings in his ears.
This tall, grizzled native, Safsaf by name, said, “She has cried many nights because one Kisqv changed her son into a pig a few seasons ago: Do you remember the case?”
“Er—changed her son into a pig?” I groped.
“You were not the one, who did it,” Safsaf said confidently; and I assured him I was not. Nevertheless he pressed a responsibility upon me. In his low; even voice there was a persuasive quality that carried weight against the noisy jabber of the throng around us. “All she wants,” he said, “is that you make a wish for her.”
“A wish? Certainly. No trouble at all.”
“When we arrive at her house, then, wish for her that the pig will change back into her boy.”
We were passing under those overhanging boughs, now, and I was having to dodge all sorts of tropical vines and leaves. But that was nothing to the mental
dodging I was doing. Within the warmth of the snug headdress the wishes were whirling. Mostly I was wishing that Sandra might be following close on the heels of this party, and that our friend Parroko might seize the first opportunity to bring me some word—
Ker-bump. One corner of my cart went down without warning. The little fat squint-eyed man on the rear right had let go and was now walking into a thicket where the wild grapes showed heavy on the vines.
“I knew I had been smelling grapes,” he said, returning with a handsome bunch. “I have been hungry too long.”
“You are always hungry,” Safsaf said. “Pick up your corner.”
As we jogged on, the man munched his grapes with gusto, and he repeated that his appetite was sharp and that he had been smelling grapes all the way down the trail.
“Jeepers!” I thought. “My skin-coloring.” And I had visions of this hungry fat fellow tracing down my deception with his bloodhound talent. But five minutes later I forgot.
They helped me out of the cart and led me into the thatched hut, the first of a line of native houses. There were no steps. The bare ground was the floor. A few straw mats were lying around in the first room, and on one of them lay this slick little red pig.
“Oh, you poor little dear.” The superstitious lady went right to it, knelt down on the floor and embraced it and made over it with loving talk. “This good Kisqv is going to make a wish. He has come to do you a favor, dear.”
I was on the spot, all right. Wishing was the cheapest and easiest way out, so I wished aloud in the Hazzwart tongue. Then, to give the crowd the effect of magic words, I wished aloud in English, such as:
“It’s a shame, old lady, that some cheap Kisqv has made you think this beast is something more than potential pork chops. All right, porker, be her son, and stop your infernal grunting.” With that done I went on into the rear room and helped myself to drinking water out of the gourd. It was then that I forgot. I started to wash my face and neck.
One stroke of my hand across my throat and I stopped. Safsaf was standing near, watching me: His was a deadly serious countenance. A savage can be very thoughtful at times. He can also hold his tongue.
Safsaf said nothing, but he must have seen me glance at the dark stain on my fingertips. I stopped at once.
“It is the wrong time to wash,” I said. “At this season the moon lifts blackness from the sky as it sweeps across the heavens. The hoptoads leave a white path in black slime. The roots of trees tie knots at this season.”
Safsaf stared wide-eyed at my words. Had my dodge gone over with him? I couldn’t tell. But I knew darned well that from this minute on John Baxter Kisqv was going to have to be on his toes. One more slip and the white streak over my Adam’s apple would be the dotted line for a knife.
We left the hut with the old woman still cuddling her sleek red pig, giving me the grateful eye as I passed. By George, the little beast had stopped grunting and was looking around as if he understood everything.
Most of the crowd had gone on ahead to the clearing in the center of the village. Now “Right-Rear,” my fat and squint-eyed bearer with the incessant appetite, had strayed across to the scene of a barbecue, and two other bearers were sent after him. Finally Safsaf himself went to bring the three of them back.
Meanwhile, I made haste to translate the piece of parchment which the dead Kisqv had been carrying in his pocket. The writing was crude; but Sandra’s father had practiced us in the arts of. such translations. As nearly as it can be reproduced in the English, it read:
Who strikes this Kisqv strikes a
indentfive-fanged serpent.
Strike not lest five fates or fortunes
indentbe unleashed:
Lest a visitor lose his fears to a King,
Lest a King lose his covering to an
indentInnocent,
Lest an Innocent lose his fate to a
indentSerpent,
Lest a Serpent lose his form to a Queen,
Lest, a Queen lose her queenly gift to a
indentVisitor
who loses to a King
who loses to an ‘Innocent
who loses to a Serpent
who loses to a Queen
who loses to a Visitor
to a K
to an i
to an s
to a q
to a v
I read it over twice, just catching enough to make me dizzy. Then my four bearers returned. Right-Rear threw away the remainder of his ribs and smeared his greasy mouth on his arm. He and the other three picked me up in the jog-wagon and carted me over to the King’s headquarters.
CHAPTER IV
The King’s Hidden Purpose
They placed me on the high fourway throne—a wooden arch with steps that led up from either side. At the dizzy height of twenty feet I was made comfortable in a basket-work chair at the right of the King.
The Queen sat on his left; and on the other side of her was a chair for Safsaf, for he was the chief of the guards. Safsaf had numerous duties. The Queen was continually calling on him for some service, or complaining because he was not in his place when she wanted him. He came and went like a sergeant-at-arms running a small police force on the side.
But however much he came or went, Safsaf was keeping an eye on me. The more he watched, the more I sweat within my white mask, so that I had to touch my cheeks and neck occasionally with a handkerchief. I thought the King and Queen would have something to say about that. How on earth could I explain carrying a handkerchief? I must have been in recent contact with the civilized traders of the coast. Or was this a magic handkerchief of my own devising, with the ability to remove bits of a man’s skin coloring? Each time I dabbed my throat the handkerchief took on another dark spot.
But presently a cool breeze struck our elevated platform and I grew more comfortable. In the meantime the King occupied himself with smoking his long-tubed oriental pipe. You’d have thought it was his only interest in life—as long as the Queen was around.
It was my good fortune that this King was not a suspicious fellow. He was a bulky, soggy, cheerless old codger with sad eyes and a drooping mouth. Only in that certain lift of his eyebrows when a new party of natives appeared in the distance did I detect a hint of his hidden nature. He was watching for someone—someone special.
He called to an attendant. “Has the warrior Parroko come to join the tribal assembly yet?”
“I will let you know if he comes, King,” said the attendant.
The King puffed thoughtfully and said, “He should come. I would give him a chance to bargain for his own life.” And again the sad-faced ruler raised His eyebrow a trifle, and the attendant nodded as if he understood.
The Queen began to scold. What was the matter with Parroko? What had he done to deserve punishment? Was he not the handsomest and strongest of the young warriors?
“If he does not attend this assembly,” said the King, “I believe he is no longer faithful to the Hazzwart tribe. Already he lives too far away from the village, even beyond the mountain. I think he and his wife are too friendly with the villages to the east.”
“She smiles too much,” said the Queen.
“A smile would not hurt you,” said the King.
“A Queen gets tired of smiling for a King so sour,” she snapped. “Why don’t they bring us food? Safsaf, where are our dinners?”
“The dinners will come,” said the King. “Safsaf, how many of the tribe have not yet arrived at the village? Have you counted?”
With all of this bickering and countermanding of orders going on about me, I began to understand that I was too much of a god to be concerned with all these earthly affairs. In the wide, sunlit clearing before us the villagers were continually passing. Families and larger groups were parking themselves in the lengthening shade around the edges, chattering and feasting, but at the same time keeping an. eye on our elevated thrones to be ready for any ceremony that the King might start. But the King continued to wa
tch the trails for late comers.
I watched too, wondering what would happen if Parroko and his beauty should appear with a white girl from America. Poor Sandra! What a chance I was taking, leaving her in the hands of comparative strangers.
An attendant brought trays of food. The King watched me struggle to get the small bites through the mouth of my mask. Then he went on quarreling with the Queen.
“Hisssss!” she would say, jerking her shoulders and making an evil face like an angry cat. He could argue with a pretty good line of reason, but she could always come back at him with that snake-like “Hisssss!”
I felt a gentle tap at my back. I looked around cautiously, thinking it might be Sandra or Parroko.
Two slender hairy hands were visible, reaching toward me over the rear edge of the elevated platform. I know a chimpanzee’s hands when I see them. These were chimp’s.
The King glanced back, shrugged and went on with his sullen quarrel. But Safsaf, catching sight of the chimp hands tapping me on the back, called a sharp order to the owner of the hands. “Get down from there, Graspy!”
“I want to talk to the Kisqv,” came the answer.
“You’ve no business up here.”
“I want him to change my hands back to human hands,” said Graspy. “I want him to wish—”
“Get away. You don’t deserve a wish,” said Safsaf. “Your old hands were too handy about taking things that didn’t belong to you. That’s why a Kisqv gave, you chimp hands, you know.”
“But I will never steal again,” the owner of the chimpanzee hands pleaded. He was a thin chested little man, one of the darkest of these purplish-brown natives, ragged and forlorn.
“Come here, Graspy,” I said in my best Hazzwart articulation. “I want to talk with you.”
With chimpanzee-like agility the skinny little man swung himself over the rail and. sat down by the top step of the arch. Maybe this fellow was a bad actor, I warned myself; but here was a chance to grind an ax of my own.
I had to whisper to him, because the King and Queen were suddenly watching me with serious interest, and a few villagers were gathering in around the foot of the arch.
