The Achmed Abdullah Megapack

by Achmed Abdullah

  * * * *

  For the last hour, from the broad veranda which surrounded the house, had come the incessant, uncouth babble of native voices, high-pitched, half-articulate; the house boys talking to each other, and every once in a while breaking into shrill, meaningless laughter.

  Donachie had hardly heard them. He had listened to that same noise for the last twenty years. It was part of his life to him, part of the day, part of Africa. He had accepted it as he had accepted the fever, the heat, the flying and crawling horrors, and the wooden drums which thumped at night, sending messages from village to village.

  But suddenly he looked up, sharp-eyed, alert.

  A native voice had pronounced the name of the station up the river—“Grand L’Popo Basin.” And again, in a sort of awed whisper, “Grand L’Popo Basin!”

  He addressed his partner.

  “They also—”

  “Yes,” the Arab chimed in, completing both thought and sentence for him, “they also speak of the three men who have disappeared. The tale is all over this land. The drums have carried the message of it to all the villages. And yet,” he laughed, and pointed at the heap of letters on the table, “and yet there are many men anxious to go.”

  Suddenly the babbling outside ceased. There was a sharply-defined pause. Then a single voice spoke, in the native dialect as the others, but with a different accent; intense, throbbing with a peculiar, significant meaning, but so low that the two men inside the house could not make out the words.

  Again there was silence. The flies buzzed in a great peace.

  Then the same voice spoke once more, low, intense.

  “Can you hear, Mahmoud?” Donachie asked. “What’s that cursed black babbling about?”

  The Arab rose. He motioned to his friend to be quiet. He walked to the door on noiseless, slippered feet, and listened.

  Again the voice on the outside boomed forth, dramatic, low; and this time one word stood out above the others: “Umlino,” and again, “Umlino.”

  The Arab listened intently for a few minutes. Then he came up close to his partner.

  “They are speaking of a new umlino, a new great medicine man—” then, as an afterthought, “cursed be all unbelievers!”

  “Who’s speaking?”

  “That new boy—that flat-faced descendant of unmentionable pigs—Makupo, he calls himself.”

  “Oh, yes, the fellow from the bush who sports the brick-red blanket and the blue beads.”

  “The same.”

  “What’s he got to do with a medicine man? And what the blazes has the umlino got to do with the disappearance of my three agents?”

  Donachie burst suddenly into a great, throaty rage. “I’ll teach that coon to put bees into my house boys’ bonnets! Call him in, Mahmoud.” He picked up the short, vicious rhinoceros-hide whip which lay on the table. “I’ll teach that miserable black to babble about—”

  Daud pressed him back into his chair. He addressed his partner with an air of calm assurance, superb self-satisfaction hooded under his sharply curved eyelids.

  “I shall go north and solve the mystery. Be quiet, friend of my heart. Remember the saying that money is on the lips of the liar, and passion on the lips of the lost. Be quiet!”

  Donachie looked up.

  “But Mahmoud,” he said wearily, “I’ve just come back from up there.”

  The Arab sat down near him.

  “Yes,” he replied. “But before you left there was not talk amongst our blacks of medicine men in the north, of great umlinos performing many miracles. I heard them talk,” he pointed at the veranda, “out there—cursed be all unbelievers!”

  Donachie laughed. “I honor and respect your orthodox Mohammedan prejudices, old man. But you know well enough that there’s alwayssome brand-new medicine man, some brand-new ju-ju popping up amongst these savages.”

  “I know,” the other agreed. “But I also know Africa. I know that these house boys of ours are of the Waranga tribe, eh? Tell me, my friend, what have they, being of the Waranga, to do with an umlino from the up-river tribes? Do totems mix with totems in this heathenish land? Also, what have our Warangas to do with a flat-faced pig from the north who wears a red blanket and blue beads? Can you answer these questions? And can you tell me finally what bond there can exist between blacks of one tribe and blacks of another who have been enemies for centuries?”

  “There’s only one bond, Mahmoud. A common enemy.”

  “There is no enemy. The land is peaceful and prosperous… But there is still another bond between tribe and tribe. That is a miracle, and he who performs the miracle is always an umlino, a great medicine man. I have heard tell that an umlino is often an ambitious man, dreaming dreams of conquest and blood and empire, like Khama, who called out the southern tribes; like Lobengula, of whom the Boers talk; like Chakka, who sacked the farms of the Colonial English before I was born.”

  Donachie was nervous, intent.

  “A conspiracy, you think? A revolt?”

  “No. Only the brewing of the miracle, and the telling of it—so far,” he added with peculiar emphasis.

  He continued after a short pause: “I shall go to Grand L’Popo Basin. I shall look into the disappearance of the three agents. I shall watch the brewing of the miracle. And, with the help of Allah, I shall succeed.” He smiled.

  Donachie knew the smile of old. In the past it had heralded many things: profit, adventure—often death. But always it had meant success. Thus it seemed suddenly to Donachie as if a cool rush of air had come to him after a long, leaden, unlifting day.

  “When are you off?” he asked.

  “Tonight.”

  Donachie gasped with surprise.

  “Impossible! The steamer can’t leave here before Saturday morning at the very earliest.”

  “I shall take the overland trail.”

  “But why—for heaven’s sake, why?”

  The Arab smiled.

  “Because there is talk on our veranda between the Warangas and a flat-faced pig from the north. Because drum is speaking to drum. Because there is brewing a miracle—up the river. Do not ask questions, my friend. Time presses. I shall take Makupo with me.”

  Donachie looked at him incredulously.

  “Makupo? The fellow from the north, of all men? But, good God, you don’t trust him!”

  “That’s why.” The Arab rose. “I have no time to explain. I must prepare for the journey. One thing you must do for me.”

  “Name it, Mahmoud.”

  “Let the house boys have talk with nobody of my going north. Let them not speak of my taking Makupo along. Let them send no message of any sort.”

  There was an impatient note in Donachie’s answering voice.

  “How the deuce can I do that? How can I keep these chattering magpies from talking?”

  “The best way would be to kill them. But you are a Christian, an American.” Mahmoud Daud laughed. “You shun sane, efficient methods. Therefore you must go to Latrobe, the commissioner of police. You must have these blacks arrested—tonight, within the hour, before I go. Tell the commissioner as much as you please, as much as you think right. But make sure that they are silent until I return. For I want no sending of messages while I am gone. I want no thumping of wooden drums from village to village.”

  “But why?”

  The Arab made a great gesture. It was more than a gesture. It seemed an incident which cut through the still air like a dramatic shadow.

  “Because I know Africa—and because I want to stop the brewing of the miracle.”

  He left the room with a stately, swinging step, singing softly to himself.

  Donachie looked after him. He watched him move through the group of squatting Warangas on the veranda, and pick his way daintily through the refuse which littered the yard.

  For a long time he could hear the words and the high-pitched melody of his song; it was a riotous Damascus bazaar couplet which he was in the habit of singing in moments of excitement and
stress:

  “I married two wives by excess of my folly.

  What now will happen to thee, oh husband of two?

  I have said: I will be among them a lamb,

  Enjoying blessings between two ewes.

  But now…”

  The voice died in the distance. Donachie rose, left the house, and walked over to the house of the commissioner of police.

  And so, within the hour, the Waranga boys of Double-Dee’s living-bungalow found themselves in prison, strictly contrary to the law, to habeas corpus, trial by jury, and half-a-dozen similar assorted fetishes of the temperate zone; while Mahmoud Ali Daud, preceded by the chattering and frightened Makupo, was off on a threehundred—mile tramp into the interior.

  * * * *

  It would have surprised even Donachie, who knew Africa, who knew the Arabs, and who especially knew his partner, to see how, half-adozen rods into the jungle, the latter’s thin veneer of Western civilization and Western sentimentalism took a sudden atavistic backward-jump of several centuries.

  For, all at once, without provocation or apparent reason of any sort, the Arab brought his short, thick sjambok down on the head of the negro with the full strength of his lean, muscular arms.

  Makupo dropped and howled, while Mahmoud Daud addressed him in a passionless, even voice:

  “Dog, and son of many dogs! Woolly one! Calamity! Shame! Evil and odorous thing without name, or morals, or pedigree! Art thou listening?”

  The negro did not answer. A pitiful gurgle came from his throat. The whites of his eyes rolled upward, and he kissed the Arab’s leather slippers.

  But the other paid no attention to the silent entreaty for mercy. Again, with full strength, scientifically, he brought the sjambok down on the writhing black body at his feet.

  Then he spoke once more, in the same passionless voice.

  “Art thou listening, O disreputable descendant of unbelieving and thrice-born pigs?”

  This time the answer came prompt, articulate.

  “Yes, master!”

  “Aywah! Aywah!” ejaculated the Arab. Then he sat down comfortably on a fallen tree, gathering the folds of his brown traveling burnoose, and resting his feet on the body of the black. “Aywah! It is good. Thou hast come from the north, from up the river, flat-nosed and objectionable, and wearing a red blanket; and thou hast spoken poison-words of evil to the boys of my kraal.”

  He laughed.

  “Thou didst leave thy home in the north, a cock, and thou didst expect to return a peacock, strutting and colorful. Wah! Listen again, he-goat bereft of sense and modesty! Thou wilt return north indeed. But thou wilt not return as a peacock. Thou wilt return as a dog, nosing the ground for me, thy master. Thou wilt sniff well, and thou wilt show me the place of the umlino who sent thee to the coast to speak words of treason, the place where the medicine man makes mysteries. Is that understood?”

  “Yes, master.”

  The Arab kicked the prostrate African three times, in the same place, with calm, deliberate aim.

  “If thou shouldst turn traitor, if thou shouldst try to send messages as we pass through the villages on our way up to Grand L’Popo Basin, I shall kill thee. I shall kill thee very slowly. I shall make long cuts into thy unclean skin, and shall afterwards pour boiling oil into the wounds. Also other things; considerably more painful. I shall think them out as the days go by…then, later on, while there is still breath left in thy lungs and blood in thy heart, I shall bury thee…in a shallow grave…where the hyenas and the many little ants will find thee.

  “Is it understood?”

  Makupo looked up from the ground. He knew that the Arab was giving him true talk.

  “Yes, master,” he replied.

  Mahmoud Daud arose. Once more he kicked the other.

  “It is good. It is a compact between thee and me. Get up. Pick up thy pack, and lead the way.”

  Without another word the African did as he was bid.

  Thus the two went on their long overland tramp. Daud’s sharp eyes and an occasional thwack of his sjambok saw to it that Makupo stuck to the onesided compact. There was no sneaking aside, no whispering and talking to other natives when they passed through an occasional village demanding food and drink, and, once in a while, a guide. And at night the Arab was careful to gag him securely and to tie him hand and foot, so that there could be no sending of bush messages.

  It was a long, heartbreaking tramp; through a crazy network of jungle paths spreading over the land; through long grass and short grass; through grass burned to the roots, and through grass green and juicy, waiting for the stamping, long-horned cattle of the river tribes.

  They left the river far to the south, walking in a sweeping, half-circular direction so as to avoid the miasmic, fever-breeding steam of the lowlands. They tramped through thickets where elephantthorns and “wait-a-bits” lacerated their skins, and through somber black forests, where evil, bat-like things flopped lazily overhead, and where slimy, spineless things crawled and squirmed underfoot. They tramped up and down chilly ravines, up and down stony hillsides ablaze with white heat.

  They reached the higher table land. Everywhere about them stretched a level country which looked curiously like the sea; for the thick, blade-shaped grass, bleached to silvery whiteness and as high as a man’s waist, swayed perpetually like choppy, pale waves. The heat was intense; and the Arab swung along silently, his head swathed in the heavy folds of his brown burnoose, while Makupo walked ahead, arms flopping loosely after the manner of his kind, and crooning to himself in a plaintive, half-articulate way which was like the piping of a lizard.

  They struck the Equator on the twentieth day. The sky was cloudless, blazing with a terrible, vindictive heat, and steeped in primitive colors, red, blue and orange, like a futurist painting. So they rested during daytime and walked in the late afternoons and at nights, when it was a little cooler, when the merciless flare had died in the skies, when the far-off hills had turned a faint, pink color, and when the grimness of the bush which stood out in the distance was blurred as in a veil of purple chiffon.

  Finally, late one evening, they reached the river again.

  Makupo stopped.

  “Grand L’Popo Basin!” he said, and pointed straight ahead.

  Daud grunted a short, affirmative reply.

  They walked down a steep hillside into the steaming valley. From behind the black curtain of trees which lined the banks of the river a great sheaf of yellow lights shot upwards; the campfires of the outer kraals. Then there was a glimpse of rush walls, of peaked grass roofs.

  It was late at night when they came within sight of the station itself. But they could still make out the contours of the agency house, the bulk of the warehouses, the sweep of the jetty, the squat huts of the natives.

  The Arab stopped.

  “Listen, dog,” he said. “Thou wilt now tell me the place of the umlino, the great medicine man who brews the many mysteries, and who sends flatnosed pigs with red blankets to the Coast to whisper poisonous words to my Warangas. Where is this umlino? I want speech with him. Is he north, east, south, or west? Answer, son of a burned father!”

  Makupo shivered with fear, but he did not reply. The Arab raised the sjambok significantly.

  “Answer,” he repeated, low-voiced.

  The native fell down before him.

  “Thus far have I brought thee, master. Have pity! I cannot tell more. The umlino can hear across distances. He can make the clay-gods talk. He—”

  He doubled up as if in physical pain, embracing his knees with his hands, swaying from side to side like a chained elephant. He stared at the Arab in a horribly appealing, intolerable manner. Mahmoud Daud smiled.

  “Remember our compact, Calamity! Remember the wounds, the boiling oil! Also the hyenas…and the little brown ants which find their way through a shallow grave to a man who is still alive. Do not forget the ants.”

  Suddenly Makupo rose. He tried to speak—could not. He pointed a shaking han
d at a low, flat hut which was plainly visible next to the livingbungalow of the agency.

  “There…there…” his words came thick, strangled. “There lives the umlino…there are the red clay-gods who talk, talk!”

  Mahmoud Daud whistled through his teeth.

  “Eh…in the station…in the station itself?” Then in a lower key, as if speaking to himself. “Merciful Allah! In the station itself…and next to the agency house. Wah!”

  Suddenly he smiled, a thin, cruel smile.

  “Thou hast well kept the compact, Makupo,” he said. “Cometh now thy reward.”

  There was the flash of a dagger; a quick downward thrust; and Makupo rolled over, without a sound, lifeless. Mahmoud Daud wiped the dagger on a handful of grass and sheathed it again.

  Then he walked up to the station.

  He was deep in thought. The spark of suspicion which had flared up in his shrewd, grinding brain weeks ago, when he had heard Makupo and the Warangas whispering on the veranda about the umlino and the disappearance of the three agents, had been kindled into flame by the dead man’s words.

  But what was that tale about red clay-gods who talk? It puzzled him. Some cursed, heathen superstition, he said to himself. He would find out presently.

  He smiled. So far he had done well. For he was confident that no bush messages had been sent up the river, warning the blacks of his coming; and thus the medicine man, whatever his name, whatever his savage ambitions, whatever his connection with the disappearance of the three agents, would be unprepared.

  Also he had eliminated the chance of treachery on the part of Makupo by killing him as soon as he had served his ends; for, in Mahmoud Daud’s own words, “A dead man does not talk of love, and a dead horse does not eat grass.”

  So he was pleased with himself; and, deeply religious, he droned a low-voiced prayer to Allah, the King of Men, as he swung noiselessly through the rush-fence of the station.

  * * * *

  The fence clearly showed that the place was abandoned to the tender mercies of the blacks and that the directing mind of the White Man was missing; for it was ill-kept, and with the speed of the tropics the few months since the death of the last agent had sufficed to change it into a great mass of vegetation; an entangled, exuberant mingling of leaves, creepers, and odorous flowers; a rolling wave of silent life.