‘Bring me word when he wakes.’
Basil approached the oafish fellows in the clearing.
‘Show me a house where I can sleep.’
They pointed one out to him without rising to accompany him to its door. Water still dripped through its leaky thatch, there was a large puddle of thin mud made during the rain. Basil lay down on the dry side and waited for Boaz to wake.
They called him an hour after sunset. The men had lit a fire, but only a small one, because they knew that at midnight the rain would begin again and dowse it. There was a light in the headman’s hut — a fine brass lamp with wick and chimney. Boaz had put out two glasses and two bottles of whisky. Basil’s first words were, ‘Where is Seth?’
‘He is not here. He has gone away.’
‘Where?’
‘How shall I know? Look, I have filled your glass.’
‘I sent a messenger to him, with the news that Achon was dead.’
‘Seth had already gone when the messenger came.’
‘And where is the messenger?’
‘He brought bad tidings. He is dead. Turn the light higher. It is bad to sit in the dark.’
He gulped down a glass of spirit and refilled his glass. They sat in silence.
Presently Boaz said, ‘Seth is dead.’
‘I knew. How?’
‘The sickness of the jungle. His legs and his arms swelled. He turned up his eyes and died. I have seen others die in just that way.’
Later he said, ‘So now there is no Emperor. It is a pity that your messenger did not come a day sooner. I hanged him because he was late.’
‘Boaz, the sickness of the jungle does not wait on good or bad news.’
‘That is true. Seth died in another way. By his own hand. With a gun raised to his mouth and his great toe crooked round the trigger. That is how Seth died.’
‘It is not what I should have expected.’
‘Men die that way. I have heard of it often. His body lies outside. The men will not bury it. They say it must be taken down to Moshu to the Wanda people to be burned in their own fashion. Seth was their chief.’
‘We will do that tomorrow.’
Outside round the fire, inevitably, they had started singing. The drums pulsed. In the sodden depths of the forest the wild beasts hunted, shunning the light.
‘I will go and see Seth’s body.’
‘The women are sewing him up. They made a bag for him out of pieces of skin. It is the custom when the chief dies. They put grain in with him and several spices. Only the women know what. If they can get it they put a lion’s paw, I have been told.’
‘We will go and look at him.’
‘It is not the custom of the people.’
‘I will carry the lamp.’
‘You must not leave me in the dark. I will come with you.’ Past the camp fire and the singing Guardsmen to another hut: here by the light of a little lamp four or five women were at work stitching. Seth’s body hay on the floor half covered by a blanket. Boaz leant tipsily in the doorway while Basil went forward, lamp in hand. The eldest of the women tried to bar his entrance, but he pushed her aside and approached the dead Emperor.
His head lay inclined to one side, the lips agape, the eyes open and dull. He wore his Guards tunic, buttoned tight at the throat, the epaulettes awry and bedraggled. There was no wound visible. Basil drew the blanket higher and rejoined the Minister..
‘The Emperor did not shoot himself.’
‘No.’
‘There is no wound to be seen.’
‘Did I say he was shot? That is a mistake. He took poison. That is how it happened … it has happened before in that way to other great men. It was a draught given him by a wise man in these parts. W hen he despaired he took some of it … a large cupful and drank it … there in the hut. I was with him. He made a wry face and said that the draught was bitter. Then he stood still a little until his knees gave. On the floor he rolled up and down several times. He could not breathe. Then his legs shot straight out and he arched his back. That is how he lay until yesterday when the body became limp again. That was how he died … The messenger was late in coming.’
They left the women to their work. Boaz stumbled several times as he returned to the headman’s hut and his bottle of whisky. Basil left him with the lamp and returned in the firelit night to his hut.
A man was waiting for him in the shadows. ‘Boaz is still drunk.’
‘Yes. Who are you?’
‘Major Joab of the Imperial Infantry, at your service.’
‘Well, major?’
‘It has been like this since the Emperor’s death.’
‘Boaz?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you see the Emperor die?’
‘I am a soldier. It is not for me to meddle with high politics. I am a soldier without a master.’
‘There is duty due to a master, even when he is dead.’
‘Do I understand you?’
‘Tomorrow we take down the body of Seth to be burned ‘at Moshu among his people. He should rejoin the great Amurath and the spirits of his fathers like a king and a fine man. Can he meet them unashamed if his servants forget their duty while his body is still with them?’
‘I understand you.’
After midnight the rain fell. The men round the fire carried a burning brand into one of the huts and lit a fire there. Great drops sizzled and spat among the deserted embers; they changed from yellow to red and then to black.
Heavy patter of rain on the thatched roofs, quickening to an even blurr of sound.
A piercing, womanish cry, that mounted, soared shivering, quavered and merged in the splash and gurgle of the water.
‘Major Joab of the Imperial Infantry at your service. Boaz is dead.’
‘Peace be on your house.’
Next day they carried the body of the Emperor to Moshu. Basil rode at the head of the procession. The others followed on foot. The body, sewn in skins, w as strapped to’ a pole and carried on the shoulders of two Guardsmen. Twice during the journey they shipped and their burden fell in the soft mud of the jungle path. Basil sent on a runner to the Chief, saying: ‘Assemble your people, kill your best meat and prepare a feast in the manner of your people. I am bringing a great chief among you.’
But the news preceded him and tribesmen came out to greet them on the way and conduct them with music to Moshu. The wise men of the surrounding villages danced in the mud in front of Basil’s camel, wearing livery of the highest solemnity, leopards’ feet and snake-skins, necklets of lions’ teeth, shrivelled bodies of toads and bats, and towering masks of painted leather and wood. The women daubed their hair with ochre and clay in the fashion of the people.
Moshu was a royal city; the chief market and government centre of the Wanda country. It was ditched round and enclosed by high ramparts. Arab slavers had settled there a century ago and built streets of two-storied, lightless houses; square, with flat roofs on rubble walls washed over with lime and red earth. Among them stood circular Wanda huts of mud and thatched grass. A permanent artisan population hived there, blacksmiths, jewellers, leather workers, ministering to the needs of the scattered jungle people. There were several merchants in a good way of business with barns storing grain, oil, spices and salt, and a few Indians trading in hardware and coloured cottons, products of the looms of Europe and Japan.
A pyre had been heaped up, of dry logs and straw, six foot high, in the market-place. A large crowd was already assembled there and in another quarter a communal kitchen had been improvised where great cook-pots rested over crackling sticks. Earthenware jars of fermented coconut sap stood ready to be broached when the proper moment arrived.
The feast began late in the afternoon. Basil and Joab sat among the chiefs and headmen. The wise men danced round the pyre, shaking their strings of charms and amulets, wagging their tufted rumps and uttering cries of ecstasy. They carried little knives and cut themselves as they capered round. Meanwhile Seth’
s body was bundled on to the faggots and a tin of oil sluiced over it.
‘It is usual for the highest man present to speak some praise of the dead.’.
Basil nodded and in the circle of fuzzy heads rose to declaim Seth’s funeral oration. It was no more candid than most royal obituaries. It was what was required. ‘Chiefs and tribesmen of the Wanda, ‘ he said, speaking with confident fluency in the Wanda tongue, of which he had acquired a fair knowledge during his stay in Azania. ‘Peace be among you. I bring the body of the Great Chief, who has gone to rejoin Amurath and the spirits of his glorious ancestors. It is right for us to remember Seth. He was a great Emperor and all the peoples of the world vied with each other to do him homage. In his own island, among the people of Sakuyu and the Arabs, across the great waters to the mainland, far beyond in the cold lands of the North Seth’s name was a name of terror. Seyid rose against him and is no more. Achon also. They are gone before him to prepare suitable lodging among the fields of his ancestors. Thousands fell by his right hand. The words of his mouth were like thunder in the hills. Weep, women of Azania, for your royal lover is torn from your arms. His virility was inexhaustible, his progeny numerous beyond human computation. His staff was a grown palm tree. Weep, warriors of Azania. When he led you to battle there was no retreating. In council the most guileful, in justice the most terrible, Seth the magnificent is dead.’
The bards caught phrases from the lament and sang them. The wise men ran whooping among the spectators carrying torches. Soon the pyre was enveloped in towering flames. The people took up the song and swayed on their haunches, chanting. The bundle on the crest bubbled and spluttered like fresh pine until the skin cerements burst open and revealed briefly in the heart of the furnace the incandescent corpse of the Emperor. Then there was a subsidence among the timbers and it disappeared from view.
Soon after sunset the flames declined and it was necessary to refuel them. Many of the tribesmen had joined the dance of the witches. With hands on each other’s hips they made a chain round the pyre, shuffling their feet and heaving their shoulders, spasmodically throwing back their heads and baying like wild beasts.
The chiefs gave the sign for the feast to begin.
The company split up into groups, each round a cookpot. Basil and Joab sat with the chiefs. They ate flat bread and meat, stewed to pulp among peppers and aromatic roots. Each dipped into the pot in rotation, plunging with his hands for the best scraps. A bowl of toddy circulated from lap to hap and great drops of sweat broke out on the brows of the mourners.
Dancing was resumed, faster this time and more clearly oblivious of fatigue. In emulation of the witch doctors, the tribesmen began slashing themselves on chest and arms with their hunting knives; blood and sweat mingled in shining rivulets over their dark skins. Now and then one of them would pitch forward on to his face and lie panting or roll stiff in a nervous seizure. Women joined in the dance, making another chain, circling in the reverse way to the men. They were dazed with drink, stamping themselves into ecstasy. The two chains jostled and combined. They shuffled together interlocked.
Basil drew back a little from the heat of the fire, his senses dazed by the crude spirit and the insistence of the music. In the shadows, in the extremities of the market-place, black figures sprawled and grunted, alone and in couples. Near him an elderly woman stamped and shuffled; suddenly she threw up her arms and fell to the ground in ecstasy. The hand-drums throbbed and pulsed; the flames leapt and showered the night with sparks.
The headman of Moshu sat where they had dined, nursing the bowl of toddy. He wore an Azanian white robe, splashed with gravy and spirit. His scalp was closely shaven; he nodded down to the lip of the bowl and drank. Then he clumsily offered it to Basil. Basil refused; he gaped and offered it again. Then took another draught himself. Then he nodded again and drew something from his bosom and put it on his head. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘Pretty.’
It was a beret of pillar-box red. Through the stupor that was slowly mounting and encompassing his mind Basil recognized it. Prudence had worn it jauntily on the side of her head, running across the Legation lawn with the Panorama of Life under her arm. He shook the old fellow roughly by the shoulder.
‘Where did you get that?’
‘Pretty.’
‘Where did you get it?’
‘Pretty hat. It came in the great bird. The white woman wore it. On her head like this.’ He giggled weakly and pulled it askew over his glistening pate.
‘But the white woman. Where is she?’
But the headman was lapsing into coma. He said ‘Pretty’ again and turned up sightless eyes.
Basil shook him violently. ‘Speak, you old fool. Where is the white woman?’
The headman grunted and stirred; then a flicker of consciousness revived in him. He raised his head. ‘The white woman? Why, here,’ he patted his distended paunch. ‘You and I and the big chiefs — we have just eaten her.’
Then he fell forward into a sound sleep. Round and round circled the dancers, ochre and blood and sweat glistening in the firelight; the wise men’s headgear swayed high above them, leopards’ feet and snake skins, amulets and necklaces, lions’ teeth and the shrivelled bodies of bats and toads, jigging and spinning. Tireless hands drumming out the rhythm; glistening backs heaving and shivering in the shadows.
Later, a little after midnight, it began to rain.
Chapter Eight
When the telephone bell rang Alastair said: ‘You answer it. I don’t think I can stand up,’ so Sonia crossed to the window where it stood and said: ‘Yes, who is it? … Basil … well, who’d have thought of that? Where can you be?’
‘I’m at Barbara’s. I thought of coming round to see you and Alastair.’
‘Darling, do … how did you know where we lived?’
‘It was in the telephone book. Is it nice?’
‘Lousy. You’ll see when you come. Alastair thought it would be cheaper, but it isn’t really. You’ll never find the door. It’s painted red and it’s next to a pretty shady sort of chemist.’
‘I’ll be along.’
Ten minutes later he was there. Sonia opened the door. ‘We haven’t any servants. We got very poor suddenly. How long have you been back?’
‘Landed last night. What’s been happening?’
‘Almost nothing. Everyone’s got very poor and it makes them duller. It’s more than a year since we saw you. How are things at Barbara’s?’
‘Well, Freddy doesn’t know I’m here yet. That’s why I’m dining out. Barbara’s going to tell him gently. I gather my mamma is sore with me about something. How’s Angela?’
‘Just the same. She’s the only one who doesn’t seem to have lost money. Margot’s shut up her house and is spending the winter in America. There was a general election and a crisis — something about gold standard.’
‘I know. It’s amusing to be back.’
‘We’ve missed you. As I say, people have gone serious lately, while you’ve just been loafing about the tropics. Alastair found something about Azania in the papers once. I forget what. Some revolution and a minister’s daughter who disappeared. I suppose you were in on all that.’
‘Yes.’
‘Can’t think what you see in revolutions. They said there was going to be one here, only nothing came of it. I suppose you ran the whole country.’
‘As a matter of fact, I did.’
‘And fell madly in love.’
‘Yes.’
‘And intrigued and had a court official’s throat cut.’
‘Yes.’
‘And went to a cannibal banquet. Darling, I just don’t want to hear about it, d’you mind? I’m sure it’s all very fine and grand, but it doesn’t make much sense to a stay-at-home like me.’
‘That’s the way to deal with him, ‘ said Alastair from his armchair. ‘Keep a stopper on the far-flung stuff.’
‘Or write a book about it, sweety. Then we can buy it and leave it about where you’ll see and then
you’ll think we know … What are you going to do now you’re back?’
‘No plans. I think I’ve had enough of barbarism for a bit. I might stay in London or Berlin or somewhere like that.’
‘That’ll be nice. Make it London. We’ll have some parties like the old ones.’
‘D’you know, I’m not sure I shouldn’t find them a bit flat after the real thing. I went to a party at a place called Moshu …’
‘Basil. Once and for all, we don’t want to hear travel experiences. Do try and remember.’
So they played Happy Families till ten, when Alastair said, ‘Have we had dinner?’ and Sonia said, ‘No, let’s.’ Then they went out to a new cocktail club which Alastair had heard was cheap, and had lager beer and liver sandwiches; they proved to be very expensive.
Later Basil went round to see Angela Lyne, and Sonia as she undressed said to Alastair, ‘ D’you know, deep down in my heart I’ve got a tiny fear that Basil is going to turn serious on us too!’
Evening in Matodi. Two Arab gentlemen, hand in hand, sauntered by the sea-wall.
Among the dhows and nondescript craft in the harbour lay two smart launches manned by British and French sailors, for Azania had lately been mandated by the League of Nations as a joint protectorate.
‘They are always at work polishing the brass.’
‘It must be very expensive. And they are building a new customs house.’
‘And a police station and a fever hospital, a European club.’
‘There are many new bungalows on the hills.’
‘They are making a big field to play games in.’
‘Every week they wash the streets with water. They take the children in the schools and scratch their arms to rub in poison. It makes them very ill.’
‘They put a man in prison for overburdening his camel.’
‘There is a Frenchman in charge at the post office. He is always hot and in a great hurry.’
‘They are building a black road through the hills to Debra Dowa. The railway is to be removed.’
‘Mr Youkoumian has bought the rails and what was left of the engines. He hopes to sell them in Eritrea.’