The moving spirit was Jack Riddell, a friend of Ian’s, a young soldier who had quitted the Army to seek adventure in Africa. Where he could not find adventure, he created it; in Nairobi he would ride his pony into the bar of the Norfolk hotel or shoot out the street lamps along Government Road; in Abyssinia he would gallop his ponies across the terrain of a hostile baron pursued by swordsmen, drink taj and boast of his prowess with more friendly rulers all night, and he was reputed to conduct a flourishing illicit trade in ivory. There was a story that the Governor, having vowed to catch him, and mounted a guard over every water-hole on the route from the frontier, was prophesying, at a garden party, that this time the villain would be laid by the heels, when Jack Riddell walked up, bowed respectfully, and shook hands.
At the Blue Posts we ate a large breakfast, and sat on the veranda while Hereward busied himself checking girths and bridles, and once more examining the armoury, helped with an air of lofty disdain by Ahmed, clad now in a khaki suit but with a green shawl loosely wrapped round a proud, small head held on a slender neck as erect as a tulip – a little like the gerenuks and giraffe soon to be his companions. Ahmed was headed for his own land, his own people, and there was a suggestion of eagerness and tension in his bearing.
‘I would entrust my life to him a dozen times over,’ Ian said, ‘but if an unarmed, harmless youth annoyed him, he’d be as likely to stick a knife into him as to hold my stirrup when I mount, and think no more of it either.’ And he told us more of Ahmed’s people: of the constant fights between the tribes, the deeds of bravery, the feats of endurance in this desert world so different from our own and existing side by side with ours, absorbed in its own life and struggles, and quite oblivious of us and of all our complications and intentions.
‘They wear white robes, and gaily coloured skirts, and turbans as bright as jewels,’ Ian said, ‘and shawls thrown over their shoulders, and swords at their belts, and they can ride any pony born, and walk for three days across the lava rock without water or the camels’ milk they live on, which makes them lean and strong and gives a healthy bloom to their skins. When the time comes for them to move on, they strap their dismantled dwellings, made of sticks and mats, on to the backs of their camels, with the big leather water-bags and all their household goods, and trek away to other wells and pans that hold the water on which all life depends. They worship Allah, and think no man fit to take a wife who hasn’t killed an enemy; but they respect cunning, and if they can outwit you and take you unarmed, so much the better. They do not fear death as we do; it will come to all, and cannot be avoided, like storm or famine, so must be taken as it comes.’
The time came for their departure; I cried, and so did Tilly, when she said good-bye; and we watched them mount their mules and jog away along the dusty road, and turn to wave at the corner, and disappear round a bend of the road.
It was tame and sad to ride back to the farm, which seemed dead and empty in spite of its usual activities, and to go on with ordinary living. Robin had desired with all his heart to go with the others, but the still he was putting up to make essential oils had reached a critical condition, and someone had to look after the farms, both ours and Hereward’s. I was delivered like a parcel to Mrs Nimmo, together with instructions that I was to weave a receptacle for dead-heads (Tilly had taken up basket-work from a book), memorize the Kings of England and the Lady of Shalott, learn the multiplication tables (which had somehow got overlooked) and the life-cycle of the liver-fluke, and draw the signs of the Zodiac. I was to have an examination when they returned and if I was successful I would get another saddle for Moyale (his was almost in pieces), whereas if I failed I should have to go to bed early for a week.
Twinkle was the main reason why I did not want to go to Mrs Nimmo’s. Not only did I hate parting from her, but I was afraid that she would meet with some disaster. At night she was safe in her hut, but by day she wandered sometimes to the river and had been seen to drink from the pool beside our coffee nursery, just below the waterfall, where the python lived. In some ways he was a harmless reptile – he did not emerge from the pool to threaten people working in the nursery – but if anything was rash enough to venture into the water, or to stand on its edge, he satisfied his hunger.
Robin had resolved to kill the python, but it was cunning and elusive; after swallowing its prey it disappeared, perhaps into a cave behind the waterfall, and he had never been able to get a shot at it. I had seen it once or twice – a glistening black and speckled coil on a black rock, its body thick as a man’s thigh, like a wicked elemental shape spewed up from the ocean’s caverns. I was haunted by the fear of Twinkle being sucked, still breathing, down the great black tunnel of its body, to be digested alive.
When I expressed these fears to Njombo he said, perhaps half mockingly:
‘Why do you not get a charm to protect her from the python?’
I asked him where one could be got.
‘From the mundu-mugo; he has charms for everything, and certainly one against a snake.’
Mundu-mugos were the good witch-doctors, the anti-sorcerers, and it seemed that several lived close at hand, either on our farm or on those of our neighbours.
‘Would it be expensive?’ I inquired.
‘No, because you are a child. If you gave him one rupee…’
‘But I haven’t got a rupee.’
Njombo laughed to reassure me. ‘Perhaps he will do it just to help you. I will see.’
The mundu-mugo turned out to be a thin, light-coloured man with a narrow nose and sharp eyes who worked for Alec Wilson and belonged, in some complicated manner, to Kupanya’s family. Mrs Nimmo allowed me to ride over to tea with Robin several times a week, provided I was escorted by Njombo, who was by this time accepted as a trustworthy chaperon. So we left early, and Njombo took me to the mundu-mugo’s dwelling, which lay across a log bridge just above the waterfall, and we sat down in the shade of a tree. Njombo had told me to bring a few hairs from Twinkle’s coat; I had snipped them off and carried them in a match-box, and I also brought a pencil for a present, and a packet of needles.
The mundu-mugo carried with him on his business two or three long gourds with stoppers made of cows’ tails, and some smaller gourds, the size of snuff-bottles, containing all sorts of powders and medicines, hanging by fine chains from his neck. He scooped a little depression in the earth and laid in it a banana leaf, like a dish, and poured some brown liquid into it from an old whisky bottle. It was a great relief to me that we did not have to sacrifice a goat and use the undigested contents of its stomach, the basis of so many Kikuyu potions and magics. After he had added various powders from his gourds, Twinkle’s hairs, one or two feathers, and some ground chalk, and stirred it all into a paste, he built round it a little boma of twigs from a particular shrub, and uttered a number of incantations, at the same time smearing paste on his neck, wrists, and ankles. Then he wrapped the remaining paste neatly in a leaf and presented it to me with the air of a marshal proffering the crown on a velvet cushion.
‘You are to rub this on the head and legs of the animal,’ he told me, ‘and put a little on his tongue, and then he will be able to go to the river and the snake will leave him alone.’
I thanked the mundu-mugo warmly but he refused both my presents. ‘It is not because he does not like them,’ Njombo explained, ‘but he does not want to take anything, he will help you because he is your friend.’
I carried the folded leaf carefully home in my pocket, where it exuded a very peculiar odour, and managed to smear some of the paste on Twinkle’s head, but she evidently liked the smell no better than I did and bounded away whenever I advanced towards her. With Njombo and two helpers clinging on to her, I managed to rub it on to her legs, but her tongue seemed impossible, and she struggled so frantically that we let her go.
Resorting to guile, we fetched some rock-salt from the store and put it down in front of her. Like all antelopes, Twinkle relished salt, and soon she sniffed her way up to it
and rasped her tongue along its glistening surface. I picked it up and proffered it in my hand. At first she shook her head with an impatient gesture, flicked her ears, minced away, and had a little frolic round, kicking up her heels; then she cautiously returned, sniffed gently at the rock-salt with her blue-black nose and gave it an exploratory lick. Reassured, she licked more vigorously while I scratched her neck behind the ears and, having lulled her, basely held out a piece of salt with a little of the paste on it. She took one sniff and then recoiled, wrinkled her nose, and bounded off with her neck stretched out before her.
‘She did not eat it,’ I said.
‘If the medicine touched her tongue, that was sufficient. This it did: why else should she run away?’
I was not really satisfied; she might have been put off merely by the smell. However, Njombo was confident and he knew more than I did about charms and smells, so I hoped that Twinkle was now fully protected against the python. All the same, I thought, it would be better for the python to be shot. But Njombo said:
‘It would be very bad to shoot the python. Then we should not get any rain.’
‘What has the python to do with rain?’
‘Have you not seen the big snake of many colours that lies across the sky when the rain falls? That is the snake who lives in the waterfall. If you look down into the waterfall you can see him there sometimes. His colours are many, like the flowers your mother grows.’
‘But the python is black,’ I objected.
‘When he goes into the waterfall he puts on his bright clothes. They are so bright that they shine up into the sky. If you kill the snake there will be no colours and no rain.’
Robin, I recalled, had said that he would give the python’s skin to Tilly, and she could have shoes and bags made from it. I was glad that I would be able to warn him, as we needed rain for the young coffee, and if Tilly wore shoes made from such a magical creature she might disappear.
Chapter 20
MRS NIMMO was much stricter about hours than Tilly. At half past eight she rang a hand-bell and I had to keep at my lessons until ten, when I had a break for cocoa; then lessons again until twelve. Mrs Nimmo herself presided over the multiplication tables and the Kings of England, and not only that but she added the Kings of Scotland, who were most confusing, and far too numerous. And she added Bible readings too. On the other hand she made delicious cakes and scones, and read me ‘The Lady of the Lake’ and Marmion, and when I next rode over to see Robin the words, ‘Charge, Chester, charge: On, Stanley, on,’ were ringing in my head.
They were quenched by the news I had so long half-dreaded, and which now came down like a flood. Twinkle had gone. She had vanished the day before. That night her boma had been left open, but she had not returned. Because I had sometimes imagined this disaster, it was not any easier to bear.
‘Twinkle will be safe, did you not get a charm to protect her?’ Njombo said. ‘Perhaps she has gone to find a bwana of her own.’
‘Come with me and look at the still,’ Robin suggested. ‘It is nearly finished, and has several improvements no one has thought of before. If they work as well as I expect, I shall take out a patent.’
The still appeared to be an incoherent mass of pipes, cylinders, coils, and drums without the least rhyme or reason, and although I tried to look intelligent, I could not understand a word of his explanation. But I do not think he noticed this, the still was his child and, if it had faults, he would overlook them. The only one it seemed to have at the moment was that it did not actually work, but this would very soon be remedied.
We walked home by the river, and a sudden commotion from the direction of the nursery arrested us.
‘Perhaps a child has fallen into the river,’ Robin said. ‘We had better go and see.’
A small crowd had collected beside the pool under the waterfall, looking at something on the other side. Among them was a woman who wailed and gabbled in a high-pitched voice and appeared to be on the edge of hysteria. I knew at once it was the python, and so it was, although at first I could not see it; the reptile was lying in the shadow of some rocks, in a shallow cave. I saw it only when it moved a little, as if to make itself more comfortable. One of the Kikuyu pointed with his herding-spear and exclaimed:
‘Look, can’t you see, it has eaten something big and now it is lying there with a full belly like a man gorged on meat, or a woman with child.’
And indeed, as its outlines disengaged themselves from the darkness of the wet rock, a large bulge could be seen distinctly in the snake’s coils.
A horrible conviction swept over me, and I seized Robin’s arm. ‘It has swallowed Twinkle,’ I cried, and burst into tears.
‘Nonsense, it’s probably just the way it’s lying, unless…What is the matter with that woman, I wonder?’
His inquiries met a barrage of cries and lamentations in Kikuyu. The woman was distraught, the men excited, the python menacing.
‘I was afraid so,’ Robin said gravely. ‘It has taken her toto…. Be quiet, or you will frighten it; stay silent while I fetch the gun.’
I waited in a place he indicated, a little way back from the river. It was wrong, of course, but I could not help feeling thankful that Twinkle had not been the victim, although still not entirely convinced. Robin returned at the head of a posse of young men with spears and the long, thin swords of the Kikuyu. They walked softly, restraining their battle cries, and some vanished above the waterfall, perhaps to cut off the snake’s retreat.
The python had moved back a little, but he was still on his rock. I had never seen him before so close and so bold. Usually all one could see was a gleam of oily motion as he slipped into the water so quietly one would think it must have opened to receive him, as the Red Sea divided before the children of Israel.
Robin’s first shot boomed out loudly among the rocks and the python’s great head, broad as a soup-plate, reared up and seemed to hang for a moment in mid-air, searching for its attacker. That pause was fatal to it; Robin’s second shot was true. The head collapsed, the huge body writhed and lashed and threshed on the rocks, like some dark cauldron boiling over, like a monstrous worm of corruption spewed up from the caverns of the earth. The Kikuyu flung off their blankets and rushed naked into the stream to save it from falling into the river, but they did not touch it until the slithering coils lay still. Then they dragged it up the bank and stretched it out: and there in the middle, sure enough, was an enormous bulge, like a great bead strung upon a cord.
The Kikuyu began to slice the python up its pale under-side, as if they were filleting a fish. How neat and handsome were the little horny scales, each fitting so tightly with its neighbour to make a perfect coat of chain-mail! The snake shuddered as its insides parted, just as if it were alive. The black and silver skin was drawn so tightly over the bulge that you could scarcely believe it could stretch so far without bursting. A swift slash of the knife freed the object within. I saw something black and that was all, people crowded in front of me; the leg of a child, or had it not been a black hoof, a slender dark-haired ankle? I turned away, feeling sick, smothered by the long-drawn-out ee-ee-ee-ees and ay-ay-ay-ays of the Kikuyu. Then I heard Robin exclaim:
‘I’d never have believed if it I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes!’
They had cut out a goat absolutely whole, not a scratch on it, or the least sign of damage, and if the python had been shot a little earlier I believe it would have got up and walked away. As it was, the poor goat was dead, presumably from suffocation, but it must have been alive, Robin said, after it had been swallowed, and struggled in the python’s inside.
‘You see, you mustn’t worry about things that haven’t happened,’ Robin advised. ‘Twinkle is probably quite safe somewhere, enjoying herself, and so presumably is that silly woman’s child.’
Three men were needed to carry the python up the hill, where the skin was peeled off and pegged out to dry. I was worried to think that Robin might have shot the rainbow, but when I asked
Njombo whether the colours would never be seen again in the sky he said vaguely that this was not the only snake and perhaps everything would be as before. I asked:
‘Why did that woman think the snake had eaten her toto? Is it safe?’
‘She did not think so. She has a baby in her belly. When a woman like that sees a snake it is unlucky, the baby will belong to the snake who may come to fetch it away, and so she was crying.’
I began to perceive that a third world lay beyond, inside and intermingled with the two worlds I already knew of, those of ourselves and of the Kikuyu: a world of snakes and rainbows, of ghosts and spirits, of monsters and charms, a world that had its own laws and for the most part led its own life, but now and again, like a rock jutting up through earth and vegetation, protruded into ours, and was there all the time under the surface. It was a world in which I was a foreigner, but the Kikuyu were at home.
Every night I prayed that Twinkle might be preserved. I had faith in the charm, if only I could have been certain that it had been properly applied. With charms, everything had to be done exactly right, and when they failed, it was because some detail of their application had been faulty.
Njombo came to me a few days later and said:
‘I have news for you. There is a buck up there’ – he pointed with his chin – ‘that perhaps is Twinkle. Will you go to see?’
Mrs Nimmo did not allow rides into the reserve with Njombo, but I pleaded with Robin, and so, with some reluctance, he agreed to come too. We followed the twisting path up the ridge that led to Kupanya’s, but when we had gone about half-way we diverged, and halted by a homestead whose occupants Njombo engaged for some time in conversation. At length an elderly man in a blanket led us through some shambas and up a hill to a large boulder, and, with a monkey’s agility, clambered to the top. We followed. Evening shadows had already darkened the bottom of the valley but the boulder had the warmth of day stored in it, the warmth of life, as if it were the living flesh of the earth.