All this was dreamt by M’dali, who has escaped.”

“No man escapes from the Village of Irons,” said Sanders. “Which way did M’dali go?”

The man pointed to the wire fence by the little canal.

Sanders made his way to the fence and looked down into the weed-grown stream.

“I saw him climb the first fence,” said his informant; “but the second I did not see him climb.”

The Commissioner stooped, and, picking up a handful of grass, threw it at a green log that lay on the water.

The log opened a baleful eye and growled hatefully, for he had fed well, and resented the interruption to his slumbers.

The People of the River

7. THE THINKER AND THE GUM-TREE

THERE are three things which are beyond philosophy and logic.

Three things which turn mild men to rage and to the performance of heroic deeds. The one is love, the other is religion, and the third is land.

There was a man of the Isisi people who was a great thinker. He thought about things which were beyond thought, such as the stars and the storms and time, which began and ended nowhere.

Often he would go to the edge of the river and, sitting with his chin on his knees, ponder on great matters for days at a time. The people of the village–it was Akalavi by the creek–thought, not unnaturally, that he was mad, for this young man kept himself aloof from the joyous incidents of life, finding no pleasure in the society of maidens, absenting himself from the dances and the feasts that make up the brighter side of life on the river.

K’maka–such was this man’s name–was the son of Yoko, the son of N’Kema, whose father was a fierce fighter in the days of the Great King. And on the dam side he went back to Pikisamoko, who was also a strong and bloody man, so that there was no hint of softness in his pedigree. “Therefore,” said Yoko, his father, “he must be mad, and if the matter can be arranged without Sandi knowing, we will put out his eyes and take him a long way into the forest. There he will quickly die from hunger or wild beasts.”

And all the relations who were bidden to the family palaver agreed, because a mad son is an abomination. He wanders about the village, and in his wanderings or in the course of his antics, he breaks things and does damage for which the family is legally responsible. They talked this matter over for the greater part of the night and came to no decision. The palaver was resumed the next day, and the elder of the family, a very old and a very wise chief from another village, gave his decision. “If he is mad,” he said, “by all laws and customs he should be destroyed. Now I am a very clever man, as you all know, for I have lived for more years than any of you can remember. Let me, therefore, test K’maka, lest he be not mad at all, but only silly, as young men are when they come to the marrying age.”

So they summoned K’maka to the council, and those who went in search of him found him lying on a soft bank in the forest. He was lying face downwards, his head in his hands, watching a flower.

“K’maka,” said the man who sought him out, “what do you do?”

“I am learning,” said K’maka simply; “for this weed teaches me many things that I did not know before.”

The other looked down and laughed.

“It is a weed,” he said, “bearing no fruit, so therefore it is nothing.”

“It is alive,” said K’maka, not removing his eyes from the thing of delicate petals; “and I think it is greater than I because it is obedient to the law.”

“You are evidently mad,” said his cousin, with an air of finality; “this is very certain.”

He led him back to the family conference.

“I found him,” he said importantly, “looking at weeds and saying that they were greater than he.”

The family looked darkly upon K’maka and the old chief opened the attack.

“K’maka, it is said that you are mad; therefore, I, being the head of the family, have called the blood together that we may see whether the charge is true. Men say you have strange thoughts–such as the stars being land afar.”

“That is true, my father,” said the other.

“They also say that you think the sun is shining at night.”

“That also I think,” said K’maka; “meaning that it shines somewhere. For it is not wise to believe that the river is greater than the sun.”

“I perceive that you are indeed mad,” said the old man calmly; “for in what way do the sun and the river meet?”

“Lord,” said the young man earnestly, “behold the river runs whether it is day or night, whether you walk or sleep, whether you see it or whether it is unseen. Yet the foolish think that if they do not see a thing, then that thing does not exist. And is the river greater than the sun? For if the river runs by night, being part of the Great Way, shall the sun, which is so much mightier and so much more needful to the lands, cease to shine?”

The old chief shook his head.

“None but a man who is very mad would say such a thing as this,” he said; “for does not the sun become the moon by night, save on the night when it sleeps? And if men sleep and goats sleep, and even women sleep, shall not the sun sleep, creeping into a hole in the ground, as I myself have seen it?”

They dismissed K’maka then and there. It seemed useless to talk further.

He slept in a hut by himself. He was late in returning to his home that night, for he had been watching bats in the forest; but when he did he found six cousins waiting. They seized him; he offered no resistance.

They bound him hand and foot to a long pole and laid him in the bottom of a canoe. Then his six cousins got in with him and paddled swiftly down stream. They were making for the Forest of Devils, which is by the Silent River–a backwater into which only crocodiles go to lay their eggs, for there are sandy shoals which are proper for the purpose.

At dawn they stopped, and, lighting a fire, cooked their meal. They gave their prisoner some fish and manioc.

“There is a hungry time waiting you, brother,” said one of the cousins; “for we go to make an end of you, you being mad.”

“Not so mad am I,” said K’maka calmly, “but that I cannot see your madness.”

The cousin made no retort, knowing that of all forms of lunacy that which recognised madness in others was the most hopeless.

The sun was well up when the canoe continued its journey, K’maka lying in the bottom intensely interested in the frantic plight of two ants who had explored the canoe in a spirit of adventure.

Suddenly the paddles ceased.

Steaming up stream, her little hull dazzling white from a new coat of paint, her red and white deck awning plainly to be seen, came the Zaire, and the tiny blue ensign of Mr. Commissioner Sanders was hanging lazily from the one stub of a mast that the vessel boasted.

“Let us paddle nearer the shore,” said the chief of the cousins, “for this is Sandi; and if he sees what we carry he will be unkind.”

They moved warily to give the little steamer a wide berth.

But Sanders of the River, leaning pensively over the rail of the forebridge, his big helmet tilted back to keep the sun from his neck, had seen them. Also, he had detected concern in the sudden cessation of paddling, alarm in the energy with which it was resumed, and guilt confessed in the new course.

His fingers beckoned the steersman, and the helm went over to port. The Zaire swung across to intercept the canoe.

“This man,” said the exasperated chief cousin, “has eyes like the okapi, which sees its enemies through trees.”

He stopped paddling and awaited the palaver.

“What is this, Sambili?” asked Sanders, as the steamer came up and a boat hook captured the tiny craft. Sanders leant over the side rail and addressed the cousin by name.

“Lord,” said Sambili, “I will not lie to you; this man is my cousin, and is mad; therefore we take him to a witch-doctor who is famous in such matters.”

Sanders nodded, and flecked the white ash of his cheroot into the water.

“I know the river better than any man, yet I do not know of such a doctor,” he said. “Also I have heard that many mad people have been taken to the Forest of Devils and have met a doctor whom they have not seen. And his name is Ewa, which means Death.”

Two of his Houssas hauled the trussed man aboard.

“Release him,” said Sanders.

“Lord,” said the cousin, in agitation, “he is very mad and very fierce.”

“I also am fierce,” said Sanders; “and men say that I am mad, yet I am not bound to a pole.”

Released from his bondage, K’maka stood up shakily, rubbing his numbed limbs.

“They tell me you are mad, K’maka,” said Sanders.

K’maka smiled, which was a bad sign, for native men, far gone in sleeping sickness and touching the verge of madness, often smile in this way. Sanders watched him curiously.

“Master,” said K’maka, “these cousins of mine think I am mad because I think.”

“What manner of things do you think, K’maka?” asked Sanders gently.

The other hesitated.