‘We have found no treasures,’ she said, bitterly, ‘such as Langoisse came to seek.’
‘We have not reached the fabulous kingdom yet,’ said Noell, though the dryness of his voice told Ntikima that he did not honestly expect to find what Langoisse called treasure even in Adamawara. ‘He should not have brought you on such a quest as this.’
‘I did not come for him, but to follow thee,’ she told him, in a whisper. ‘He did not bring me. I brought myself.’
‘You have the fever,’ Noell said, almost as if it were an accusation. ‘You will not find it easy, tomorrow or the next day. More of us may die before we reach our destination.’
‘But thou wilt live,’ she told him, ‘for thou art a man as near in strength and cunning to a vampire as ever there could be.’
Ntikima did not understand that, because Noell Cordery did not seem to him to bear any resemblance at all to an elemi. He could imagine that the white babalawo might one day join the ranks of the elders of Adamawara, but not Noell Cordery, who seemed more warrior than priest.
‘I am blest with a strong constitution,’ said Noell to the woman, ‘but my father was stronger, yet died of a plague from the Afric coast.’
‘Mayhap thou art the more fortunate man,’ she told him.
‘Nay,’ he answered. ‘He was a great man, and could not entirely trust me. I am the lesser, and dare not trust myself.’
Langoisse cried out for water then, and the woman rose to her feet to go to him, but Noell Cordery turned and saw Ntikima sitting there. He bade her be still, and signalled an instruction to Ntikima, who looked around for water to take to the sick man.
There was a kettle boiling on the fire, and some water which had already been taken from it had been put in a gourd to cool, but that was very warm when Ntikima tested it. He took it, nevertheless, to Noell, who drank a little and made a complaining face, but nodded. Ntikima took the gourd into the tent, and gave the pirate some to sip. Langoisse took some, but complained bitterly that it had no relief for him.
‘Wait for the night,’ murmured Ntikima. ‘You will have cold enough, when the darkness comes.’
Langoisse was bathed by an unnatural sweat. His eyes were wide, a rim of white being visible all around each iris, as though the eyeballs were swollen and painful.
‘Go away, black boy,’ he said, bitterly.
Ntikima shrugged. Langoisse did not like him, nor he Langoisse. He would not be sorry if Langoisse died, though he would rather see the noseless Turk in dire straits, for there was a dislike even more profound between himself and the monster.
‘Ghendwa will bring medicine,’ said Ntikima. ‘Trust in the elemi.’
‘Trust in the devil!’ retorted Langoisse, in a wild voice. ‘Oh aye, the devil owes me favour, for such work as I have done on his behalf! Mark me, black imp, there’s an honoured place in hell for the likes of me. The faith says to us that the wages of sin is death, and I feel hell’s fires within me now, burning through my guts. But I fear not your like, though you have poor Eyre’s gun, and Cory’s too. I have sent demons back to hell, as thou canst testify before the throne of God, if I should call thee to my witness, little black one.’
Ntikima, unperturbed, held the gourd to the sick man’s lips, so that he could sip again. Then he turned to Cory, who was too sick to rise, and splashed a little on to his lips.
Langoisse tried to shake his head violently then, as though to bring himself wholly to his senses, but the movement hurt him and made him cry out. Ntikima put out a hand to soothe him, but the white man seemed resentful of his touch. Ntikima guessed that Shigidi had come already to Langoisse, and would torment him more than a little even before the silver death could open up a passage to his heart.
‘Sleep,’ said the boy.
‘Get out!’ whispered the pirate. ‘Send me Selim. He must watch over me, and keep black devils away. Away!’
Ntikima went. He returned to Noell Cordery, and told him that the pirate was very ill. Noell only shook his head, because he already knew it. ‘We will go on when we can,’ he said. ‘We have come so far, and the land we seek is close at hand. The elemi’s medicines may help us.’
‘Shigidi is coming,’ said Ntikima. ‘The man Langoisse feels his nearness, though he does not know his name.’
‘Delirium and nightmare are the names by which we call your god of terror,’ Noell told him. ‘And there is not one of us who does not know of his approach. Go to your own rest, Ntikima, and keep Shigidi at bay, if you can.’
Ntikima did as he was told; and Shigidi did not trouble him that night. But there was in the silence of his slumbers an undercurrent of unease which told him that one day soon, Shigidi would come to him, not in any merciful mood, but rejoicing in the fearsome fury of his malevolence.
EIGHT
Noell woke next day in a poor temper, not ill but racked by aches and discomforts, feeling a mere shadow of the man who had set out from Burutu. At dawn they breakfasted, poorly, on millet porridge with cassava and earth-peas. Ghendwa gave Quintus a dark powder which was to be added to the bowls of the sick men. Though the powder was not bitter, and its particular taste was concealed by the food, it was not easy to persuade Langoisse, Cory and Leilah to consume a full measure. They had slept restlessly, and though their awakening had brought them back to sanity they had little appetite.
They were all three very thirsty, however, and Quintus persuaded them to eat by requiring them to take mouthfuls of the porridge between gulps of hot coffee.
When they began the march again, Noell could see little improvement in the three, who seemed dazed and unready, but once they were under way their strides became more purposeful and it was as though they had slipped into a kind of trance.
It was so difficult to make a path through the tall grass that in the hours between dawn and noon they covered little more than ten miles, but they continued into the afternoon until the combination of heat and exhaustion became too much for them. Langoisse, Cory and Leilah fell into a deep sleep as soon as they were allowed to stop, and Noell erected the tent to hide them from the sun’s glare.
Ngadze came to Noell to tell him that he planned to go into the grass to forage for food. He asked that Noell should bring a gun, so that they might also hunt for meat, but Noell shook his head, knowing himself to be too poor a shot. He asked Selim to go in his stead, and the Turk readily agreed. Ngadze, Mburrai and Selim went off together, promising to return well before dark.
When sunset came, though, there was no sign of them.
Noell and Ntikima gathered great sheaves of the tall grass to make a big fire, which would serve as a beacon to guide the hunters back, though they should not need any such crude signal. Noell knew that some misfortune must have overtaken them.
Quintus could not wake the sleepers to share the evening meal, and told Noell that he feared for their lives, especially Cory’s. Ghendwa, when he was told that the three seemed weaker, simply replied that their chances of survival would be less if they were forced to wait too long in the sea of grass, instead of pressing on.
Two hours after dark, Ngadze and the Turk returned, the latter wounded in the head and raving with the pain. A glancing blow from a spear had torn away the top of his left ear and a long slice of flesh from his skull, adding yet further to his fearsome repertoire of scars. The flintlock which he had taken was gone. Ngadze had managed to gather a few things which were edible, but not enough to save their stores from further depletion.
Ngadze explained that while they were stalking game they had been ambushed by a group of Fulbai youths, who must have been following the expedition for several days, ever since the last attack. Selim had been felled almost immediately, because the attackers’ first object had been to seize the gun, and the Ibaus had thus been forced to fight with their own weapons. They had cried out for help, but had wandered too far to be heard in the camp. Mburrai had been struck dead before the marauders made off with the gun, and only one of the attackers had been killed.<
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‘They will not turn back yet,’ said Ngadze. ‘They will surely try to steal more from us, though they may be too few to attack the camp.’ Quintus bandaged Selim’s wounds, while the Turk muttered half-formed curses in his grotesque fashion. Ghendwa made him chew a root which, he said, would help to reduce the pain, but any effect which the medicine had was not readily evident.
‘The Fulbai will not follow us beyond the grass,’ said the elemi. ‘When we reach the hills where the Logone rises, we will be safe from attack, but we must make what haste we can.’
It proved possible now to wake the exhausted sleepers, so that they could take a little food along with Ngadze and Selim, but after they had eaten only Cory went easily to sleep, and that did not seem to Noell to be a fortunate omen. Langoisse and Leilah tossed and turned in the grip of their sickness, sometimes raving with delirium. Noell sat with them both, and tried to calm them. In consequence, he slept little, and when dawn came he felt the need of Ghendwa’s powder himself, though he dared not take any. He told himself that he was only tired, and that he must not let fever get a grip on him.
Cory was roused, with difficulty, and persuaded to take some drugged food, but he seemed worse than before. Noell was distressed by the sight of him, because he was so thin and haggard; his tallness only accentuated his leanness. Langoisse and Leilah were not so bad, and had not suffered the same deterioration, but Langoisse had carried from the beginning the disadvantage of his greater age.
By noon, they had covered twelve miles, but Langoisse and Leilah seemed to be nearly as sick as Cory, who could no longer walk without support. Ghendwa wanted to continue, but Quintus insisted that they stop. The monk hoped that Langoisse and Leilah might improve sufficiently overnight to make the next day’s prospects better. Ngadze, Ntikima, Quintus and Noell each took a turn to stay awake with a gun across his thigh, fearing that the Fulbai would recognise their weakness and take the chance to attack.
The next morning was very little different. Cory was roused, but Noell could not believe that he could last another twenty-four hours, and though Langoisse and Leilah were not so feverish, the march soon sapped their hoarded strength. As they tramped across the grasslands the harmattan blew heartily and carried the smell of smoke along with its gritty dust, urging them to greater efforts. In the far north, by eleven o’clock, they could see great plumes of smoke from the fire, but it was a long way off, and even the harmattan could not drive it very fast. Nevertheless, it was necessary to keep walking beneath the afternoon sun, with only the briefest of rests at the end of each hour.
During the scorching hours of that afternoon Noell’s spirits were as low as they had ever been, for the grassland now seemed endless and inescapable. Thirst and hunger were plaguing him, and he felt that he must soon succumb to the same fever which beset his companions. He longed to throw himself down on the ground and give way to exhaustion, but he watched Ghendwa and Msuri marching ahead of him, the Oni-Osanhin’s ancient legs moving like clockwork despite the fact that his muscles seemed mere strings stretched across the bones. Msuri, who likewise old in years, and not even a vampire, matched the elemi’s stride without any obvious sign of strain. Noell was much bigger than either of them, and powerfully built, so he told himself furiously that what they could do, he must surely be able to do also. He scolded himself for the frailty of his pallid flesh. This determination was ultimately rewarded, though the fire came closer to them for several tense hours before they effected their escape from its path.
Later, Noell wondered whether the fire had been a blessing rather than a curse, not only because it had forced the donkey-train to keep moving, but also because it may have persuaded the Fulbai to give up their chase and turn back. By the time the sun was setting behind them, the grass was thinning noticeably, and the wooded islets were becoming common again. They had no difficulty in finding a more open patch of bush, where they could make camp, and even while they walked Ngadze and Ntikima found it possible to gather a little food. When they had stopped, Msuri brought down a bird with an arrow, to provide meat for the meal. This made it seem to Noell that the worst must be over.
After dark, Noell and Quintus watched the distant glow of the bush-fire, and saw that the flames were being blown to the west of their route, where it would destroy land which they had already crossed. Ntikima came to join them, and told them that they need not worry now about the supplies of food, for there was a belt of good land before they entered the lifeless forest, where villages could be found, and elemi who would help them. In order to prove his point he drew them to the other side of the camp. In the east, where they were now headed, they could see the distant gleam of other fires.
Ntikima said that these were the fires of the Sahra tribesmen, who were near kin to the Mkumkwe. They would give food to the travellers, and their elemi would renew Ghendwa’s stock of medicines. Beyond the land of the Sahra, he promised, was Adamawara itself. The Uruba boy seemed more excited by this prospect than Msuri or Ghendwa, and Noell could not find the energy to reflect the boy’s enthusiasm.
Langoisse and Leilah slept more easily that night, and Noell judged that they were getting better, but Cory’s sleep was of a different kind. He was beyond the reach of nightmares, but Noell feared that when morning came he might also be beyond the reach of wakefulness. So it proved; Cory died during the night, and though Quintus said a prayer for him they left his body for the scavengers, for they had not time to dig a grave with the crude tools which they had. Langoisse and Leilah were a little better, though Ghendwa insisted that they took more of his medicine in order to keep up with the required pace.
They came to the first of the Sahra villages shortly before noon, and were taken in as guests. It was a small village spread around a well, and each conical hut had a small portion of land marked out by screens of matting. The village granaries were made of straw, shaped like beehives, and erected on wooden stilts to keep them safe from insects. The women of the tribe wore discs inserted in their lips, stretching them considerably, and giving them the appearance, Noell thought, of wide-billed birds. The men tattooed themselves in a fashion not unlike the Mkumkwe warriors. The village was abuzz with countless noxious flies, which went some way to spoiling the quality of its hospitality, but the travellers were so very grateful for the fresh food that the flies seemed a trivial nuisance.
The village had four elemi in residence, a contingent larger than any comparable village which they had visited before. The elemi had a hut beside the headman’s, outside which they sat in a row, each and every one of them seeming to Noell to be more ancient than any person he had ever seen. They were more wrinkled than the Oni-Olorun who had come to Benin, their hair almost gone and their eyes seemingly sunk back into their skulls. He could not guess how old they were, but would not have been surprised had someone said that they had lived here for a thousand years. They wore no pouches at their waists, and had only thin thongs instead of loincloths, so that he was able to see that they had been treated as Ghendwa had. Each man’s penis was reduced to a ragged stump, as ugly and unnatural as poor Selim’s nose. Their scrotal sacs, however, were still intact, so that they were not entirely castrated.
After a very formal meal, in which Langoisse and Leilah were barely able to join, the Sahra gave their visitors araki, a spirit made from millet which was much stronger than ordinary millet beer. Quintus hardly touched it, and Noell drank very moderately, but Langoisse, Ngadze and Ntikima became rather drunk, and Leilah drank enough to render her insensible. These excesses seemed not to please Ghendwa, whose anxiety about the prospect of delivering his charges safely to their destination was still very clearly manifest, and Noell was also anxious lest the bout of drunkenness lead to a relapse into more serious fever.
Noell watched carefully how Ghendwa behaved in this village, and the way he was treated. In the west, his arrogant remoteness had been complete, and even when he met elemi he had expected to be treated with reverence, as a person of importance. Here, his st
atus seemed markedly different. These elemi treated him as an equal. Noell guessed that though the tribesmen they lived with were neither wealthy nor powerful, they had more prestige among their own kind than any others he had seen.
That night they slept within the compound of the Sahra village, posting no guards, and slept better than they had for many days, though Noell felt that he had not entirely shaken off his petty maladies.
The next night, too, they spent in a Sahra village, and by the time they set forth from there Langoisse and Leilah had recovered sufficiently to need no more of Ghendwa’s medicine. Though they had both become thin, and Langoisse looked very careworn, they declared that the worst was over. One more donkey had died, leaving them only six, and Selim’s wound continued to be troublesome enough to require attentive treatment from the elemi, but their stocks of food had been renewed and Ngadze and Ntikima were in good spirits.
But the Sahra territory was a narrow region of fertile land. They came again to rising slopes which were heavily forested. Ghendwa led them with a confidence which suggested that he had been this way before, but the heat was intense and the insects very troublesome. Noell and Quintus wore their veils continuously, and Quintus forced Langoisse to wear his, even under protest, but no one dared try persuasion on the anguished Turk. The people who suffered most from the bites and stings were the blacks, and Ghendwa was busy that evening applying ointments to their backs and faces.
The trees in this region were like none that Noell had ever seen. There were a few familiar species, including the ubiquitous palms and owalas, and some of the dika trees on which wild mangoes grew, but these were larger than usual, often having twisted trunks, as if some giant had long ago seized them and wrung them between his hands. There were others, black-barked and festooned with creepers, which grew in lonely majesty, shading the ground for many yards around them, and they grew crookedly too, as if their boles were made of gourds haphazardly transfixed on long spears. The undergrowth was sparse, and many of the bushes which commonly grew in the open areas where tree-canopies did not meet overhead seemed sickly and diseased.
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