VI
There were two apertures in the tree, one large, about a half a yard from the ground; the other smaller, and about as high as the first story of a city residence. Mea had scarcely thrown the lighted, smoking branches into the lower one when immediately out of the upper one big bats began to fly; squeaking and blinded by the luster of the sun, they flew aimlessly about the tree. But after a while from the lower opening there stole out, like lightning, a real tenant, in the person of a monstrous boa, who evidently, digesting the remnants of the last feast in a semi-somnolent state, had not become aroused and did not think of safety until the smoke curled in his nostrils. At the sight of the strong body, which, like a monstrous spring, darted out of the smoking interior of the tree, Stas grabbed Nell in his arms and began to run with her in the direction of the open jungle. But the reptile, itself terror-stricken, did not think of pursuing them; instead, winding in the grass and among the scattered packages, it slid away with unheard-of speed in the direction of the ravine, seeking to hide amid the rocky fissures and crannies. The children recovered their composure. Stas placed Nell on the ground and rushed for his rifle, and afterwards pursued the snake in the direction of the ravine, Nell following him. But after going a score of paces such an extraordinary spectacle struck their eyes that they stood still as if thunderstruck. Now high above the ravine appeared in the twinkling of an eye the body of the snake, and, describing a zigzag in the air, it fell again to the bottom. After a while it appeared a second time and again fell. The children, reaching the brink, saw with amazement that their new friend, the elephant, was amusing himself in this manner, for having first despatched the snake twice upon an aerial journey, at present he was crushing its head with his prodigious foot which resembled a log. Having finished this operation, he again lifted the still quivering body with his trunk; this time, however, he did not toss it upwards, but directly into the waterfall. After this, nodding both ways and fanning himself with his ears, he began to gaze keenly at Nell, and finally stretched out his trunk towards her as if claiming a reward for his heroic and, at the same time, sensible deed.
Nell ran at once to the tent and returning with a box full of wild figs, began to throw a few at a time to him, while he searched for them in the grass and placed one after another in his mouth. Those which fell in deeper crevices, he blew out with such force that, with the figs, stones the size of a man's fist flew up. The children received this exhibition with applause and laughter. Nell went back several times for new supplies, not ceasing to contend with each fig that the elephant was entirely tamed and that they could even at that moment go down to him.
"You see, Stas; we now shall have a defender. For he is afraid of nobody in the desert—neither lion, nor snake, nor crocodile. And he is very good and surely loves us."
"If he is tamed," said Stas, "and if I can leave you under his care, then really I can go hunting in perfect peace, for a better defender for you I could not find in all Africa."
After a while he added:
"The elephants of this place are wild, but I have read that Asiatic elephants, for instance, have a strange weakness for children. It has never occurred in India that an elephant has harmed a child, and if one falls in a rage, as sometimes happens, the native keepers send children to pacify him."
"Ah, you see! You see!"
"In any case you did well in not allowing me to kill him."
At this Nell's pupils flashed with joy like two little greenish flames. Standing on tiptoe, she placed both her hands on Stas' shoulders and, tilting her head backward, asked, gazing into his eyes:
"I acted as if I had how many years? Tell me! As if I had how many years?"
And he replied:
"At least seventy."
"You are always joking."
"Get angry, get angry, but who will free the elephant?"
Hearing this, Nell began at once to fawn like a little kitten.
"You—and I shall love you very much and he will also."
"I am thinking of that," Stas said, "but it will be hard work and I shall not do it at once, but only when we are ready to start upon a farther journey."
"Why?"
"Because if we should free him before he is entirely tame and becomes attached to us, he would go away at once."
"Oh! He won't go away from me."
"You think that he already is like me," retorted Stas with impatience.
Further conversation was checked by the arrival of Kali, who brought with him the slain zebra and its colt, which had been partly devoured by Saba. It was the good fortune of the mastiff that he rushed after Kali, and was not present at the encounter with the python for he would have chased after him and, overtaking him, would have perished in his murderous coils before Stas could come to his aid. For eating the zebra he received, however, from Nell a tongue-lashing which after all he did not take too much to heart as he did not even hide his lolling tongue, with which he came running in from the hunt.
Stas announced in the meantime to Kali that he intended to arrange a dwelling in the interior of the tree and related to him what had occurred during the smoking out of the trunk, as well as how the elephant had handled the snake. The idea of living in the baobab tree, which would afford a protection not only against the rain but also against the wild animals, pleased the negro very much; but on the other hand the conduct of the elephant did not meet his approval.
"The elephant is foolish," he said, "so he threw the nioka (snake) into the thundering water, but Kali knows that nioka is good; so he will search for it in the thundering waters, and bake it as Kali is wise—and is a donkey."
"It is agreed that you are a donkey," Stas answered, "but of course you will not eat the snake."
"Nioka is good," repeated Kali. And pointing at the slain zebra, he added:
"Better than that niama."
After which both went into the baobab tree and occupied themselves in arranging the dwelling. Kali, having found on the river-side a flat stone the size of a sieve, placed it in the trunk, heaped burning coals upon it, and afterwards continually added more fuel, watching only that the decayed wood on the inside did not ignite and cause the conflagration of the whole tree. He said that he did this in order that "nothing should bite the great master and the bibi." In fact it appeared that this was not a useless precaution, for as soon as smoke filled the interior of the tree and spread even on the outside there began to creep out of the cracks in the bark a great variety of creatures; scarabees, black and cherry-colored, shaggy spiders big as plums, caterpillars of the thickness of a finger, covered as though with thorns, and loathsome and at the same time venomous scolopendras whose bite may even cause death. In view of what was occurring on the outside of the trunk it was easy to surmise how many similar creatures must have perished from the fumes of the smoke on the inside. Those which fell from the bark and lower branches upon the grass were crushed unmercifully with a stone by Kali, who was continually gazing at the upper and lower openings as if he feared that at any moment something strange might appear in either of them.
"Why are you looking so?" Stas asked. "Do you think that another snake is hiding in the tree?"
"No, Kali fears Mzimu!"
"What is a Mzimu?"
"An evil spirit."
"Did you ever in your life see a Mzimu?"
"No, but Kali has heard the horrible noise which Mzimu makes in the huts of fetish-men."
"Nevertheless your fetish-men do not fear him."
"The fetish-men know how to exorcise him, and afterwards go to the huts and say that Mzimu is angry; so the negroes bring them bananas, honey, pombe (beer made of sorghum plant), eggs, and meat in order to propitiate the Mzimu."
Stas shrugged his shoulders.
"I see that it is a good thing to be a fetish-man among your people. Perhaps that snake was Mzimu?"
Kali shook his head.
"In such case the elephant could not kill the Mzimu, but the Mzimu would kill the elephant. Mzimu is death."
Some kind of strange crash and rumble within the tree suddenly interrupted his reply. From the lower aperture there burst out a strange ruddy dust, after which there resounded a second crash, louder than the former one.
Kali threw himself in the twinkling of an eye upon his face and began to cry shrilly:
"Aka! Mzimu! Aka! Aka! Aka!"
Stas at first stepped back, but soon recovered his composure, and when Nell with Mea came running up he began to explain what might have happened.
"In all probability," he said, "a whole mass of decayed wood in the interior of the trunk, expanding from the heat, finally tumbled down and buried the burning wood. And he thinks that it was Mzimu. Let Mea, however, pour water a few times through the opening; if the live embers are not extinct for want of air and the decayed wood is kindled, the tree might be consumed by fire."
After which, seeing that Kali continued lying down and did not cease repeating with terror, "Aka! Aka!" he took the rifle with which he usually shot at guinea-fowl and, firing into the opening, said, shoving the boy with the barrel:
"Your Mzimu is killed. Do not fear."
And Kali raised his body, but remained on his knees.
"Oh, great master! great! You do not even fear Mzimu!"
"Aka! Aka!" exclaimed Stas, mimicking the negro.
And he began to laugh.
The negro became calm after a time and when he sat down to partake of the food prepared by Mea, it appeared that the temporary fright had not at all deprived him of his appetite, for besides a portion of smoked meat he consumed the raw liver of the zebra colt, not counting the wild figs, which a sycamore growing in the neighborhood furnished in great abundance. Afterwards with Stas they returned to the tree, about which there was yet a good deal of work to do. The removal of the decayed wood and the ashes, with hundreds of broiled scarabees and centipedes, together with a score of baked bats occupied over two hours' time. Stas was also surprised that the bats could live in the immediate neighborhood of the snake. He surmised, however, that the gigantic python either despised such trifling game or, not being able to wind himself around anything in the interior of the trunk, could not reach them. The glowing coals, having caused the fall of layers of decayed wood, cleaned out the interior splendidly, and its appearance delighted Stas, for it was as wide as a large room and could have given shelter not merely to four persons, but to ten men. The lower opening formed a doorway and the upper a window, thanks to which in the huge trunk it was neither dark nor stifling. Stas thought of dividing the whole, by means of the tent canvas, into two rooms, of which one was to be assigned to Nell and Mea and the other to himself, Kali, and Saba. The tree was not decayed to the top of the trunk; the rain, therefore, could not leak to the center, but in order to be protected completely, it was sufficient to raise and prop bark above both openings in such manner that it should form two eaves. The bottom of the interior he determined to strew with sand from the river bank which had been grilled by the sun, and to carpet its surface with dry moss.
The work was really hard, especially for Kali, for he had, in addition, to cure the meat, water the horses, and think of fodder for the elephant who was incessantly trumpeting for it. But the young negro proceeded to work about the new abode with great willingness and even ardor; the reason for this he explained the same day to Stas in the following manner:
"When the great master and the 'bibi,'" he said, holding his arms akimbo, "live in the tree, Kali will not have to build big zarebas for the night and he can be idle every night."
"Then you like to be idle?" Stas asked.
"Kali is a man, so Kali loves to be idle, as only women ought to work."
"But you see, however, that I work for the 'bibi.'"
"But because when the 'bibi' grows up she will have to work for the great master, and, if she does not want to, the great master will whip her."
But Stas, at the very thought of whipping the "bibi," jumped as if scalded and shouted in anger:
"Fool, do you know who the 'bibi' is?"
"I do not," replied the black boy with fear.
"Bibi—is—is—a good Mzimu."
And Kali cowered.
After finishing his work he approached Nell bashfully; then he fell on his face and began to repeat, not indeed in a terror-stricken, but in an entreating voice:
"Aka! Aka! Aka!"
And the "Good Mzimu" stared at him, with her beautiful, sea-green eyes wide open, not understanding what had happened nor what was the matter with Kali.