Humankind is still fooling around with hypocrisy, I thought. They don’t realize that it’s too late even for that.
“No more Sungo. You Yassi.”
“Yes, indeed,” I said. I instructed Romilayu, “Tell the gentleman I am glad to be Yassi, and it’s a great honor. When do we start?”
We had to wait, said Romilayu, interpreting, until the worm came from the king’s mouth. And then the worm would become a tiny lion, and this cub, the little lion, would become the Yassi.
“If pigs were in this, I’d become an emperor, not just a bush-league king,” I said, and took a bitter relish in my own remark. I wished Dahfu had been alive to hear it. “But tell Mr. Horko” (he inclined his thick face, smiling, while the ear-stones dropped again like sinkers; I could have twisted his head and pulled it off with great satisfaction) “it’s a terrific honor. Though the late king was a bigger and better man than I am, I will do the best job I can. I think we have a great future. I ran away from home in the first place because I didn’t have enough to do in my own country, and this is the type of opportunity I have hoped for.” This was how I spoke, and I glowered, but made the glowers seem sincere. “How long do we have to stay in this death house?”
“Him say just three, fo’ days, sah.”
“Okay?” said Horko. “Not long. You marry toutes les leddy.” He started to throw his fingers to show by tens how many there were. Sixty-seven.
“Don’t worry about a thing,” I said to him.
And when he had left, with ceremony, showing that he felt I was indeed in the bag, I said to Romilayu, “We’re going out of here tonight.”
Romilayu looked up at me in silence, his upper lip growing very long with despair.
“Tonight,” I repeated. “We have the moon. Last night it was bright enough to read the telephone directory by. Have we been in this town a full month?”
“Yes, sah-Whut we do?”
“You’ll start yelling in the night. You’ll say I’ve been bitten by a snake, or something. That leather fellow will come with the two amazons to see what’s wrong. If he doesn’t open the door we’ll have to try another scheme. But suppose the door is opened. Then take this stone-you understand? — and jam it in by the hinge so the door won’t close. That’s all we need. Now where’s your knife?”
“Me keep knife, sah.”
“I don’t need it. Yes, you keep the knife. All right, do you follow me? You’ll holler that the Sungo Yassi, or whatever I am to these murderers, is bitten by a snake. My leg is swelling fast. And you must stand by the door ready to jam it.” I showed him exactly what I wanted done.
So when night began, I sat plotting, concentrating my ideas and trying to protect their clarity from my fever, which increased every afternoon and rose far into the night. I had to fight against delirium, as my condition was aggravated by the suffocation of the tomb and the hours of vigil I spent at the chink in the wall straining one eye at a time toward the dead figure of the king. Sometimes I imagined that I could see some of the features under the flap of the cowl. But this was more mental … mental deceit; dream. My head was out of order, as I realized even then. I was most aware of it at night, under the influence of fever, when mountains and idols and cattle and lions, and gross black women, the amazons, and the face of the king and the thatch of the hopo visited my mind, coming and going unannounced. However, I held tight and waited for moonrise, the time I had chosen to go into action. Romilayu didn’t sleep. From the corner where he lay propped his gaze was never interrupted. I could find him by his eyes, which were always there.
“You no change you min’, sah?” he once or twice asked.
“No, no. No change.”
And when I judged the time was right, I took a deep, stiff breath, so that my sternum gave a crack. My ribs were sore. “Go!” I said to Romilayu. The fellow next door was certainly sleeping, for I had heard no stir since nightfall. I picked Romilayu up in my arms and held him to the chink we had dug out. Clutching him, I could feel the tremors that ran through his body, and he began to yell and stammer. I added some groans as if from the background, and then the Bunam’s man woke up. I heard his feet. Then he must have stood listening as Romilayu repeated in his quaver, “Yassi k’muti!” K’muti I had heard from the beaters as they carried Dahfu toward the tomb. K’muti-he is dying. It must have been the last word to reach his ears. “Wunnutu zazai k’muti. Yassi k’muti.” It’s not a hard language; I was picking it up fast.
Then the door of the king’s tomb opened and the Bunam’s man began to shout.
“Oh,” said Romilayu to me, “him call two sojer leddy, sah.”
I set him on his feet and lay down on the floor. “The stone is ready,” I said. “Go to the door and do your stuff. If we don’t get out we haven’t got a month to live.”
I saw torchlight through the door, which meant that the amazons had come on the double, and it is the most curious thing of all that it was the murder in my heart which calmed me most. It gave me confidence. It was like a balm to me that if I got my hands on the Bunam’s narrow-faced man I would be the death of him. “Him at least I will do in,” I kept thinking. So, fully calculating, I made cries of fear and weakness-and I gloated at these sounds of weakness, for I really did feel that my strength was low just then but that it would come back to me as soon as I touched the Bunam’s man. A strip of board was removed from the door. By the lifted flare the Bunam’s man saw me writhing, clutching my leg. The bolt was dropped, and one of the amazons began to open the door. “The stone,” I cried as if in pain, and I saw by the flare that Romilayu had pushed the stone oblong below the hinge exactly as I told him, although the point of a spear held by the amazon was right under his chin. He retreated toward me. This I saw under the great, lapping, torn smoky tissue of the fire. The amazon yelled when I pulled her off her feet. The spear point scraped the wall, and I prayed it hadn’t touched Romilayu. I struck the woman’s head against the stones. Under the circumstances I couldn’t afford to make any allowance for her femininity. The fire had been dashed out and the door swiftly closed, but it stuck on the stone just enough to let me get my fingers on the edge. Both the other amazon and the Bunam’s man pulled against me, but I tore the thing open. I worked in silence. I was now covered by the night air, which did me good immediately. First I hit the second amazon only with the edge of my hand, a commando trick. It was enough. It lamed her, and she fell to the ground. All this was still in silence, for they made no more noise than I did. Then I went after the man, who was escaping to the other side of the mausoleum. Three strides and I caught him by the hair. I lifted him straight up at arm’s length so that he could see my face by the almost risen moon. I snarled. All the skin of his face was drawn upward by the force of my clutch, so that his eyes slanted. As I took him by the throat and began to choke him, Romilayu ran up to me yelling, “No, no, sah.”
“I’m going to strangle him.”
“No kill him, sah.”
“Don’t interfere,” I yelled, and shook the Bunam’s man up and down by the hair. “He is the killer. That man inside is dead because of him.” But I had stopped choking the Bunam’s wizard. I swung his whitened body by the head. No sound came forth.
“You no kill him,” said Romilayu earnestly, “Bunam no chase us.”
“There’s murder in my heart, Romilayu,” I said.
“You be my friend, sah?”
“I’ll break some of his bones, then. I’ll make a deal with you,” I said. “You have a right to make a claim on me. Yes, you’re my friend. But what about Dahfu? Wasn’t he my friend, too? All right, I won’t break bones. I’ll beat him.”
But I didn’t beat him, either. I flung the man into the room we had been locked in, and the two amazons with him. Romilayu took away their spears, and we bolted the door. We then went into the other chamber. The moon had now risen and every object was visible. Romilayu picked up the basket of yams, while I walked over to the king.