Again the cry went up, “Andubatil! Andubatil Jaqqa!”
And the Jaqqas did turn outward their hands, and slap against their temples, and cut the air with their elbows, which all are their ways of showing amaze.
This display of killing sank deep in the soul of Imbe Calandola. He stood a long time brooding, looking toward me and then to the shattered fallen owl, and to the musket, and to me again. For he had never seen our weapons in action, and certainly not the musket: for the Portugals are more given to the older instruments, such as the arquebus and the caliver, and muskets are uncommon among them. And a way of striking death from a distance, with so loud a roar and so bright a flash—yea, that caught the Imbe-Jaqqa’s interest, and held it firm!
Then Calandola did make a little grunt and a gesture, and out of the crowd of women about him came one of his wives, a woman of perhaps thirty years, who bore a maze of tribal scars on her body, and whose teeth were few and whose breasts were long and low-hanging. The Imbe-Jaqqa ordered her to take up a stance at some hundred paces from me, or a little less, and there she stood, unmoving, and seeming as uncaring as a tree.
“Do it to her,” said Imbe Calandola.
That command struck me as would a knee in the gut. Cold-blooded slaughter of an innocent woman? God’s eyes, that was worse than cannibalism!
“Nay,” I said. “I cannot.”
“Cannot?” Calandola repeated, turning the word around in his mouth as though it were some rare delicacy. “Cannot? Who says this to the Imbe-Jaqqa?”
Kinguri, closer by me, murmured, “The Imbe-Jaqqa fain would see how your weapon works on such a target.”
“I understand,” said I, “but it is not in me to slay her.”
“She has no life except at the Imbe-Jaqqa’s pleasure,” returned Kinguri. “That has now been withdrawn from her.”
“I am tired, and the weapon is heavy, and I have had so much wine tonight that I fear my aim will be untrue.”
“Your aim was true enough when you shot the owl.”
“God guided my eye then,” said I, “but He will do that but once a night, and before I may shoot again I must make special prayers to Him, that will be quite lengthy.”
In thus speaking of God and long prayer I hoped to divert them, until they forgot this evil enterprise, as my circumcision had been forgotten. It did not thus befall. Kinguri spat and said something to Calandola; and the Imbe-Jaqqa, growing impatient, folded his arms and grunted, and his eyes blazed and a ghastly raging scowl came across his features.
Kinguri said, “Andubatil, why do you wait?”
“This is not easy for me.”
“The Imbe-Jaqqa would see the display.”
“I beg you—”
And all this while the woman stood unmoving, waiting the fatal shot. Whether she was aware of the essence of our talk or no, I cannot say: but I have seen dumb animals in the field look with greater sense upon the huntsman that in a moment will blow out their lives.
Then Calandola, angered to madness now by my slowness, cried out something to me in the Jaqqa tongue, his voice so thick with roarings and snortings that I could not identify the words. He did stamp his foot and spit and pound his fists, and his black face grew blacker still with rage. He appeared at that moment a pure madman, capable of any deed.
While that he raged, I did begin to reload my musket, which is a painful slow business. I was thinking that if he should launch some attack upon me, and in his anger condemn me to the cauldron, or worse, I would at least turn my musket on him, and take his life before he could have mine.
Yet that idea went from my mind the instant I conceived it, for it was the greatest folly: among these cannibals the Imbe-Jaqqa was near to being a god, and if I were to harm him even slightly, I knew, the death that his followers would give me would be the most foul this world doth hold, a slow boiling, perhaps, or something far more terrible even than that. So I banished the plan, and searched for some other way to mollify him, but there was none, save to do his bidding. His rage yet mounted and I feared to defy him, and to my disgrace I could no longer find the will to say him nay in this terrible thing.
Kinguri said, “It will go hard for us all if you do not obey.”
“Shoot!” howled the Imbe-Jaqqa.
“Lord give Thy unhappy servant mercy, and forgive me,” I whispered, and I touched my finger to the trigger and discharged my shot.
Mine arms were trembling and mine eyes were half blinded with tears of shame. Yet did the musket-ball fly true to his target and take the woman between her breasts, and knock her back five or ten paces and drop her sprawling to the ground.
Some Jaqqas ran to her, and danced about her, and held her up bleeding, and lifted her like a trophy. And they did set up a wild howling of glee.
Thus did I for the only time in my life slay a purely innocent person, that had done no harm to me, and promised none, and made me no obstacle. And for that I think I will do penance long years before I am let see Paradise. But yet in the moment of doing it I felt I had no other way, but to gratify the dark demand of the Imbe-Jaqqa.
Who now was entirely at his ease, and smiling, and applauding me for my marksmanship. That crazed wrath of his of only a moment before was altogether gone from him, as though it had never been. He came to my side and wrapped his great arm about me and hugged me joyfully, and gave me warm praise in coarse Jaqqa words I scarce understood, and caressed the hot barrel of my musket, and called for his cup-bearer to bring me a draught of the royal wine that was mixed with blood. And lifted the cup high, and pronounced a long pronouncement, and gave me the cup to drain.
Kinguri and the other Jaqqa lords did circle close about, and I saw their eyes glittering like shining stars, and their faces set in deep expressions, and some of them not amused, nor friendly in the least.
“What is it he says?” I asked Kinguri.
“Ah, Andubatil, he names you to be the chief of all his warriors.”
“Do you tell me so?”
“And makes you the lieutenant of the battlefield, and says all honors will be yours.”
“But I am white! I am Christian!”
“You are Andubatil Jaqqa. He calls you also Kimana Kyeer, that is, Lord of the Thunder.”
And with the saying of that new name the other Jaqqas about us did shout, “Kimana Kyeer! Kimana Kyeer!” But some were joyous and some were scowling, as well they might, if this white stranger had been raised in rank above them in the twinkling of an eye only because he carried a thunder-stick.
Calandola gestured in his impatient way, and made the sounds that I knew now to mean, “Drink! Drink!”
Therefore did I drink. And they backslapped me and handled me, so that the drink did run down my chin and chest, and the wine dripped all the way to my loins, where I felt it sliding over my privities, that wine that was mixed with blood.
“Kimana Kyeer!” they all did cry.
And I all the while could think only of that poor dumb woman that I had blown to Hell with my musket at his cruel inhuman command, the which I had not had the strength to resist.
Kinguri to me did say, “You are fortunate. He will make you great among us, and give you great gladness, for that you have the power to slay from afar.”
I looked to the other lordlings and saw them discussing among themselves, and some nodding and some spitting, and I knew that it was perilous delicate to be elevated to lieutenant and duke among these folk. Yet had I been a prisoner and a pawn overlong, and if my musket did win me acclaim, well, be I then Kimana Kyeer in gladness, said I to myself, and Devil have the hindmost.