“You must not live!”
“Come, Machimba-lombo, give over. Give over!”
“Filth-Jaqqa! Thief-Jaqqa! Offal-Jaqqa!”
“These names have no force,” said I.
But there was force left in him: that I soon learned, for he pried himself upward, and gave me a great buffet of his rising shoulder against my chin, that left me with my head spinning. Then he reached past me for the dagger he had dropped. I caught his arm just in time, chopping at it with the edge of my hand so that it was numbed, and mine fair numbed also. I took him arm in arm and rolled him over, so that he went through the fire of our hearth and was singed of the face, and howled. But on the far side of the hearth he landed against his sword, that was still stuck in the ground, and this time, such was the direction of his movement, it came free when he pulled at it. He sprang up like a demon and brandished it and swung it in a wide circle through the air, making it hiss and sing.
I saw my spear and snatched it up, and waited for him. For all his dire attack on me, I did not wish the slaying of him; but now I knew I must do it, or perish myself. It was a great loathly sharp sword he had, but a sword is not a good lunging weapon, nor a throwing weapon, and I could stick him from afar, and I would.
I readied myself for the cast. But then suddenly there were torches everywhere, and the place was full of warriors, that swarmed on us and seized us both, and took from us our weapons; and Imbe Calandola himself came to the scene an instant afterward, demanding to know the cause of the uproar.
“I awoke to find him over me with his sword poised,” I said. “And we fought; and we were stopped from fighting. I beg you, Lord Calandola, let me finish this thing.”
And I glowered at Machimba-lombo, all grizzled on one side of his head from the flame in his hair, and battered, and enraged. The full anger was upon me, too, now, and my chest was full of it so I could scarce breathe, for that this man would have done me cowardly to death as I slept, butchering me like a calf. I felt fifty pains from our wrestling, that I had not noticed two moments before. There was across my eyes a mask of hot red rage.
He too was enfuried. He spat toward me, and cried, “Slave-Jaqqa! Pig-Jaqqa!”
“Night-creeper!”
Machimba-lombo did struggle to break free. As did I, and nearly I succeeded, but I was restrained.
Calandola said, “What is this treason, Machimba-lombo? This is the Kimana Kyeer you do menace! Explain your attack.”
But now Machimba-lombo said nothing.
Kinguri and Ntotela and Ti-Bangala and one or two of the other lords entered. They conferred in whispers; Imbe Calandola summoned them to him; after a moment Machimba-lombo was bound with thick plaited withes, and taken off, still cursing and muttering. Only then did the warriors who held my arms pinned behind my back release me. I rubbed at the bruised places I felt all over me, and Kulachinga most timidly came to me, and stroked me to soothe me.
I said, “I know not why he did this ambuscade upon me, for I have done him no injury never, unless my rising so fast in your esteem did enrage him.”
“It was nothing else than that,” said the Imbe-Jaqqa. And he looked dour and thoughtful, that by his ennobling me as Kimana Kyeer he had driven this valued prince of his to despair, and to treason. “He could not abide your triumphs.”
“And would he kill, out of envy alone? Ah, that is it! I should have seen!”
Kinguri said, “He has been greatly angered by your high repute among us, Andubatil. Before you came, he was the most valiant of our warriors, but your musket has darkened his light. We have seen him change in recent weeks. But I had not thought him changed so much, that he would come to slay in the dark.”
Though he would have killed me most foully, I felt a sadness for this lord Machimba-lombo. My anger was passing. I am a man of even temper, as you know. Yet what pain there must have been upon Machimba-lombo, to see me climb so swift in his people! For I knew these Jaqqa lords to have a nobility, that would not permit them so shameful a murder, were they in their proper minds.
To Calandola I said, “What will be done with him now?”
“He will be tried and slain.”
“And is there no sparing him?” I asked.
The Imbe-Jaqqa looked perplexed. “What, you would spare him?”
“It is the Christian way,” said Kinguri quietly to him. “They do love their enemies, by command of their great mokisso”
“Ah,” said Calandola to me, “you love him, then?”
“By God’s feet, I love him not, O Imbe-Jaqqa!” I cried. “When he was in my hands on the floor, I would have had the life from him if I could, for his treachery on me. But now I am more calm. I think it would be a grievous waste to slay him, for his strength is great, and his valor huge.”
“He is worthless now,” said old Ntotela. “He is an animal now, a wild beast.”
“He will recover his wits,” I said. “Look ye, it was only that he was jealous of my honors among you, as the Imbe-Jaqqa has said, because I am newly come and already risen high. But he can be led out of his wrath.”
“Nay,” said Calandola. “This is foolishness. Defend him not to me, Andubatil. He will never leave off his enmity to you now. There is only one way to end this enmity, and that is to put an end to the one who dares attempt murder upon the Kimana Kyeer. Come.”
It was dawn now. A great red blaze of light, that looked like a giant bonfire, was rising over the eastern mountains. The air was soft and heavy, with the hint of a later rain. All the Jaqqas were up, and all appeared to know of Machimba-lombo’s invasion of my sleeping-place, for they were agitated and vehement.
Kinguri, falling in alongside me, said, “This is never done, the striking of one Jaqqa captain by another. It was noble of you to speak in his favor, but you ought not to persist. He is doomed.”
I shrugged. “It is nothing to me, if he die,” I said. For my outburst of mercy had gone from me as swiftly as my earlier red rage had. I felt now all the pains that Machimba-lombo had inflicted upon me in our struggle, and also I felt the strange belated dismay that comes over one when one has had a near thing with death, and has had no time to comprehend it for the first while. But for Kulachinga’s warning I would be cleft halves painting the earth-mother’s breast with my good blood now.
They had Machimba-lombo in the midst of a circle, like the lion-circle of before, and Zimbo and some of the older men were speaking with him. His bonds had been undone, and indeed he seemed quieter now, almost reflective, even saddened. But it was only his failure to slay me that made him downcast. The sunrise fell upon him so that his deeply black skin did shine with a bronzy brightness, and I saw my marks upon his flesh. When he beheld me he glared with new fervor, and I think if he had been freed he would have leapt me all over again.
Imbe Calandola said, approaching him, “Speak, Machimba-lombo, tell us what was in your mind.”
“It was in my mind. O Imbe-Jaqqa, that this man is not one of us, and does not deserve his rank.”
“And so you would slay him?”
“If not I, then who? For I knew you would not remove him. And he should not be what he is among us, for he is not of our kind, I think.”