“I do not tell lies,” he said. “I tell you things that are difficult to say with your words. Let us talk of another matter. I will tell you what the Arabs say.”
“You are an Arab, Morch.”
“No.”
“You are white, like them.”
Morris had been, during his time in Q’Kut, so subconsciously aware of his status as a white man among brown men, that it was a shock to realise that to people as black as the marshmen they were all equally pale strangers.
“I live with the Arabs, but I am not an Arab.”
“You are certainly not of the people.”
“True.”
Qab nodded. Morris saw that in his mind only two types of man inhabited the sun-world. Anyone else came from the other place. He ploughed on.
“The Arabs also say that the Bond is broken. They say that Dyal poisoned the darts. They say it is the manner of the marsh-men’s hunting, but then the descendant of Nillum took the dart from his body and threw it back, as in the Testament of Na!ar, poisoning Dyal also. They say the beginning of the fight was this: there are great riches in the marshes . . .”
“The buffalo give good milk this year, it is true.”
“They do not seek to take your buffalo. Again, it is hard to say in your words. But first they will take the water. There will be no more floods.”
Qab frowned at Morris, then turned to stare at the grey, unruffled water that interlaced the brown reed-banks.
“They say that Dyal killed the descendant of Nillum,” said Morris, “He did not wish that the Arabs should come among the marshes. They say the Bond is now broken, and they will take vengeance. They will make war, saying it is for vengeance, but in their hearts they desire your land.”
“The Bond is broken. We may go among the Arabs and slay and steal.”
“I say the Bond is not broken. I say the new descendant of Nillum sent me here. I say he asks your help. He must show the Arabs that the blood-feud is foolish. Gaur must tell the true story of the killing. I seek for Gaur, coming to you under that hand.”
Morris had spoken with emphatic oratory and now gestured, without looking round, to where the box swung on the pole. The possibility of war had made Qab listen with real interest, and his eyes followed the gesture. At once his face changed. His hand was clapped in horror to his forehead and his mouth breathed soundless syllables. Morris swung round.
Dinah had been very quiet, presumably already listless with heat. Not so—she had been, for who knows how long, squatting on the roof-tree solving the problem of how to reach the box. At the moment of Morris’s gesture she must have worked it out, twisting the pole in its rings until the curve of it brought the box above her head. Morris leaped to his feet and grabbed the pole in the same moment that she grabbed the box. He hoicked up, she down; something gave and he was overbalancing with the pole waving while she was scampering to the other end of the roof to examine her trophy.
He opened his fruit-box and took out a banana, then hurried to the other end of the hut and clicked his fingers at her. She looked up. He showed her the banana. She put the box to her ear and shook it. Silently Morris cursed her intelligence—she would prefer to win a reward by solving a problem than win one by being good. He hadn’t much time, for she was experienced in closed-box problems and would soon spot that there was no lid or catch to this one, but that it was woven all in one piece, and then her strong, dark hands would tear it apart in seconds. The moment she was absorbed in her problem he swung the pole along the roof and knocked her off the end.
She fell, twisting like a gymnast, landing fully-balanced on her feet, still grasping the box. He grabbed at it. She wrenched from the other side. The ancient wickerwork collapsed and out of its ruins tumbled a pale shape. Morris had just time to see that it was the bones of a hand, wired together with copper, before she had pounced and was scampering away to the next hut, leaping for the roof and settling down to examine her trophy. As he raced across with the banana in one hand and the pole in the other she wrenched a finger from the hand and put it in her mouth.
One chew and she was in a tantrum, the hysteric indignation of those who have been cheated by themselves. No banana—only dry bones. She spat the finger out, rose to her feet and tore the hand apart, throwing the bones to and fro round the hut, screeching with disappointment. Morris scuttered about picking the bones up and stuffing them into his shirt pocket. The wrist-bone landed in the corner of a buffalo-pen, six inches deep in slime, and by the time he had probed it clear Dinah was back on top of the original hut, smugly eating the banana he had dropped.
He knelt on his mat and took the bones out of his pocket, arranging them loosely in their proper pattern; but being no anatomist he found himself with three unlikely oddments left over, which he was only able to place by the position of the broken wires. When at last he looked up he saw that another man had joined them, younger than Qab, small and sturdy. This man held a spear in the stabbing position with its serrated flint tip two feet from Morris’s neck and glistening with black unguent.
“I will mend the hand,” whispered Morris. “See, I have all the bones.”
“The Bond is broken. So the hand is broken,” said Qab. “This is sure. A witch comes to Alaurgan-Alaurgad, where Na!ar swore his oath. He brings a creature who breaks the hand. He dances before this creature, clicking his fingers like a child training a buffalo calf.”
The third person was not chosen because Qab wished to state his case dispassionately, but because there is a class of beings to whom no wise man will speak direct.
“I am not a witch,” said Morris. “Dinah is not a creature of the moon-world. I do not command her. Would I come here thus, by day, when there are warriors in Alaurgan-Alaurgad, with spears to kill me?”
“Ho,” said Qab. “The witch came in the dark, but the good mimulus-weed, which sinks by night, deceived him with the appearance of clear water. A witch lives in the moon-world, as one may see from the colour of this witch’s skin. To send a witch back to the moon-world he must be killed in the sun-world. A child knows this. Witches are very stupid, being dazzled by light, in the sun-world. Strike, Fau.”
Morris looked bleakly round. About fifty men and women had come from somewhere and stood in a half-circle to watch him die. Dinah tossed her banana-skin down from the roof. It fell with a flap on the mat. Fau lowered his spear.
“The men of my age-set say ‘Let us take him to Gal-Gal’,” he said.
“Strike,” said Qab.
“His words are perhaps true.”
“He tells many lies. A child would know them. He is so stupid with sunlight.”
“I slay him here, now. Then the other clans say ‘Was this a witch? Who is Qab to declare the Bond to be broken? When did the water-snake become wise?’ There will be many buffaloes to pay, Qab.”
“Strike, Fau.”
“Let us take him to Gal-Gal. Then the duck clan will not say ‘When did the water-snake learn the smell of a witch?’ They cannot then demand buffaloes. You are an old fool, Qab, and soon you will die. Your sons have taken all your buffaloes. You are like spear-poison which is seven and seven days old. Yes, soon you will die. But my age-set is full of strength, and we say ‘Let us take one calf to the duck clan now. Let us not pay seven sevens calves next flood.’”
Qab relaxed and scratched his crotch.
“Can the witch make my leg clean?” he asked the steaming air.
“I am not a witch,” said Morris shakily. “I do not heal wounds nor drive out blackwater spirits. I only carry a message from the descendant of Nillum. But let us go to Gal-Gal. Let Gaur be sent for also.”