I do suggest that early tomorrow morning you and I go out into the forest, hunt the lion that ate your stepfather, kill it and bring its head here for the rest of the people to see. That would greatly impress our tribe and make you very popular.’
‘And it would also please my poor mother!’ cried Kahawa, becoming quite excited about this brilliant suggestion. ‘Oh Mpushu, you are the very fountain of wisdom!’
‘I believe so . . . yes,’ said Mpushu modestly.
Kahawa was so excited by the prospect of the coming lion hunt that he could not sleep that night. It was months since he had killed a lion and if there was one kind of beast that the son of Marimba wanted to wipe out of existence it was lion. Kahawa hated this kind of animal only a shade less than he hated his stepfather, and deep in his rebellious and turbulent soul this youth nursed a profound contempt for the custom of his tribe of first asking the gods for permission to kill lions.
When dawn stained the eastern skies a pink-red, Kahawa deliberately omitted to perform the lion-hunter’s ceremony and to request Heaven’s permission. He was content with washing his face, gargling with water mixed with powdered mbaba root, and combing his hair with a four-toothed ivory comb. Seizing his bone-tipped spears and elephant-skin shield, he rushed out to wait for his friend Mpushu at the gate of the vast Wakambi settlement.
At the gate the young prince waited with fuming impatience and he watched as the slowly rising sun sent its first rays to bathe the huts of the settlement where his mother ruled the first organised tribe in the land. It was a tribe of nomads and pioneers, the first Bantu to penetrate the land which in later years was to be known as Tanga-Nyika. Still later, the northern division would be known as Lu-Kenya. This great settlement was built near the top of a steep hill, and it circled this hill as a ‘headband of honour’ around a bald chief’s head. A heavy palisade of thick logs with a solitary gate went round the outside of the settlement like some formidable diadem. Behind this stockade were five thousand huts. These huts were crude and rather ugly compared with those built many generations later. The upper reaches of the hill were honey-combed with caves and natural shelters, where lived those of the Wakambi who disliked the too modern idea of huts.
The Wakambi had fortified their settlement, not against attack by men because, as far as they knew, they were the only representatives of the human race in the fantastic and frightening land, but against the terrible beasts which no story-teller must ever describe – beasts known simply as the Dija-Nwana, or ‘Night Howlers’. These terrible demons loved to raid human villages during their mating season in the first moon of summer, and they would carry away men, women and children and devour these in their dark dens on the shores of the mighty lake of the Falling Star – known today as Nyanza.
Those were terrible days – those days when the Dawn of Time was still red in the horizon of Eternity. Those were the days when Outcast Gods, Dimo Giants, Viper Maidens, Life Eaters and Fire Leopards and many other monsters, vicious and horrible beyond description, still roamed a frightened earth.
But let us not delude ourselves into thinking that these horrible creatures no longer exist; they do. They take human shapes and cause evil in the lands of men. They disguise themselves as human beings and cause mighty wars in the lands of the tribes before vanishing once more into the ‘Land-that-is-and-is-not’. They leave thousands of foolish human beings to kill each other. They can take over the bodies of people whom we know and commit vile crimes as them. These Evil Ones are with us yet.
Kahawa waited with growing impatience for the coming of his friend, his feet itching to take off into the mysterious forest. He longed to see the red blood of a hateful lion splatter the earth.
At last Mpushu appeared, unarmed and very scared-looking indeed. His thick-lipped fish-like mouth opened and closed like that of one just speared by a fisherman. Kahawa was amazed. He was disgusted and annoyed when his fat friend suddenly gasped: ‘My lord, we must not go and hunt this lion today.’
For a few moments Kahawa was too angry to speak. His one great wish was to send Mpushu flying to the ground with a blow from his fist. But with great effort he controlled himself, fighting down the savage rage – the fumes of which clouded his brain and dimmed his vision with a red haze. When he found his voice at last he said, coldly and in measured tones: ‘I have always suspected you are a coward, Oh Mpushu, and now I am sure!’
Mpushu’s eyes bulged and his ebony black face grew blacker. He swallowed noisily once and then said hoarsely: ‘You know that I am no coward, Oh Kahawa . . . you know it!’
‘If you are not a coward then go and get your weapons and let us proceed,’ said Kahawa, still in the same cold voice.
A few moments later the two friends made their silent way down the hillside towards the brooding forest. Kahawa was thirsting for the blood of the old lion. His brain was already alive with pictures of himself standing triumphant over the old beast slowly dying at his feet.
But Mpushu was quaking with fear – fear from no earthly cause.
It was well past midday when the two friends, who had not spoken a single word to each other since leaving the settlement, came at last upon the trail of the lame old lion Kahawa had sworn to kill. They followed the trail from where the lion had eaten Kahawa’s stepfather to where he had lain for the night. They followed the trail thence to where he had brought down a young impala which he had only partly eaten. They followed the trail from the carcass to where the old beast himself lay peacefully under an overhanging rock not far from the northern shore of the great ‘Lake of the star that fell’.
It was Mpushu who first saw the lion lying there, the many battle scars on his tawny hide plainly visible. His eyes were still shining with that fire of greatness and unconquerable courage that one finds in all these noble beasts. Lonely, mateless and weak with age, this lion was still as regal as he had been in his younger days. A chief dethroned in some savage woodland battle, yea, but a chieftain nevertheless.
‘Your lion, my lord,’ whispered Mpushu.
A gleam of demon-like delight burst upon the cold eyes of Kahawa. He raised his long spear with the needle-sharp point of bone and covered himself with his knee-length shield of elephant hide. Slowly he approached the lion with Mpushu close behind him.
He was about ten paces away from it when the beast turned his head and swept both his would-be attackers with his burning golden stare. He watched them as they came through the long grass, quietly, almost contemptuously, and he did not even move a muscle. His teeth bared and his eyes narrowed as Kahawa ventured another step or two. But for the rest he just lay there, calmly watching the hunters.
Suddenly Kahawa felt his fierce courage deserting him. Suddenly he was not a warrior thirsting for blood but a puzzled young boy facing a situation he could not understand. Lowering his spear he turned and looked at his friend – just in time to see Mpushu also lowering his spear, which he had held poised a thumb’s length above Kahawa’s kidneys.
‘You treacherous jackal! You were trying to stab me from behind! Are you mad?’
‘No, my prince. I had made it my unpleasant duty to kill you in order to stop you from killing this lion.’
‘What are you talking about, Mpushu?’ asked Kahawa in blank amazement. ‘You . . . my friend . . . would have killed me . . . and you yourself suggested it.’
‘I would not have allowed you to take another step closer to the lion, my lord. You see, that lion is
