shard of ligwadla rock, and the princess noted with great relief that the spear, though formidable looking and heavy, was inferior to the bone-tipped Wakambi lances, because the latter could be sharpened, while when the more fragile stone point became broken the whole head had to be replaced.
But the other weapon filled Marimba with fear. It seemed that the stranger relied mostly on this weapon. It was a great bow with a well greased string and a heavy quiver full of stone-tipped arrows.
The bow was unknown to the Wakambi and many warriors were standing around and looking down at it in obvious puzzlement and dismay. It was clearly a deadly weapon and the Wakambi had no answer to it.
It was Mpushu who found the secret of opening the stranger’s tight-lipped mouth after all else had failed. He merely strode up to the prisoner and said in cold disgust: ‘Whatever race spawned a miserable coward like this one is indeed very unlucky. Just look at him lying there; he is almost wetting his loinskin with fear and yet he tries to look brave!’
The stranger’s eyes narrowed with anger and his gleaming teeth were bared in savage rage. His voice, heavy with a foreign accent, was barely a whisper as he said in clear though halting Si-Wakambi: ‘What did you call me?’
Mpushu whistled jubilantly. ‘So the beast can talk, can it? It is not dumb after all! I called you a coward, Oh vermin, and that you most certainly are.’
‘Untie my hands and feet, then we can talk further . . .’
‘Untie your limbs?’ exclaimed Mpushu in mock surprise, to drag out more conversation. ‘But we have only just caught you.’
‘You miserable fat idiot!’ bellowed the stranger. ‘I’ll tear you limb from limb as soon as I am free of these bonds.’
‘No loinskin-wetting foreign coward is ever going to tear me apart,’ said Mpushu happily. ‘And especially not a starveling like you.’
‘I am no starveling,’ roared the stranger. ‘You are speaking to a Masai, you bloated dog!’
‘You are what?’ asked Mpushu, highly amused, ‘a Makai? What is a Makai? From what slime-pit does a Makai crawl? It sounds like some kind of carrion worm.’
‘I said I am a Masai!’ bellowed the captive. ‘And soon you will be cracking your stupid jokes in the land of the dead. The armies of my father, Fesi the Wolf, are very close at hand. You will all be dead by midnight.’
‘But what have we done that you wish to make war on us?’ asked Marimba softly, now that the prisoner’s tongue was thoroughly loosened.
‘The Masai need no reason for making war,’ sneered the captive. ‘They fight whom they please, whenever and wherever they feel like it.’
‘But you are human like us, and you cannot kill people for no reason,’ protested the beautiful woman.
‘The Masai are more than human. They are invincible and their might in war is beyond all human might,’ boasted the prisoner. ‘The Masai are gods and ’tis you who are low-down human vermin.’
‘Oh!’ breathed Marimba. Her breasts heaved and a rare flash of anger brightened her large eyes briefly.
‘The Masai are the “Great People”, the true lords of Creation. To us, war and killing are the very breath of life, more pleasant than a woman’s kiss, and more heady than marula beer.’
‘For a captive in enemy hands you have far too big a mouth,’ said Kahawa coldly. ‘I am strongly tempted to take a deep breath of your life, if you find such an experience so recommendable.’
‘A Masai welcomes death at any time it chooses to come, and in whatever guise it comes. So your childish threat is wasted on me.’
‘You persistently praise your race,’ said Mpushu brutally. ‘But we are far from impressed. To us you sound like a zombie repeating words that some wizard has taught you. You are a poor example of the human race.’
‘My soul, my body, my life, my whole being belongs to Nangai of the Mountains,’ said the man in a terribly inhuman tone. ‘Nangai commands, I obey. Nangai is everything, I am nothing.’
‘Who is Nangai?’ asked Marimba.
‘Nangai is the One who Is. Nangai is the One who commands and is heard.’
The little witch Namuwiza cackled weirdly. ‘These poor Masai are a race under the cruel spell of an outcast god who lives in the forests of Killima-Njaro. Little Namuwiza knows it all . . . Te-he-he-he . . .’
The hunting parties had all returned safely and the great gate was securely shut. The Wakambi were in tense readiness as they scanned the forests below for the first sign of the oncoming enemy. Night was falling fast and the land was once more shrouded in mystery.
On the high palisades warriors stood to arms – hard-eyed and tense in every muscle – waiting for the Masai to come storming up the slopes of the ancient hill on which the First Village stood. As the night crept across the land with its sombre mantle, people became touchy and easily irritated, but they remained hard of eye and grim of face. The First Village ever built in the land was under the shadow of suspense and was firmly gripped in the cruel claws of the vulture of fear. Then the people heard a strange sound: a sound that was not of this world, that flowed through the silent dusk like a silver river through dark forests.
It was a sound such as no human ears have ever heard before. It penetrated the very depths of the soul like cool water down a thirsty throat – like oil, soothing oil killing a cruel pain. Men stared at each other with incredulous wonder. Others groaned, and wept, blatantly and without shame.
It was a sound of unearthly beauty, and to the surprise of everybody it came from the throat of Marimba!
She had taken the deadly bow of the captive Masai and had fitted a gourd to the middle of the bow itself, transforming the deadly weapon of war thus into the first makweyana bow-harp the world had ever seen. Not only had Marimba invented the first musical instrument, but she was singing the world’s first song as well:
Oh, little star so far above—
Oh, smiling moon up yonder;
You who on these fruitful vales
Shed, aye, your heatless light.
Carry my song on the wings of your light—
Bear my refrains to the ends of the world;
Carry my voice to the Land of the Gods
Beyond the plains of Tura-ya-Moya.
Tell the Great Ones that live there forever—
Tell those that rule all the stars up above—
Tell the mother of all the seas and the earth
Beyond the plains of Tura-ya-Moya:
Tell them that though the hyaenas of death
Prowl
