Adventure Magazine Cover, March 20, 1925 — page 106: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

88 ‘ But why hold the white man in endless palaver when he could be got rid of by re- fusal of yams and mealies? And why was Bilibibs so secretive about his overlord? “O king, is thy overlord’s name taboo with thee?” asked Roach. Bilibibs heaved from his diaphragm a laconic proverb— “The goat was curious to count the teeth of the lion.” Oh, he would have Roach know that this overlord was a terrible, terrible personage— to be feared, avoided. And, as if in saying that little of his suzerain he had said too much, Bilibibs pulled up on his bowed legs blowing hard, had waddled off into his courtyard. Thus again the palaver was put over, without any offense that could be pinned down. This cautious care occupied Roach’s thoughts as with Tiny he swung down the village to the Hut of the Strangers. Was It dictated by policy or fear? How could a whole village, every hut of which had an assegai, be in fear of one unarmed white? He was not worried, but curious, perplexed; and harassed by a feeling that he was an intruder—a disturber. Something was going on behind the curtain of this cunning. It might be trivial or bizarre to the reason- ing, practical minds of whites, yet be of passionate and momentous importance to the blacks. He had to think of that. In fact, Roach’s deeply rooted sympathy for the blacks was working all the time upon his mind. He was seeing both sides of the shield in this fortune hunting in Negroland. Hardly had he and his Kroo taken to the reed mats in their lodging when, as on pre- vious nights, a tom-tom in the village began talking with a drum on the plateau. Roach listened with ear to the ground. The drum language is a carefully guarded secret; all he could do was to gage the distance. Allowing night time and the best conditions for the travel of sound, the other drum could not be more than four miles away. Then if the progress of the palaver was being reported to the overlord, there was either a town within easy march or else the mes- sage was relayed. Roach located the direc- tion of the sound as due south. A warning fever ache in his bones and the threat of the rains decided him. Come daybreak . he would scout the south trail. Anyway, the move would force Bilibibs to show his colors. Adventure So at gray dawn Roach and Tiny left their hut, only toameet a stranger in the village and to have Bilibibilo suddenly eliminated as a factor in the quest for tin. The stranger was a tall, erect figure in turban and burnoose, the latter hanging loosely around his bony, spare frame. He carried a gilau, a gourd with two gut strings and with dried seeds inside. A member of the nomadic troubadours of Negroland? But in that case the women, early about their domestic work, would be all around him, clamoring for a dance or atriballay. They affected, however, not to see the man. Were they so instructed? He advanced in the path of Roach, so plain- ly intent on bringing about a meeting that Roach jumped to the exciting conclusion that he had come there for that purpose. Oh, no doubt last night’s drumming had told of Bilibibs’ indiscreet disclosure of an overlord, and now was come a more able representative to take charge of the situa- tion, or perhaps a spy. The man had not the shuffling gait of a mendicant troubadour, but walked as one to whom dignity was a natural mantle. His swarthy features were sternly acquiline, with none of the negroid characteristics of the villagers. A string of prayer beads wound round a bony wrist proclaimed a Mohammedan. Snow-white though his brows and lashes were, the flashings of a prime intellect could be seen in the black eyes, straight- seeing and piercing, as if they were explor- ing Roach, boring into his motives, sizing him up. A wise old bird, bony, hard as flint, “right there.” “Sanu sanul” he hailed in the Shua tongue, and shook his right fist in Roach’s face, after the manner of the salute of the Shua, whose right fists ever grasped prayer beads, while the left held reins—but the Shua country was many leagues away. Then he spoke in Housa—the trade and diplomatic language of the tribes. Apropo of nothing he waved an arm to the south and said it was “bad medicine country,” was “Ju Ju country,” by which Roach perceived a convert whose Moham- medanism had not quite drowned out the old superstitions. Or was it inability to express ‘‘evil”’ in Housa? Plainly, too, he had traveled far, which is so rare in an African, who is homesick the moment he is out of sight of his village, that Roach was excitedly guessing all CORnNICLaOo CO