The Tree of Life

Front matter

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BY CHARLES BEADLE

Chapter 1

I

A VEIN of platinum on a jade ring was the river Mfunyaballa flowing through the forests of the French Congo. Above the place of a thousand islands is a slight rise of ground like a furry tongue protruding from the cavern of the forests, brown with the huts of the village of Basayaguru.

On a hot afternoon, when the only moving things were the scraggy goats, lazily scratching, open-beaked native chickens and chromatic lizards, a faint throb vibrated on the sulky air like the pulse of a distant drum. A yodeling cry from the steamy cavern of the forest caused the village to swarm with lithe ebon figures whose heads were decorated with frizzly hair, built a foot high above the forehead, streaming with long-bladed spears in their hands, like a flood of ants, to a point upon the riverside. Again came the cry from the forest from down the river. The distant throb grew into the "Eh! Ahh! Eh! Ahh! Eh! Ahh!" of the chant of paddlers. Presently around a bend appeared a canoe. As the host of natives squatted in silence, came stalking solemnly a tall figure with an ivory comb like a dagger stuck through the head-dress of hair and carrying an Express rifle. In the midst of his people he sank upon his haunches, gazing from a masklike face down the river with the eyes of a repressed child. The strange canoe hugged the far bank of the river, indicating by neglect of the rowers to avoid the sweep of the stream that they were uncertain of their reception.

Amidship of the leading canoe was a hood of woven grass from which protruded the helmet of a white man. When the canoe was immediately opposite the village, the paddlers backed water, and a tall man garbed in white calico with a green turban after the Arab manner stood up in the bow and chanted rapidly in a loud voice. The mob of natives watching gravely on the beach listened in silence. When the stranger had ceased, one cried back and was again answered by a chant and a signal made with the right hand raised.

Immediately the tall chief with the Express rifle rose to his feet, cried out imperiously and sat down. The canoe continued up-stream for fifty yards, swung round, came diagonally across the current and nosed its way through a flotilla of small and large canoes upon the village strand.

From the canoe sprang a short slender man clad in weather-worn khaki and wearing a small dark beard. The chief rose to his feet as the white approached and raised one hand, murmuring the Arabic word—

"Salaama!"

"Salaama!" responded the white.

As he raised his hand in the salute, his quick dark eyes were upon the Express rifle.

Solemnly the chief turned and led the way through the mob of his people up the hill to an open dusty space littered with goats, chickens and calabashes, where stood a thatched roof upon half a dozen poles, the palaver-house. Opposite to each other upon carved wooden stools, with the white man's interpreter in the green turban beside him, they began the formal palaver.

After more greetings and the solemn sniffing by the white man of the snuff proffered in a tiny gourd, the young chief indifferently accepted presents of several bales of cloth and a Snider rifle with cart- ridges. During the interview the white man's sharp eyes were unobtrusively noting details. The interpreter informed him that the chief had graciously permitted the strange white man to camp in the open space of the village.

The white recalled the topographical surroundings, and after swift reflection he consented, knowing that, except for field clearings in the dense forest, there probably was no other ground suitable for a camp. These matters having been arranged, the chief intimated that he would present the credentials to his august father, Basayaguru, which entailed the presentation of another Snider rifle. As the young chief rose to depart, the white man eyed the Express as the warrior handed it to his superior.

"Notice that .450, Ali?" he commented to the interpreter as they continued to sit in the shade while their equipment was brought from the canoes. "D'you think there are any white traders round here?"

"Allah is all-wise," responded Ali Mohammed. "Perhaps the person has traded it from the South, sir."

"South!" exclaimed the little doctor briskly. "These people are not nomadic, are they? I've understood from the agent at Kavaballa's that no whites have yet been here; district only touched by occasional countrymen of yours. Isn't that right?"

"Allah is all-wise," repeated Ali monotonously, blinking both eyelids. "But my countrymen are not disposed to carry weapons of that kind, Doctor."

"Um. Um," muttered the little doctor. "Hi!" he shouted in broken Kiswahili, pointing his cane. "Make those men clear up this ground before you pitch the tent. Fahamshi? Tell 'em, Ali. This ground is nothing but a bug-preserve."

He took out a cigar and lighted it. "What's the particular pet superstition here, Ali? Same as below or a new pope or something, eh?"

"Allah is2"

"I asked you what you think?" snapped the doctor.

"I do not think, sir," returned Ali imperturbably. "The savage think many things that they dream."

"Dream! Dream!" He glanced at Ali and grinned like a friendly terrier through his short beard. "Um. You're right All this ju-ju business is merely the projection of a dream."

"In my country that is what our wise men say."

"Do they, begad? Then they're a 2 sight wiser than ours! Um. Um. Ali, do you know what particular legend they have, here?"

"No, Doctor," admitted Ali. "I do not. There are many strange and mystical things in Africa."

"Mystical tommyrot!" snorted Dr. Herdwether. "I don't believe you know much about it all."

"Only Allah knows the truth."

"I didn't bring you here to know Allah's opinion upon every 2 thing from yarns to folklore. As soon as you possibly can, get them to talk."

"They will not tell us," said Ali, "for these peoples always seek to hide their cult from the infidel eyes of strangers."

"Um. Um. Well, try, confound it, try!"

The energetic little man jumped to his feet, inspected the tent, sniffed disgustedly and walked with short nervous steps to the outskirts of the village with the object of seeking another site free from native garbage and the ubiquitous flea. But there seemed no hope, for the up-river side was as unpromising as he had observed the down side to be.

The river swirled around the small peninsula and away on its main course, leaving a series of flat swamps and tiny creeks, crocodile invested, worming into the dense forests in all directions; from the land side of the village was a vista of regiments of tree-stumps in native fields hewn out of the primeval forest, fields in which women—many with babies wrapped in skins upon their arched backs—worked diligently with the small native hoe preparing the ground for the annual sowing. Away high over the sullen edge of the forest soared lazily a pallid halfmoon.

BACK through the village, noting the square hut of Arab influence surrounded by a small palisade with a large wild fig in the center, the little doctor tramped, batting at the myriad flies. As, perspiring and hot, he plunged into his green canvas chair, his personal boy emerged with whisky and a sparklet siphon. Each gesture of making, drinking, striking a match, lighting a cigar and the tones of the voice irritably demanding the preparation of his rubber-bath was observed solemnly by the circle of boys and warriors tickling their curiosity while their wives, mothers and sisters toiled in the blazing sun in the fields.

As the purple shadows elongated, came a procession from the hill, led by the tall chief, Basafingu. Advancing to within three feet of the while man, he squatted down. His followers plated before him two elephant tusks of great weight and good condition. According to the etiquette of a great chief the little doctor pretended not to notice their presence. For some minutes he continued to smoke his cigar, interested in the swelling of the sun as it sank within the humid atmosphere above the trees.

As silently and abstractedly sat Basafingu and his ebon retainers. From another green tent, the replica of the doctor's, emerged Ali in the green turban and a green gown and, stalking with much dignity, sank upon a stool beside the doctor without as much as a twitch of the eyelid to acknowledge the presence of the young chief. In impressed silence the audience of warriors and boys and children watched the statuesque poses of the actors. At last Ali gravely permitted his eyes to rest upon Basafingu and, turning very slowly, observed quietly:

"There appears to be some of the savages bearing presents for you, Doctor. Probably it would be as well to observe them now."

"Probably it would," assented the doctor. "This sort of thing gets on my nerves. You bargain and begin the debate, Ali."

"Permit your eyes to see them, and I will speak."

The doctor accordingly turned his head and regarded the gathering with a bored stare. After some five minutes of formal greetings Ali observed:

"The chief, Basayaguru, the father of this person, sends you these unworthy and trifling presents. Nod your head with the utmost carelessness, Doctor. Perfectly admirable, sir. He intimates that he will be pleased to receive you in audience upon the morrow before the sun is yet high. Nod again if you please, and I will dismiss these savages."

Ali made the set reply, whereupon the young chief, apparently impressed, responded and rose. But, when the bearers of the tusks had departed in his wake, there remained an old man whose head-dress was not so high as those of the young men and was like a bunch of greasy white wool. The face was wizened and as finely networked with lines as knitted black silk; on each side of the tufts of white wool which was his beard swung lumps of quartz as big as a walnut, suspended from the distended lobes; skeleton arms and limbs protruded from his robes of wildcat skins. He bent his head after the manner of an Arabic salaam until he revealed the scraggy wrinkles on the back of his neck; then he spoke, mumbling toothlessly2

"This exquisitely wrinkled person," observed Ali, "intimates that he is a doctor, sir."

"Not of divinity, I trust?" queried the little man with a twitching lip.

"It is injudicious to exhibit levity in the presence of the ignorant," admonished Ali gravely.

"Perfectly correct, Ali, perfectly correct. But what may the creature want?"

"He is, I deduce, the tribal medicine-man."

"Oh. A brother witch-doctor, begad! Um. Er—just the beggar we ought to make friends with, eh, Ali? What does he want?"

"As ever in this world among the infidel, he wishes undoubtedly a present of worldly goods of some denomination."

"Talk, man, for heaven's sake, talk," snapped the little doctor, "or I shall have to go into the tent to laugh. Ask him what the current ju-ju is."

"The moment is most inopportune." retorted Ali woodenly. "With your permission I will instruct Yamagulu to present him with two knives and a small bale of cloth and your most august respects."

"All right, but add a Snider to the respects. And find out how much we can buy him for?"

"The time is most injudic2"

"Never mind; try him."

"As you wish, Doctor."

After commanding the head man, Yamagulu, to bring the presents specified, Ali engaged the witch-doctor in polite conversation regarding the exalted status of the white chief, all that appertained to him and the imaginary objects of the expedition. The rifle and goods were brought and placed at the feet of the old man, who apparently remained unaware of them. At length Yamala, the witch-doctor, made his adieux and rose, leaving the presents upon the ground to be collected by his people.

"Well, what did he say?" demanded the doctor.

"In this case, Doctor, I have considered it inexpedient to obey you."

"2 you!"

"I wish to remind the doctor that I have lived and traded among such savages as these for a period of fifteen years; therefore it is to be presumed that I may possibly be permitted to be better acquainted with them and their minds than the doctor."

"Possibly, Ali, but—well, this confounded beating about the bush irritates me."

"The doctor will permit me to remark that, if he persists in applying the Occidental attitude to the Oriental mind, the chance of gaining the desired information, economical and social, will be considerably diminished thereby."

"You're a dear!" exclaimed the little doctor, showing his teeth in a grin. "But—all right, Ali, go your own way, but for heaven's sake don't mull it."

"As Allah wills!" observed Ali and turned his bronze Arab-Somali features toward the two tusks, appraising them with bright expert eyes. "Have you remarked, Doctor, the exceptional generosity of the chief? These tusks are considerably over one hundred pounds each and therefore, at the present market-price, of value considerably over one hundred guineas. Never have I known any of these savage chiefs to recompense a stranger so disproportionately to the value of the present bestowed. Never, Doctor."

"All right, Ali; so much the better for you. Keep 'em, my boy; only don't forget to pump my ancient medical colleague."

"A thousand thanks to you, Doctor," said Ali, salaaming. "I will assuredly endeavor to recompense you to the best ability."

"Oh, shut up, Ali. I like you, but you're a bore sometimes. Hi, Yamagulu, whisky soda. Upesi!"

Chapter 2

II

VIOLET twilight stained with green died hurriedly, leaving the dented moon as if battered with the boredom of the chiliads to gaze incuriously upon microcosmical contortions. From the village of Basayaguru rose continuously, like puffs of invisible steam from an engine-exhaust, the rhythm of a drum above the murmur of the forest and the swirl of the river in the sulky air.

Like the red eye of a familiar, winking in masonic import to old Yamala, the witch-doctor, squatting like an idol carved in ebony, was the glow of the little doctor's cigar as he sat in the doorway of his tent in the lee of the greenwood fire. Half in shadow beside him was Ali, his robes a volume of carven turquoise supporting the dignity of his turbaned head, a cameo in lazulite.

"Now, Ali," said the doctor, "it's really about time you got to business. We've had a week of this fooling. We've got a general idea of the supply of ivory and that your confounded people ruined the vine rubber ages ago. But we could have got that almost anywhere. Now try to find out exactly what is the basis of their cult—whether it is the same in this part as down-country. Understand?"

"It most usually is so, Doctor," responded Ali.

"Well, but you don't know. I want facts, not suppositions."

"I still venture to doubt whether the moment be expedient yet," objected Ali tonelessly.

"Do as I tell you, confound you!"

"The Occidental and the Oriental2"

"Shut up!"

"Very good, Doctor. But you will please note that I do not take the responsibility. I obey."

As tonelessly as an oracle Ali spoke fluently to the old man Yamala, who at length replied as monotonously.

"The witch-doctor states that they have a goddess who dwells in the woods."

"Well?"

"Please to contain your most natural emotions," reproved Ali. "It is not the custom of the Orient2"

"Oh, 2 the Orient!"

"Please to be patient," remonstrated Ali and began anew to talk with the witch-doctor.

The old man rumbled on in periods, punctuated by assenting grunts from Ali. The doctor finished his cigar and lighted another. Yet still the two voices blended as if in a liturgy to the rhythmic throb of the single drum and the faint anthem of the mosquitoes. The old man ceased and relapsed into immobility.

"Well, well? What is it?"

Ali was undoubtedly in a state of excitement indicated by a slight half-tone raise in the timbre of his voice.

"These peoples have, as you know, Doctor, been much influenced by the incursions of my own people. They were at one remote period the storehouse of our slaves, although in these days of your exquisite civilization one is compelled to take tribute in the form of merchandise only. I desire to point out that our ancient ruins have influenced even these savages."

"You have," interrupted the doctor dryly. "Get on."

"The Occidental are not the ways of the Oriental2"

"Ali, shut up and get along with the yarn!"

"I hasten to obey, Doctor. I desire to state that these savages have confused an ancient philosophy with their own ignorant superstitions."

"Never mind that. What is the superstition?"

"As you will doubtless have read or learned, Doctor, each of these peoples have, with scarcely any exception, a belief in the spirits of the trees and the rivers. The correct word flees from me."

"Animism."

"Thank you, Doctor. Animism. But in this case they have confused2"

"Confound it," grumbled Herdwether, "never mind that!"

"They, as I wish to express, believe in the spirits of the wood and the plants. They have, the priest tells me, here a sacred and holy tree, which is the mother—I desire to express that it is the mother."

"Well, you have. What about it?"

"Because all other trees are male."

"The devil they are! Trees have sex as well as anybody else."

"Indeed true words as your exquisite education has taught me. But not with these peoples. It is that I wish to express that they have confused their superstition with the truths of my peoples, the Berbers. As may and yet may not be known to you, Doctor, the Berbers of the Atlas before the coming of the true believers2"

"Meaning your crowd, eh?"

"Indeed surely, Doctor. The Berbers, I may state, had faith in the mother of the universe, the sun, which is, they said with admirable logic, the source of heat and therefore of all things and therefore was fecund and therefore was a female, the mother of all."

"What the devil's that got to do with this ju~ju idol?"

"THERE is no idol, Doctor. It is a tree."

"What?"

"Truly indeed what, Doctor. The priest here informs that upon the mother tree depends quite, and undoubtedly logically from their point of view, the crops and all that is grown and therefore their alimentation."

"Yes, yes, the old idea from Jack in the Green to the Flamen Dialis. Well?"

"And therefore, with exquisite logic, that it is necessary for the tree to be fertilized and therefore to be married. At the first moon of the sowing, which is close unto us now, is the ceremony of the marriage of the magic tree."

"Married? To whom?"

"To whom the sacred tree is married I can not say. Such is without doubt as in all religions a matter forbidden to infidels and the ignorant."

"Well, buy the information then."

"It is not possible to buy faith. With one thousand pardons I will express myself for the reason of my excitement," replied Ali as coldly as the liturgy. "According to my way of thinking, the priest is most friendly disposed toward us. Indeed, he has invited—even more in the limits of his language—he has prayed that we stop to see the ceremony of the marriage of the sacred tree."

"Um. Um," mumbled the doctor, scratching a mosquito-bite on his left ear. "But do they usually invite strangers to witness these sacred rites?"

"Undoubtedly not. Undoubtedly not, Doctor. That is also one reason for the state of excitement in which you see me."

"Um. Um." The red eye of the doctor's familiar glared ferociously at the carven image in ebony by the dull embers. The throb of the drum pulsed steadily. "It appears to me that there must be a reason behind the invitation. What can it be? Is it money? I mean more presents? Yet they've been most unusually lavish already, haven't they?"

"More than exquisitely lavish," asserted Ali. "The reason is known to Allah."

"Confound Allah!"

"The doctor is unconsciously blasphemous," reproved Ali.

"No; it's a gift, I assure you," grinned the doctor. "Um. Um. Well, about the ceremony business. What else did he say?"

"Is it not sufficiently astonishing that he should tell us these things? The doctor does not perceive the exquisite abyss between the Occidental and the Oriental."

"Exquisite twaddle. Is there a sacrifice? These devils invariably want lakes of blood to bathe their gods in."

"That is unknown to me, Doctor."

"Well, ask him, confound it!"

"His lips will be tighter than the shell upon the ocean shore, but, if it amuses the doctor, I will hasten to obey."

Again there followed the solemn liturgical conversation. The doctor moved restlessly as if the continuous beat of the drum sought his pulse.

"The doctor will observe that my words are as true as the Koran. The tongue of the black priest is swollen, which is to say, as the doctor will perceive, that he refuses to speak concerning that which is to him sacred and forbidden."

"Tabu, eh? Um. Well, ask him directly why he wishes us to see the ceremony; whether all strangers are invited, or whether he has just taken a fancy to our pretty faces?"

"1 hasten to obey, but the product thereof will be excessively more lies than the leaves on the sacred tree. His ears, as I have intimated, are made deaf by the clamor of our words," reported Ali. "He intimates exquisitely politely that he would retire with the offerings of the while chief, saying that the bird of happiness will bang her wings in his breast so excessively that he will not be able to sleep, because the white chief has willingly taken the acceptance to the marriage-feast."

"Um. Well, tell Yamagulu to give him whatever you think, Ali, and bundle him off to bed."

Ali's voice raised to summon Yamagulu, then appeared muffled as if deliberately hushed by clammy hands of the air on which rolled, with the rhythmic certainty of an Atlantic swell, the somber notes of the drum.

"What the devil's that drum for, Ali?" inquired the doctor irritably as he gazed at the fire, pondering.

"It is designed to prepare the mind and the body for the marriage-feast upon the full moon, Doctor."

"Why, that's about tomorrow or the next day, isn't it?" observed the doctor, glancing up at the battered moon.

"Two nights more yet."

Chapter 3

III

IN THE steamy heat of the morning the first conscious impression of the doctor was that a pulse was beating in his brain. The mental effort of an automatic medical diagnosis awoke him to the reality of the merciless beat of the drum. He swore violently and shouted for coffee. Outside the net the flies had already taken over the duty of torment from the mosquitoes. The doctor breakfasted on river-fish in an exceedingly bad temper.

The inconvenience of the camp-site began to weaken his resolution to stay even the few days. In the jungle one had not to scratch all day as well as all night. He consulted Ali but as ever merely elicited the imperturbable, "Allah only knows." The doctor gulped the quinine he was in the act of swallowing. The brilliant black eyes of Ali in his bronze cameo features regarded him coldly.

"If the doctor would permit himself to meditate upon the Occidental and the Or2"

"Meditate!" spluttered the doctor, coveting the irrefragable composure of the Arab. "2 it, I believe I've a touch of malaria. Tell Yamagulu to get me the thermometer."

But his temperature was normal and his pulse as steady as the drum-throb. Later in the morning he persisted in visiting the old chief, Basayaguru, in spite of Ali's assurance that no more information would be forthcoming. But at any rate an audience would serve to fill up time. The old man, in token of his greatness and beauty, was so fat that he could scarcely walk. He lay like a baby hippopotamus upon his skins in the perpetual shadows of his square hut and appeared to do nothing save eat, drink, snuff and sleep, leaving affairs of war and peace to his son and politics perforce to Yamala, the witch-doctor.

To each of the questions put by Ali on the white man's behalf, he merely grunted non-committally, a process which led one to suppose that he was innocent of every crime as well as virtue that the black mind could conceive. The only articulate sentence elicited was an order to a slave to send the white chief another present of a large tusk of ivory. The doctor regarded the tusk in dismay.

"What's the meaning of this?" he demanded of Ali. "We can't possibly make return presents of anywhere near the value of these three tusks and the small ones. What do you think he's after? My Express? Because he won't get that, naturally."

"Allah only knows."

"Oh!" The doctor plucked savagely at his beard. "Ali, I ask what you think, not what Allah thinks."

"It is impossible to state, Doctor. Never have I witnessed such exquisite generosity from a native negro."

The little doctor returned to the camp, feeling, as he remarked to Ali, that there was something in this confounded country that would make a saint irritable. And, as he retired beneath the mosquito-net for a siesta, he grinned at the recollection of the sage advice based on theoretical knowledge he had given to clients about to leave for the tropics, to guard against irritation and liquor. During the hottest hours, when man and beast and bird, but not woman, made obeisance to the sun, the heart-throb of the drum continued mercilessly until the doctor in his sudorific bath struggled with an impulse to seize his Express and make an end of the tormentor.

At about four he suddenly grabbed the gun and, summoning Yamagulu, decided that he would seek something upon which he could wreak his exasperation. Yamagulu very naturally protested that neither bird nor beast would be stirring before the cool of the sinking sun, but the little doctor felt that in such a country to thrust forward reason was positively indecent and as incongruous as a Socratian debate in a lunatic asylum.

In the village not a body stirred. Unnoticed they selected the small canoe and embarked. The doctor directed the sullen Yamagulu to paddle down-stream along the bank until they should find fairly solid ground to land. About half a mile away, as they coasted just outside the guardian swamp, he perceived a narrow passage in the dense reed as if made by canoes. Up this turgid waterway the doctor insisted upon going. Fifty yards' paddling and reed hauling brought them within the line of the great trees and upon fairly solid earth beneath the dense jungle.

The doctor and the sullen Yamagulu landed and tore their way for some distance, earning a bath of sweat in the process. But this did not deter the doctor, who had obstinately made up his mind that he wanted distraction from the deadly ennui of the village. Farther on they struck higher ground and came upon a grove of considerable size.

Suddenly the sulky Yamagulu came to life and, touching the doctor's arm, pointed with his spear down the grove. The doctor failed to distinguish anything in the tangle of grass and bush. Then, just as he was about to whisper, he detected part of a bush that seemed to move. Slowly grew the form of some large animal. Calculating for the region of the heart, the doctor fired. A convulsive motion of the bush, and there leaped forth a big buck, high in the shoulders and dappled like forest light and shadow.

Again the doctor fired. The beast swerved to the right and disappeared. Yamagulu raced forward. The doctor followed and found him beside the buck. The first shot had been a fluke; striking the animal in the quarters as it had turned to flee, the bullet had lodged in the spine, killing it instantly.

"Okapi!" gasped the exultant doctor.

But, as he stooped, Yamagulu, grinning delightedly, drew his attention to a broad spoor through the dense grass which ten yards from the kill was streaked with blood, revealing that in all probability the mate was severely if not mortally wounded. Excitedly the doctor bade Yamagulu to stay and skin the slain animal and hurried off on the trail.

The beast was big and evidently bleeding heavily; so the spoor was easy to follow even for a white man. On panted the doctor, forgetful, as ever a hunter is, that time after all is an arbitrary affair. The ground rose steadily. The going became better at every yard. Where the trail led through thick bush, the beast had already forced a passage. As the ground sank into a slight valley, he caught a glimpse of the okapi as it dashed off from a shelter where it had apparently rested for a moment.

Wiping raining sweat from his eyes, the enthusiastic doctor plugged on down into a bog to his waist, dragged himself up the other side and on—and on—and on the little man struggled until quite suddenly the trail disappeared in a patch of jungle as thick as a grass mat. The doctor hunted furiously about—then with more care. No sign of blood; the blood-trail had disappeared entirely; not even a broken grass stem or twig could he find. Perhaps he had overrun the trail?

He cast about in circles. Fatigued and panting, he sat down to rest and wipe his streaming face. Just as he was about to make another effort, it suddenly occurred to him that the shadows seemed very dense. He glanced up through the leafy roof. The glittering ball of the sun was topping the trees. In a panic he snatched his watch. He stared incredulously at the hands pointing to a quarter past five. Only another three-quarters of an hour to sunset.