The Complete Simon Iff (51 page)

“Did they do the same to all your converts?” asked Iff.

“But they were all my converts,” wailed the missionary.

“Ah, back-sliders,” commented Simon.

“I can give you a terrible example of the workings of the devil. About six months after I arrived here, the tribe reverted to human sacrifice; and you will be astonished and appalled to learn that, abandoning their old method, they have blasphemously resorted to crucifixion.”

“I am not very much appalled and not at all astonished,” returned Iff. “You convert these people, assuring them that all their sins, past and future, are forgiven, and this by a means of a story of a crucifixion, which to them is to the highest degree exciting from a sexual point of view.”

“I never thought of it in that way; but of course their morality is dreadfully low.”

“Strange,” said Iff, “whenever I’ve passsed, I have found the native code fantastically rigid. However, these people naturally want to visualize your stimulating story, and, being highly dowered with mimicry, they get busy.”

“I think that’s about the psychology of it,” said Sexton. “I’ve seen similar reactions in more places than one.”

“It is the Doctrine of the Vicarious Atonement that does the harm,” said Iff; “despite all Paul’s special pleading, it is bound to destroy moral responsibility.”

“Mwala is coming,” said Billiken.

Simon Iff looked at the girl again, still more intently. Neither he nor any of the others could hear a sound; and if Mwala were coming it would be with the noise of a great army. She read the question in his eye.

“He is coming for a palaver.”

“Ah,” said Simon Iff, reflectively, “I am more than ever convinced that you know something.”

“I don’t know anything,” she said again. “I smell it.”

“Her nose knows,” murmured Lord Juventius Mellor from the background.

“While he is coming, perhaps you will tell us about the magick you smelt,” said Simon Iff.

“I think there is an old custom,” she said, “when a building is made, something must be killed or burned at one corner, or else it will not stand firm. So also is it when they wish to build a peace.”

“But,” objected Iff, “Mwala is a man of quite advanced education—that mechanical arrangement by the river…”

“I taught him mechanics,” groaned the missionary, “it only goes to show that the highest intellectual attainments are not incompatible with the depths of barbarism.”

“What did they actually do?” asked Mr. Naylor.

The missionary dragged himself into an easier position.

“They lured me from the mission house, upon a pretext. They took me down to the river where you found me, and then without a word of explanation they hung me by the wrists to a projecting bough with an arrangement of weights and pulleys, so that the release of part of my weight would lower my body little by little.” He fell back fainting with the horrof of the recollection.

“As I told you,” said Sexton, “only you were too scared to listen, his feet were about a foot out of the water and the crocodiles were jumping for him like puppies teased with a biscuit. He had been there all night. We were just in time to see the first successful dash. The curious thing is that the natives didn’t stay to enjoy the effect. I’m beginning to think there is something very funny about this business.”

“Here comes Mwala,” cried Lord Juventius Mellor, whose quick ear had caught approaching foot-steps.

“Admit him,” said Simon.

It was curious how instinctively he had taken command of the party. No one thought to question his good sense. But Mwala stood still at the gate of the compound. Behind him two men held a big umbrella over his head and on either side marched two soldiers armed with spears. But it was evidently a friendly visit.

“Now, why won’t he come in?” said Simon to himself. “He isn’t afraid, because we could shoot him where he stands. Some taboo, I suppose.”

Closely followed by Sexton, he advanced to the gate. The king greeted him very solemnly, in good English. Simon Iff replied with similar reserve and repeated the invitation to enter.

“No,” said the king, “to me you are a stranger. I will explain. I am chief in this place. You are my guests. But when I look from my house upon the hill, I see you armed, on guard. Am I then no longer king? or why do my guests distrust their host?”

“It’s a trap,” whispered Mr. Naylor, who had crept up behind. “Remember Cawnpore.”

“I can’t remember it,” said Simon, “I’ve never heard but one side of the story.”

“It is I,” said the king, “who should have been arming against you. You have committed a breach of my hospitality.”

“Yes,” said Simon curtly, “I rather want to go into that with you.” He spoke to the king rather as a college professor might speak to a student suspected of some delinquency.

“I beg you to explain,” said he.

“You see, Mwala, we have a taboo in England against using men of our race…er…I mean…of…er…man, in short, in mechanical experiments.”

“This was not an experiment,” replied the king, with an air of one putting everything right with a word. “This was the peace sacrifice.”

The magician looked at the king with extraordinary intentness. He felt sure that something was hidden behind that simple savage speech.

“Mwala,” said he, “the sun is hot. By your leave I will sit down for this palaver.” The king bowed gravely, and they squatted opposite each other.

“What exactly,” asked Simon, “do you mean by a peace sacrifice?”

“It is an ancient custom of our nation,” replied Mwala. “Peace must be bound with blood.”

“I don’t see why you selected Mr. Rose,” said the magician.

Mwala began to assert his dignity. “I am king of this nation,” he said. “I am the father of all. I rule with justice and benevolence. All that I do is part of that rule.”

“Not exactly the Golden rule, in this case,” remarked Lord Juventius.

“Pray be silent, my lord,” said Simon, who never addressed his disciple in this way unless he was extremely angry with him.

“The Golden Rule,” he continued, addressing Mwala, “interpreted in such a sense would end all human justice. When man does not do unto others as he would that they should do unto him, somebody must teach him his error by showing him that two can play at the game if he chooses to make it necessary.”

“It is a true saying,” answered the king. There came a pause. “But what has this to do with this matter?”

“This much,” replied Simon, “that your action has aroused a reaction in us, from whom, although you are our host, you also receive benefit. The question is whether you should be unkind to anyone, even in order to secure lasting peace.”

“I dispute the theory,” put in Sexton, “I find myself in entire disagreement with the theory.”

“It is the practice that matters after all,” returned Iff. “Your majesty seems to me a person of very great intelligence; I may add, despite the facts, of excellent fine feeling. I am a stranger to you, but I have just come from the great desert in the North, and there they call me the ‘Father of Justice’. May I propose then that you appoint me judge in this case?”

The king rose; and, plucking an ostrich plume from his headdress, handed it to Iff. “This Feather,” he said, “is the symbol of my justice; the breath of man deflects it. I leave it in your hands.”

“Do I understand, Mwala,” said Simon, “that you, as king of this country, appeal to this court to deliver into your custody the body of the Rev. Moses Rose to be sacrificed to crocodiles with every circumstance of terror and bodily torture?”

“I do,” said the king, with the most frigid expression of stolidity.

“Call Mr. Rose,” said Simon.

They brought the missionary in on his litter.

“Swear Mr. Rose,” said Simon. The sick man took the oath on a copy of the Gospels.

“Your name is Moses Rose?”

“It is.”

“Your business?”

“I’m a minister of Christ. I’ve been sent here by the American Baptist Mission.”

“Tell us your relations with King Mwala.”

“We have always been on friendly terms,” returned the missionary. “Only a few months after my arrival, the Lord saw fit to bless my work by touching his hard heart. In a little while, practically the whole nation became Christians, nominal Christians, I fear, most of them, merely nominal Christians.”

“Did you consider Mwala’s conversion sincere?”

“I did at the time. He was very friendly indeed, and has been until yesterday. He took the most active interest in our American discoveries and inventions, steam, electricity and so forth. I have rarely met anyone so eager to learn. Even at this moment I have saved him from his enemy. It is the black, bitter ingratitude of his conduct that wounds me most.”

“How have you saved him from his enemy?”

“I have warned him in season and out of season against M’Qob, a black-hearted Papist who was constantly plotting treacheries. It was I that ran the guns into the country so that he might defend himself adequately against him. And now, for some utterly incomprehensible reason, he has become leagued with that arch-ruffian.”

It did not escape the impromptu judge that Mwala appeared to be under the influence of some subdued emotion of a not unpleasant kind.

“Mr. Rose, is it not against the law to run guns?” asked Iff.

“I must admit that it is so,” said Rose, “that is, under ordinary circumstances. But here was my convert, my patron, my friend, and all his people in utmost peril. Could I have done otherwise?”

“Where did you get the guns from?”

“From Springfield.”

“It must have taken rather long to execute the order. You must have had moments of great anxiety. Surely it would have been quicker to have asked for the white garrison.”

“They would not have believed us,” answered Rose. “You know what colonial officials are. We had nothing on M’Qob either; it was merely my knowledge of the human heart, too terribly justified by the event.”

“Were these guns then a gift to the king?”

“I am a poor sergeant of the Lord; I was obliged to receive payment.”

“At a fair profit, I presume?”

“You may say, considering the risk, hardly a fair profit.”

Simon Iff had seen gun trading in his time, gold weighed grain for grain against steel, gunpowder, brass, lead and nickle.

“Thank you, Mr. Rose. You should go to the house for treatment. Call…”

But he was interrupted by the arrival of a swift litter borne by six sweating runners. It contained no less a person than M’Qob himself, followed by a small chubby person in a cassock and a broad black hat, whose eyes beamed eagerly.

“Are we in time?“he cried.

“You are,” said Iff, “you are. Very much in time. Call Father…I haven’t your name, sir.”

“I am Father Duval.”

“Call Father Duval. Swear Father Duval!”

“I don’t understand,” said the priest.

“You will.”

Mwala and M’Qob had striven to outdo each other in cordiality.

“Your name?” said Iff.

“Abelard Cesar Duval.”

“Your business?”

“I am a priest.”

“You live in the country of M’Qob?”

“I do.”

“Do you know the Rev. Moses Rose?”

“I do.”

“Are you on friendly terms with him?”

“I have come here to-day to save his life: the moment I heard of this atrocity I commanded M’Qob in the name of the Holy Church to add his great influence to my weak protests.”

“I must beg you to answer my question.”

“I am not personally well acquainted with Mr. Rose.”

“No, then?” A pause.

“No.”

“You disagree with him on many points?”

“Naturally.”

“He is a heretic, of course?”

“He is in error, as I believe.”

“About practical policy here now. Do you differ with him about that”

“Really, the divergencies are—well, are not divergencies natural to all men? Please may I ask what this is all about?”

Simon explained.

“But it is impossible!”

“Only if we prejudice the case,” said Simon; “let us imagine it a purely abstract matter for the present. You delay, but do not divert, the purpose of my questions. Why did Mwala and M’Qob do this thing to Mr. Rose?”

The priest paled.

“My evidence would be but hearsay, and it is under the seal of confession.”

“Thank you, Father Duval. Call King M’Qob.”

But this was not easy. Father Duval passionately objected to the course of procedure. M’Qob refused point blank to answer anything.

“It really doesn’t matter,” said Simon wearily, “I have other witnesses of truth.”

“Mr. Judge,” implored the little priest, “I beg of you not to continue this travesty of justice.”

“I commit you for contempt!” snapped Simon. “Tipstaff, take that man!” The indignant Father was taken into custody by Lord Juventius, and handed over to two of Sexton’s men. He bit his lip and remained silent.

“Before I call any more witnesses,” said Simon, “I will explain the case. It is simple, because we have an absolutely unspeakable atrocity committed by people who evidently think themselves within their rights. That, as Bill here says, smells like magick. Compare the whole theory of the Bible. Now we have a very frank statement from Mr. Rose, and (excuse me!) a very suspicious reticence from Father Duval. He comes running twenty miles to save Mr. Rose, but he won’t open his mouth to do it when he gets here. Why? He finds the situation changed; he finds Magick, the one worthy rival of the Church, in the seat of judgment. No doubt that must be it.”

A scarcely veiled sarcasm mellowed his tone.

“To proceed. The two kings are equally loathed to testify. They stand upon their right of life and death. Delightfully antiquated of them! However, the motive is evident. M’Qob has heard that Mr. Rose has warned Mwala against him, and makes it a condition of peace that Rose is offered as the scarifice. A little strange, in either Protestant or Catholic. And infamous treachery and ingratitude on the part of Mwala. Shocking thing, sometimes, human nature! So, all’s explained.”

Every one but Mwala seemed decidedly relieved.

“But,” the magician continued, “we must be careful not to generalize on insufficient data. Call Billiken! Swear Billiken!”