Part 2

“The messenger sat circumspectly at a distance and explained his errand. Buhu, it seemed, had conceived some very potent ideas as to the powers of Markley’s magic. Now, in effect, he proposed a sort of bout between them.

“As the messenger explained:

“‘Chief Tolo he say mak’ so-so little-bit palaver, Buhu and Boss Markley upriver. Take ’long juju big mouf, mebbe so. Mebbe so he not come talk juju belong along Buhu, trade not come along company house. Mebbe so he come, Tolo not ask dash for Eta. Palaver set.’

“Which, freely translated, meant that Buhu was becoming anxious about the presence of bigger gods than his own on the Niger, and had persuaded Tolo to put the screws on Markley so that he could get a look-see at this strange spirit. If we came, Tolo would agree to let bygones be bygones, withdraw his request for the marriage price of his thirty-second cousin and allow trade to return to the compound. If not, things would be rather dull at Maraban in the future. Also I rather suspected that Buhu was planning a coup of some kind to get the loud mouf juju into his possession, for there is no more jealous person in the world than a witch doctor when he thinks some one is stealing his thunder. I suppose they live so close to the edge of discovery that they become jumpy.

“Markley had listened to the message from his usual seat on the veranda, leaning forward and trying to focus his eyes on the messenger. I expected him to roundly curse the black, and slump back in his chair. In that world of whisky haze in which he was living those days, nothing seemed to matter very much. Instead, he wobbled to his feet and replied loudly:

“‘Go speak your so-so witch doctor Buhu. Tell him Big Boss Markley come, mebbe so two days. Juju big mouf he come, too, mebbe so, mebbe not. He big juju fo’ sure. Eta come ’long big boss. By an’ by, my juju he win, Eta stay along me. By an’ by, Buhu win, Tolo take Eta and have dash, too. Palaver set.’

“As soon as the messenger had departed Markley set about preparations for the trip. In his half-delirious mind, it became a huge joke, reality being all mixed up with the whisky phantoms which peopled his brain. He wouldn’t listen when I told him that there was probably danger in the undertaking, but proceeded to pack all the radio apparatus in a big case. Then calling Eta, he produced a bright crimson shawl, a pair of dancing pumps of the same color and a brilliant bandanna, which he had ordered from Forcados on the last boat, and presented them to her, declaring that she must be decently dressed when visiting a cousin. After that he took a long drink and declared himself ready to start.

“That was a queer trip. I had wanted to stay at the station, but Markley wouldn’t hear of it. Said there was no danger at Maraban--that the big show would come at Mobungo, one of Chief Tolo’s villages, and he might need me there. We locked the bungalow and store, placed things in charge of the most trusted negroes--a poor policy, but the best I could do, and started upriver in the station’s motor launch.

“I steered. Markley sat in the middle where he watched the engine. Eta sat near the bow, staring steadily upriver. She was a weird creature, that girl. Light on her feet as a shadow and about as quick. She never said a word to anybody except Markley, though even with him she seemed to hold aloof. She was always obedient and met all of his sometimes eccentric demands upon her without complaint, but her sloe-black eyes, slanting here and there in an almost Oriental fashion, sometimes gave me the creeps.

“Strangely enough, Markley brought only a quart of whisky with him, and used that very sparingly. ‘Dickie,’ he explained to me, ‘I fear I must pass up the nectar for a time. But there’s plenty of it back at the station, or will be if those damned negroes don’t run off with it. When we get back, I’ll celebrate. Maybe you’ll condescend to take a few, too.’ That’s the way he rambled on, but I could see a new sparkle in his bloodshot eyes, and began to wonder if maybe there wasn’t something in him besides his vicious habits after all. I suppose he was the type who lives on excitement, though why he came to Africa to find it I never could understand.

“We reached Mobungo after a two-day run. The usual gaping crowd met us, but before we were ashore, Tolo himself, with a military escort, plowed through the jam and greeted us. Have you ever seen Tolo, captain?”

“Not since he was the prince charming of the Niger, years ago,” Todd chuckled in the darkness.

“He’s still about the same. Wears flowers in his wool and all that, but he’s getting older and fatter, and dreaming of empire instead of fair women. He’ll get into serious trouble sometime soon. However he treated us civilly enough, giving us a hut in which to clean up a bit.

“That evening we met him at the imperial palace, such as it was, for an audience. The room was furnished in Afro-American style, with a phonograph, a player piano and a nickel and white barber chair serving as a throne. Tolo was there, tricked out in his royal robes. Beside him squatted Buhu. The latter wasn’t all that I expected--just a lean, hungry-looking, rather young and rather shiny individual who did nothing but teeter back and forth on his toes and scowl at us.

“The meeting began in one of those duels of silence--the man who speaks first being considered the weaker character--but Markley wasn’t up to the strain of it and almost immediately broke silence by demanding why the devil Tolo had sent him a note like that.

“The old chap hemmed and hawed, but finally explained that there was no threat implied, merely a friendly contest between rival demons.

“Markley was willing to let it go at that, so that without much further parleying, details were arranged for the exhibition next morning, and we turned in for the night, leaving the niggers dancing and prancing in some kind of a ceremonial outside the hut.

“‘Mark,’ I asked, as we were undressing in the dark. ‘You noticed that phonograph in the throne room. How do you expect to make much of an impression when they’re acquainted with such things.’

“‘Sound and fury, sound and fury, me lad,’ he chuckled. ‘I’m not expecting to impress the king of Buhu, much. But one must always consider the mob. Whatever Buhu is up to, he’s out to impress the rabble--and so are we. Damn, I wish I had a drink.’

“The next morning we were escorted to the sacred cavern where Buhu did his tricks. It was large, about one hundred feet deep, with a wide, high-arching mouth and appeared to have been caused by erosion at some time when the river bed lay in front of it.

“Here Buhu kept his charms and talismans, most of them in a stinking heap in one corner. There were bones, both human and animal, strange herbs, and charms, of all varieties. The air was rank with unidentifiable stinks. A fire was kept burning at the entrance, with the result that the place was full of smoke most of the time, which, whirling and eddying inside, caused a really ghostly effect.

“At the invitation of the morose witch doctor Markley here set up the mouthpiece of big mouf, the intruder. We rigged some lights from a storage battery and soon had everything in readiness. At the magician’s command the whole population of the village--about three hundred persons--shuffled hesitatingly into the cavern.

“Personally I thought Buhu’s show was pretty poor stuff. It wouldn’t even have made a hit on the variety stage at home. There were a few parlor magic tricks, a clever attempt at group hypnotism which succeeded fairly well with the natives, but left Markley and myself untouched, and a final tableau where Buhu seemed to vanish in a cloud of red smoke, immediately reëntering the cavern through the audience. That was really deserving of applause, but didn’t impress the crowd greatly. Perhaps the trick had grown stale by repetition. It was the climax of the show and Buhu signed for us to begin.

“Markley had placed the apparatus under a dim red light, and with the true showman’s instinct had posed Eta, in her crimson shawl and shoes, beside it. After making a somewhat wobbly salaam to the machinery he immediately got busy, tuning in on a London station with very little amplification, so that just a whisper of sound filled the cave. It was an organ recital. The natives shivered and shifted their positions. As he began cutting in amplification the notes swelled and seemed almost to solidify, the sounds shuddering in the great cave like the wings of an imprisoned bird.

“Even I, who had become well acquainted with the possibilities of the thing, felt the spell. Every note was perfect.

“Over the dials, Markley, dressed in a dark-green robe with a cowl, which he had concocted from some trade cloth for this occasion, seemed truly a priest making his invocations.

“As the last notes of the program died away the natives broke into exclamations of wonder, admiration and awe. Their love of music was aroused, and it was easy to see that they had forgotten Buhu and his sorceries.

“Waiting until the excitement had abated somewhat Markley picked up another station, this time at New York. Some one was making an address--strangely enough--upon the wonders of radio, the miraculous advancement it had made in the last year, and so on.

“I had noticed sometime before that Eta had left her place beside the cabinet. Now I saw her in earnest converse with Buhu, across the cave. It gave me quite a shock and I watched closely. Evidently the witchman was in the dumps. His head sagged. His hands quivered. He knew when he was beaten. But Eta actually was shaking his holiness by the shoulder. I could see her lips moving in a vehement exhortation of some kind, although not a word of it could be heard above the voice of the orator.

“‘A new era for the world has begun,’ thundered the voice to the uncomprehending natives. ‘Men are being drawn closer together by this new marvel, and will become one great brotherhood. If only there can be found some way to eliminate static our problem will be solved, and, I wish to add, that great monetary rewards now are available to the man who will step forward to eliminate this great obstruction to radio communication.’

“I glanced at Markley. He was listening, spellbound, forgetful of everything that was transpiring. I glanced back at Eta. She had risen and was moving slowly toward us. Buhu was whispering vehemently to several of the natives. As I watched, Eta approached, and, without warning, placed her glossy back tight against the loudspeaker’s mouth. The spell was broken. The orator’s voice died to a murmur, completely blocked by the obstruction.

“Suddenly Eta’s voice rang out, speaking in purest native dialect, which I understood fairly well, but which Markley had never cared to learn.

“‘Oh, my people,’ she cried, lifting her arms high. ‘This man is an impostor. He is not the servant of this great voice.’

“‘What the hell, Ruth,’ broke in Markley sharply, ‘get out of the way. You’re spoiling the show.’ He half rose to push her away, but a huge black who had slipped behind him unnoticed in the excitement, gripped his shoulders and held him to his seat. At the same moment I felt the warning pressure of a knife point on my neck.

“‘Oh, my people,’ continued Eta, unperturbed, ‘ye know that I am the sister of Buhu, master of life and death, and that I was sent by my brother to spy upon this wicked foreigner. You know that I have suffered greatly at his hands. But Eta, the tigress, is patient. Know, all ye, that I have learned that this man is not the priest of the voice. He is a great magician who holds the god in his power, even as the wicked snake which charms the singing bird. Know also that I have discovered by watching closely how to break the spell and release the voice from its prison. It has promised me to make the people of Tolo the greatest on the river. Away with the white witch doctor,’ she shrieked. ‘I will be its priestess.’

“I realized that Eta must have been using her eyes closely during the last months. She knew how to operate Markley’s radio and this whole affair was a plot to take it from us.

“‘Kill the white men,’ Eta screamed in a frenzy. ‘Kill, kill----’ But Markley had at last caught the meaning of her harangue, and with a roar, shook himself free from his captor and leaped at the girl. But his coordinations were shaky from his whisky swilling and he fell an easy victim to the dozen or so warriors who sprang forward. He went down, senseless from the blow of a club, lying where he fell, while Eta, tearing his green robe from him, clothed herself in it and took up her position behind the dials. I suppose I should have gone to his rescue, but how could I, with a black devil gripping my neck with one hand and holding a knife as long as my arm in the other.

“The orator in the loudspeaker continued his talk uninterruptedly, telling of the great things which might occur in the world due to radio’s magic--but, suddenly, his voice was broken by a frightful squawk! My heart jumped. The set was going out of balance without Markley’s expert hand on the dials. Confidently Eta bent over the cabinet, but it seemed she had forgotten something essential, for the machine let out a louder shriek, this time a sound like the scraping of a titanic file across glass.

“Suddenly pandemonium broke loose. Somewhere between Africa and New York there must have started a thunderstorm. Such frightful noises I had never believed possible. The cave fairly rocked with them. The loudspeaker seemed to dance about the platform.

“The black holding me let loose his grip and sprinted for the cave mouth. So did all the natives in fact, but unluckily, perhaps, because the vibration had set up a miniature earthquake inside the cavern, great stones and quantities of earth began falling from the roof. I saw more than one negro brained or broken as I crouched close to the wall. I had dragged Markley’s body out of the greatest danger and leaned over him, with my hands over my ears.

“Only Eta stuck to her post, twisting the dials back and forth, but only succeeding in making the vibration greater. It sounded as if all the devils in hell were shrieking, and would yell forever. The cave filled with dust. Through it I could see the girl, quiet and tense, working doggedly--hopelessly. But all things have an end. As I watched in the dim red light, a giant boulder, detached after a repose of centuries, tumbled from the ceiling, crushing both Eta and the radio. A last despairing scream and then all the noise ceased. Do you know, Mac, in spite of the fact that I had hated her, I felt damned sorry.

“That’s about all,” MacAllister concluded softly. “Markley was merely stunned and came round after a while. The natives had fled the village, so that it was an easy matter to return to the boat and start downriver.

“Markley acted like another man. Whether he had realized that he could now go home to a chance of success with his inventions or whether the shock had cleared his half-insane mind, I don’t know, but he confessed to me shamefacedly that he had been acting like a damned fool. Said he had wanted to quit the whole game long ago--that he hated the taste of whisky, but his pride wouldn’t let him stop halfway on the road to the infernal regions.

“We buried what was left of Eta in the river and Mark was rather cut up about it. That, with the whisky he had been drinking so steadily brought a reaction. He almost winked out with a case of acute alcoholism, but we managed to pull him through at Maraban. I took him downriver a few weeks later, bound for home, looking like a ghost, but on the road to recovery.

“That ends the story, Todd. While it doesn’t point a moral exactly, being the exception which maybe proves the rule, let’s go down anyway and take a drink to all of us who fight this rotten, fascinating river--and fail.”

[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the September 1926 issue of Sea Stories Magazine.]