Bones of the River Read Free

iron” he called him) who had acquired riches; he ransacked and misquoted history to preach the doctrine of opportunism, and M’gula of the Upper Ochori sat motionless, entranced.
    “Now I see that you are wiser than M’Shimba, and greater than ghosts,” he said, when Bones had talked himself out. “And I have a warm feeling in my stomach because I know that men become great from their thoughts.”
    He came again the next morning, and Bones, who in the meantime had raked up a few more historical instances, continued his discourse on Self-Help.
    “The leopard comes once to the net” (thus he paraphrased the proverb of opportunity knocking at the door), “and if the net is fast, behold, he is your meat! But if the net is old and the pit is shallow, he goes and comes no more.”
    M’gula went back to the Ochori country an enlightened man.
    A month after his return, his brother, the chief, was seized with a passionate desire to stand up before the people of his village and recite the poem called “M’sa.” It is a poem by all standards, native or white, for it deals with death in a picturesque and imaginative way. There was not a man or a man-child from one end of the territory to the other who could not recite “M’sa” had he been so terribly defiant of devils and ju-jus. But it is the law that “M’sa” must be taught in whispers and in secret places from whence all birds have been frightened, for birds are notoriously members of the spirit world that carry news and chatter in their strange ways about the souls of men.
    In a whisper must the poem be taught; in a whisper recited, and then the last word, which is “M’sa,” must never be uttered. No man has ever explained what “M’sa” means. It is enough that it is so fearful a word that it sets men shivering even to think of it.
    It is recorded that for a hundred years no man, sane or mad, had spoken “M’sa,” so that when Busubu, the little chief of the Ochori, stood up by the village fire and, with some dramatic ability, recited the great poem in a tremendous voice, his people first sat frozen with horror at the sacrilege and its terrible significance, then broke and fled to their huts, hands to ears. In the night, when Busubu was sleeping, his two sons and his brother came to his hut and wakened him softly.
    He rose and went with them into the forest, and they walked all night until they came to a big swamp where crocodiles laid their eggs. The waters of the pool rippled and swirled continuously in the grey light of dawn.
    They rested by the side of a small lake, and the brother spoke.
    “Busubu, you have brought upon the people the terrible Ghost who shall make us all slaves. This we know because our father told us. This ghost is chained by the leg at the bottom of this swamp, waiting for the words of ‘M’sa’ to reach him, when he shall be free. Now, I think, Busubu, you must speak to this spirit.”
    “O man and brother,” whimpered Busubu the chief, “I would not have said the terrible words if you had not told me that it was the order of Sandi that I should do this. For did you not come secretly to my hut and say that Sandi had killed the ghost and that all men might say ‘M’sa’ without fear?”
    “You are mad and a liar,” said M’gula calmly. “Let us finish.”
    And because they would not have his blood on their hands, they roped him to a tree near by where the ripples ran most frequently, and they put out his eyes and left him. They rested awhile within earshot of the place, and when, in the afternoon, they heard certain sounds of pain, they knew that their work was consummated and went back to the village.
    “Now, sons of Busubu,” said the uncle of the young men, “if this matter goes to the ear of Sandi, he will come with his soldiers and we shall hang. Tomorrow let us call a full palaver of the people in this village, and all those countrymen who live in the forest, and tell them that Busubu was mad and fell into