Lord Tyger Read Free

throw the spear back at you. And I come to your women at night, O men; I send the great white snake whose tail grows from between my legs. It crawls through your village at night, and it sniffs at doorways, and it smells your women, O men with scarred and limping dongs. It smells your women, and it follows their odor with blind, bulging head and it takes root in them as they lie by your side, O men.
    "And two great beehives that dangle below the branch, from the branch of the tree of my body, they fountain forth honey on honey, O men whose gourds rattle dry in the night of the python and the honey.
    "I am lightning that burns the flesh of your women, O Wantso men, and you are as sparks that fall on leaves after a rainstorm. I, Lord Tyger, have taken vengeance on you. And tonight, despite your crocodiles and spears, I will fly to beautiful Wilida as the bat to its cave, and she shall know me."
    Bigagi screamed and threw his spear, though he knew it had no chance of coming near Ras. The men in the village shouted. But some women were laughing.
    Tibaso, the chief, jumped up from his chair, shook his wand, and yelled at Ras. Wuwufa, the spirit-talker, flopped on the ground like a fish just hauled out of the water.
    They would not come running out of the northern gate at him. They wanted more beer, and they had to discuss the matter fully. Ras knew them well. Though the chief had the final decision on any important matter, he had to hear every man'sopinion. And when a man stood to talk, the speaker had to argue his points afterward with every man who disagreed.
    Nevertheless he watched the bushes and trees along the riverbank. A hunter returning home might try to sneak up on him. If the hunter were an older man, one who had not known Ras as a playmate, he would avoid him. But if the hunter were in Ras's age group, he might not sincerely believe that Ras was a ghost.
    "O Wantso youths, truly I loved you, and most of all, I loved you, Bigagi. You were beautiful; you loved me then, I know you did, and you know it. We were closer than the rosettes to the leopard, and we were as beautiful together. But now, the leopard and his rosettes have flown apart, and the rosettes are nothing and the leopard is ugly. The leopard is ugly and he mourns. The rosettes are sad, and they mourn. But they, leopard and rosettes, now hate, hate, hate, hate! And I weep, I weep! But I also laugh, I laugh. Because this world is made for tears, but Ras is not made for tears. He will not dissolve himself in tears. This world is made for tears and hate, but this world is made also for laughter, and Ras laughs, and Ras mocks you and will return hate for hate.
    "O men and women, you share the secret and the guilt, and yet you open not your mouths, because you would all be thrown to the crocodiles if every man and every woman confessed the guilt. And that is why Wuwufa dares not hunt out the witches among you. Crazed old man, he himself would feed the crocodiles.
    "I, Ras Tyger, know this. I, the outsider, the demon, the pale ghost, know this. I have come as stealthily as the leopard, as silently as a ghost, into your village of nights, and I havecrouched in the shadows, a shadow myself, and watched and listened. And I could name names, and the crocodiles would grow fat and happy, they would belch Wantso and pass Wantso, and your children would weep and have no one to feed them nor defend them against the leopard, nor give them love.
    "O Wantso men, your women feared me as a ghost, but they swallowed their fear with desire for the python and the honey that Ras brings them from the jungle, from the Land of the Ghosts. They have desired and known me, O men; even your aged crones have desired me and have wept that they were no longer beautiful. And I, Ras Tyger, have crept into the shadows where your wives and daughters have sneaked away into the bushes, and there they know that Ras Tyger is no pale ghost, Ras Tyger is the flesh of flesh, blood of blood, flesh