Lukundoo | Page 4

the sidepocket of his blouse, and handed
them to Van Rieten. They were round, bigger than big plums, and
smaller than small peaches, about the right size to enclose in an average
hand. They were black, and at first I did not see what they were.
"Pigmies!" Van Rieten exclaimed. "Pigmies, indeed! Why, they
wouldn't be two feet high! Do you mean to claim that these are adult
heads?"

"I claim nothing," Etcham answered evenly. "You can see for
yourself."
Van Rieten passed one of the heads to me. The sun was just setting and
I examined it closely. A dried head it was, perfectly preserved, and the
flesh as hard as Argentine jerked beef. A bit of a vertebra stuck out
where the muscles of the vanished neck had shriveled into folds. The
puny chin was sharp on a projecting jaw, the minute teeth white and
even between the retracted lips, the tiny nose was flat, the little
forehead retreating, there were inconsiderable clumps of stunted wool
on the Lilliputian cranium. There was nothing babyish, childish or
youthful about the head; rather it was mature to senility.
"Where did these come from?" Van Rieten enquired.
"I do not know," Etcham replied precisely. "I found them among
Stone's effects while rummaging for medicines or drugs or anything
that could help me to help him. I do not know where he got them. But
I'll swear he did not have them when we entered this district."
"Are you sure?" Van Rieten queried, his eyes big and fixed on
Etcham's.
"Ve'y sure," lisped Etcham.
"But how could he have come by them without your knowledge?" Van
Rieten demurred.
"Sometimes we were apart ten days at a time hunting," said Etcham.
"Stone is not a talking man. He gave me no account of his doings, and
Hamed Burghash keeps a still tongue and a tight hold on the men."
"You have examined these heads?" Van Rieten asked.
"Minutely," said Etcham.
Van Rieten took out his notebook. He was a methodical chap. He tore
out a leaf, folded it and divided it equally into three pieces. He gave

one to me and one to Etcham.
"Just for a test of my impressions," he said, "I want each of us to write
separately just what he is most reminded of by these heads. Then I want
to compare the writings."
I handed Etcham a pencil and he wrote. Then he handed the pencil back
to me and I wrote.
"Read the three," said Van Rieten, handing me his piece.
Van Rieten had written:
"An old Balunda witch-doctor."
Etcham had written:
"An old Mang-Battu fetish-man."
I had written:
"An old Katongo magician."
"There!" Van Rieten exclaimed. "Look at that! There is nothing
Wagabi or Batwa or Wambuttu or Wabotu about these heads. Nor
anything pigmy either."
"I thought as much," said Etcham.
"And you say he did not have them before?"
"To a certainty he did not," Etcham asserted.
"It is worth following up," said Van Rieten. "I'll go with you. And first
of all, I'll do my best to save Stone."
He put out his hand and Etcham clasped it silently. He was grateful all
over.

Chapter IV
Nothing but Etcham's fever of solicitude could have taken him in five
days over the track. It took him eight days to retrace with full
knowledge of it and our party to help. We could not have done it in
seven, and Etcham urged us on, in a repressed fury of anxiety, no mere
fever of duty to his chief, but a real ardor of devotion, a glow of
personal adoration for Stone which blazed under his dry conventional
exterior and showed in spite of him.
We found Stone well cared for. Etcham had seen to a good, high thorn
zareeba round the camp, the huts were well built, and thatched and
Stone's was as good as their resources would permit. Hamed Burghash
was not named after two Seyyids for nothing. He had in him the
making of a sultan. He had kept the Mang-Battu together, not a man
had slipped off, and he had kept them in order. Also he was a deft nurse
and a faithful servant.
The two other Zanzibaris had done some creditable hunting. Though all
were hungry, the camp was far from starvation.
Stone was on a canvas cot and there was a sort of collapsible
camp-stool-table, like a Turkish tabouret, by the cot. It had a
water-bottle and some vials on it and Stone's watch, also his razor in its
case.
Stone was clean and not emaciated, but he was far gone; not
unconscious, but in a daze; past commanding or resisting anyone. He
did not seem to see us enter or to know we were there. I should have
recognized him anywhere. His