The Priests Tale - Père Etienne | Page 7

before me.'
"'Would you mind if I looked within, Mwezi?' I questioned, for to tell you the truth my curiosity was thoroughly aroused.
"The old fellow got up courteously. 'Enter, white man,' said he. 'My sons shall bring the stools and fetch us beer. I am old and poor, but you are welcome. You are at least of the people of him I saw, and shall I, in my sorrow, forbid you to come in?'
"We entered. The place was divided into two by a sod partition, plainly recent in construction, and I looked disappointedly at what I could see. There were the usual scant furnishings of a native hut--a kitanda, some pots, a stool or two, a few spears in a corner. But when I passed round the partition, my interest increased tenfold. I even cried out in my astonishment.
"I saw what I had not been able to see from the fact of my approach from the west of the clearing. The eastern end of the hut was not built squarely as the other, but roughly rounded in what elsewhere I should unhesitatingly have called an apse, and since on either side there were still visible a couple of those narrow pointed windows, while the floor space was practically empty, the suggestion of a chapel was complete. I ought, perhaps, to have guessed it before, but the thought burst on me suddenly. The situation, near the stream rather than up on the hill, the orientation, the unusual length, the vine, the clearing--everything pointed in the same direction. And then the old man's story. I was frankly amazed.
"I turned and saw him standing in the doorway, his hand on the mud wall for support, his eyes peering at me from his bowed head. If I had been momentarily suspicious of a knowledge hitherto kept from me, all fled at the sight of him. He was transparently honest and eager. 'What is it, white man?' he quavered.
"'Mwezi,' said I, 'here is a strange thing and a wonder. You tell me that you saw in your vision a white man, and I know from what you say that he was a priest. You travelled far, and your spirit sent you here. Well, I do not doubt that this house of yours was once a place of worship, and I think it was built by white priests. Think now, have you heard of no such thing?'
"He swayed a little as he stood, and did not answer at once. Then he slowly shook his head. 'I have heard nothing, nothing,' he said. 'If it be so, none know of these things, white man. Art thou sure? Thou wouldst not mock me again.'
"'Mwezi,' I cried eagerly, 'I do not mock you. Why should I do any such thing? I cannot yet tell certainly, but this place is such as we build for prayers, and we may yet make sure. May I search more diligently?'
"'Do what thou wilt, my son,' said he, 'and if my hands cannot, my spirit will help thee.'
"There and then I began a close scrutiny. I went outside, measured, tapped, sought, but I found nothing more. If there had ever been a stoup, a cross, a rude piscina, they had long since gone. But the more I searched, the more sure grew my conviction that the place had been a chapel. At last I sat down to rest, and while resting, I had an idea.
"'Mwezi,' I said, 'have you ever dug up the floor?'
"He shook his head. 'Why should I dig it up?' he asked.
"'Would you allow me to do so?' I queried.
"He looked doubtful. 'But why?' he asked again, suspiciously. 'And would you dig even now?'
"I laughed. 'Well, not at once,' I said. 'We must find a new house for you first. But if I am right, it may be that things are buried here, or that there are stones which will tell me a tale. See, the floor is higher now than it was. There was a step here at the door, and the mud has nearly covered it.'
"'It is but the smearing,' he said, half contemptuously.
"That roused me. Of course I know the native habit of cleaning a house by putting down a fresh layer of mud mixed with a little dung, which in time raises the floor considerably. But I was not to be put off by that. Below the smearing of the old man's time might be a layer of earth thrown in to hide something. I glanced round. 'May I borrow a spear?' I asked.
"He nodded, and I selected one from the corner with a long thin blade. Then I went into the inner room, and he came and stood again to watch me with his peering old eyes. Under his scrutiny, I began in the apse and thrust