Adventure, February 20, 1922 — page 125: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Up-Stream Children were always quarreling and wo- men of no thought were always long of tongue. It was good that Anetchimi was not like that. “The death of a pig with a gaping throat is a good death for the son of a snail,” she said at last, her wizened little body swaying gently as though the movement soothed her. “But that is a knife with two edges. He is the white man’ s servant and the guns upon the white man’s ships kill without seeing the thing at which they shoot. It is not good to die in little pieces.” There was no humor intended. An- etchimi had never been more serious. She had specifically in mind the bombardment of Benin City by a gunboat; and the strange and devastating action of the shells had made an indelible impression upon all who had seen or heard about them. Oagadi’s mouth drooped and he fingered the amulet at his throat as if he expected it to help him. Not even Anetchimi knew what the tightly wound piece of drab-gray cloth, flanked by two large tubes of red coral, contained. But it had served Oagadi well on more than one occasion, as a leop- ard’s tooth and the wings of a black and gold moth might be expected to do. “The white man’s guns! Always the white man’s guns when the elephant would break the bush-dog’s back,” he declared im- patiently. ‘“‘And even when the father of many sons would die, then, too, must he hear of the white man’s guns so that he will know that he must go into the dark alone. “Yam Oagadi, chief of Akwanna, the son of Oka, whose great, great father was brother to .Asije the queen and gatherer of sticks! Am I to be mocked by every fly that feeds upon the dung-heap?” A long pause. Anetchimi continued to rock gently to and fro and made no effort to answer immediately. Advice, if it be good, doés not flow from the tongue like heated oil from the testing-pan. More than that, Anetchimi knew that Benniba was neither the son of a snail nor a fly that fed upon offal. On the contrary, Benniba was a Jakri of Warri—which is the purest of the pure— and though only a younger son of Ilori- Atba by an inferior wife, he was neverthe- less closely allied with Chief Agwala of Benin River, whose name was poison in Oagadi’s ears, because Agwala was the white 3 123 man’s political agent among the Jakri people. Anetchimi knew these things because she was a woman and because Benniba had as" yet no sons. A man, though he have but two wives or two hundred, is without joy until he is father to a man child who will give luster to his name. wives had given him only daughters, a cir- cumstance which made talk among women. © Anetchimi’s lips said little, but her ears — were never closed. Therefore, she knew also of Ilona, the daughter of Agwala, but she said nothing to Oagadi about that. There were sticks enough upon the fire. “‘When the parrot speaks like a man, the | | 3 man but laughs because he knows that the __ words are less than naught,” she counseled pacifically at last. ‘So, if the snail’s son would imitate the greatness of the elephant, then must he ap- pear as a reflection that is seen in a muddy — pool, and there is none who would not laugh as they would laugh at one who has fallen to also true that he who is worthy only of his knees when his nose was highest. laughter, will fill the belly of his presump- tion upon anger.” The final subtlety was lost upon Oagadi; and most of what had gone before was more diplomatic than truthful, because none knew better than Anetchimi that Oagadi was neither wise nor great; that, in reality, he was a pig-headed man with a tremen- dous sense of his own importance; that he dressed as grotesquely as he did so that he would not be as other men were,-and that he had managed to hate the white man in a — dangerously active fashion, without facing a firing squad or straining a rope, more see good luck than good judgment. And, obviously, he was not pleased with Anetchimi’s counsel. He had hoped for a plan of action and had been given sound rea- sons for peace; and Oagadi, when his anger was aroused, was a man of blood first and — all else afterward. His-hatred of Benniba was two-fold. He hated him for his presumption, and he hated him because the thing he had presumed to — do made it imperative that he, Oagadi, die first. Normally, Oagadi would be the first. to die, but, under ordinary circumstances, _ there would be no need to think about it. In this case, however, Benniba’s posses- _ eS : sion of a white man’s coffin co Oagadi ue think of death—which he hated — Benniba’s two NRCS AS Td aan ae ee ‘ ye bik Wet Jae iis er if » ithe +s) | 2) J \ hea . 4 Pa] be wel fens Pa vy SAR 4 * gun we? rp “i yi ba j heyy bl tae POP ALD PRA, OOO eae Re TREMP 7 ae oe Me ic ; rs : ry Mest (3 . 1.’ S y lay ' & « ny Be ti is | AeA i! i} hay te Lchsativhl TEENY aera wd ijt Reeth rish) eMC Ae & 4 /* 447 : : 4 pity Ja Wty ty | (iuslaeti be i Gomicbooks 6) fe N