Adventure, February 20, 1922 — page 126: what you’re looking at

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

- I2 to do—because there was always a chance Ee that, at any hour, Benniba would be taken aoe with a fever and die and be buried in his ___' white man’s coffin before Oagadi, even if he wanted to, would have an opportunity to forestall him. Young men.do die in notori- ous haste and volume im the Niger country. a ' To relieve himself of such disagreeable _ competition, but one solution presented itself. Benniba would have to be re- moved. Because there were several ways -. in which such removal could be accom- _____ plished without» necessitating any sort of ____ burial, Oagadi had looked for a suggestion S from Anetchimi without having any thought = of making her a party to the deed. - ae _ edges than one that is blunt and broken,” he Bs _ said sulkily and with a gesture that indi- ge cated impatient dismissal. ‘‘And even a child has heard that he who is too careful of Be his. life is always killed by the fall of a dry = - leaf. ? bee Anetchimi rose from her mat nodding her head many times. But when she made her customary, stiff-kneed obeisance, which is the due of the head of the family, and moved = i wi) EMRE _ from the ceiling, she muttered ominously: “Hate and pride and the love of women— there is no wisdom in any of these. But if the snail’s son must die, let many weights be | put upon the body else it will float as the dy of man never floated before.” “Like that of a woman?” Oagadi ques- ~ tioned, and grinned at his own wit. ny t ut | () ai Oe Rt ae A ‘ oe, ard ‘ , ; ps is uy Y a “a 4 AT | Pe be { bh he } > - ¥ Ye y' » y ive «e 1) “No. Up-stream,” came the unexpected - answer as Anetchimi passed from the room, | pone Oagadi to think what pleased him best. -._. His expression in the succeeding few min- utes indicated that he did not like the sinis- ___ ter prediction, but he made no effort to ask ___ for further information. A woman’s tongue ___-was like a ground-nut in an empty calabash. It could make much noise when disturbed. + More than that, Oagadi had too often taken his own course in defiance of the white man’s laws to be frightened by the prophecies of a ~ woman whose heart was as thin milk. _ Had he not been the eyes and the ears of a _ king when Ologbosheri, the commander of the king’s forces, had ambushed and butch- _ ered the white bearers of gifts and so many of their Kroo-boy carriers that they were heaped like the kernels in the white traders’ ~ stores? Wy divaan 4 of HR SCH —-. oo ae ae ~~" 7 le : =: pet f. }- 3a Lee toa in bree SS © wl —_ [Pann loge es | y¢ “Tt is better to have a knife with two. -_to pass beyond the screen of mats that hung Adventure And yet he had lived to see Ologbosheri hanged, just as, upon other occasions, he had seen others, even less guilty than he, trip and fall into the white man’s noose. Al- ways he, Oagadi the Wise, had escaped. He always would. Convinced of that, he finally spat upon Anetchimi’s fear of the white man’s guns, and in the succeeding hours and days and weeks, brooded and planned and perfected his arrangements. II IN A brilliant yellow cloth that a | fastened under the armpits by a simple twist-knot and clung inti- mately to her sinuous young body all the way down to her naked ankles, Ilona, the daughter of Agwala, sat in the shade of Marsden’s & Co.’s kernel-store awning, and held desultory conversation with the white kernel clerk while she waited for six P.M. Then one of the Kroo-boys would strike four bells upon the old ship’s bell that hung in the oil yard, work upon Marsden & Co.’s trading beach would cease for the day, and Benniba, the shop boy, would emerge from the shop. Ilona and he would get into their canoe and paddle slowly homeward, talking of the future in monotones, as a man and his wife will when they have been married but a week or two. Tlona’s head was bound about with a silk handkerchief of bright and passionate red, and even in her most indolent moments she radiated action of a dynamic order. When she moved one thought of a puma and felt that the comparison was poverty-stricken. The white kernel clerk, who was young . enough to believe he understood women, liked to have Ilona “hanging around,” in spite of the fact that Daniel Dane Parker, the district commissioner, had been known .to say of her that she would probably do ‘much harm before she died. And Daniel D. P.—sometimes known as the Great Dane—was a man of discernment who rarely made mistakes in a matter of that kind. Ilona’s gifts, even though she was yet very young, were obviously of the sort to upset thrones, and when. she became the third wife of Benniba, the shop boy, the district commissioner said fervently, “May the Lord have mercy on his soul. She'll make a howling success of him whether he likes it or not.” Ilona had married Benniba for several > comicboo com)