第54章 The Rover of the Plain(3)

'I wish you would leave me alone!' she answered crossly.'It is impossible to sleep if somebody is always coming in.' And she turned her back on them, and would not even eat the food they had brought.So they went away, and the young man soon stretched himself out on his mat; but his wife's odd conduct made him anxious, and he lay wake all night, listening.

When all was still the girl made a fire and boiled some water in a pot.

As soon as it was quite hot she shook in the medicine that she had brought from home, and then, taking the buffalo's head, she made incisions with her little knife behind the ear, and close to the temple where the shot had struck him.Next she applied the horn to the spot and blew with all her force till, at length, the blood began to move.

After that she spread some of the deer fat out of the calabash over the wound, which she held in the steam of the hot water.Last of all, she sang in a low voice a dirge over the Rover of the Plain.

As she chanted the final words the head moved, and the limbs came back.

The buffalo began to feel alive again and shook his horns, and stood up and stretched himself.Unluckily it was just at this moment that the husband said to himself:

'I wonder if she is crying still, and what is the matter with her!

Perhaps I had better go and see.' And he got up and, calling her by name, went out to the shed.

'Go away! I don't want you!' she cried angrily.But it was too late.

The buffalo had fallen to the ground, dead, and with the wound in his head as before.

The young man who, unlike most of his tribe, was afraid of his wife, returned to his bed without having seen anything, but wondering very much what she could be doing all this time.After waiting a few minutes, she began her task over again, and at the end the buffalo stood on his feet as before.But just as the girl was rejoicing that her work was completed, in came the husband once more to see what his wife was doing; and this time he sat himself down in the hut, and said that he wished to watch whatever was going on.Then the girl took up the pitcher and all her other things and left the shed, trying for the third time to bring the buffalo back to life.

She was too late; the dawn was already breaking, and the head fell to the ground, dead and corrupt as it was before.

The girl entered the hut, where her husband and his mother were getting ready to go out.

'I want to go down to the lake, and bathe,' said she.

'But you could never walk so far,' answered they.'You are so tired, as it is, that you can hardly stand!'

However, in spite of their warnings, the girl left the hut in the direction of the lake.Very soon she came back weeping, and sobbed out:

'I met some one in the village who lives in my country, and he told me that my mother is very, very ill, and if I do not go to her at once she will be dead before I arrive.I will return as soon as I can, and now farewell.' And she set forth in the direction of the mountains.But this story was not true; she knew nothing about her mother, only she wanted an excuse to go home and tell her family that their prophecies had come true, and that the buffalo was dead.

Balancing her basket on her head, she walked along, and directly she had left the village behind her she broke out into the song of the Rover of the Plain, and at last, at the end of the day, she came to the group of huts where her parents lived.Her friends all ran to meet her, and, weeping, she told them that the buffalo was dead.

This sad news spread like lightning through the country, and the people flocked from far and near to bewail the loss of the beast who had been their pride.

'If you had only listened to us,' they cried, 'he would be alive now.

But you refused all the little girls we offered you, and would have nothing but the buffalo.And remember what the medicine-man said: "If the buffalo dies you die also!"'

So they bewailed their fate, one to the other, and for a while they did not perceive that the girl's husband was sitting in their midst, leaning his gun against a tree.Then one man, turning, beheld him, and bowed mockingly.

'Hail, murderer! hail! you have slain us all!'

The young man stared, not knowing what he meant, and answered, wonderingly:

'I shot a buffalo; is that why you call me a murderer?'

'A buffalo--yes; but the servant of your wife! It was he who carried the wood and drew the water.Did you not know it?'

'No; I did not know it,' replied the husband in surprise.'Why did no one tell me? Of course I should not have shot him!'

'Well, he is dead,' answered they, 'and we must die too.'

At this the girl took a cup in which some poisonous herbs had been crushed, and holding it in her hands, she wailed: 'O my father, Rover of the Plain!' Then drinking a deep draught from it, fell back dead.

One by one her parents, her brothers and her sisters, drank also and died, singing a dirge to the memory of the buffalo.

The girl's husband looked on with horror; and returned sadly home across the mountains, and, entering his hut, threw himself on the ground.At first he was too tired to speak; but at length he raised his head and told all the story to his father and mother, who sat watching him.When he had finished they shook their heads and said:

'Now you see that we spoke no idle words when we told you that ill would come of your marriage! We offered you a good and hard- working wife, and you would have none of her.And it is not only your wife you have lost, but your fortune also.For who will give you back your money if they are all dead?'

'It is true, O my father,' answered the young man.But in his heart he thought more of the loss of his wife than of the money he had given for her.

[From L'Etude Ethnographique sur les Baronga, par Henri Junod.]