Little God Ben Read online

  ‘Karamee valogee O lahala laholee. Vooloo malooloo karamo sula somo domo toree. Gala majeela O wooleeja, cloom lungoo—huh?’

  ‘Meaning?’ murmured Cooling.

  For an instant all eyes were on him. Oomoo seized the instant, and scratched his nose with a thoroughness and rapidity that created a record in nasal history.

  ‘Meaning,’ translated Oakley, ‘that the Chief is taking a special interest in you and that your voice gives him a sort of spinal pleasure. For this reason—and also, I think, because he is attracted by your eyeglass—he desires you to address him personally, and to give him a sample of the defence you will put up tomorrow before Oomoo in the Temple of Gold. Of course, he will not understand it. A word of advice. Make it snappy.’

  ‘It cannot be too snappy for me,’ retorted Cooling, retreating a little as the Chief grew uncomfortably close. ‘I suppose you couldn’t call the fellow off, could you?’

  ‘Kwee?’ said the Chief, pointing to Cooling’s monocle, and continuing to advance as Cooling backed.

  ‘I beg you to keep your distance,’ answered Cooling, doing his best to wave away the traffic. ‘If you come too close I may forget myself and make your face even less beautiful than it is at present, and thus achieve an impossibility … Yes, sir, this is an eyeglass. One day, if you are a good little boy, I may buy you one, but meanwhile let me inform you, sir, that you are going to receive a surprise at the trial domo in your toree. Your little god, to whom these words are addressed as much as to yourself—kindly note that, little god—is going to pronounce a verdict that will considerably surprise you … Yes, yes, I have told you before, this is an eyeglass … Believe me, sir, Oomoo will find some way—he will indeed, be instructed to find a way, and will receive the precise instructions later—to recompense me and my companions for the indignity you are putting upon us. Oh, and to recompense himself, also, of course—’

  ‘One per cent,’ muttered Medworth.

  ‘We might make it two,’ suggested Cooling, ‘and two per cent of the gold in his temple will buy quite a lot of things in dear old Leicester Square. Yes, Mr Chief, our price is going to be a stiff one, a damned stiff one, and you will pay it because if you disobey your little god he will send a storm that will sink your confounded island to the bottom of your confounded ocean—AH!’

  The abrupt termination of the speech was caused by the Chief’s hand, which suddenly shot out and snatched the eyeglass from the lordly optic. Delighted with his prize the Chief sprang back, and held the glass before his own optic. The next moment he gave a shout of terrified rage and sent the monocle spinning through the air.

  ‘Hooja, hooja, hooja!’ he howled.

  For a few seconds pandemonium existed. Gazes were riveted on an island chief having spasms. Even the six stalwart guards with spears forgot their duty of guarding the three most restless of the white folk, and Ardentino, suddenly finding the chance he had been seeking, slipped away and bounded round a rock. Then a fresh diversion was created. It came from the forest.

  The two natives returned. They carried a golden litter. Behind them, chanting and dancing, were a score of dusky girls. The Chief ceased foaming at the mouth, made a sign to the procession, and waved towards Oomoo.

  ‘Wot’s this?’ wondered Ben. ‘A revoo?’

  He fought a strange embarrassment. The dusky girls were undoubtedly attractive, but they were hardly decent. Then the embarrassment changed to new alarm as the procession made a bee-line for him. Reaching him, it stopped. The golden litter was raised to his level. The dusky girls fell below his level, and flopped down on their faces.

  ‘’Ere! Am I ter git on it?’ thought Ben. ‘It ain’t sife!’

  He tried to glimpse Oakley without moving his eyes. He failed, because Oakley had moved out of his direct line of vision. This was a nuisance. He had the sense to realise that if he openly appealed to Oakley, revealing his dependence on him, his authority would vanish like smoke, so he rolled his eyes round majestically. At the most easterly point of their circular tour they found Oakley. Oakley was nodding quietly, with the unobtrusive skill of a conjuror’s confederate.

  ‘Well, there ain’t no fare ter pay,’ reflected Ben resignedly. ‘’Ere goes!’

  He stepped on to the litter. As soon as he was on it, it began to move again. It moved so suddenly and swiftly that Ben lost both his balance and his head, sat down promptly, and ejaculated:

  ‘Oi!’

  ‘Oi!’ repeated the natives, with awed reverence.

  The divine word echoed through the forest as the gasping god was borne into it.

  8

  The Village of Skulls

  The journey that followed was the most extraordinary of Ben’s extraordinary existence, not even excepting a funeral procession in which he had once taken the principal part. It was so extraordinary, in fact, that for a while he didn’t believe it. ‘I’ve eaten suthink,’ he decided, ‘and this is wot’s ’appened.’ There could be no other possible explanation of the impressive golden litter beneath his less impressive frame, of the two giants who were bearing him along, of the fat Chief who strode by his side, of the chanting, dancing girls with their impossibly naked bodies. Why, even in a musical comedy, girls wore more clothing! ‘Yus, that’s wot it is,’ insisted Ben. ‘I’ve eaten suthink!’

  The forest itself added to the impression of nightmare. The trees were higher than trees had any right to be. As the procession advanced they grew thicker and more luxuriant, and great coils of foliage wound round them like bursting snakes. Some of the trees had been struck down by the storm, and lay prone upon the ground or slanted at angles that gave them a queer resemblance to long forest guns. One tree lay directly across their track, and as the procession clambered over it the Chief began mumbling. Ben gathered he was apologising. The apology was necessary, for the process of negotiating the obstacle nearly shook Ben off his perch.

  ‘Wunner wot’d ’appen if I give a big shout?’ reflected Ben. ‘P’r’aps I’d wike meself up like?’

  He refrained, although he longed to wake up like. It had been bad enough on the pedestal, but it was worse on the litter. Now there were no white faces around him to remind him of home, and he felt terribly lonely. His sole crumb of comfort resided in the probability that his companions in distress were forming some other part of the procession, assumedly in the rear; but a crumb of comfort you cannot see is of small use.

  Presently the trees became a little less dense, and the track forked into two. There was a pause. The front part, including Ben, then took the right track, and the back part, including the rest of the white party with the exception of Ardentino, took the left track.

  We will follow the right track. It led to a large clearing. Now, instead of trees, were bamboo huts. Outside the huts sprawled babies and squatted old men. A long perpendicular pole protruded through the top of each hut. Some of the poles were barren, others bore skulls. The barren poles were preferable.

  Women and children issued from the huts like variously-sized black dots to watch the procession pass by. They all stared at Ben, and some of them flopped on their faces. It surprised the unhappy god to notice that many of the children were quite pretty. One in particular nearly made him forget his sanctity and turn his head. ‘Fancy findin’ a kid like that ’ere!’ he thought. ‘Wash ’er black orf and she’d be orl right at a party!’ He hoped vaguely that he would see her again. Fortunately for the moment, he had no prevision of the conditions in which his hope was destined to be fulfilled.

  The procession wound through the bamboo village without halting. The ground began to rise. A rocky peak appeared above a distant belt of trees, a peak on which something gleamed. Ben fixed his eyes upon the gleaming thing. Then the procession stopped with a jolt, and he found himself before another bamboo hut which evidently marked the conclusion of their journey.

  This hut was considerably larger than the others. It was of the same bee-hive shape, and appeared to follow much the same pattern, but an impressive b
amboo wall encircled it, and the hut formed the central point of a big enclosure. Three long poles, instead of the usual one, rose gloomily from the roof, and on each were three skulls.

  ‘I s’pose this is where Old King Cole lives,’ thought Ben. ‘Well, there’s no accountin’ fer tiste!’

  A brief consultation was proceeding below him. He had been carried shoulder high throughout the journey, as though closer proximity to the ground would contaminate him, and he was still being held at the same elevation. He thought he heard Oakley’s voice. Then he was carried through an opening in the palisade, across the wide space between the fence and the hut, and into the hut. The ‘front door’ was a very thick greenish curtain formed out of several layers of heavily plaited rushes.

  At first Ben could see nothing inside. The transition from external sunlight to interior dimness temporarily destroyed his vision. Other eyes could see, however, if his could not, and he was carried onward without pause. He seemed to be travelling through a dark vastness. His head, surely, ought to have struck the roof, but the roof was a distant dome above which, he suddenly recalled, were nine skulls. This lent enchantment to the distance.

  His eyes were becoming accustomed to the dimness when the procession, now considerably diminished in size, made its final halt before an enormous chair. It was fixed to a raised platform, and it was of painted wood. The artist who had painted the chair appeared to have exhausted his entire paint-box, for if any hue was absent from this seat of state, Ben had never met it. It was the Chief’s throne, resigned for the occasion to the Chief’s most distinguished visitor.

  ‘Ain’t I never goin’ ter walk agine?’ wondered Ben, as he was lifted from the litter to the throne. ‘Don’t gods need no exercise?’

  But a more important question was becoming urgent in his mind—or, more correctly speaking, in his stomach. Did gods eat?

  He placed his numb hands upon his numb knees, and while he did so the procession melted away. He was conscious of more murmurings, and more prostrations. The Chief’s big bulk lowered itself once more before him. Then the Chief also melted away, and there came a blessed stillness and silence. Allowing his eye to rove a little, he noticed that one figure still remained. His heart nearly turned over in gratitude. It was Oakley.

  ‘Oi!’ whispered Ben.

  ‘Shut up!’ Oakley whispered back. ‘Wives coming.’

  ‘Wot—on land?’ mumbled Ben.

  ‘Wives, not waves,’ murmured Oakley. ‘To be presented. But only a dozen of them.’

  ‘Do they ’ave clothes on?’ asked Ben. ‘’Cos if not, I ain’t goin’ ter look!’

  ‘Shut up, shut up!’ muttered Oakley. ‘You’re doing fine. Don’t spoil it.’

  ‘Yus, but don’t fergit I’m gettin’ ’ungry!’ whispered Ben.

  Encouraged by Oakley’s praise, he readjusted his features into a ghastly grin and prepared to wait.

  ‘Don’t look so jolly,’ came the low admonition.

  ‘Gawd, ’oo’s jolly?’ growled Ben, and changed his expression to the nearest he could find to a dying haddock.

  A long bamboo wall, extending from floor to roof, separated the outer chamber, or throne room, from the inner quarters of the hut, and at the end farthest from the throne was a thick rush curtain similar to that which stood for the front door. The rushes now rustled apart and the Chief returned followed by twelve of his wives. Oakley had originally mentioned twenty-one, so Ben deduced that the balance of nine were on holiday. These twelve, apart from the foremost who was bursting with over-exposed flesh, looked as though they could also have done with a change. The Chief’s taste in femininity was not good.

  The Chief stood aside. The twelve wives approached Ben in single file. One by one, they went flat before him, murmuring ‘Oomoo!’ as they did so. The last one—last and least, for she was the sorriest of the crew and looked thoroughly wretched and browbeaten—tripped, and the Chief hissed in anger. Just in time the little god restrained his impulse to leap down to her assistance and help her up.

  Ben was always sorry for people who fell down. He knew what it felt like.

  ‘Never mind, I’ll do suthink fer yer if I can,’ thought Ben as the miserable creature scrambled to her feet. ‘Yus, why shouldn’t I? I am a god, ain’t I?’

  And then an amazing idea flashed into Ben’s mind, carrying him dizzily beyond his own needs and the needs of his companions. If he were really destined to continue his strange dominance, why shouldn’t he use the power for the benefit of others on this island? Why shouldn’t he do something for other creatures as well as just for this one frightened woman? For that jolly little child he’d noticed, for instance? For the dancing girls—get some decent clothes on them? Even, perhaps, for the Chief himself, whose notions of diet might be improved with proper direction?

  The amazing idea grew. Behind the expression of a dying haddock dawned conceptions undreamed of by haddocks in their hey-day! A god ought to do good. He should not stoop to stealing gold—especially for a paltry two per cent. of the profit! If Ben was only a little god, he might be able to teach these black people about the Big God—make them switch over, like—which would have the ultimate advantage of releasing Ben from duty. ‘Course, yer really wants a bloke like the Third Officer fer this kind o’ job,’ reflected Ben, ‘but it’s too late ter swop with ’im nah …’

  A voice broke in upon his reverie.

  ‘You can come out of your trance, old son,’ said Oakley. ‘But keep your voice low.’

  ‘Eh?’ jerked Ben.

  His mind snapped back from the future to the present. He and Oakley were alone again. He had been so absorbed in his beneficent vision that he had not noticed the wives returning to their quarters. His last memory was of the twelfth wife tripping.

  ‘Have you ever been a god before?’ inquired Oakley. ‘This seems almost too good for a first performance.’

  ‘Stop kiddin’!’ muttered Ben.

  ‘Believe me, I am not kidding. Your mind seemed to be on Olympus.’

  ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘Oh, just a little hill.’

  ‘Well, see, I was thinkin’.’

  ‘A mistake, take my word for it. Never think on a cannibal island.’

  ‘Yus, but that’s wot I was thinkin ’abart!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Cannerbul island. I’m the blinkin’ gawd ’ere, ain’t I? Well, then, why can’t I stop the cannerbul part?’

  Oakley regarded Ben with interest.

  ‘Is your head turning, old sport?’ he asked.

  ‘Fair spinnin’,’ returned Ben. ‘Jest the sime, mite, I’m seerious.’

  Oakley glanced towards the rush curtain through which a Chief had just gone with a dozen wives. He smiled with the grim pain of knowledge.

  ‘Of course you can’t stop it,’ he said.

  ‘Why not?’ insisted Ben. ‘Me bein’ a gawd—and you standin’ by like ter ’elp with the lingo?’

  ‘Of a hundred reasons, I will mention two,’ answered Oakley. ‘First, the peculiar composition of gods. Gods are made in man’s own image. Do you understand what I am talking about?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then let me put it in another way. Gods are created for man’s convenience. They think the things that the individual or the community want them to think. In the Great War, the English God said we were right. The German God said the Germans were right. The Japanese God said the Japs were right. The American God said, Say, Boy, the Americans are right. Do you think any country would have acepted a God that had put them in the wrong? And you’ll find it the same here. Oomoo believes in cannibalism. Oomoo believes in hanging up skulls like inn signs. Oomoo believes in sacrifices. If Oomoo didn’t—good-bye, Oomoo. So if you want to turn this black island white, old sport, forget it. All we can do is to try and save the white that’s on it.’

  Ben looked depressed.

  ‘But the second reason is equally forceful,’ went on Oakley. ‘It is the High Priest. Your present host i
s merely the figurehead. It’s the High Priest who pulls the strings, and the High Priest is quite the nastiest bit of work ever achieved by Creation. Not that I mind him. I don’t mind anything. Why worry? Yes, really and truly, sweetheart, why worry? Bernard Shaw once said—by the way, is the dear old fossil still alive?—he once said that we were all born with the death sentence. Quite true. It’s just a question of how, when, and where … Just the same, when I first came here, the High Priest used to give me the chilly shivers. See him giving up his pound of flesh!’

  ‘Ere, that’s enuff abart ’im!’ interposed Ben.

  ‘As you like,’ replied Oakley. ‘And, after all, time’s going, and I must get practical.’

  ‘Yus, afore Old King Cole pops back agine,’ agreed Ben. ‘Where’s ’e gorn?’

  ‘He has gone to pray. I told him you desired him and his wives to repeat the Storm Prayer ten times in the kitchen. Each time takes a minute, and they’re probably about half-way through.’

  ‘Wot ’appens when they’re orl the way through?’

  ‘Food will be brought to you, and placed before you.’

  ‘Wot sort o’ food?’

  ‘Is that a wise question?’

  ‘I ain’t goin’ ter eat no knuckles!’

  ‘You will not be offered knuckles. At the moment, I happen to know, there are no supplies. It will probably be a smelly vegetable called Wooma. The best way to avoid being sick is to eat it very slowly while thinking hard of something entirely different. Choose your own subject. I always choose Welsh Rarebit.’

  ‘Yus, well, s’pose I’m sick any’ow?’ asked Ben. ‘’Ow’ll that be fer givin’ me away?’

  ‘You must not be sick anyhow,’ ordered Oakley, ‘but even so it might not give you away. There will be no one by you when you eat.’

  ‘Owjer know that?’ demanded Ben, relieved that he was not going to be watched.