"Oh, it was only to please the man!--Here's our friend Msala coming. I wonder why the light of his countenance is gone for once."
The katikiro did indeed look unusually grave as he came up. In answer to Mbutu's enquiry, the regular formula "Is it well?" he replied that it was certainly not well, for he had just discovered that one of his best oxen, as well as two of the kasegara's, had died mysteriously during the night. He could not account for it; they had shown no signs of sickness, and none of the other animals were affected. The devil Magaso had hitherto confined his attentions to bananas; it seemed strange if he had suddenly become a destroyer of oxen. One of his Bairo herdsmen, said the katikiro, suggested that Muhoko, another evil spirit, had paid a flying visit to the village; but this suggestion he treated with scorn; he couldn't imagine a Bairo devil having the impudence to interfere with Bahima property. Altogether, the usually genial official was decidedly upset.
"Perhaps they've got poison somehow," said Tom.
Poison! It was unheard-of. The beasts would not of their own accord eat anything poisonous, and who should want to poison them?
"Perhaps someone has a grudge against you and the kasegara."
Against him, the katikiro! It was impossible. Wasn't he a friend to everyone, never bad-tempered, never greedy, never in anybody's way? The kasegara--oh! there might well be a grudge against him, for he thought a great deal too much of himself, talked a great deal too volubly at the village palavers, and had yet to learn that he was inferior to the katikiro after all.
"No doubt," said Tom, inwardly amused at the whole affair. "Some enemy of the kasegara, then, has paid him out by poisoning two of his cattle, and got rid of one of yours too, by mistake. All cats are gray in the dark, you know."
This explanation somewhat consoled the katikiro, when a Bahima equivalent for the proverb had been found; and then, with Mbutu's assistance, he engaged in animated conversation with Tom about the prime minister of the Great White King, whom he was very eager to emulate.
The death of the cattle passed from Tom's mind, but two days later the whole camp was in an uproar at the discovery that no fewer than six other oxen had died in the same mysterious way. Tom, as he went with Mbutu for his daily walk round the village, was surprised to find that the people looked much less pleasantly on him than usual. The change was shown in more than looks. He beckoned to a handsome little boy of four, a special favourite of his, and the child was running to him when he was checked by a sharp call from his mother, who sent him howling into her hut.