Генри Райдер Хаггард - The Treasure Of The Lake стр 9.

"Be silent, Hans," I said, "and give me my supper."

"Yes, Baas; that is what I am trying to do, Baas, but something has gone wrong after all, for the stuff is sticking to the pot and I can't get it out even with this iron spoon. I think that if the Baas would not mind taking the pot and helping himself, it would be much easier," and he thrust that blackened article towards me.

"Hans," I said, "if this place were not Mahommedan where there is no liquor, I should think that you had been drinking."

"Baas, if you believe that Prophetworshippers do not drink, your head is even softer than I imagined. It is true that they have no gin here, at least at present, because they have finished the last lot and cannot get any more till the traders come. But they make a kind of wine of their own out of palm trees which answers quite well if you can swallow enough of it without being sick, which I am sorry to say I can't, Baas, and therefore this afternoon I have only had two pannikins full. If the Baas would like to try some"

Here I lifted the first thing that came to handit was a three legged stooland hurled it at Hans, who slipped cleverly round the corner of the hut, probably because he was expecting its advent.

A while later, after I had tackled the stewwhich had stuck to the potwith unsatisfactory results, and lit my pipe, he returned to clear up, in such a chastened frame of mind that I gathered the palmwinewell, let that be.

"What has the Baas been doing all the afternoon in this dull place?" he asked humbly, watching me with a furtive eye, for there was another stool within reach, also the pot. "Talking to that giant rainmaker, who looks like an owl in sunlightI mean Kaneke or perhaps to one of his wives; she who is so pretty," he added, by an afterthought.

"Yes," I said, "I haveto Kaneke, I mean, not to the wife, whom I do not know; indeed, I never heard that he had any wives."

Then I added suddenly, for now that he had recovered from the palm wine I wished to surprise the truth out of his keen mind:

"What do you think of Kaneke, Hans?"

Hans twiddled his dirty hat and fixed his little yellow eyes upon the evening sky, then he took the pot and, finding a remaining leg of fowl, ate it reflectively, after which he produced his corncob pipe and asked me for some tobacco. This, by the way, I was glad to see, for when Hans could smoke I knew that he was quite sober.

These preliminaries finished, he remarked.

"As to what was it that the Baas wished me to instruct him? Oh, I remember. About that big village headman, Kaneke. Well, Baas, I have made inquiries concerning him from his wife, who says she is jealous of him and therefore in a mood to speak the truth. First of all he is a great liar, Baas, though that is nothing for all these people are liarsnot like me and you, Baas, who often speak the truth, or at least I do."

"Stop fooling, and answer my question," I said.

"Yes, Baas. Well, I said that he was a liar, did I not? For instance, I dare say he has told the Baas a fine tale about how he came to settle here, by killing the head of the slavegang, after which all the other slavers acknowledged him as their chief. The truth is that he and the other slaves murdered the lot of them because he said he was a good Mahommedan and could not bear to see them drinking gin against the law, which for my part I think was clever of him. They surprised them in their sleep, Baas, and dragged them to the top of that cliff over the stream, where they threw them one by one into the water, except two who had beaten Kaneke. These he flogged to death, which I dare say they deserved. After this the people here, who hated the slavers because they robbed them, made Kaneke their chief because he was such a holy man who could not bear to see followers of the Prophet drink gin, also because they were afraid lest he should throw them over the cliff too. That is why he must be so strict about his prayers, because, you see, he must keep his fame for holiness and show that he is as good as he wishes others to be."

Hans stopped to relight his pipe with an ember, and I asked him impatiently if he had any more to say.

"Yes, Baas, lots. This Kaneke is not one man, he is two. The first Kaneke is a tyrant, one full of plots who would like to rule the world, a lover of liquor too, which he drinks in secret; fierce, cunning, cruel. The second Kaneke is one who dreams, who hears voices and sees things in the sky, who follows after visions, a true witchdoctor, a man who would seek what is afar, but who, living in this soft place, is like a lion in a cage. His mother must have made a mistake, and instead of bearing twins, got two spirits into one body where they must fight together till he dies."

"I dare say. Many men have two spirits in one body. Is that all, Hans?"

"Yesthat is, no, Baas. You know this Kaneke brought you here, don't you, Baas, and that all those troubles which we met with, so that we could not go the road we wanted because that tribe sent to say they would kill us if we did, were made by him so that you might come to his village."