| caption: |
Chapter seven. Reconnaissance |
| caption: |
Guilong; Gaidiliu's reincarnation |
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There was no stating of a request, no calm discussion. Down the intruder plumped and claimed my whole attention. If it strayed back to my book (and Guilong's conversation was not exciting) an impatient hand tweaked at my clothes and recalled me, not to a sane discourse, but to an awful, unreasoning babble of set words. |
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" Mother, mother, mother ! Mother, you are our mother ! O my mother - 'asui i kasang da-'-I am very happy ! O my mother, bless me, say good words for me. O my mother, you are our mother, you are a goddess, you are greater than all, there is none greater than you - 'Apui, anuipui da, nang' 'soa ka-i-va ga-le, nang soa ka-di va ga-le !"' |
| text: |
A barred door made no difference. Jam it, barricade it as I would, a brown arm was sooner or later forced through and (58) the bar flung sharply down. They were really hurt if I shut them out - hurt and angry. I gave it up. There was no dealing with it. I simply suffered. |
| text: |
At Guilong, too, we ran into a party from Bopungwemi, Dikheo's village, the stronghold of the Gaidiliu movement. They were on their way to Maibong to buy salt, and they had scarcely seen me when they vanished behind the houses and appeared again with a present of three worn cloths, all neatly folded, but still warm from the wearer, and clearly stripped that minute from the youngest member of their party. Guilong then wound up the whole lunacy with a dance; and never have I seen such a three-ring circus - the drums and choir each doing something different and the dancers wildly at variance with each other, even to having two dances going at once in opposition - a performance of stark, staring, undiluted anarchy. |
