Usanga rubbed his palms together and smacked his thick lips. Then
indeed, would he be very rich, for all the villages would pay
tribute to him and he could even have as many as a dozen wives.
With that thought, however, came a mental picture of Naratu, the
black termagant, who ruled him with an iron hand. Usanga made a
wry face and tried to forget the extra dozen wives, but the lure of
the idea remained and appealed so strongly to him that he presently
found himself reasoning most logically that a god would not be much
of a god with less than twenty-four wives.
He fingered the instruments and the control, half hoping and half
fearing that he would alight upon the combination that would put
the machine in flight. Often had he watched the British air-men
soaring above the German lines and it looked so simple he was quite
sure that he could do it himself if there was somebody who could
but once show him how. There was, of course, always the hope that
the white man who came in the machine and who had escaped from
Numabo's village might fall into Usanga's hands and then indeed
would he be able to learn how to fly. It was in this hope that
Usanga spent so much time in the vicinity of the plane, reasoning
as he did that eventually the white man would return in search of
it.
And at last he was rewarded, for upon this very day after he had
quit the machine and entered the jungle with his warriors, he heard
voices to the north and when he and his men had hidden in the dense
foliage upon either side of the trail, Usanga was presently filled
with elation by the appearance of the British officer and the white
girl whom the black sergeant had coveted and who had escaped him.
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