THE RENEGADE
17
could make out the bolt with my finger-tips. Several days, long
after-I couldn't count the days or the hours, but my handful of
grain had been thrown me some ten times and I had dug out a hole
for my excrements that I covered up in vain, the stench of an
animal-den hung on anyway-long after, yes, the door opened wide
and they came in.
One of them came toward me where I was squatting in a
comer. I felt the burning salt against my cheek, I smelt the dusty
scent of the palms, I watched him approach. He stopped a yard
away from me, he stared at me with his metallic eyes that shone
without expression in his brown horse-face, then he raised his hand.
Still impassive, he seized me by the lower lip which he twisted slowly
until he tore my flesh and, without letting go, made me tum around
and back up to the center of the room, he pulled on my lip to make
me fall on my knees there, mad with pain and my mouth bleeding,
then he turned away to join the others standing against the walls.
They watched me moaning in the unbearable heat of the unbroken
daylight that came in the wide-open door, and in that light suddenly
appeared the Sorcerer with his raffia hair, his chest covered with a
breastplate of pearls, his legs bare under a straw skirt, wearing a
mask of reeds and wire with two square openings for the eyes. He
was followed by musicians and women wearing heavy motley gowns
that revealed nothing of their bodies. They danced in front of the
door at the end, but a coarse scarcely rhythmical dance, they just
barely moved, and finally the Sorcerer opened the little door behind
me, the masters did not stir, they were watching me, I turned around
and saw the Fetish, his double ax-head, his iron nose twisted like
a snake.
I was carried before him, to the foot of the pedestal, I was
made to drink a black, bitter, bitter water, and .at once my head
began to bum, I was laughing, that's the offense, I am offended.
They undressed me, shaved my head and body, washed me in oil,
beat my face with cords dipped in water and salt, and I laughed
and turned my head away but, each time, two women would take
me by the ears and offer my face to the Sorcerer's blows while I
could see only his square eyes, I was still laughing, covered with
blood. They stopped, no one spoke but me, the jumble was begin–
ning in my head, then they lifted me up .and forced me to raise my
