Before
them writhed Sulimani, close to earth, darting irregularly now to
right, now to left, wriggling, spreading his arms abroad. He was
repeating over and over two phrases; or rather the same phrase
in two such different intonations that they seemed to convey
quite separate meanings.
"Ka soompeele?" he cried with a strongly appealing interrogation.
"Ka soompeele!" he repeated with the downward inflection of
decided affirmation.
And the bent men, their dark bodies gleaming in the firelight,
stamping in rhythm every third step, chorused in a deep rumbling
bass:
"Goom zoop! goom zoop!"
Thus they advanced; circled between us and the fire, and withdrew
to the half darkness, where tirelessly they continued the same
reiterations.
Hardly had they withdrawn when another group danced forward in
their places. These were the Kikuyus. They had discarded
completely their safari clothes, and now came forth dressed out
in skins, in strips of white cloth, with feathers, shells and
various ornaments. They carried white wands to represent spears,
and they sang their tribal lion song. A soloist delivered the
main argument in a high wavering minor and was followed by a deep
rumbling emphatic chorus of repetition, strongly accented so that
the sheer rhythm of it was most pronounced:
