Henderson the Rain King - Saul Bellow [152]
That's all that's left. Kindness and love." I fell into mourning again, for this was how I had gone on without intermission since being shut in the tomb, and I kept it up a while longer, as I recall. Then suddenly I said to Romilayu, "Pal, the king's death was no accident." "What you mean, sah?" "It was no accident. It was a scheme, I begin to be convinced of it. Now they can say he was punished for keeping Atti, having her under the palace. You know they wouldn't hesitate to murder the guy. They thought I'd be more pliable than the king. Would you put this past these guys?" "No sah." "You bet, no sah. If I ever get my hands on any of these characters I'll crush them like old beer cans." I ground my hands together to show what I would do, and bared my teeth and growled. Perhaps I had learned from lions after all, and not the grace and power of movement that Dahfu had got out of his rearing among them, but the more cruel aspect of the lion, according to my shorter and shallower experience. When you get right down to it, a fellow can't predict what he will pick up in the form of influence. I think that Romilayu was somewhat upset by this jump from mourning to retribution, but he seemed to realize that I wasn't myself, altogether; he was ready to make allowances for me, being really a very generous and understanding type, and quite a Christian fellow. I said, "We must think of crashing out of here. Let's case the joint. Actually, where are we? And what can we do? And what have we got?" "We got knife, sah," said Romilayu, and he showed it to me. It was his hunting knife, and he had slipped it into his hah when the Bunam's men came after him on the outskirts of the town. "Oh, good man," I said, and took the knife from him in a stabbing position. "Dig, bettah," he said. "Yes, that makes sense. You're right. I'd like to get hold of the Bunam," I said, "but that would be a luxury. Revenge is a luxury. I've got to be canny. Hold me back, Romilayu. It's up to you to restrain me. You see I'm beside myself, don't you? What's next door?" We began to go over the wall, and after a minute examination we found a chink high up between the slabs of stone and we began to dig at it, taking turns with the knife. Sometimes I held Romilayu up in my arms, and sometimes I let him stand on my back while I was on all fours. For him to stand on my shoulders was impracticable, as the ceiling was too low. "Yes, somebody tampered with the block and pulley at the hopo," I kept saying. "Maybe, sah." "There can't be any maybes about it. And why did the Bunam grab you? Because it was a plot against Dahfu and me. Of course, the king let me in for a lot of trouble, too, by allowing me to move Mummah. That he did." Romilayu dug, revolving the knife blade in the mortar, and he scraped and scooped out the scrapings with his forefinger. The dust fell over me. "But the king lived under threat of death himself, and what he lived with I could live with. He was my friend." "You friend, sah?" "Well, love may be like this, too, old fellow," I explained. "I suppose my dad wished, I _know__ he wished, that I had gotten drowned instead of my brother Dick, up there near Plattsburg. Did this mean he didn't love me? Not at all. I, too, being a son, it tormented the old guy to wish it. Yes, if it had been me instead, he would have wept almost as much. He loved both his sons. But Dick should have lived. He was wild only that one time, Dick was; he may have been smoking a reefer. It was too much of a price to pay for one single reefer. Oh, I don't blame the old guy. Except it's life; and have we got any business to chide it?" "Yes, sah," he said. He was keenly digging, and I knew he didn't follow me. "How can you chide it? It has a right to our respect. It does its stuff, that's all. I told that man next door I had a voice that said, _I__ _want__. What did it want?" "Yes, sah" (scooping more mortar over me). "It wanted reality. How much unreality could it stand?" He dug and dug. I was on all fours, and my words were spoken toward the floor. "We're supposed to think that nobility