Henderson the Rain King - Saul Bellow [44]
the ancient-looking place, the weeping delegation, the wrestling match with Itelo, and the queen having looked into my heart and telling me of the grun-tu-molani. All this was mixed up in my head and excited me greatly, and I kept thinking of the best way to blow up those frogs. Naturally I know a little something about explosives, and I thought I could take out the two batteries and manufacture a pretty good bomb in my flashlight case by filling it with powder from the shells of my.375 H and H Magnum. They carry quite a charge, believe me, and could be used on an elephant. I had bought the.375 especially for this trip to Africa after reading about it in Life or Look. A fellow from Michigan who had one went to Alaska as soon as his vacation started; he flew to Alaska and hired a guide to track a Kodiak bear; they found the bear and chased him over cliffs and marshes and shot him at four hundred yards. Myself, I used to have a certain interest in hunting, but as I grew older it seemed a strange way to relate to nature. What I mean is, a man goes into the external world, and all he can do with it is to shoot it? It doesn't make sense. So in October when the season starts and the gunsmoke pours out of the bushes and the animals panic and run back and forth, I go out and pinch the hunters for shooting on my posted property. I take them to the Justice of the Peace and he fines them. Thus having decided in the hut to take the shells and use them in my bomb, I lay grinning at the surprise those frogs had coming, and also somewhat at myself, because I was anticipating the gratitude of Willatale and Mtalba and Itelo and all the people; and I went so far as to imagine that the queen would elevate me to a position equal to her own. But I would say, "No, no. I didn't leave home to achieve power or glory, and any little favor I do you is free." With all this going on within me I couldn't sleep, and if I were going to prepare the bomb tomorrow I needed my rest badly. I am something of a crank about sleep, for somehow if I get seven and a quarter hours instead of eight I feel afflicted and drag myself around, although there's nothing really wrong with me. It's just another idea. That's how it is with my ideas; they seem to get strong while I weaken. While I was lying awake I had a visit from Mtalba. Coming in, she shut off the moonlight in the doorway and then sat down near me on the floor, sighing, and took my hand, and talked softly and made me touch her skin, which was certainly wonderfully soft; she had a right to be vain of it. Though I felt it, I acted oblivious and refused to respond, but my bulk lay extended on the blanket and I fixed my gaze on the thatch while I tried to concentrate on putting together the bomb. I unscrewed the top of the flashlight (in thought) and dumped the batteries in the front end; I cut open the shells and let the powder trickle into the flashlight case. But how would I ignite it? The water presented me with a special problem. What would I use for a fuse, and how would I keep it from getting wet? I might take some strands from the wick of my Austrian lighter and soak them for a long time in the fluid. Or else a shoelace; a wax shoelace might be perfect. Such was my line of thought, and all the while Princess Mtalba sat beside me licking me and smooching my fingers. I felt very guilty about that and thought, if she knew what offenses I had committed with those same hands, she might think twice before lifting them to her lips. Now she was on the very finger with which I had aimed the revolver at the cat and a pang shot through it and into my arm and so on through the rest of the nervous system. If she had been able to understand I would have said, "Beautiful lady" (for she was considered a great beauty and I could see why)--"Beautiful lady, I am not the man you think I am. I have incredible things on my conscience and am very fierce in character. Even my pigs were afraid of me." And yet it isn't always easy to deter women. They do take such types of men upon themselves--drunkards, fools, criminals. Love