Thinking black; 22 years without a break in the long grass of Central ...

310 THINKING BLACK
sends its roots down into the belief that kingly blood
never washes out. Of course, such a wonderful head
performed miracles. I remember travelling in the wake
of the famous skull of Mushidi, camping at the same spot
as the victors. It was here Mushidi's skull performed a
supposed miracle, for under the very tree where it was
placed for the night, the artful ants worked hard, and
simulating a skull they made a perfect mould of the
** sacred skull " in the form of an ant-hill
But we are doomed to black, blacker, blackest. Hard
on the heels of the Sanga guerilla warfare comes dark
famine, just as in the Apocalypse the red horse of the
second seal—war—is followed by the black horse of
famine. Galloping through the stricken land, like a sort
of third seal, ** I saw, and behold a black horse hut he that
sat thereon had a balance in his hand" Thus, even in
sore trial, our God does not leave us desolate, for we see also
divine balance where dying natives only see the rushing
black horse. (Ay, beyond and above famine, balance,
and seals, we see the Loving Lamb Who alone is worthy
to open any such seals. And are not we counted worthy
to suffer ?) The binder of the Bible, seemingly, is as
important a personage as its translator, for my little pocket
edition opens automatically at Genesis and Komans.
Surely not the binder but the Author does this good thing
for me when in trouble, my Bible opening simultaneously
at the black side in Genesis xlii. and the bright side in
Eomans viii. :
"All these things are against me" (Gen. xlii. 36).