Simbi and the Satyr of the Dark Jungle (10 page)

As the death of the phoenix was a great loss to the whole creatures of the Dark Jungle, particularly to the Satyr, therefore every one of them joined the Satyr who was their guard, to fight Simbi to death at all costs.

Then they scattered into the jungle, everyone with fighting weapons and the Satyr himself held his cudgel of bone. A few days after, they traced Simbi and Rali out. Then they surrounded them at once, with the intention to capture them alive and after that to suffer them to death.

Having seen them that they had already surrounded her and Rali, she believed, however she might be powerful, they would capture her. So, she put the satchel of her gods down. Without hesitation, she loosened it and then took out all the three gods.

Then she asked from them to help her fight all the evil creatures. Hardly asked for the help when a heavy rain came. As it was raining heavily it was so the god of thunder was sending the powerful lightning onto these creatures continuously and it was killing a large number of them each time that it roared.

But as the rest were still approaching nearer instead to go away, the god of famine sent incalculable locusts to them. Within a few minutes, the locusts had eaten all their crops which they were eating. Having eaten the whole crops, they started to eat these creatures themselves. Within one hour that the rain started a big river was formed, and it carried them back to where they were coming from while the locusts covered almost their bodies and the lightning was dropping on them continuously.

After the lightning and the rain were stopped, then the locusts flew away. Having freed from all these troubles they gave up to fight Simbi and everyone went back to his house.

But this noxious Satyr did not satisfy to give up except to fight Simbi to death. And Simbi left that spot and started to find the right path on which to travel to her village at the same. She looked for Rali, but she had escaped to another part of the jungle immediately the fight had started. For she thought those evil creatures would kill Simbi and herself.

For two days, the Satyr did not approach Simbi at all. But he was thinking of the way he would kill her instead.

“Oh yes, I remember, the fearful lady [Simbi] told me when she conquered me the other day, that she was a singer. Therefore I will build a wonderful hall and I will put many creatures there to be singing there every day and night. And I believe, the lady will enter the hall to sing with those creatures, and then I will be able to capture her from the hall!” The Satyr remembered that
Simbi had told him the day that she conquered him, before she was thrown into the hole of a tree, she was a singer and that her song could kill and wake a person.

Then the Satyr went to a part of the Dark Jungle. He vomited one magic, he put it on the ground, then he commanded it to become a beautiful hall and it was so at the same moment. Having done all that, he hid himself near the hall with the intention that Simbi would discover the hall whenever she travelled to that area and doubtless she would enter it to sing.

This hall was about forty feet square. All the walls were living migratory birds, the windows and roof were another kind of a singing birds. The plumages of all the birds were made of pure gold, their feet and beaks were white.

But when Simbi had failed to find out the right path of her village, she stopped, and rested. After some days, she discovered a huge hole which contained her to sleep. Then she was living inside it.

One day, when she had nothing to eat, she left her gods inside the hole, and then she was wandering about in search for the edible fruits to eat.

After a while, she travelled to some pawpaw trees. She plucked two pawpaws. Hardly ate all when she noticed that all the living creatures were running helter-skelter. And within that moment a heavy wind started. The wind was so blowing with its full power that the topmosts of small and big trees were touching the ground
and then getting up at once. All the refuses as leaves, dried sticks and dusts were full up in the sky, everything was in disorder.

At that critical time Simbi could not go back to her hole and she was so perplexed that she did not remember the time she started from that spot to find about where she could shelter herself. It was from that spot she started to experience the punishment and poverty of the Dark Jungle, because immediately she started to find the shelter a heavy rain came. She was so drenched by the rain that all her clothes were stuck to her body and a few minutes after, they tore into rags, but she was still going on with them because she could not remain in this heavy rain or in the powerful wind.

After a while she travelled to that hall which was a bait for her. Then she stopped and was listening to those birds which were singing a kind of a melodious song that which she had never heard since when she was born, though she was a good singer as well.

Having enjoyed the song for a while she entered the hall. Of course, if it was not for that song, she would fear greatly to enter it, especially as it was formed with migratory birds, etc.

Having entered, she saw a band of orchestra in the corner of this hall. They were busy with their instruments at that moment.

Those who were playing the instruments to the song of the birds, were just in form of shadows of angels, and they were seemed as if they were touched with hand perhaps the hand would not hold or feel anything. All
were dressed in the multi-coloured clothes which had several ornaments that the hand could not make.

To Simbi's greatest fear and astonishment was that sometimes, only the faces of these orchestras would be visible to her and the rest parts of their bodies would lose to her view, and a few minutes after their bodies would be visible and their faces would be lost to her view, and sometimes only their hands would be visible, they (hands) would be playing on the instruments and several melodious songs would be singing with the only visible mouths.

After a few minutes, they were visible to her completely. And as she was a singer, so at the same moment a kind of a song came to her mind, and immediately she opened her mouth and started to sing it to their instruments. To her greatest surprise, it was this very song the whole of them started to sing and she was singing it with them and they were playing also their instruments to it, which conformed with the song at the same time.

Immediately they joined her to sing the song, she lost all her senses, because the tone with which they were singing it was so melodious that she started to dance from the long distance that she stood until she reached the place that all of them sat down on the specially arranged seats, and she sat down before them. But she was still dancing in a slow motion to her left and right, and to her back and front, according to how the instruments were playing. It was so she was looking at everyone of them with surprise, because she had never acrossed such a wonderful orchestra as that one.

Having looked at them for some minutes, then they changed their tones to another lovely tones unexpectedly. But as she was more interested in this than the first one, she stood up suddenly with great joy and then started to dance to every part of the hall as if she was a mad lady.

When she danced back to them, she bowed down before them showing them the great admiration she had in the way of their singing and playing of the instruments. But it was a great pity that Simbi never aware that the Satyr hid near there and he was looking at her as she was doing all these things, and she did not know that the hall was a trap which the Satyr set for her.

But as she bowed down before them, it came to her mind at that moment that these creatures who were playing the instruments and singing her song with her, were not human beings in anyway, because the way of their singing and playing the instruments were beyond the human power. Then she feared to remain in that hall with them. But at the same moment that they noticed she was leaving the hall, plenty of the ultra-beautiful ladies rushed out of the room that the birds formed within that moment in a corner of the hall, they surrounded her and were dancing with her at the same moment.

They were dressed in snow white attires which were full of the superfine decorations. The hairs on their heads were glossy and were adorned with the decorations of gold flower, etc. which were glistening in the darkness. Everyone of them wore silver bead on neck, but Simbi was unable to describe the kind of the metal which they
wore on their wrists, for all their snow white attires were sewn in long sleeves. All of them were neat and smart.

A few minutes later, those who were singing and playing the instruments all the while, changed that song to another one and the instruments were then giving out a very steadily soundings.

When Simbi was hearing this music she lost all her senses and forgot that she had met several difficulties and that she was going to meet more. And then she started to dance with those ultra-beautiful ladies, although none of them talked to her and she did not talk to them as well.

Having danced with them for a while, she raised her head up. But when she noticed that all the birds which were formed the hall were singing as well, she was greatly feared at that time, and she believed that all of those creatures with whom she was dancing and singing were not human. Then she ran to her left just to break the circle and go out of the hall. But the beautiful ladies danced to that direction and they disturbed her to go out. And she danced to the right and they did the same thing, they were keeping her back to the circle so that she might not be able to go out of the hall.

When Simbi understood that they did not want her to go away, she wanted to break the circle by force, and the ladies were not strong enough to keep her in by that moment. But as they were still rushing here and there in the hall in trying to prevent her from not going out, six big fearful ostriches rushed out of the same room from which those ladies had come out. White shoes were on
their hoofs and their faces were covered with white masks.

Immediately they came to them, the ladies parted for them to pass in to the circle and they (ostriches) surrounded Simbi so that she might not get chance to run away.

Having done that, the ladies disappeared at once. Then those ostriches started to chase her and were pretending to swallow her, and she was turning round the circle just to safe herself from them.

At last, when their attitudes were too fearful to her, she feared greatly. She fell down unexpectedly and it was like that she fell asleep unnoticed. But it was a great pity to Simbi after all, that those creatures were just illuding her so that she might not be felt to leave the hall until the Satyr would come there and then take her away.

And she enjoyed the sleep for two hours. But when she was just dreaming and was seeing in her dream that Kadara, Sala, Bako and the nameless refugees who had been taken away by the phoenix, were in severe punishments, which made her body to be shocking at that moment for the fear that probably in the near future she too would be punished like that by the Satyr—

There entered the hall, the Satyr, and he came to her, although she never wake at the time he entered and she did not know the time that those ostriches disappeared.

Then the Satyr slapped her so suddenly that she woke and stood up unexpectedly. She looked for those orchestra and those ostriches but all of them had gone away and she was very sad at the same time when she did not
hear anybody singing in the hall as before she had fallen asleep. Of course, all the birds which were the wall, etc. were still singing. But she was greatly terrified when she turned her head back and saw the Satyr behind her. He scrowled and started to tell her with horrible voice—“This is the Satyr before you now! My trap has caught you and you are going now to where you shall be punished to death! Have you any power now? can you safe yourself from me now? Not at all! You have turned into my food! Hah a a! You hopeless lady who have nearly ruined the whole of my people! By the way, where are the rest of you? Of course, as I catch you thus I shall catch the rest of you! Don't you know that this hall is a bait for you?” Thus the Satyr roared horribly on Simbi. But she was unable to reply him. She simply stood before him as if she was dead, because she had left all her three gods which were her power, inside the hole in which she was living before she discovered the hall.

The Satyr hardly roared on her when he put her on head. After that he cried so loudly and terribly that the whole of this Dark Jungle shook to left and right for some minutes, and that was the sign he made to his people that Simbi, their enemy, was already caught. But immediately he shouted like that, all the birds which were the wall, roof, etc., for the hall flew away and there was nothing remained at the site of the hall.

Then he was carrying Simbi along in this Dark Jungle. After a while he came to a big rock and he climbed it to the top.

Hardly climbed the rock to the top when his people
hurtled there when they heard his cry. Then he and with some of them lay Simbi flatly on that rock by force. After that both her arms were parted to left and right being she faced the sky, and then both feet were straightened. Having done all this, the Satyr provoked a kind of a charm onto her body. And both feet to half part of her body changed into the part of that rock at the same moment, and both her arms were changed from her shoulders downward into the part of the rock as well. After that, the Satyr started to beat her with his cudgel of bone. Simbi was crying with her topmost voice but none of them listened to her. She struggled hardly to stand up and run away but all her efforts were failed, because her feet and arms had already changed into the rock.

When the Satyr stopped to beat her, all the rest of his people were beating her greedily with anything they could find thereabout. Having done that for a few minutes, they scorned her and then the whole of them went back to their dwelling places with the satisfaction of minds that they had caught one who had been punished them.