Then the tictoc bush spoke up and begged, “A little for us?”
The answer came, “There are so many of you, and so little left to go around. But justice must be done. One in every ten million of you shall think with a man, and do his bidding. We have spoken.”
So, the old geezer affirmed, the kernel of the tictoc nut came to resemble the human brain. Stroking his great knife, he assured me that he had many times seen one, and the resemblance was uncanny. Superficially, you understand.
To only one tictoc nut in ten million was vouchsafed the gift of thought. And the nuts, being very prolific, grew in the jungles in great profusion. Anyone who could find the ten-millionth nut, the thinking nut, was assured of good fortune, the old savage told me, because this nut would obey its master.
“Now play tictoc,” he said.
I said, “But I don’t know how.”
He did not answer, but led me to a strip of ground Stamped flat and level, and polished by innumerable feet. At one end someone had described a circle drawn with ocher. In this circle were arranged ten nuts in this pattern:
The object of the game was to knock the ten nuts out of the circle in the fewest possible shots. As a game, I should say that tictoc was much more difficult than pool, pyramids or snooker. You shot from a distance of about seven feet. It was a good player who could clear the circle in five shots; a remarkable one who could do it in four; a superlative one who could do it in three, flipping the oval tictoc nut with a peculiar twist of the thumb.
Several young fellows were playing, but more were betting their very loincloths on the champion, who had recently made a Three.
“Now,” the old codger whispered, “rub the tictoc between your hands, breathe on it and shout without sound —shout at the back of your mind—telling it what to do. Challenge the champion. Stake your shirt.”
The top of my pajamas could be no great loss. Furthermore, I had the emeralds, you know. So I took it off and offered my challenge. The young buck felt the cotton and put down against it a necklace of good nuggets, the largest of which was about as big as a grape.
He played first. On his first shot, out went five. Second, out went four. The last was easy. He had scored a Three.
And now it was my turn. Caressing my nut I said to it, without talking, “Now, old thing, show them what you can do. Try for a One, just to astonish the natives.”
Without much hope, and with no skill at all, I flipped my nut. It seemed to stop halfway, gyrating. Everybody laughed, and my opponent reached for my pajama top— when, suddenly, my nut kind of shouldered its way forward into the circle, and with something devilishly like careful aim, spun its way into the ten and pushed them, one by one, beyond the bounds of the ring.
You never heard such a shout! I had broken a record. Picking my nut up, I caressed it and warmed it in my hand.
The chief said, “This I have never seen. Two, yes. One, no. I know what it is—the markings inside that nut must exactly match the markings of your brain. You are a lucky man.”
Feeling the weight of the necklace I had won, I asked, “Is there any more stuff like this hereabout?”
He said no, they didn’t regard it especially. The ex-champion had won it downstream, where they picked it out of the river bed and gave it to their women for ornaments. A string of your enemy’s teeth meant something. But the yellow stuff was too soft and too heavy. “If you want it, take your tictoc nut and you can win as much of it as you can carry away—you and ten strong men.”
I promised him that when I came back I would bring more guns and bullets, hatchets, knives, and all his heart could desire, if he would lend me a good canoe and the services of half a dozen sturdy men to paddle it, together with food and water. He agreed, and we took off.
In fine, I cleaned out that village and went on downstream with two war canoes, all loaded with gold and other valuables, such as garnets, emeralds, et cetera. I should have left it at that. But success had gone to my head.
On the way I stayed the night in the shack of a petty trader, a Portuguese, from whom I bought a whole suit of white-duck clothes, a couple of shirts, and pants and some other stuff. “Your fame has gone before you,” he said, looking enviously at me and then at the gold nuggets I had paid him with. “They call you the Tictoc Man up and down the river. Now I happen to know that no white man can play tictoc—it takes twenty years to learn. How do you do it?”
I said, “A mere knack.”
“Well, give me another nugget and I’ll give you some good advice. . . . Thank you. My advice is, make straight for the big river, and so to the coast. Don’t stop to play at the next village—there is only one—or you may regret it. The Esporco are the most villainous Indians in these parts. Don’t push even your luck too far. Four ounces of gold, and I’ll let you have a fine weapon, a revolver, all the way from Belgium.”
The revolver I took, but not his advice, and we went on at dawn. In the late afternoon several canoes came out to meet us. My men spat and said, “Esporco, master—very bad.”
“What, will they attack us?” I asked. “No.” They indicated that the Esporco Indian was the worst trickster and cheat in the Mato Grosso. But I fondled the tictoc nut, while observing that in every canoe sat a girl wearing a necklace of raw rubies, and little else. The men—big fellows, as Indians go—had an easy, cozy way with them, all smiles, no weapons, full of good humor.
They hailed me as Senhor Tictoc, while the girls threw flowers.
My leading paddler, the stroke, as it were, growled, “When Esporco bring flowers, keep your hand on your knife”—a savage version of Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes.
Still, I gave orders to land, and was received with wild delight. The chief ordered several young goats killed. I presented him with a sack of salt, which is highly prized thereabout. There was a banquet with a profusion of some slightly effervescent drink in the nature of the Mexican mescal, only lighter and breezier.
In a little while we started to talk business. I expressed interest in rubies. The chief said, “Those red things? But they are nothing.” And, taking a magnificent necklace from one of the girls, he tossed it into the river—I was to learn, later, that he had a net there to catch it. “I have heard that you are interested in stones,” said he, while I gaped like a fish. And he went away and came back with an uncut diamond of the Brazilian variety, as big as your two fists.
I displayed no emotion, but said, “Interesting. How much do you want for it?”
He said, “It has no price. I have been around, and know the value your people set on such stones. I also know—we ail know on this river—what would happen if the news got about that there was gold, rubies, emeralds and diamonds hereabout. Your people would come down on us like jaguars, and drive us off the face of the earth. As it is, we have enough, we are contented, we regard such stuff as this as pretty for unmarried girls. No, my friend, it is not for sale. But I tell you what. It being a plaything, let us play for it. You have a great reputation as a tictoc player. As it happens, so have I. Now what have you to stake against this stone?”
“Three canoeloads of treasure,” I said.
At this, one of his sons chimes in with, “Don’t do it, father! The man is a wizard. All the river knows it. He has a thinking nut!”
Apparently tipsy, the chief shouted, “Silence, brat! There is no such thing. It is a superstition. Tictoc is a game of skill, and I am the best man on this river.” He became angry. “Who questions my skill?”