Bosambo of the River
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Title: Bosambo of the River
Creator: Edgar Wallace
Release date: August 8, 2015 [eBook #49657]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/49657
Credits: Produced by Al Haines
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BOSAMBO OF THE RIVER ***
Produced by Al Haines.
*BOSAMBO
OF THE RIVER*
BY
EDGAR WALLACE
_Author of "Sanders of the River," "People of the River,"
"Four Just Men," etc._
WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED
LONDON AND MELBOURNE
1914
_Made and Printed in Great Britain by_
Ward, Lock & Co., Limited, London.
*CONTENTS.*
CHAP.
I.--ARACHI THE BORROWER
II.--THE TAX RESISTERS
III.--THE RISE OF THE EMPEROR
IV.--THE FALL OF THE EMPEROR
V.--THE KILLING OF OLANDI
VI.--THE PEDOMETER
VII.--THE BROTHER OF BOSAMBO
VIII.--THE CHAIR OF THE N'GOMBI
IX.--THE KI-CHU
X.--THE CHILD OF SACRIFICE
XI.--"THEY"
XII.--THE AMBASSADORS
XIII.--GUNS IN THE AKASAVA
*BOSAMBO OF THE RIVER*
*CHAPTER I*
*ARACHI THE BORROWER*
Many years ago the Monrovian Government sent one Bosambo, a native of
the Kroo coast and consequently a thief, to penal servitude for the term
of his natural life. Bosambo, who had other views on the matter, was
given an axe and a saw in the penal settlement--which was a patch of
wild forest in the back country--and told to cut down and trim certain
mahogany-trees in company with other unfortunate men similarly
circumstanced.
To assure themselves of Bosambo's obedience, the Government of Liberia
set over him a number of compatriots, armed with weapons which had
rendered good service at Gettysburg, and had been presented to the
President of Liberia by President Grant. They were picturesque weapons,
but they were somewhat deficient in accuracy, especially when handled by
the inexpert soldiers of the Monrovian coast. Bosambo, who put his axe
to an ignoble use, no less than the slaying of Captain Peter Cole--who
was as black as the ten of clubs, but a gentleman by the Liberian
code--left the penal settlement with passionate haste. The Gettysburg
relics made fairly good practice up to two hundred yards, but Bosambo
was a mile away before the guards, searching the body of their dead
commander for the key of the ammunition store, had secured food for
their lethal weapons.
The government offered a reward of two hundred and fifty dollars for
Bosambo, dead or alive. But, although the reward was claimed and paid to
the half-brother of the Secretary of War, it is a fact that Bosambo was
never caught.
On the contrary, he made his way to a far land, and became, by virtue of
his attainments, chief of the Ochori.
Bosambo was too good a sportsman to leave his persecutors at peace.
There can be little doubt that the Kroo insurrection, which cost the
Liberian Government eight hundred and twenty-one pounds sixteen
shillings to suppress, was due to the instigation and assistance of
Bosambo. Of this insurrection, and the part that Bosambo played, it may
be necessary to speak again.
The second rebellion was a more serious and expensive affair; and it was
at the conclusion of this that the Liberian Government made
representations to Britain. Sanders, who conducted an independent
inquiry into the question of Bosambo's complicity, reported that there
was no evidence whatever that Bosambo was directly or indirectly
responsible. And with that the Liberian Government was forced to be
content; but they expressed their feelings by offering a reward of two
thousand dollars for Bosambo alive or dead--preferably alive. They
added, for the benefit of minor government officials and their
neighbours, that they would, in the language of the advertisement,
reject all substitutes. The news of this price went up and down the
coast and very far into the interior, yet strangely enough Arachi of the
Isisi did not learn of it until many years afterward.
Arachi was of the Isisi people, and a great borrower. Up and down the
river all men knew him for such, so that his name passed into the
legendary vocabulary of the people whilst he yet lived; and did the wife
of Yoka beg from the wife of O'taki the service of a cooking-pot, be
sure that O'taki's wife would agree, but with heavy pleasantry scream
after the retiring pot: "O thou shameless Arachi!" whereupon all the
village folk who heard the jest would rock with laughter.
Arachi was the son of a chief, but in a country where chieftainship was
not hereditary, and where, moreover, many chiefs' sons dwelt without
distinction, his parentage was of little advantage. Certainly it did not
serve him as, in his heart, he thought he should be served.
He was tall and thin, and his knees were curiously knobbly. He carried
his head on one side importantly, and was profoundly contemptuous of his
fellows.
Once he came to Sanders.
"Lord," he said, "I am a chief's son, as you know, and I am very wise.
Men who look upon me say, 'Behold, this young man is full of craft,'
because of my looks. Also I am a great talker."
"There are many in this land who are great talkers, Arachi," said
Sanders, unpleasantly; "yet they do not travel for two days down-stream
to tell me so."
"Master," said Arachi impressively, "I came to you because I desire
advancement. Many of your little chiefs are fools, and, moreover,
unworthy. Now I am the son of a chief, and it is my wish to sit down in
the place of my father. Also, lord, remember this, that I have dwelt
among foreign people, the Angola folk, and speak their tongue."
Sanders sighed wearily.
"Seven times you have asked me, Arachi," he said, "and seven times I
have told you you are no chief for me. Now I tell you this--that I am
tired of seeing you, and if you come to me again I will throw you to the
monkeys.[#] As for your Angola palaver, I tell you this--that if it
happen--which may all gods forbid!--that a tribe of Angola folk sit down
with me, you shall be chief."
[#] Colloquial: "Make you look foolish."
Unabashed, Arachi returned to his village, for he thought in his heart
that Sandi was jealous of his great powers. He built a large hut at the
end of the village, borrowing his friends' labour; this he furnished
with skins and the like, and laid in stores of salt and corn, all of
which he had secured from neighbouring villages by judicious promises of
payment.
It was like a king's hut, so glorious were the hangings of skin and the
stretched bed of hide, and the people of his village said "Ko!"
believing that Arachi had dug up those hidden treasures which every
chief is popularly supposed to possess in secret places to which his
sons may well be privy.
Even those who had helped to supply the magnificence were impressed and
comforted.
"I have lent Arachi two bags of salt," said Pidini, the chief of
Kolombolo, the fishing village, "and my stomach was full of doubt,
though he swore by Death that he would repay me three days after the
rains. Now I see that he is indeed very rich, as he told me he was, and
if my salt does not return to me I may seize his fine bed."
In another village across the River Ombili, a headman of the Isisi
confided to his wife:
"Woman, you have seen the hut of Arachi, now I think you will cease your
foolish talk. For you have reproached me bitterly because I lent Arachi
my fine bed."
"Lord, I was wrong," said the woman meekly; "but I feared he would not
pay you the salt he promised; now I know that I was foolish, for I saw
many bags of salt in his hut."
The story of Arachi's state spread up and down the river, and when the
borrower demanded the hand of Koran, the daughter of the chief of the
Putani ("The Fishers of the River"), she came to him without much
palaver, though she was rather young.
A straight and winsome girl well worth the thousand rods and the twenty
bags of salt which the munificent Arachi promised, by Death, devils, and
a variety of gods, should be delivered to her father when the moon and
the river stood in certain relative positions.
Now Arachi did no manner of work whatever, save to walk through the
village street at certain hours clad in a robe of monkey tails which he
had borrowed from the brother of the king of the Isisi.
He neither fished nor hunted nor dug in the fields.
He talked to Koran his wife, and explained why this was so. He talked
to her from sunset until the early hours of the morning, for he was a
great talker, and when he was on his favourite subject--which was
Arachi--he was very eloquent. He talked to her till the poor child's
head rocked from side to side, and from front to back, in her desperate
sleepiness.
He was a great man, beloved and trusted of Sandi. He had immense
thoughts and plans--plans that would ensure him a life of ease without
the distressing effects of labour. Also, Sanders would make him
chief--in good time.
She should be as a queen--she would much rather have been in her bed and
asleep.
Though no Christian, Arachi was a believer in miracles. He pinned his
faith to the supreme miracle of living without work, and was near to
seeing the fulfilment of that wonder.
But the miracle which steadfastly refused to happen was the miracle
which would bring him relief at the moment when his numerous creditors
were clamouring for the repayment of the many and various articles which
they had placed in his care.
It is an axiom that the hour brings its man--most assuredly it brings
its creditor.
There was a tumultuous and stormy day when the wrathful benefactors of
Arachi gathered in full strength and took from him all that was takable,
and this in the face of the village, to Koran's great shame. Arachi, on
the contrary, because of his high spirit, was neither ashamed nor
distressed, even though many men spoke harshly.
"O thief and rat!" said the exasperated owner of a magnificent stool of
ceremony, the base of which Arachi had contrived to burn. "Is it not
enough that you should steal the wear of these things? Must you light
your fires by my beautiful stool?"
Arachi replied philosophically and without passion: they might take his
grand furnishings--which they did; they might revile him in tones and in
language the most provocative--this also they did; but they could not
take the noble hut which their labours had built, because that was
against the law of the tribe; nor could they rob him of his faith in
himself, because that was contrary to the laws of nature--Arachi's
nature.
"My wife," he said to the weeping girl, "these things happen. Now I
think I am the victim of Fate, therefore I propose changing all my gods.
Such as I have do not serve me, and, if you remember, I spent many hours
in the forest with my _bete_."
Arachi had thought of many possible contingencies--as, for instance:
Sandi might relent, and appoint him to a great chieftainship.
Or he might dig from the river-bed some such treasure as U'fabi, the
N'gombi man, did once upon a time.
Arachi, entranced with this latter idea, went one morning before sunrise
to a place by the shore and dug. He turned two spadefuls of earth
before an infinite weariness fell upon him, and he gave up the search.
"For," he argued, "if treasure is buried in the river-bed, it might as
well be there as elsewhere. And if it be not there, where may it be?"
Arachi bore his misfortune with philosophy. He sat in the bare and bleak
interior of his hut, and explained to his wife that the men who had
robbed him--as he said--hated him, and were jealous of him because of
his great powers, and that one day, when he was a great chief, he would
borrow an army from his friends the N'gombi, and put fire to their
houses.
Yes, indeed, he said "borrow," because it was his nature to think in
loans.
His father-in-law came on the day following the deporting, expecting to
save something from the wreckage on account of Koran's dowry. But he
was very late.
"O son of shame!" he said bitterly. "Is it thus you repay for my
priceless daughter? By Death! but you are a wicked man."
"Have no fear, fisherman," said Arachi loftily, "for I am a friend of
Sandi, and be sure that he will do that for me which will place me high
above common men. Even now I go to make a long palaver with him, and,
when I return, you shall hear news of strange happenings."
Arachi was a most convincing man, possessing the powers of all great
borrowers, and he convinced his father-in-law--a relation who, from the
beginning of time, has always been the least open to conviction.
He left his wife, and she, poor woman, glad to be relieved of the
presence of her loquacious husband, probably went to sleep.
At any rate, Arachi came to headquarters at a propitious moment for him.
Headquarters at that moment was an armed camp at the junction of the
Isisi and Ikeli rivers.
On the top of all his other troubles, Sanders had the problem of a
stranger who had arrived unbidden. His orderly came to him and told him
that a man desired speech of him.
"What manner of man?" asked Sanders, wearily.
"Master," said the orderly, "I have not seen a man like him before."
Sanders went out to inspect his visitor. The stranger rose and saluted,
raising both hands, and the Commissioner looked him over. He was not of
any of the tribes he knew, being without the face-cuts laterally
descending either cheek, which mark the Bomongo. Neither was he
tattooed on the forehead, like the people of the Little River.
"Where do you come from?" asked Sanders, in Swaheli--which is the
_lingua franca_ of the continent--but the man shook his head.
So Sanders tried him again, this time in Bomongo, thinking, from his
face-marks, that he must be a man of the Bokeri people. But he answered
in a strange tongue.
"_Quel nom avez vous?_" Sanders asked, and repeated the question in
Portuguese. To this latter he responded, saying that he was a small
chief of the Congo Angola, and that he had left his land to avoid
slavery.
"Take him to the men's camp and feed him," said Sanders, and dismissed
him from his mind.
Sanders had little time to bother about stray natives who might wander
into his camp. He was engaged in searching for a gentleman who was
known as Abdul Hazim, a great rascal, trading guns and powder contrary
to the law.
"And," said Sanders to the captain of the Houssas, "if I catch him he'll
be sorry."
Abdul Hazim shared this view, so kept out of Sanders's way to such
purpose that, after a week's further wanderings, Sanders returned to his
headquarters.
Just about then he was dispirited, physically low from the after-effects
of fever, and mentally disturbed.
Nothing went right with the Commissioner. There had been a begging
letter from head-quarters concerning this same Abdul Hazim. He was in
no need of Houssa palavers, yet there must needs come a free fight
amongst these valiant soldier-men, and, to crown all, two hours
afterwards, the Houssa skipper had gone to bed with a temperature of
104.6.
"Bring the swine here," said Sanders inelegantly, when the sergeant of
Houssas reported the fight. And there were marched before him the
strange man, who had come to him from the backlands, and a pugnacious
soldier named Kano.
"Lord," said the Houssa, "by my god, who is, I submit, greater than most
gods, I am not to blame. This Kaffir dog would not speak to me when I
spoke; also, he put his hands to my meat, so I struck him."
"Is that all?" asked Sanders.
"That is all, lord."
"And did the stranger do no more than, in his ignorance, touch your
meat, and keep silence when you spoke?"
"No more, lord."
Sanders leant back in his seat of justice and scowled horribly at the
Houssa.
"If there is one thing more evident to me than another," he said slowly,
"it is that a Houssa is a mighty person, a lord, a king. Now I sit here
in justice, respecting neither kings, such as you be, nor slaves, such
as this silent one. And I judge so, regarding the dignity of none,
according to the law of the book. Is that so?"
"That is so, lord."
"And it would seem that it is against the law to raise hand against any
man, however much he offends you, the proper course being to make
complaint according to the regulations of the service. Is that so?"
"That is so, lord."
"Therefore you have broken the law. Is that truth?"
"That is truth, lord."
"Go back to your lines, admitting this truth to your comrades, and let
the Kaffir rest. For on the next occasion, for him that breaks the law,
there will be breaking of skin. The palaver is finished."
The Houssa retired.
"And," said Sanders, retailing the matter to the convalescent officer
next morning, "I consider that I showed more than ordinary
self-restraint in not kicking both of them to the devil."
"You're a great man," said the Houssa officer. "You'll become a
colonial-made gentleman one of these days, unless you're jolly careful."
Sanders passed in silence the Houssa's gibe at the Companionship of St.
Michael and St. George, and, moreover, C.M.G.'s were not likely to come
his way whilst Abdul Hazim was still at large.
He was in an unpleasant frame of mind when Arachi came swiftly in a
borrowed canoe, paddled by four men whom he had engaged at an Isisi
village, on a promise of payment which it was very unlikely he would
ever be able to fulfil.
"Master," said Arachi solemnly, "I come desiring to serve your lordship,
for I am too great a man for my village, and, if no chief, behold, I
have a chief's thoughts."
"And a chief's hut," said Sanders dryly, "if all they tell me is true."
Arachi winced.
"Lord," he said humbly, "all things are known to you, and your eye goes
forth like a chameleon's tongue to see round the corners."
Sanders passed over the unpleasant picture Arachi suggested.
"Arachi," he said, "it happens that you have come at a moment when you
can serve me, for there is in my camp a strange man from a far-away
land, who knows not this country, yet desires to cross it. Now, since
you know the Angola tongue, you shall take him in your canoe to the edge
of the Frenchi land, and there you shall put him on his way. And for
this I will pay your paddlers. And as for you, I will remember you in
the day of your need."
It was not as Arachi could have wished, but it was something. The next
day he departed importantly.
Before he left, Sanders gave him a word of advice.
"Go you, Arachi," he said, "by the Little Kusu River."
"Lord," said Arachi, "there is a shorter way by the creek of Still
Waters. This goes to the Frenchi land, and is deep enough for our
purpose."
"It is a short way and a long way," said Sanders grimly. "For there
sits a certain Abdul Hazim who is a great buyer of men, and, because the
Angola folk are wonderful gardeners, behold, the Arab is anxious to come
by them. Go in peace."
"On my head," said Arachi, and took his leave.
It was rank bad luck that he should meet on his way two of his principal
creditors. These, having some grievance in the matter of foodstuffs,
advanced, desiring to do him an injury, but, on his earnest entreaties,
postponed the performance of their solemn vows.
"It seems," said one of them, "that you are now Sandi's man, for though
I do not believe anything you have told me, yet these paddlers do not
lie."
"Nor this silent one," said Arachi, pointing to his charge proudly.
"And because I alone in all the land can make palaver with him, Sandi
has sent me on a mission to certain kings. These will give me presents,
and on my return I will pay you what I owe, and much more for love."
They let him pass.
It may be said that Arachi, who lent "to none and believed no man," had
no faith whatever in his lord's story. Who the silent Angola was, what
was his mission, and why he had been chosen to guard the stranger,
Arachi did not guess.
He would have found an easy way to understanding if he had believed all
that Sanders had told him, but that was not Arachi's way.
On a night when the canoe was beached on an island, and the paddlers
prepared the noble Arachi's food, the borrower questioned his charge.
"How does it happen, foreigner," he asked, "that my friend and
neighbour, Sandi, asks me of my kindness to guide you to the French
land?"
"Patron," said the Angola man, "I am a stranger, and desire to escape
from slavery. Also, there is a small Angola-Balulu tribe, which are of
my people and faith, who dwell by the Frenchi tribe."
"What is your faith?" asked Arachi.
"I believe in devils and ju-jus," said the Angola man simply,
"especially one called Billimi, who has ten eyes and spits at snakes.
Also, I hate the Arabi, that being part of my faith."
This gave Arachi food for thought, and some reason for astonishment that
Sandi should have spoken the truth to him.
"What of this Abdul Arabi?" he asked. "Now I think that Sandi lied to
me when he said such an one buys men, for, if this be so, why does he
not raid the Isisi?"
But the Angola man shook his head.
"These are matters too high for my understanding," he said. "Yet I know
that he takes the Angola because they are great gardeners, and cunning
in the pruning of trees."
Again Arachi had reason for thinking profoundly.
This Abdul, as he saw, must come to the Upper River for the people of
the Lesser Akasava, who were also great gardeners. He would take no
Isisi, because they were notoriously lazy, and moreover, died with
exasperating readiness when transplanted to a foreign soil.
He continued his journey till he came to the place where he would have
turned off had he taken a short cut to the French territory.
Here he left his paddlers and his guest, and made his way up the creek
of Still Waters.
Half-a-day's paddling brought him to the camp of Abdul. The slaver's
silent runners on the bank had kept pace with him, and when Arachi
landed he was seized by men who sprang apparently from nowhere.
"Lead me to your master, O common men," said Arachi, "for I am a chief
of the Isisi, and desire a secret palaver."
"If you are Isisi, and by your thinness and your boasting I see that you
are," said his captor, "my lord Abdul will make easy work of you."
Abdul Hazim was short and stout, and a lover of happiness. Therefore he
kept his camp in that condition of readiness which enabled him to leave
quickly at the first sight of a white helmet or a Houssa's tarboosh.
For it would have brought no happiness to Abdul had Sanders come upon
him.
Now, seated on a soft-hued carpet of silk before the door of his little
tent, he eyed Arachi dubiously, and listened in silence while the man
spoke of himself.
"Kaffir," he said, when the borrower had finished, "how do I know that
you do not lie, or that you are not one of Sandi's spies? I think I
should be very clever if I cut your throat."
Arachi explained at length why Abdul Hazim should not cut his throat.
"If you say this Angola man is near by, why should I not take him
without payment?" asked the slaver.
"Because," said Arachi, "this foreigner is not the only man in the
country, and because I have great influence with Sandi, and am beloved
by all manner of people who trust me. I may bring many other men to
your lordship."
Arachi returned to the camp, towing a small canoe with which the slaver
had provided him.
He woke the Angola stranger from his sleep.
"Brother," he said, "here is a canoe with food. Now I tell you to paddle
one day up this creek of Still Waters and there await my coming, for
there are evil men about, and I fear for your safety."
The Angolan, simple man that he was, obeyed. Half a day's journey up the
creek Abdul's men were waiting.
Arachi set off for his own village that night, and in his canoe was such
a store of cloth, of salt, and of brass rods as would delight any man's
heart. Arachi came to his village singing a little song about himself.
In a year he had grown rich, for there were many ways of supplying the
needs of an Arab slaver, and Abdul paid promptly.
Arachi worked single-handed, or, if he engaged paddlers, found them in
obscure corners of the territories. He brought to Abdul many marketable
properties, mostly young N'gombi women, who are fearful and easily
cowed, and Sanders, scouring the country for the stout man with the fez,
found him not.
* * * * *
"Lord Abdul," said Arachi, who met the slaver secretly one night near
the Ikusi River, "Sandi and his soldiers have gone down to the Akasava
for a killing palaver. Now I think we will do what you wish."
They were discussing an aspect of an adventure--the grandest adventure
which Abdul had ever planned.
"Arachi," said Abdul, "I have made you a rich man. Now, I tell you that
I can make you richer than any chief in this land."
"I shall be glad to hear of this," said Arachi. "For though I am rich,
yet I have borrowed many things, and, it seems, I have so wonderful a
mind that I must live always in to-morrow."
"So I have heard," said the Arab. "For they say of you that if you had
the whole world you would borrow the moon."
"That is my mystery," said Arachi modestly. "For this reason I am a very
notable man."
Then he sat down to listen in patience to the great plan of Abdul Hazim.
And it was a very high plan, for there were two thousand Liberian
dollars at the back of it, and, for Arachi, payment in kind.
At the moment of the conference, Sanders was housed in the Ochori city
making palaver with Bosambo, the chief.
"Bosambo," said Sanders, "I have given you these upper streams to your
care. Yet Abdul Hazim walks through the land without hurt, and I think
it is shame to you and to me."
"Master," said Bosambo, "it is a shameful thing. Yet the streams
hereabouts are so many, and Abdul is a cunning man, and has spies.
Also, my people are afraid to offend him lest he 'chop' them, or sell
them into the interior."
Sanders nodded and rose to join the _Zaire_.
"Bosambo," he said, "this government put a price upon this Abdul, even
as a certain government put a price upon you."
"What is his price, lord?" asked Bosambo, with an awakening of interest.
"One hundred pounds in silver," said Sanders.
"Lord," said Bosambo, "that is a good price."
Two days afterwards, when Arachi came to Bosambo, this chief was engaged
in the purely domestic occupation of nursing his one small son.
"Greeting, Bosambo," said Arachi, "to you and to your beautiful son, who
is noble in appearance and very quiet."
"Peace be to you, Arachi. I have nothing to lend you," said Bosambo.
"Lord," said Arachi loftily, "I am now a rich man--richer than
chiefs--and I do not borrow."
"Ko, ko!" said Bosambo, with polite incredulity.
"Bosambo," Arachi went on, "I came to you because I love you, and you
are not a talking man, but rather a wise and silent one."
"All this I know, Arachi," said Bosambo cautiously. "And again I say to
you that I lend no man anything."
The exasperated Arachi raised his patient eyes to heaven.
"Lord Bosambo," he said, in the tone of one hurt, "I came to tell you of
that which I have found, and to ask your lordship to help me secure it.
For in a certain place I have come across a great stock of ivory, such
as the old kings buried against their need."
"Arachi," said Bosambo, of a sudden, "you tell me that you are rich.
Now you are a little man and I am a chief, yet I am not rich."
"I have many friends," said Arachi, trembling with pride, "and they give
me rods and salt."
"That is nothing," said Bosambo. "Now I understand richness, for I have
lived amongst white folk who laugh at rods and throw salt to dogs."
"Lord Bosambo," said the other eagerly, "I am rich also by white men's
rule. Behold!"
From his waist pouch he took a handful of silver, and offered it in both
hands for the chief's inspection.
Bosambo examined the money respectfully, turning each coin over
gingerly.
"That is good riches," he said, and he breathed a little faster than was
his wont. "And it is new, being bright. Also the devil marks, which
you do not understand, are as they should be."
The gratified Arachi shoved his money back into his pouch. Bosambo sat
in meditative silence, his face impassive.
"And you will take me, Arachi, to the place of buried treasure?" he
asked slowly. "Ko! you are a generous man, for I do not know why you
should share with me, knowing that I once beat you."
Bosambo put the child down gently. These kings' stores were
traditional. Many had been found, and it was the dream of every
properly constituted man to unearth such.
Yet Bosambo was not impressed, being in his heart sceptical.
"Arachi," he said, "I believe that you are a liar! Yet I would see this
store, and, if it be near by, will see with my own eyes."
It was one day's journey, according to Arachi.
"You shall tell me where this place is," said Bosambo.
Arachi hesitated.
"Lord, how do I not know that you will not go and take this store?" he
asked.
Bosambo regarded him sternly.
"Am I not an honest man?" he asked. "Do not the people from one end of
the world to the other swear by the name of Bosambo?"
"No," said Arachi truthfully.
Yet he told of the place. It was by the River of Shadows, near the
Crocodile Pool Where-the-Floods Had-Changed-The-Land.
Bosambo went to his hut to make preparations for the journey.
Behind his house, in a big grass cage, were many little pigeons. He
laboriously wrote in his vile Arabic a laconic message, and attached it
to the leg of a pigeon.
To make absolutely sure, for Bosambo left nothing to chance, he sent
away a canoe secretly that night for a certain destination.
"And this you shall say to Sandi," said the chief to his trusted
messenger, "that Arachi is rich with the richness of silver, and that
silver has the devil marks of Zanzibar--being the home of all traders,
as your lordship knows."
Next day, at dawn, Bosambo and his guide departed. They paddled
throughout the day, taking the smaller stream that drained the eastern
side of the river, and at night they camped at a place called Bolulu,
which means "the changed land."
They rose with the daylight to resume their journey. But it was
unnecessary, for, in the darkness before the dawn, Abdul Hazim had
surrounded the camp, and, at the persuasive muzzle of a Snider rifle,
Bosambo accompanied his captors ten minutes' journey into the wood where
Abdul awaited him.
The slaver, sitting before the door of his tent on his silken carpet,
greeted his captive in the Ochori dialect. Bosambo replied in Arabic.
"Ho, Bosambo!" said Abdul. "Do you know me?"
"Sheikh," said Bosambo, "I would know you in hell, for you are the man
whose head my master desires."
"Bosambo," said Abdul calmly, "your head is more valuable, so they say,
for the Liberians will put it upon a pole, and pay me riches for my
enterprise."
Bosambo laughed softly. "Let the palaver finish," he said, "I am ready
to go."
They brought him to the river again, tied him to a pole, and laid him in
the bottom of a canoe, Arachi guarding him.
Bosambo, looking up, saw the borrower squatting on guard.
"Arachi," he said, "if you untie my hands, it shall go easy with you."
"If I untie your hands," said Arachi frankly, "I am both a fool and a
dead man, and neither of these conditions is desirable."
"To every man," quoth Bosambo, "there is an easy kill somewhere,[#] and,
if he misses this, all kills are difficult."
[#] The native equivalent for "opportunity knocks," etc.
Four big canoes composed the waterway caravan. Abdul was in the largest
with his soldiers, and led the van.
They moved quickly down the tiny stream, which broadened as it neared
the river.
Then Abdul's headman suddenly gasped.
"Look!" he whispered.
The slaver turned his head.
Behind them, paddling leisurely, came four canoes, and each was filled
with armed men.
"Quickly," said Abdul, and the paddlers stroked furiously, then stopped.
Ahead was the _Zaire_, a trim, white steamer, alive with Houssas.
"It is God's will," said Abdul. "These things are ordained."
He said no more until he stood before Sanders, and the Commissioner was
not especially communicative.
"What will you do with me?" asked Abdul.
"I will tell you when I have seen your stores," said Sanders. "If I
find rifles such as the foolish Lobolo people buy, I shall hang you
according to law."
The Arab looked at the shaking Arachi. The borrower's knees wobbled
fearfully.
"I see," said Abdul thoughtfully, "that this man whom I made rich has
betrayed me."
If he had hurried or moved jerkily Sanders would have prevented the act;
but the Arab searched calmly in the fold of his _bournous_ as though
seeking a cigarette.
His hand came out, and with it a curved knife.
Then he struck quickly, and Arachi went blubbering to the deck, a dying
man.
"Borrower," said the Arab, and he spoke from the centre of six Houssas
who were chaining him, so that he was hidden from the sobbing figure on
the floor, "I think you have borrowed that which you can at last repay.
For it is written in the Sura of the Djinn that from him who takes a
life, let his life be taken, that he may make full repayment."
*CHAPTER II*
*THE TAX RESISTERS*
Sanders took nothing for granted when he accounted for native peoples.
These tribes of his possessed an infinite capacity for
unexpectedness--therein lay at once their danger and their charm. For
one could neither despair at their sin nor grow too confidently elated
at their virtue, knowing that the sun which went down on the naughtiness
of the one and the dovelike placidity of the other, might rise on the
smouldering sacrificial fires in the streets of the blessed village, and
reveal the folk of the incorrigible sitting at the doors of their huts,
dust on head, hands outspread in an agony of penitence.
Yet it seemed that the people of Kiko were models of deportment, thrift,
and intelligence, and that the gods had given them beautiful natures.
Kiko, a district of the Lower Isisi, is separated from all other tribes
and people by the Kiko on the one side, the Isisi River on the other,
and on the third by clumps of forest land set at irregular intervals in
the Great Marsh.
Kiko proper stretches from the marsh to the tongue of land at the
confluence of the Kiko and Isisi, in the shape of an irregular triangle.
To the eastward, across the Kiko River, are the unruly N'gombi tribes;
to the westward, on the farther bank of the big river, are the Akasava;
and the Kiko people enjoy an immunity from sudden attack, which is due
in part to its geographical position, and in part to the remorseless
activities of Mr. Commissioner Sanders.
Once upon a time a king of the N'gombi called his headmen and chiefs
together to a great palaver.
"It seems to me," he said, "that we are children. For our crops have
failed because of the floods, and the thieving Ochori have driven the
game into their own country. Now, across the river are the Kiko people,
and they have reaped an oat harvest; also, there is game in plenty.
Must we sit and starve whilst the Kiko swell with food?"
A fair question, though the facts were not exactly stated, for the
N'gombi were lazy, and had sown late; also the game was in their forest
for the searching, but, as the saying is, "The N'gombi hunts from his
bed and seeks only cooked meats."
One night the N'gombi stole across the river and fell upon Kiko city,
establishing themselves masters of the country.
There was a great palaver, which was attended by the chief and headman
of the Kiko.
"Henceforward," said the N'gombi king--Tigilini was his name--"you are
as slaves to my people, and if you are gentle and good and work in the
fields you shall have one-half of all you produce, for I am a just man,
and very merciful. But if you rebel, I will take you for my sport."
Lest any misunderstanding should exist, he took the first malcontent,
who was a petty chief of a border village, and performed his programme.
This man had refused tribute, and was led, with roped hands, before the
king, all headmen having been summoned to witness the happening.
The rebel was bound with his hands behind him, and was ordered to kneel.
A young sapling was bent over, and one end of a native rope was fixed to
its topmost branches, and the other about his neck. The tree was slowly
released till the head of the offender was held taut.
"Now!" said the king, and his executioner struck off the head, which was
flung fifty yards by the released sapling.
It fell at the feet of Mr. Commissioner Sanders, who, with twenty-five
Houssas and a machine gun, had just landed from the _Zaire_.
Sanders was annoyed; he had travelled three days and four nights with
little sleep, and he had a touch of fever, which made him irritable.
He walked into the village and interrupted an eloquent address on the
obligations of the conquered, which the N'gombi thief thought it
opportune to deliver.
He stopped half-way through his speech, and lost a great deal of
interest in the proceedings as the crowd divided to allow of Sanders's
approach.
"Lord," said Tigilini, that quick and subtle man, "you have come at a
proper time, for these people were in rebellion against your lordship,
and I have subdued them. Therefore, master, give me rewards as you gave
to Bosambo of the Ochori."
Sanders gave nothing save a brief order, and his Houssas formed a half
circle about the hut of the king--Tigilini watching the manoeuvre with
some apprehension.
"If," he said graciously. "I have done anything which your lordship
thinks I should not have done, or taken that which I should not have
taken, I will undo and restore."
Sanders, hands on hips, regarded him dispassionately.
"There is a body." He pointed to the stained and huddled thing on the
ground. "There, by the path, is a head. Now, you shall put the head to
that body and restore life."
"That I cannot do," said the king nervously, "for I am no ju-ju."
Sanders spoke two words in Arabic, and Tigilini was seized.
They carried the king away, and no man ever saw his face again, and it
is a legend that Tigilini, the king, is everlastingly chained to the
hind leg of M'shimba M'shamba, the green devil of the Akasava. If the
truth be told, Tigilini went no nearer to perdition than the convict
prison at Sierra Leone, but the legend is not without its value as a
deterrent to ambitious chiefs.
Sanders superintended the evacuation of the Kiko, watched the
crestfallen N'gombi retire to their own lands, and set up a new king
without fuss or ceremony. And the smooth life of the Kiko people ran
pleasantly as before.
They tilled the ground and bred goats and caught fish. From the marsh
forest, which was their backland, they gathered rubber and copal, and
this they carried by canoe to the mouth of the river and sold.
So they came to be rich, and even the common people could afford three
wives.
Sanders was very wise in the psychology of native wealth. He knew that
people who grew rich in corn were dangerous, because corn is an
irresponsible form of property, and had no ramifications to hold in
check the warlike spirit of its possessors.
He knew, too, that wealth in goats, in cloth, in brass rods, and in land
was a factor for peace, because possessions which cannot be eaten are
ever a steadying influence in communal life.
Sanders was a wise man. He was governed by certain hard and fast rules,
and though he was well aware that failure in any respect to grapple with
a situation would bring him a reprimand, either because he had not acted
according to the strict letter of the law, or because he "had not used
his discretion" in going outside that same inflexible code, he took
responsibility without fear.
It was left to his discretion as to what part of the burden of taxation
individual tribes should bear, and on behalf of his government he took
his full share of the Kiko surplus, adjusting his demands according to
the measure of the tribe's prosperity.
Three years after the enterprising incursion of the N'gombi, he came to
the Kiko country on his half-yearly visit.
In the palaver house of the city he listened to complaints, as was his
custom.
He sat from dawn till eight o'clock in the morning, and after the tenth
complaint he turned to the chief of the Kiko, who sat at his side.
"Chief," he said, with that air of bland innocence which would have made
men used to his ways shake in their tracks, "I observe that all men say
one thing to me--that they are poor. Now this is not the truth."
"I am in your hands," said the chief diplomatically; "also my people,
and they will pay taxation though they starve."
Sanders saw things in a new light.
"It seems," he said, addressing the serried ranks of people who squatted
about, "that there is discontent in your stomachs because I ask you for
your taxes. We will have a palaver on this."
He sat down, and a grey old headman, a notorious litigant and a
league-long speaker, rose up.
"Lord," he said dramatically, "justice!"
"Kwai!" cried the people in chorus.
The murmur, deep-chested and unanimous, made a low, rumbling sound like
the roll of a drum.
"Justice!" said the headman. "For you, Sandi, are very cruel and harsh.
You take and take and give us nothing, and the people cry out in pain."
He paused, and Sanders nodded.
"Go on," he said.
"Corn and fish, gum and rubber, we give you," said the spokesman; "and
when we ask whither goes this money, you point to the puc-a-puc[#] and
your soldiers, and behold we are mocked. For your puc-a-puc comes only
to take our taxes, and your soldiers to force us to pay."
[#] Steamer.
Again the applauding murmur rolled.
"So we have had a palaver," said the headman, "and this we have said
among ourselves: 'Let Sandi remit one-half our taxes; these we will
bring in our canoes to the Village-by-the-Big-Water, for we are honest
men, and let Sandi keep his soldiers and his puc-a-puc for the folk of
the Isisi and the Akasava and the N'gombi, for these are turbulent and
wicked people.'"
"Kwai!"
It was evidently a popular movement, and Sanders smiled behind his hand.
"As for us," said the headman, "we are peaceable folk, and live
comfortably with all nations, and if any demand of us that we shall pay
tribute, behold it will be better to give freely than to pay these
taxes."
Sanders listened in silence, then he turned to the chief.
"It shall be as you wish," he said, "and I will remit one half of your
taxation--the palaver is finished."
He went on board the _Zaire_ that night and lay awake listening to the
castanets of the dancing women--the Kiko made merry to celebrate the
triumph of their diplomacy.
Sanders left next day for the Isisi, having no doubt in his mind that
the news of his concession had preceded him. So it proved, for at
Lukalili no sooner had he taken his place in the speech-house than the
chief opened the proceedings.
"Lord Sandi," he began, "we are poor men, and our people cry out against
taxation. Now, lord, we have thought largely on this matter, and this
say the people: 'If your lordship would remit one-half our taxes we
should be happy, for this puc-a-puc'----"
Sanders waved him down.
"Chiefs and people," he said, "I am patient, because I love you. But
talk to me more about taxation and about puc-a-pucs, and I will find a
new chief for me, and you will wish that you had never been born."
After that Sanders had no further trouble.
He came to the Ochori, and found Bosambo, wholly engrossed with his new
baby, but ripe for action.
"Bosambo," said the Commissioner, after he had gingerly held the
new-comer and bestowed his natal present, "I have a story to tell you."
He told his story, and Bosambo found it vastly entertaining.
Five days later, when Sanders was on his way home, Bosambo with ten
picked men for paddlers, came sweeping up the river, and beached at Kiko
city.
He was greeted effusively; a feast was prepared for him, the chief's
best hut was swept clean.
"Lord Bosambo," said the Kiko chief, when the meal was finished, "I
shall have a sore heart this night when you are gone."
"I am a kind man," said Bosambo, "so I will not go to-night, for the
thought of your sorrow would keep sleep from my eyes."
"Lord," said the chief hastily, "I am not used to sorrow, and, moreover,
I shall sleep heavily, and it would be shameful if I kept you from your
people, who sigh like hungry men for your return."
"That is true," said Bosambo, "yet I will stay this night, because my
heart is full of pleasant thoughts for you."
"If you left to-night," said the embarrassed chief, "I would give you a
present of two goats."
"Goats," said Bosambo, "I do not eat, being of a certain religious
faith----"
"Salt I will give you also," said the chief.
"I stay to-night," said Bosambo emphatically; "to-morrow I will consider
the matter."
The next morning Bosambo went to bathe in the river, and returned to see
the chief of the Kiko squatting before the door of his hut, vastly glum.
"Ho, Cetomati!" greeted Bosambo, "I have news which will gladden your
heart."
A gleam of hope shone in the chief's eye.
"Does my brother go so soon?" he asked pointedly.
"Chief," said Bosambo acidly, "if that be good news to you, I go. And
woe to you and your people, for I am a proud man, and my people are also
proud. Likewise, they are notoriously vengeful."
The Kiko king rose in agitation.
"Lord," he said humbly, "my words are twisted, for, behold, all this
night I have spent mourning in fear of losing your lordship. Now, tell
me your good news that I may rejoice with you."
But Bosambo was frowning terribly, and was not appeased for some time.
"This is my news, O king!" he said. "Whilst I bathed I beheld, far
away, certain Ochori canoes, and I think they bring my councillors. If
this be so, I may stay with you for a long time--rejoice!"
The Kiko chief groaned.
He groaned more when the canoes arrived bringing reinforcements to
Bosambo--ten lusty fighting men, terribly tall and muscular.
He groaned undisguisedly when the morrow brought another ten, and the
evening some twenty more.
There are sayings on the river which are uncomplimentary to the
appetites of the Ochori.
Thus: "Men eat to live fat, but the Ochori live to eat." And: "One
field of corn will feed a village for a year, ten goats for a month, and
an Ochori for a day."
Certainly Bosambo's followers were excellent trenchermen. They ate and
they ate and they ate; from dawn till star time they alternated between
the preparation of meals and their disposal. The simple folk of the Kiko
stood in a wondering circle about them and watched in amazement as their
good food vanished.
"I see we shall starve when the rains come," said the chief in despair.
He sent an urgent canoe to Sanders, but Sanders was without sympathy.
"Go to your master," he said to the envoy, "telling him that all these
things are his palaver. If he does not desire the guests of his house,
let him turn them away, for the land is his, and he is chief."
Cold comfort for Cetomati this, for the Ochori sat in the best huts,
eating the best foods, finding the best places at the dance-fires.
The king called a secret palaver of his headmen.
"These miserable Ochori thieves ruin us," he said. "Are we men or dogs?
Now, I tell you, my people and councillors, that to-morrow I send
Bosambo and his robbers away, though I die for it!"
"Kwai!" said the councillors in unison.
"Lord," said one, "in the times of _cala-cala_ the Kiko folk were very
fierce and bloody; perchance if we rouse the people with our eloquence
they are still fierce and bloody."
The king looked dubious.
"I do not think," he said, "that the Kiko people are as fierce and
bloody as at one time, for we have had many fat years. What I know, O
friend, is that the Ochori are very fierce indeed, and Bosambo has
killed many men."
He screwed up his courage through the night, and in the morning put it
to the test.
Bosambo, in his most lordly way, had ordered a big hunting, and he and
his men were assembling in the village street when the king and his
councillors approached.
"Lord," said the king mildly, "I have that within me which I must tell."
"Say on," said Bosambo.
"Now, I love you, Bosambo," said the chief, "and the thought that I must
speed you on your way--with presents--is very sad to me."
"More sad to me," said Bosambo ominously.
"Yet lord," said the desperate chief, "I must, for my people are very
fierce with me that I keep you so long within our borders. Likewise,
there is much sickness, and I fear lest you and your beautiful men also
become sick, and die."
"Only one man in all the world, chief," said Bosambo, speaking with
deliberation, "has ever put such shame upon me--and, king, that
man--where is he?"
The king of the Kiko did not say, because he did not know. He could
guess--oh, very well he could guess!--and Bosambo's next words justified
his guesswork.
"He is dead," said Bosambo solemnly. "I will not say how he died, lest
you think I am a boastful one, or whose hand struck him down, for fear
you think vainly--nor as to the manner of his dying, for that would give
you sorrow!"
"Bosambo," said the agitated chief of the Kiko, "these are evil
words----"
"I say no evil words," said Bosambo, "for I am, as you know, the
brother-in-law of Sandi, and it would give him great grief. I say
nothing, O little king!"
With a lofty wave of his hand he strode away, and, gathering his men
together, he marched them to the beach.
It was in vain that the chief of the Kiko had stored food in enormous
quantities and presents in each canoe, that bags of salt were evenly
distributed amongst the paddlers.
Bosambo, it is true, did not throw them back upon the shore, but he
openly and visibly scorned them. The king, standing first on one foot
and then on the other, in his anxiety and embarrassment, strove to give
the parting something of a genial character, but Bosambo was silent,
forbidding, and immensely gloomy.
"Lord," said the chief, "when shall my heart again be gladdened at the
sight of your pretty face?"
"Who knows?" said Bosambo mysteriously. "Who can tell when I come, or my
friends! For many men love me--Isisi, N'gombi, Akasava, Bongindi, and
the Bush people."
He stepped daintily into his canoe.
"I tell you," he said, wagging a solemn forefinger, "that whatever comes
to you, it is no palaver of mine; whoever steals quietly upon you in the
night, it will not be Bosambo--I call all men to witness this saying."
And with this he went.
There was a palaver that night, where all men spoke at once, and the
Kiko king did not more than bite his nails nervously. It was certain
that attack would come.
"Let us meet them boldly," said the one who had beforetime rendered such
advice. "For in times of _cala-cala_ the Kiko folk were fierce and
bloody people."
Whatever they might have been once, there was no spirit of adventure
abroad then, and many voices united to call the genius who had suggested
defiance a fool and worse.
All night long the Kiko stood a nation in arms.
Once the hooting of a bird sent them scampering to their huts with howls
of fear; once a wandering buffalo came upon a quaking picket and
scattered it. Night after night the fearful Kiko kept guard, sleeping
as they could by day.
They saw no enemy; the suspense was worse than the vision of armed
warriors. A messenger went to Sanders about the fears and apprehensions
of the people, but Sanders was callous.
"If any people attack you, I will come with my soldiers, and for every
man of you who dies, I will kill one of your enemies."
"Lord," said the messenger, none other than the king's son, "if we are
dead, we care little who lives or dies. Now, I ask you, master, to send
your soldiers with me, for our people are tired and timid."
"Be content," said Sanders, "that I have remitted your taxation--the
palaver is finished."
The messenger returned to his dismal nation--Sanders at the time was
never more than a day's journey from the Kiko--and a sick and weary
people sat down in despair to await the realisation of their fears.
They might have waited throughout all eternity, for Bosambo was back in
his own city, and had almost forgotten them, and Isisi and the Akasava,
regarding them for some reason as Sanders' _urglebes_, would have no
more thought of attacking them than they would have considered the
possibility of attacking Sanders; and as for the N'gombi, they had had
their lesson.
Thus matters stood when the Lulungo people, who live three days beyond
the Akasava, came down the river looking for loot and trouble.
The Lulungo people are an unlovable race; "a crabbed, bitter, and a
beastly people," Sanders once described them in his wrath.
For two years the Lulungo folk had lain quiet, then, like foraging and
hungry dogs, they took the river trail--six canoes daubed with mud and
rushes.
They found hospitality of a kind in the fishing villages, for the
peaceable souls who lived therein fled at the first news of the
visitation.
They came past the Ochori warily keeping to midstream. Time was when
the Ochori would have supplied them with all their requirements, but
nowadays these men of Bosambo's snapped viciously.
"None the less," said Gomora, titular chief of the Lulungo, to his
headmen, "since we be so strong the Ochori will not oppose us--let two
canoes paddle to land."
The long boats were detached from the fleet and headed for the beach. A
shower of arrows fell short of them, and they turned back.
The Isisi country they passed, the Akasava they gave the widest of
berths to, for the Lulungo folk are rather cruel than brave, better
assassins than fighting men, more willing to kill coldly than in hot
blood. They went lurching down the river, seizing such loot as the
unprotected villages gave them.
It was a profitless expedition.
"Now we will go to Kiko," said Gomora; "for these people are very rich,
and, moreover, they are fearful. Speak to my people, and say that there
shall be no killing, for that devil Sandi hates us, and he will incite
the tribes against us, as he did in the days of my father."
They waited till night had fallen, and then, under the shadow of the
river bank, they moved silently upon their prey.
"We will frighten them," confided Gomora; "and they will give us what we
ask; then we will make them swear by Iwa that they will not speak to
Sandi--it will be simple."
The Lulungo knew the Kiko folk too well, and they landed at a convenient
place, making their way through the strip of forest without the display
of caution which such a manoeuvre would have necessitated had it been
employed against a more warlike nation.
* * * * *
Sanders, hurrying down stream, his guns swung out and shotted for
action, his armed Houssas sitting in the bow of the steamer, met two
canoes, unmistakably Lulungo.
He circled and captured them. In one was Gomora, a little weak from
loss of blood, but more bewildered.
"Lord," he said bitterly, "all this world is changed since you have
come; once the Ochori were meat for me and my people, being very
timorous. Then by certain magic they became fierce fighters. And now,
lord, the Kiko folk, who, up and down the river, are known for their
gentleness, have become like devils."
Sanders waited, and the chief went on:
"Last night we came to the Kiko, desiring to rest with them, and in the
dark of the forest they fell upon us, with great screaming; and, behold!
of ten canoes these men are all I have left, for the Kiko were waiting
for our coming."
He looked earnestly at Sanders.
"Tell me, lord," he said, "what magic do white men use to make warriors
from cowards?"
"That is not for your knowing," said Sanders diplomatically; "yet you
should put this amongst the sayings of your people, 'Every rat fights in
his hole, and fear is more fierce than hate.'"
He went on to Kiko city, arriving in time to check an expedition, for
the Kiko, filled with arrogance at their own powers, were assembling an
army to attack the Ochori.
"Often have I told," said the chief, trembling with pride, "that the
Kiko were terrible and bloody--now, lord, behold! In the night we slew
our oppressors, for the spirit of our fathers returned to us, and our
enemies could not check us."
"Excellent!" said Sanders in the vernacular. "Now I see an end to all
taxation palaver, for, truly, you do not desire my soldiers nor the
puc-a-puc. Yet, lest the Lulungo folk return--for they are as many as
the sands of the river--I will send fighting men to help you."
"Lord you are as our father and mother," said the gratified chief.
"Therefore I will prevail upon Bosambo, whose heart is now sore against
you, to come with his fighting tribes to sit awhile at your city."
The chief's face worked convulsively: he was as one swallowing a noxious
draught.
"Lord," he said, speaking under stress of emotion, "we are a poor
people, yet we may pay your lordship full taxes, for in the end I think
it would be cheaper than Bosambo and his hungry devils."
"So I think!" said Sanders.
*CHAPTER III*
*THE RISE OF THE EMPEROR*
Tobolaka, the king of the Isisi, was appointed for his virtues, being a
Christian and a Bachelor of Arts.
For a time he ruled his country wisely and might have died full of
honour, but his enthusiasm got the better of him.
For Tobolaka had been taken to America when a boy by an enthusiastic
Baptist, had been educated at a college and had lectured in America and
England. He wrote passable Latin verse, so I am told; was a fluent
exponent of the Free Silver Policy of Mr. Bryan, and wore patent leather
shoes with broad silk laces.
In London he attracted the attention of a callow Under-Secretary of
State for the Colonies, and this Under-Secretary was a nephew of the
Prime Minister, cousin of the Minister of War, and son-in-law of the
Lord Chancellor, so he had a pull which most Under-Secretaries do not
ordinarily possess.
"Mr. Tobolaka," said the Under-Secretary, "what are your plans?"
Mr. Tobolaka was a little restrained.
"I feel, Mr. Cardow," he said, "that my duties lie in my land--no, I do
not mean that I have any call to missionary work, but rather to
administration. I am, as you know of the Isisi people--we are a pure
Bantu stock, as far as legend supports that contention--and I have often
thought, remembering that the Isisi are the dominant race, that there
are exceptional opportunities for an agglomeration of interests; in
fact----"
"A splendid idea--a great idea!" said the enthusiastic Under-Secretary.
Now it happened that this young Mr. Cardow had sought for years for some
scheme which he might further to his advantage. He greatly desired,
after the fashion of all budding Parliamentarians, to be associated with
a movement which would bring kudos and advertisement in its train, and
which would earn for him the approval or the condemnation of the Press,
according to the shade of particular opinion which the particular
newspapers represented.
So in the silence of his room in Whitehall Court, he evolved a grand
plan which he submitted to his chief. That great man promised to read
it on a given day, and was dismayed when he found himself confronted
with forty folios of typewritten matter at the very moment when he was
hurrying to catch the 10.35 to the Cotswold Golf Links.
"I will read it in the train," he said.
He crammed the manuscript into his bag and forgot all about it; on his
return to town he discovered that by some mischance he had left the
great scheme behind.
Nevertheless, being a politician and resourceful, he wrote to his
subordinate.
"DEAR CARDOW,--I have read your valuable document with more than
ordinary interest. I think it is an excellent idea,"--he knew it was an
idea because Cardow had told him so--"but I see many difficulties. Mail
me another copy. I should like to send it to a friend of mine who would
give me an expert opinion."
It was a wily letter, but indiscreet, for on the strength of that letter
the Under-Secretary enlisted the sympathies and practical help of his
chief's colleagues.
"Here we have a native and an educated native," he said impressively,
"who is patriotic, intelligent, resourceful. It is a unique
opportunity--a splendid opportunity. Let him go back to his country and
get the threads together."
The conversation occurred in the Prime Minister's room, and there were
present three Ministers of the Crown, including a Home Secretary, who
was frankly bored, because he had a scheme of his own, and would much
rather have discussed his Artisans' Tenement (19--) Bill.
"Isn't there a Commissioner Sanders in that part of the world?" he asked
languidly. "I seem to remember some such name. And isn't there likely
to be trouble with the minor chiefs if you set up a sort of Central
African Emperor?"
"That can be overcome," said the sanguine Cardow. "As for Sanders, I
expect him to help. A dynasty established on the Isisi River might end
all the troubles we have had there."
"It might end other things," said the impatient Home Secretary. "Now
about this Tenement Bill. I think we ought to accept Cronk's
amendment--er----"
A few weeks later Mr. Tobolaka was summoned to Whitehall Court.
"I think, Mr. Tobolaka," said Cardow complacently, "I have arranged for
a trial of our plan. The Government has agreed--after a tough fight
with the permanent officials, I admit--to establish you on the Isisi as
King and Overlord of the Isisi, Ochori, N'gombi, and Akasava. They will
vote you a yearly allowance, and will build a house in Isisi city for
you. You will find Mr. Sanders--er--difficult, but you must have a
great deal of patience."
"Sir," said Mr. Tobolaka, speaking under stress of profound emotion,
"I'm e-eternally obliged. You've been real good to me, and I guess I'll
make good."
Between the date of Tobolaka's sailing and his arrival Sanders ordered a
palaver of all chiefs, and they came to meet him in the city of the
Isisi.
"Chiefs and headmen," said Sanders, "you know that many moons ago the
Isisi people rose in an evil moment and made sacrifice contrary to the
law. So I came with my soldiers and took away the king to the Village
of Irons, where he now sits. Because the Isisi are foolish people, my
Government sets up a new king, who is Tobolaka, son of Yoka'n'kema, son
of Ichulomo, the son of Tibilino."
"Lord," gasped an Isisi headman, "this Tobolaka I remember. The
God-folk took him away to their own land, where he learnt to be white."
"Yet I promise you that he is black," said Sanders drily, "and will be
blacker. Also, chiefs of the Ochori, N'gombi, and Akasava, this new
king will rule you, being paramount king of these parts, and you shall
bring him presents and tribute according to custom."
There was an ominous silence.
Then O'kara, the chief of the Akasava, an old and arrogant man, spoke:
"Lord," he said, "many things have I learnt, such as mysteries and devil
magic, yet I have not learnt in my life that the Akasava pay tribute to
the Isisi, for, lord, in the year of the Floods, the Akasava fought with
the Isisi and made them run; also, in the year of the Elephants, we
defeated the Isisi on land and water, and would have sat down in their
city if your lordship had not come with guns and soldiers and tempted us
to go home."
The Akasava headmen murmured their approval.
"Alas," said the chief of the N'gombi, "we people of the N'gombi are
fierce men, and often have we made the Isisi tremble by our mighty
shouts. Now I should be ashamed to bring tribute to Tobolaka."
The palaver waited for Bosambo of the Ochori to speak, but he was
silent, for he had not grasped the bias of the Commissioner's mind.
Other men spoke at length, taking their cue from their chiefs, but the
men of the Ochori said nothing.
"For how was I to speak?" said Bosambo, after the palaver. "No man
knows how your lordship thinks."
"You have ears," said Sanders, a little irritated.
"They are large," admitted Bosambo, "so large that they hear your
beautiful voice, but not so long that they hear your lordship's loving
thoughts."
Sanders's thoughts were by no means loving, and they diminished in
beauty day by day as the ship which carried Tobolaka to his empire drew
nearer.
Sanders did not go down to the beach to meet him; he awaited his coming
on the verandah of the residency, and when Tobolaka arrived, clad from
head to foot in spotless white, with a helmet of exact colonial pattern
on his head, Sanders swore fluently at all interfering and experimenting
Governments.
"Mr. Sanders, I presume?" said Tobolaka in English, and extended his
hand.
"Chief," said Sanders in the Isisi tongue, "you know that I am Sandi, so
do not talk like a monkey; speak rather in the language of your people,
and I will understand you better--also you will understand me."
It so happened that Tobolaka had prepared a dignified little speech, in
the course of which he intended congratulating Sanders on the prosperity
of the country, assuring him of whole-hearted co-operation, and winding
up with an expression of his wishes that harmonious relation should
exist between himself and the State.
It was founded on a similar speech delivered by King Peter of Servia on
his assuming the crown. But, unfortunately, it was in English, and the
nearest Isisi equivalent for congratulation is an idiomatic phrase which
literally means, "High-man-look-kindly-on-dog-slave-who-lies-at-feet."
And this, thought Tobolaka, would never do at all, for he had come to
put the Commissioner in his place.
Sanders condescended to talk English later when Tobolaka was discussing
Cabinet Ministers.
"I shall--at the Premier's request--endeavour to establish district
councils," he said. "I think it is possible to bring the native to a
realisation of his responsibility. As Cicero said----"
"Do not bother about Cicero," said Sanders coldly. "It is not what
Cicero said, but what Bosambo will say: there are philosophers on this
river who could lose the ancients."
Tobolakat in a canoe sent for him by the Isisi folk, went to his new
home. He hinted broadly that a state entrance in the _Zaire_ would be
more in keeping with the occasion.
"And a ten-gun salute, I suppose!" snarled Sanders in Isisi. "Get to
your land, chief, before I lose my patience, for I am in no mood to
palaver with you."
Tobolaka stopped long enough at headquarters to write privately to the
admirable Mr. Cardow, complaining that he had received "scant courtesy"
at the hands of the Commissioner. He had shown "deplorable antagonism."
The letter concluded with respectful wishes regarding Mr. Cardow's
health, and there was a postscript, significant and ominous to the
effect that the writer hoped to cement the good feeling which already
existed between Great Britain and the United States of America by means
which he did not disclose.
The excellent Mr. Cardow was frankly puzzled by the cryptic postscript,
but was too much occupied with a successful vote of censure on the
Government which had turned him into the cold shades of Opposition to
trouble to reply.
Tobolaka came to his city and was accorded a rapturous welcome by a
people who were prepared at any given hour of the day or night to
jubilate over anything which meant dances and feasts.
He sat in the palaver house in his white duck suit and his white helmet,
with a cavalry sword (this Sanders had not seen) between his knees, his
white-gloved hands resting on the hilt.
And he spoke to the people in Isisi, which they understood, and in
English, which they did not understand, but thought wonderful. He also
recited as much of the "Iliad" as he could remember, and then,
triumphant and a little hoarse, he was led to the big hut of
chieftainship, and was waited upon by young girls who danced for his
amusement.
Sanders heard of these things and more.
He learnt that the Isisi were to be ruled in European fashion. To
Tobolaka came Cala, a sycophantic old headman from the village of
Toroli, with soft and oily words. Him the king promoted to be Minister
of Justice, though he was a notorious thief. Mijilini, the fisher
chief, Tobolaka made his Minister of War; he had a Home Secretary, a
Minister of Agriculture, and a Fishery Commissioner.
Sanders, steaming up-river, was met by the canoe of Limibolo, the
Akasava man, and his canoe was decorated with clothes and spears as for
a wedding.
"Lord," said the dignified Limibolo, "I go to my village to hold a
palaver, for my lord the king has called me by a certain name which I do
not understand, but it has to do with the hanging of evil men, and, by
Iwa! I know two men in my village who owe me salt, and they shall hang
at once, by Death!"
"Then will I come and you shall hang also!" said Sanders cheerlessly.
"Be sure of that."
It transpired that the light-hearted Limibolo had been created sheriff.
Tobolaka was on the point of raising an army for his dignity, when
Sanders came upon the scene.
He arrived without warning, and Tobolaka had no opportunity for
receiving him in the state which the king felt was due equally to
himself and to the representative of Government.
But he had ample time to come to the beach to greet the Commissioner
according to custom. Instead, he remained before his hut and sent his
minister in attendance, the ignoble Cala.
"O Cala!" said Sanders as he stepped ashore across the _Zaire's_ narrow
gangway, "what are you in this land?"
"Lord," said Cala, "I am a great catcher of thieves by order of our
lord; also, I check evil in every place."
"O Ko!" said Sanders offensively, "now since you are the biggest thief
of all, I think you had best catch yourself before I catch you."
He walked through Isisi city.
The king had been busy. Rough boards had been erected at every street
corner.
There was a "Downing Street," a "Fifth Avenue," a "Sacramento Street," a
"Piccadilly," and a "Broadway."
"These," explained Cala, "are certain devil marks which my king has put
up to warn witches and spirits, and they have much virtue, for, lord, my
son, who was troubled with pains in his stomach, as there"--he indicated
"Broadway"--"and the pain left him."
"It would," said Sanders.
Tobolaka rose from his throne and offered his hand.
"I am sorry, Mr. Sanders," he began, "you did not give us notice of your
coming."
"When I come again, Tobolaka," said Sanders, staring with his passionate
grey eyes at the white-clad figure, "you shall come to the beach to meet
me, for that is the custom."
"But not the law," smiled the king.
"My custom is the law," said Sanders. He dropped his voice till it was
so soft as to be little above a whisper.
"Tobolaka," he said, "I hanged your father and, I believe, his father.
Now I tell you this--that you shall play this king game just so long as
it amuses your people, but you play it without soldiers. And if you
gather an army for whatever purpose, I shall come and burn your city and
send you the way of your ancestors, for there is but one king in this
land, and I am his chief minister."
The face of the king twitched and his eyes fell.
"Lord," he said, using the conventional "Iwa" of his people, "I meant no
harm. I desired only to do honour to my wife."
"You shall honour her best," said Sanders, "by honouring me."
"Cicero says----" began Tobolaka in English.
"Damn Cicero!" snapped Sanders in the same language.
He stayed the day, and Tobolaka did his best to make reparation for his
discourtesy. Towards evening Sanders found himself listening to
complaints. Tobolaka had his troubles.
"I called a palaver of all chiefs," he explained, "desiring to
inaugurate a system analogous to county councils. Therefore I sent to
the Akasava, the N'gombi, and the Ochori, their chiefs. Now, sir," said
the injured Tobolaka, relapsing into English, "none of these
discourteous fellows----"
"Speak in the language of the land, Tobolaka," said Sanders wearily.
"Lord, no man came," said the king; "nor have they sent tribute. And I
desired to bring them to my marriage feast that my wife should be
impressed; and, since I am to be married in the Christian style, it
would be well that these little chiefs should see with their eyes the
practice of God-men."
"Yet I cannot force these chiefs to your palaver, Tobolaka," said
Sanders.
"Also, lord," continued the chief, "one of these men is a Mohammedan and
an evil talker, and when I sent to him to do homage to me he replied
with terrible words, such as I would not say again."
"You must humour your chiefs, king," said Sanders, and gave the
discomfited monarch no warmer cheer.
Sanders left next day for headquarters, and in his hurry forgot to
inquire further into the forthcoming wedding feast.
"And the sooner he marries the better," he said to the Houssa captain.
"Nothing tires me quite so much as a Europeanised-Americanised native.
It is as indecent a spectacle as a niggerised white man."
"He'll settle down; there's no stake in a country like a wife," said the
Houssa. "I shouldn't wonder if he doesn't forget old man Cicero. Which
chief's daughter is to be honoured?"
Sanders shook his head.
"I don't know, and I'm not interested. He might make a good chief--I'm
prejudiced against him, I admit. As likely as not he'll chuck his job
after a year if they don't 'chop' him--they're uncertain devils, these
Akasavas. Civilisation has a big big call for him; he's always getting
letters from England and America."
The Houssa captain bit off the end of a cigar.
"I hope he doesn't try Cicero on Bosambo," he said significantly.
The next day brought the mail--an event.
Usually Sanders was down on the beach to meet the surf-boat that carries
the post, but on this occasion he was interviewing two spies who had
arrived with urgent news.
Therefore he did not see the passenger whom the _Castle Queen_ landed
till she stood on the stoep before the open door of the residency.
Sanders, glancing up as a shadow fell across the wooden stoep, rose and
temporarily dismissed the two men with a gesture.
Then he walked slowly to meet the girl.
She was small and pretty in a way, rather flushed by the exertion of
walking from the beach to the house.
Her features were regular, her mouth was small, her chin a little weak.
She seemed ill at ease.
"How do you do?" said Sanders, bewildered by the unexpectedness of the
vision. He drew a chair for her, and she sank into it with a grateful
little smile, which she instantly checked, as though she had set herself
an unpleasant task and was not to be conciliated or turned aside by any
act of courtesy on his part.
"And exactly what brings you to this unlikely place?" he asked.
"I'm Millie Tavish," she said. "I suppose you've heard about me?"
She spoke with a curious accent. When she told him her name he
recognised it as Scottish, on which American was imposed.
"I haven't heard about you," he said. "I presume you are going
up-country to a missionary station. I'm sorry--I do not like lady
missionaries in the country."
She laughed a shrill, not unmusical laugh.
"Oh, I guess I'm not a missionary," she said complacently. "I'm the
queen."
Sanders looked at her anxiously. To women in his country he had
conscientious objections; mad women he barred.
"I'm the queen," she repeated, evidently pleased with the sensation she
had created. "My! I never thought I should be a queen. My grandfather
used to be a gardener of Queen Victoria's before he came to N'York----"
"But----" said the staggered Commissioner.
"It was like this," she rattled on. "When Toby was in Philadelphia at
the theological seminary I was a help at Miss Van Houten's--that's the
boarding house--an' Toby paid a lot of attention to me. I thought he
was joshin' when he told me he was going to be a king, but he's made
good all right. And I've written to him every week, and he's sent me
the money to come along----"
"Toby?" said Sanders slowly. "Who is Toby?"
"Mr. Tobolaka--King Tobolaka," she said.
A look of horror, which he did not attempt to disguise, swept over the
face of the Commissioner.
"You've come out to marry him--a black man?" he gasped.
The girl flushed a deep red.
"That's my business," she said stiffly. "I'm not asking advice from
you. Say, I've heard about you--your name's mud along this old coast,
but I'm not afraid of you. I've got a permit to go up the Isisi, and
I'm goin'."
She was on her feet, her arms akimbo, her eyes blazing with anger, for,
womanlike, she felt the man's unspoken antagonism.
"My name may be mud," said Sanders quietly, "and what people say about
me doesn't disturb my sleep. What they would say about me if I'd
allowed you to go up-country and marry a black man would give me bad
nights. Miss Tavish, the mail-boat leaves in an hour for Sierra Leone.
There you will find a steamer to take you to England. I will arrange for
your passage and see that you are met at Southampton and your passage
provided for New York."
"I'll not go," she stormed; "you don't put that kind of bluff on me.
I'm an American citizeness and no dud British official is going to boss
me--so there!"
Sanders smiled.
He was prepared to precipitate matters now to violate treaties, to
create crises, but he was not prepared to permit what he regarded as an
outrage. In turn she bullied and pleaded; she even wept, and Sanders's
hair stood on end from sheer fright. To make the situation more
difficult, a luxurious Isisi canoe with twenty paddlers had arrived to
carry her to the city, and the headman in charge had brought a letter
from her future lord welcoming her in copper-plate English. This letter
Sanders allowed the man to deliver.
In the end, after a hasty arrangement, concluded by letter with the
captain of the boat, he escorted Millie Tavish to the beach.
She called down on his head all the unhappiness her vocabulary could
verbalise; she threw with charming impartiality the battle of
Bannockburn and Bunker's Hill at his stolid British head. She invoked
the shades of Washington and William Wallace.
"You shall hear of this," she said as she stepped into the surf-boat.
"I'm going to tell the story to every paper."
"Thank you!" said Sanders, his helmet in his hand. "I feel I deserve
it."
He watched the boat making a slow progress to the ship and returned to
his bungalow.
*CHAPTER IV*
*THE FALL OF THE EMPEROR*
"My poor soul!" said the Houssa captain.
He looked down into the long-seated chair where Sanders sprawled limply.
"And is the owdacious female gone?" asked the soldier.
"She's gone," said Sanders.
The Houssa clapped his hands, not in applause, but to summon his
orderly.
"Ahmet," he said gravely, speaking in Arabic, "mix for the lord Sandi
the juice of lemons with certain cunning ingredients such as you know
well; let it be as cool as the hand of Azrael, as sweet as the waters of
Nir, and as refreshing as the kisses of houris--go with God."
"I wish you wouldn't fool," said Sanders, irritated.
"This is a crisis of our affairs," said Hamilton the Houssa. "You need
a tonic. As for myself, if this had happened to me, I should have been
in bed with a temperature. Was she very angry?"
Sanders nodded.
"She called me a British loafer and a Jew in the same breath. She flung
in my face every British aristocrat who had ever married an American
heiress; she talked like the New York correspondent of an Irish paper
for five minutes. She threatened me with the whole diplomatic armoury
of America and the entire strength of Scottish opinion; if she could
have made up her mind whether she was Scot or just Philadelphia I could
have answered her, but when she goaded me into a retort about American
institutions she opened her kailyard batteries and silenced me."
The Houssa walked up and down the long bungalow.
"It was impossible, of course," he said seriously. "absolutely
impossible. She'll land at Sierra Leone and interview Tullerton--he's
the U.S. Consul. I think she'll be surprised when she hears Tullerton's
point of view."
Sanders stayed to tiffin, and the discussion of Millie Tavish continued
intermittently throughout the meal.
"If I hadn't given Yoka permission to overhaul the engines of the
_Zaire_" said Sanders, "I'd start right away for the Isisi and interview
Tobolaka. But by this time he'll have her cylinders open. By the way,
I've remembered something," he said, suddenly.
He clapped his hands, and Hamilton's orderly came.
"Ahmet," said Sanders, "go quickly to Sergeant Abiboo and tell him to
give food to the Isisi boatmen who came this morning. Also that he
shall tell them to stay with us, for I have a 'book' to write to the
king."
"On my life," said Ahmet conventionally, and went out.
"I will say what I have to say by letter," said the Commissioner, when
the man had gone at a jog-trot across the compound; "and, since he has a
swift canoe, he will receive evidence of my displeasure earlier than it
would otherwise reach him."
Ahmet came back in five minutes, and with him Abiboo.
"Lord," said the latter, "I could not do as you wish, for the Isisi have
gone."
"Gone!"
"Lord, that is so, for when the lady came back from the ship she went
straight away to the canoe and----"
Sanders was on his feet, his face white.
"When the lady came back from the ship," he repeated slowly, "Did she
come back?"
"Master, an hour since. I did not see her, for she came by the short
way from the beach to the river-landing. But many saw her."
Sanders nodded.
"Go to Yoka and let him have steam against my coming."
The sergeant's face was blank.
"Lord, Yoka has done many things," he said, "such as removing the
_shh-shh_ of the engine"--Sanders groaned--"yet will I go to him and
speak with him for steam."
"If he's got the cylinder dismantled," said Sanders in despair, "it will
be hours before the _Zaire_ is ready, and I haven't a canoe that can
overtake them."
A Houssa came to the door.
"A telegram for you," said Hamilton, taking the envelope from the man.
Sanders tore it open and read. It was from London:
"Washington wires: 'We learn American girl gone to Isisi, West Africa,
to marry native king. Government request you advise authorities turn
her back at all costs; we indemnify you against any act of arrest to
prevent her carrying plan into execution.' Use your discretion and act.
Have advised all magistrates. Girl's name Tavish.--Colonial Office."
He had finished reading when Abiboo returned.
"'To-morrow, two hours before the sun, there will be steam, master,' so
said Yoka."
"It can't be helped," said Sanders; "we'll have to try another way."
* * * * *
By swift canoe the Isisi is three days' journey from headquarters. From
the Isisi to Ochori city is one day. Tobolaka had time to make a last
effort to secure magnificence for his wedding feast.
He sent for his councillor, Cala, that he might carry to Bosambo fine
words and presents.
"If he refuses to come for my honour," said Tobolaka, "you shall say to
him that I am a man who does not forgive, and that one day I will come
to with an army and there will be war."
"Lord king," said the old man, "you are like an elephant, and the world
shakes under your feet."
"That is so," said the king; "also I would have you know that this new
wife of mine is white and a great person in her own country."
"Have no fear, lord," said Gala sagely; "I will lie to him."
"If you tell me I lie, I will beat you to death, old monkey," said the
wrathful Tobolaka. "This is true that I tell you."
The old man was dazed.
"A white woman," he said, incredulously. "Lord, that is shame."
Tobolaka gasped. For here was a sycophant of sycophants surprised to an
expression of opinion opposed to his master's.
"Lord," stammered Cala, throwing a lifetime's discretion to the winds,
"Sandi would not have this--nor we, your people. If you be black and
she be white, what of the children of your lordship? By Death! they
would be neither black nor white, but a people apart!"
Tobolaka's fine philosophy went by the board.
He was speechless with rage. He, a Bachelor of Arts, the favoured of
Ministers, the Latinist, the wearer of white man's clothing, to be
openly criticised by a barbarian, a savage, a wearer of no clothes, and,
moreover, a worshipper of devils.
At a word, Cala was seized and flogged. He was flogged with strips of
raw hide, and, being an old man, he died.
Tobolaka, who had never seen a man die of violence, found an
extraordinary pleasure in the sight. There stirred within his heart
sharp exultation, fierce joys which he had never experienced before.
Dormant weeds of unreasoning hate and cruelty germinated in a second to
life. He found himself loosening the collar of his white drill jacket
as the bleeding figure pegged to the ground writhed and moaned.
Then, obeying some inner command, he stripped first the coat and then
the silk vest beneath from his body. He tugged and tore at them, and
threw them, a ragged little bundle, into the hut behind him.
Thus he stood, bareheaded, naked to the waist.
His headmen were eyeing him fearfully. Tobolaka felt his heart leap
with the happiness of a new-found power. Never before had they looked
at him thus.
He beckoned a man to him.
"Go you," he said haughtily, "to Bosambo of the Ochori and bid him, on
his life, come to me. Take him presents, but give them proudly."
"I am your dog," said the man, and knelt at his feet.
Tobolaka kicked him away and went into the hut of his women to flog a
girl of the Akasava, who, in the mastery of a moment, had mocked him
that morning because of his white man's ways.
Bosambo was delivering judgment when the messenger of the king was
announced.
"Lord, there comes an Isisi canoe full of arrogance," said the
messenger.
"Bring me the headman," said Bosambo.
They escorted the messenger, and Bosambo saw, by the magnificence of his
garb, by the four red feathers which stood out of his hair at varying
angles, that the matter was important.
"I come from the king of all this land," said the messenger; "from
Tobolaka, the unquenchable drinker of rivers, the destroyer of the evil
and the undutiful."
"Man," said Bosambo, "you tire my ears."
"Thus says my king," the messenger went on: "'Let Bosambo come to me by
sundown that he may do homage to me and to the woman I take to wife, for
I am not to be thwarted, nor am I to be mocked. And those who thwart me
and mock me I will come up against with fire and spear.'"
Bosambo was amused.
"Look around, Kilimini," he said, "and see my soldiers, and this city of
the Ochori, and beyond by those little hills the fields where all things
grow well; especially do you look well at those fields by the little
hills."
"Lord, I see these," said the messenger.
"Go back to Tobolaka, the black man, and tell him you saw those fields
which are more abundant than any fields in the world--and for a reason."
He smiled at the messenger, who was a little out of his depth.
"This is the reason, Kilimini," said Bosambo. "In those fields we buried
many hundreds of the Isisi who came against my city in their folly--this
was in the year of the Elephants. Tell your king this: that I have
other fields to manure. The palaver is finished."
Then out of the sky in wide circles dropped a bird, all blue and white.
Raising his eyes, Bosambo saw it narrowing the orbit of its flight till
it dropped wearily upon a ledge that fronted a roughly-made dovecot
behind Bosambo's house.
"Let this man have food," said Bosambo, and hastened to examine the
bird.
It was drinking greedily from a little trough of baked clay. Bosambo
disturbed his tiny servant only long enough to take from its red legs a
paper that was twice the size, but of the same substance, as a
cigarette-paper.
He was no great Arabic scholar, but he read this readily, because
Sanders wrote beautiful characters.
"To the servant of God, Bosambo.
"Peace be upon your house. Take canoe and go quickly down-river. Here
is to be met the canoe of Tobolaka, the king of Isisi, and a white woman
travels therein. You shall take the white woman, though she will not go
with you; nevertheless you shall take her, and hold her for me and my
king. Let none harm her, on your head. Sanders, of the River and the
People, your friend, writes this.
"Obey in the name of God."
Bosambo came back to the king's messenger.
"Tell me, Kilimini," he said, "what palaver is this that the king your
master has?"
"Lord, it is a marrying palaver;" said the man, "and he sends you
presents."
"These I accept," said Bosambo; "but tell me, who is this woman he
marries?"
The man hesitated.
"Lord," he said reluctantly, "they speak of a white woman whom my lord
loved when he was learning white men's ways."
"May he roast in hell!" said Bosambo, shocked to profanity. "But what
manner of dog is your master that he does so shameful a thing? For
between night and day is twilight, and twilight is the light of evil,
being neither one thing nor the other; and between men there is this
same. Black is black and white is white, and all that is between is
foul and horrible; for if the moon mated with the sun we should have
neither day nor night, but a day that was too dark for work and a night
that was too light for sleep."
Here there was a subject which touched the Monrovian deeply, pierced his
armour of superficial cynicism, overset his pinnacle of self-interest.
"I tell you, Kilimini," he said, "I know white folk, having once been on
ship to go to the edge of the world. Also, I have seen nations where
white and black are mingled, and these people are without shame, with no
pride, for the half of them that is proud is swallowed by the half of
them that is shameful, and there is nothing of them but white man's
clothing and black man's thoughts."
"Lord," said Kilimini timidly, "this I know, though I fear to say such
things, for my king is lately very terrible. Now we Isisi have great
sorrow because he is foolish."
Bosambo turned abruptly.
"Go now, Kilimini," he said. "Later I shall see you."
He waved the messenger out of his thoughts. Into his hut, through this
to his inner hut, he went.
His wife sat on the carpeted floor of Bosambo's harem, her brown baby on
her knees.
"Heart of gold," said Bosambo, "I go to a war palaver, obeying Sandi.
All gods be with you and my fine son.
"And with you, Bosambo, husband and lord," she said calmly; "for if this
is Sandi's palaver it is good."
He left her, and sent for his fighting headman, the one-eyed Tembidini,
strong in loyalty.
"I shall take one war canoe to the lower river," said Bosambo. "See to
this: fifty fighting men follow me, and you shall raise the country and
bring me an army to the place where the Isisi River turns twice like a
dying snake."
"Lord, this is war," said his headman.
"That we shall see," said Bosambo.
"Lord, is it against the Isisi?"
"Against the king. As to the people, we shall know in good time."
* * * * *
Miss Millie Tavish, seated luxuriously upon soft cushions under the
thatched roof of a deck-house, dreamt dreams of royalty and of an urbane
negro who had raised his hat to her. She watched the sweating paddlers
as they dug the water rhythmically singing a little song, and already
she tasted the joys of dominion.
She had the haziest notion of the new position she was to occupy. If
she had been told that she would share her husband with half-a-dozen
other women--and those interchangeable from time to time--she would have
been horrified.
Sanders had not explained that arrangement to her, partly because he was
a man with a delicate mind, and partly because he thought he had solved
the problem without such explanation.
She smiled a triumphant little smile every time she thought of him and
her method of outwitting him. It had been easier than she had
anticipated.
She had watched the Commissioner out of sight and had ordered the boat
to return to shore, for standing an impassive witness to her embarkation
had been the headman Tobolaka had sent. Moreover, in the letter of the
king had been a few simple words of Isisi and the English equivalent.
She thought of many things--of the busy city she had left, of the dreary
boarding-house, of the relations who had opposed her leaving, of the
little legacy which had come to her just before she sailed, and which
had caused her to hesitate, for with that she could have lived in fair
comfort.
But the glamour of a throne--even a Central African throne--was upon
her--she--Miss Tavish--Millie Tavish--a hired help----
And here was the actuality. A broad river, tree-fringed banks, high
rushes at the water edge, the feather-headed palms of her dreams showing
at intervals, and the royal paddlers with their plaintive song.
She came to earth as the paddlers ceased, not together as at a word of
command but one by one as they saw the obstruction.
There were two canoes ahead, and the locked shields that were turned to
the king's canoe were bright with red n'gola--and red n'gola means war.
The king's headman reached for his spear half-heartedly. The girl's
heart beat faster.
"Ho, Soka!"
Bosambo, standing in the stern of the canoe, spoke:
"Let no man touch his spear, or he dies!" said Bosambo.
"Lord, this is the king's canoe," spluttered Soka, wiping his streaming
brow, "and you do a shameful thing, for there is peace in the land."
"So men say," said Bosambo evasively.
He brought his craft round so that it lay alongside the other.
"Lady," he said in his best coast-English, "you lib for go with me one
time; I be good feller; I be big chap--no hurt 'um--no fight 'um."
The girl was sick with terror. For all she knew, and for all she could
gather, this man was a cruel and wicked monster. She shrank back and
screamed.
"I no hurt 'um," said Bosambo. "I be dam good chap; I be Christian,
Marki, Luki, Johni; you savee dem fellers? I be same like."
She fainted, sinking in a heap to the bottom of the canoe. In an
instant Bosambo's arm was around her. He lifted her into his canoe as
lightly as though she was a child.
Then from the rushes came a third canoe with a full force of paddlers
and, remarkable of a savage man's delicacy, two women of the Ochori.
She was in this canoe when she recovered consciousness, a woman bathing
her forehead from the river. Bosambo, from another boat, watched the
operation with interest.
"Go now," he said to the chief of the paddlers, "taking this woman to
Sandi, and if ill comes to her, behold, I will take your wives and your
children and burn them alive--go swiftly."
Swiftly enough they went, for the river was high, and at the river head
the floods were out.
"As for you," said Bosambo to the king's headman, "you may carry word to
your master, saying thus have I done because it was my pleasure."
"Lord," said the head of the paddlers, "we men have spoken together and
fear for our lives; yet we will go to our king and tell him, and if he
illtreats us we will come back to you."
Which arrangement Bosambo confirmed.
King Tobolaka had made preparations worthy of Independence Day to greet
his bride. He had improvised flags at the expense of his people's
scanty wardrobe. Strings of tattered garments crossed the streets, but
beneath those same strings people stood in little groups, their arms
folded, their faces lowering, and they said things behind their hands
which Tobolaka did not hear.
For he had outraged their most sacred tradition--outraged it in the face
of all protest. A rent garment, fluttering in the wind--that was the
sign of death and of graves. Wherever a little graveyard lies, there
will be found the poor wisps of cloth flapping sadly to keep away
devils.
This Tobolaka did not know or, if he did know, scorned.
On another such occasion he had told his councillors that he had no
respect for the "superstitions of the indigenous native," and had quoted
a wise saying of Cicero, which was to the effect that precedents and
traditions were made only to be broken.
Now he stood, ultra-magnificent, for a _lokali_ sounding in the night
had brought him news of his bride's progress.
It is true that there was a fly in the ointment of his self-esteem. His
invitation, couched in the choicest American, to the missionaries had
been rejected. Neither Baptist nor Church of England nor Jesuit would
be party to what they, usually divergent in their views, were unanimous
in regarding as a crime.
But the fact did not weigh heavily on Tobolaka. He was a resplendent
figure in speckless white. Across his dress he wore the broad blue
ribbon of an Order to which he was in no sense entitled.
In places of vantage, look-out men had been stationed, and Tobolaka
waited with growing impatience for news of the canoe.
He sprang up from his throne as one of the watchers came pelting up the
street.
"Lord," said the man, gasping for breath, "two war canoes have passed."
"Fool!" said Tobolaka. "What do I care for war canoes?
"But, lord," persisted the man, "they are of the Ochori and with them
goes Bosambo, very terrible in his war dress; and the Ochori have
reddened their shields."
"Which way did he come?" asked Tobolaka, impressed in spite of himself.
"Lord," said the man, "they came from below to above."
"And what of my canoe?" asked Tobolaka.
"That we have not seen," replied the man.
"Go and watch."
Tobolaka was not as perturbed as his councillors, for he had never
looked upon reddened shields or their consequences. He waited for half
an hour, and then the news came that the canoe was rounding the point,
but no woman was there.
Half mad with rage and chagrin, Tobolaka struck down the man who brought
the intelligence. He was at the beach to meet the crestfallen headman,
and heard his story in silence.
"Take this man," said Tobolaka, "and all the men who were with him, and
bind them with ropes. By Death! we will have a feast and a dance and
some blood!"
That night the war drums of the Isisi beat from one end of the land to
the other, and canoes filled with armed men shot out of little creeks
and paddled to the city.
Tobolaka, naked save for his skin robe and his anklets of feathers,
danced the dance of quick killing, and the paddlers of the royal canoe
were publicly executed--with elaborate attention to detail.
In the dark hours before the dawn the Isisi went out against the Ochori.
At the first flash of daylight they landed, twelve thousand strong, in
Ochori territory. Bosambo was strongly placed, and his chosen regiments
fell on the Isisi right and crumpled it up. Then he turned sharply and
struck into the Isisi main body. It was a desperate venture, but it
succeeded. Raging like a veritable devil, Tobolaka sought to rally his
personal guard, but the men of the Isisi city who formed it had no heart
for the business. They broke back to the river.
Whirling his long-handed axe (he had been a famous club swinger in the
Philadelphia seminary), Tobolaka cut a way into the heart of the Ochori
vanguard.
"Ho, Bosambo!" he called, and his voice was thick with hate. "You have
stolen my wife; first I will take your head, then I will kill Sandi,
your master."
Bosambo's answer was short, to the point, and in English:
"Dam nigger!" he said.
It needed but this. With a yelp like the howl of a wolf, Tobolaka,
B.A., sprang at him, his axe swirling.
But Bosambo moved as only a Krooman can move.
There was the flash of a brown body, the thud of an impact, and Tobolaka
was down with a steel grip at his throat and a knee like a battering-ram
in his stomach.
* * * * *
The _Zaire_ came fussing up, her decks black with Houssas, the polished
barrels of her guns swung out. Sanders interviewed King Tobolaka the
First--and last.
The latter would have carried the affair off with a high hand.
"Fortune of war, Mr. Sanders," he said airily. "I'm afraid you
precipitated this conduct by your unwarrantable and provocative conduct.
As Cicero says somewhere----"
"Cut it out," said Sanders. "I want you, primarily for the killing of
Cala. You have behaved badly."
"I am a king and above criticism," said Tobolaka philosophically.
"I am sending you to the Coast for trial," said Sanders promptly.
"Afterwards, if you are lucky, you will probably be sent home--whither
Miss Tavish has already gone."
*CHAPTER V*
*THE KILLING OF OLANDI*
Chief of Sanders's spies in the wild country was Kambara, the N'gombi
man, resolute, fearless, and very zealous for his lord. He lived in the
deep of the N'gombi forest, in one of those unexpected towns perched
upon a little hill with a meandering tributary to the great river, half
ringing its base.
His people knew him for a wise and silent chief, who dispensed justice
evenhandedly, and wore about his neck the chain and medal of his office
(a wonder-working medal with a bearded face in relief and certain devil
marks).
He made long journeys, leaving his village without warning and returning
without notice. At night he would be sitting before his fire, brooding
and voiceless; in the morning he would be missing. Some of his people
said that he was a witch-doctor, practising his magic in hidden places
of the forest; others that he changed himself into a leopard by his
magic and went hunting men. Figuratively speaking, the latter was near
the truth, for Kambara was a great tracker of criminals, and there was
none so wily as could escape his relentless search.
Thus, when Bolobo, the chief, plotted a rising, it was Kambara's word
which brought Sanders and his soldiers, to the unbounded dismay of
Bolobo, who thought his secret known only to himself and his two
brothers.
It was Kambara who accomplished the undoing of Sesikmi, the great king;
it was Kambara who held the vaguely-defined border line of the N'gombi
country more effectively than a brigade of infantry against the raider
and the Arab trader.
Sanders left him to his devices, sending such rewards as his services
merited, and receiving in exchange information of a particularly
valuable character.
Kambara was a man of discretion. When Olandi of the Akasava came into
the N'gombi forest, Kambara lodged him regally, although Olandi was
breaking the law in crossing the border. But Olandi was a powerful
chief and, ordinarily, a law-abiding man, and there are crimes which
Kambara preferred to shut his eyes upon.
So he entertained Olandi for two days--not knowing that somewhere down
the little river, in Olandi's camp, was a stolen woman who moaned and
wrung her hands and greatly desired death.
For Olandi's benefit the little village made merry, and Tisini, the wife
of Kambara, danced the dance of the two buffaloes--an exhibition which
would have been sufficient to close the doors of any London music-hall
and send its manager to hard labour.
At the same time that Olandi departed, Kambara disappeared; for there
were rumours of raiding on the frontier, and he was curious in the
interests of government.
Three weeks afterwards a man whose face none saw came swiftly and
secretly to the frontiers of the Akasava country, and with him came such
of his kindred as were closely enough related to feel the shame which
Olandi had put upon them.
For Olandi of the Akasava had carried off the favourite wife of the man,
though not against her will.
This Olandi was a fine animal, tall and broad of shoulder, muscled like
an ox, arrogant and pitiless. They called him the native name for
leopard because he wore robes of that beast's skin, two so cunningly
joined that a grinning head lay over each broad shoulder.
He was a hunter and a fighting man. His shield was of wicker,
delicately patterned and polished with copal; his spears were made by
the greatest of the N'gombi craftsmen, and were burnished till they
shone like silver; and about his head he wore a ring of silver. A fine
man in every way.
Some say that he aspired to the kingship of the Akasava, and that
Tombili's death might with justice be laid at his door; but as to that
we have no means of knowing the truth, for Tombili was dead when they
found him in the forest.
Men might tolerate his tyrannies, sit meekly under his drastic
judgments, might uncomplainingly accept death at his hands; but no man
is so weak that he would take the loss of his favourite wife without
fighting, and thus it came about that these men came paddling furiously
through the black night.
Save for the "flip-flap" of the paddles, as they struck the water, and
the little groan which accompanied each stroke, there was no sound.
They came to the village where Olandi lorded it just as the moon cleared
the feathery tops of the N'gombi woods.
Bondondo lay white and silent under the moon, two rows of roofs yellow
thatched, and in the centre the big rambling hut of the chief, with its
verandah propped with twisted saplings.
The secret man and his brothers made fast their two canoes and leapt
lightly to land. They made no sound, and their leader guiding them,
they went through the street like ghostly shadows.
Before the chief's hut the embers of a dull fire glowed. He hesitated
before the doors. Three huts built to form a triangle composed the
chief's habitation. To the right and left was an entrance with a
hanging curtain of skins.
Likely as not Olandi slept in the third hut, which opened from either of
these.
He hesitated a moment, then he drew aside the curtains of the right-hand
door and went in, his brother, his uncle, and his two cousins following.
A sleepy voice asked who was there.
"I come to see the lord Olandi," said the intruder.
He heard a rustle at the farthermost end of the room and the creaking of
a skin bed.
"What seek you?" said a voice, and it was that of a man used to command.
"Is that my lord?" demanded the visitor.
He had a broad-bladed elephant sword gripped fast, so keen of edge that
a man might shave the hair from the back of his hand therewith.
"I am Olandi," said the man in the darkness, and came forward.
There was absolute stillness. They who waited could hear the steady
breathing of the sleepers; they heard, too, a "whish!" such as a
civilised man hears when his womenfolk thrust a hatpin through a soft
straw shape.
Another tense silence, then:
"It is as it should be," said the murderer calmly, and softly called a
name. Somebody came blundering from the inner room sobbing with chokes
and gulps.
"Come," said the man, then: "Is the foreign woman there also? Let her
also go with us."
The girl called another in a low voice, and a woman joined them. Olandi
was catholic in his tastes and raided indiscriminately.
The first girl shrank back as her husband laid his hand on her arm.
"Where is my lord?" she whimpered.
"I am your lord," said the secret man dryly; "as for the other, he has
no need of women, unless there be women in hell, which is very likely."
None attempted to stop the party as it went through the street and back
to the canoes, though there were wails and moanings in Olandi's hut and
uneasy stirrings in the villages.
Men hailed them sharply as they passed, saying, "Oilo?" which means,
"Who walks?" But they made no reply.
Then with the river and safety before them, there arose the village
watchman who challenged the party.
He had heard the faint death-cry from Olandi's hut, and advanced his
terrible cutting-spear to emphasise his challenge.
The leader leapt at him, but the watchman parried the blow skilfully and
brought the blade of his spear down as a man of olden times might sweep
his battle-axe.
The other's sword had been struck from his hold, and he put up his
defenceless arm to ward off the blow.
Twice the sharp edge of the spear slashed his hand, for in the uncertain
light of the moon the watchman misjudged his distance.
Then, as he recovered for a decisive stroke, one of the kinsmen drove at
his throat, and the watchman went down, his limbs jerking feebly.
The injured man stopped long enough roughly to dress his bleeding palm,
then led his wife, shivering and talking to herself like a thing
demented, to the canoe, the second wife following.
In the early hours before the dawn four swift paddlers brought the news
to Sanders, who was sleeping aboard the _Zaire_, made fast to the beach
of Akasava city.
Sanders sat on the edge of his tiny bed, dangling his pyjama'd legs over
the side, and listened thoroughly--which is a kind of listening which
absorbs not only the story, but takes into account the inflexion of the
teller's voice, the sympathy--or lack of it--the rage, the despair, or
the resignation of the story-teller.
"So I see," said Sanders when the man had finished, for all four were
hot with the news and eager to supply the deficiencies of the others,
"this Olandi was killed by one whose wife he had stolen, also the
watchman was killed, but none other was injured."
"None, lord," said one of the men, "for we were greatly afraid because
of the man's brethren. Yet if he had sought to stop him, many others
would have been killed."
"'If the sun were to set in the river, the waters would boil fish,'"
quoted Sanders. "I will find this man, whoever he be, and he shall
answer for his crime."
He reached the scene of the killing and made prompt inquiry. None had
seen the face of the secret man save the watchman--and he was dead. As
for the women--the villagers flapped their arms hopelessly. Who could
say from what nation, from what tribes, Olandi stole his women?
One, so other inmates of Olandi's house said, was undoubtedly Ochori; as
to the other, none knew her, and she had not spoken, for, so they said,
she loved the dead man and was a willing captive.
This Olandi had hunted far afield, and was a hurricane lover and a tamer
of women; how perfect a tamer Sanders discovered, for, as the Isisi
saying goes, "The man who can bribe a woman's tongue could teach a snake
to grind corn."
In a civilised country he would have found written evidence in the
chief's hut, but barbarous man establishes no clues for the prying
detective, and he must needs match primitive cunning with such powers of
reason and instinct as his civilisation had given to him.
A diligent search of the river revealed nothing. The river had washed
away the marks where the canoes had been beached. Sanders saw the
bodies of both men who had fallen without being very much the wiser. It
was just before he left the village that Abiboo the sergeant made a
discovery.
There is a certain tree on the river with leaves which are credited with
extraordinary curative powers. A few paces from where the watchman fell
such a tree grew.
Abiboo found beneath its low branches a number of leaves that had been
newly plucked. Some were stained with blood, and one bore the clear
impression of a palm.
Sanders examined it carefully. The lines of the hand were clearly to be
seen on the glossy surface of the leaf, and in the centre of the palm
was an irregular cut, shaped like a roughly-drawn St. Andrew's Cross.
He carefully put the leaf away in his safe and went on to pursue his
inquiries.
Now, of all crimes difficult to detect, none offers such obstacles as
the blood feud which is based on a woman palaver.
Men will speak openly of other crimes, tell all there is to be told, be
willing--nay, eager--to put their sometime comrade's head in the noose,
if the murder be murder according to accepted native standards. But
when murder is justice, a man does not speak; for, in the near future,
might not he stand in similar case, dependent upon the silence of his
friends for very life?
Sanders searched diligently for the murderers, but none had seen them
pass. What direction they took none knew. Indeed, as soon as the
motive for the crime became evident, all the people of the river became
blind. Then it was that Sanders thought of Kambara and sent for him,
but Kambara was on the border, importantly engaged.
Sanders pursued a course to the Ochori country.
"One of these women was of your people," he said to Bosambo the chief.
"Now I desire that you shall find her husband."
Bosambo shifted his feet uneasily.
"Lord," he said, "it was no man of my people who did this. As to the
woman, many women are stolen from far-away villages, and I know nothing.
And in all these women palavers my people are as dumb beasts."
Bosambo had a wife who ruled him absolutely, and when Sanders had
departed, he writhed helplessly under her keen tongue.
"Lord and chief," she said, "why did you speak falsely to Sandi, for you
know the woman of the Ochori who was stolen was the girl Michimi of
Tasali by the river? And, behold, you yourself were in search of her
when the news of Olandi's killing came."
"These things are not for women," said Bosambo: "therefore, joy of my
life, let us talk of other things."
"Father of my child," persisted the girl, "has Michimi no lover who did
this killing, nor a husband? Will you summon the headman of Tasali by
the river and question him?"
She was interested--more interested than Bosambo.
"God is all-seeing and beneficent," he said devoutly. "Leave me now,
for I have holy thoughts and certain magical ideas for finding this
killer of Olandi, though I wish him no harm."
* * * * *
Sanders had a trick of accepting alarming statements with a
disconcerting calm.
People who essayed the task of making his flesh creep had no reward for
their labours; his politely incredulous "O, ko!" which, uttered in
certain tones, means, "Oh, indeed!" made his informant curl up inwardly.
Komo, pompous to a degree, anxious to impress his lord with the fact
that he, Komo, was no ordinary chief, but a watchful, zealous, and
conscientious regent, came fussing down the river in a glad sweat to
speak of happenings on the edge of his territory.
Sanders granted the man an immediate audience, though he arrived in the
dark hours of the night.
If you will visualise the scene, you have Sanders sitting up in bed in
his pyjamas, and two Houssas splashed with rain--for a thunderstorm was
raging--one of whom holds a lantern, all the light necessary to reveal a
reeking Komo, shiny and wet, who, squatting on the floor, is voluble and
ominous.
"As is my practice, lord," said Komo, "I watch men and things for your
honour's comfort, being filled with a desire to serve you. And thus it
is that I have learnt of certain things, dances and spells of evil,
which are practised by the Ochori."
"The Ochori?"
Sanders was puzzled.
"By the Ochori--the trusted."
There was no mistaking the arch turn to his speech; the two words were
charged with gentle irony.
"Is Bosambo dead that these things should be?" asked Sanders dryly. "Or
has he perchance joined with the dancers?"
"Lord," said Komo impressively, "Bosambo dances with his people. For,
being chief, he is the first to stamp his foot and say 'Ho!' He, too,
assists at sacrifices and is ripe for abominable treachery."
"Oh, indeed!" said Sanders, with an inward sigh of relief. "Now I tell
you this, Komo; there was once a great lord who trusted no man, nor did
he trust his household, his wives, nor his slaves, and he walked ever
with his back to the sun so that his shadow should run before him, for
he did not trust his shadow. And one day he came to a river in flood,
and behold! his shadow lay before him. And because he feared to turn
his back upon his shadow, he plunged in and was drowned."
"Lord, I have heard the story. He was a king, and a great one," said
Komo. Sanders nodded.
"Therefore, Komo, heed this: I trust all men--a little. I trust Bosambo
much, for he has been my man in fair weather and foul." He turned to
the silent Houssas. "Let this man be lodged according to his dignity
and give him a present of cloth. The palaver is finished."
And Sanders, drawing the bedclothes up to his neck, the night being
cold, turned over and was asleep before the chief and his escort had
cleared the verandah.
"A busybody," was Sanders's verdict on Komo; yet, since there is no
smoke without fire, he deemed it advisable to investigate at first hand.
Two days after the crestfallen chief had started on his way home the
_Zaire_ passed his canoe in mid-stream, going the same way, and the
sight of her white hull and twin smokestacks brought consolation to
Komo.
"My lord has considered my words," said he to his headman; "for at his
village they said that the puc-a-puc did not leave till the new moon
came, and here he comes, though the old moon is still sowing his rind."
"Chief," said the headman, "you are great in council, and even Sandi
hearkens and obeys. You are wiser than an owl, swift and terrible as a
hawk, and your voice is like the winds of a storm."
"You speak truly," said Komo, who had no false sense of modesty. "I am
also very cunning, as you shall see."
Sanders was indeed beating up to the Ochori country. He was perturbed,
not by reason of Komo's sinister suggestion, but because his spies had
been silent. If there were dances in the Ochori country he should have
been told, however innocent those dances were.
Pigeons had gone ahead of him to tell of his journey, and he found the
first of his agents awaiting him at the junction of the Ikeli with the
Isisi.
"Lord, it is true that the Ochori dance," said the man, "yet, knowing
your lordship trusted Bosambo, I did not make report."
"There you did wrong," said Sanders; "for I tell you that if a hawk
kills a parrot, or the crocodiles find new breeding-places, I wish to
know what there is to know."
He gleaned more of these mysterious revels which Bosambo held in the
forest as he grew nearer to the Ochori country, and was more puzzled
than ever.
"Master," said the chief of the N'gombi village, "many folk go to the
Ochori dance, for Bosambo the chief has a great magic."
"What manner of magic?"
"Lord, it is a magic with whiteness," and he exhibited his hand proudly.
Straight across the reddish-brown palm was an irregular streak of white
paint.
"This the lord Bosambo did," he said, "and, behold, every day this
remains will be fortunate for me."
Sanders regarded the sign with every evidence of strong emotion.
Two months before Sanders had sent many tins of white paint with
instructions to the Ochori chief that his men should seek out the
boundary posts of his kingdom--and particularly those that impinged upon
foreign territories--and restore them to startling freshness.
"Many people of the Isisi, N'gombi, and Akasava go to Bosambo," the
little chief continued; "for, behold, this magic of Bosambo's wipes away
all soil. And if a man has been guilty of wickedness he is released of
punishment. I," he added proudly, "once killed my wife's father _cala
cala_, and frequently I have sorrowed because of this and because my
wife often reminds me. Now, lord, I am a clean man, so clean that when
the woman spoke to me this morning about my faraway sin, I hit her with
my spear, knowing that I am now innocent."
Sanders thought rapidly.
"And what do you pay Bosambo for this?" he asked.
"Nothing, lord," said the man.
"Nothing!" repeated Sanders incredulously.
"Lord, Bosambo gives his magic freely, saying he has made a vow to
strange gods to do this; and because it is free, many men go to his
dance for purification. The lord Kambara, the Silent One, he himself
passed at sunrise to-day."
Sanders smiled to himself. Kambara would have an interest in stray
confessions of guilt----
That was it! The meaning of Bosambo's practice came to him in a flash.
The painting of hands--the lure of purification; Bosambo was waiting for
the man with the scarred hand.
Sanders continued his journey, tied up five miles short of the Ochori
city, and went on foot through the forest to the place of meeting.
It was dark by the time he had covered half the journey, but there was
no need of compass to guide him, even had the path been more difficult
to follow. Ahead was a dull red glow in the sky where Bosambo's fires
burnt.
Four fires there were, set at the points of an imaginary square. In the
centre a round circle of stones, and in the centre again three spears
with red hafts.
Bosambo had evidently witnessed, or been participant in, an initiation
ceremony of a Monrovian secret society.
Within the circle moved Bosambo, and without it, two or three deep, the
moving figures of those who sought his merciful services.
Slowly he moved. In one hand a bright tin of Government paint, in the
other a Government brush.
Sanders, from his place of observation, grinned approvingly at the
solemnity in which Bosambo clothed the ceremony.
One by one he daubed the men--a flick of the brush, a muttered
incantation, and the magic was performed.
Sanders saw Kambara in the front rank and was puzzled, for the man was
in earnest. If he had come to scoff he remained to pray. Big beads of
perspiration glistened on his forehead, the outstretched hands were
shaking.
Bosambo approached him, lifted his brush, peered down, then with a sweep
of his arm he drew the N'gombi chief to him.
"Brother," he said pleasantly, "I have need of you."
Sanders saw what it meant, and went crashing through the undergrowth to
Bosambo's side, and the yelling throng that had closed round the
struggling pair drew back.
"Lord, here is your man!" said Bosambo, and forcibly pulled forward
Kambara's palm.
Sanders took his prisoner back to the _Zaire_, and from thenceforward,
so far as the crime was concerned, there was no difficulty, for Kambara
told the truth.
"Lord," he said, "my hand alone is in fault; for, though my people were
with me, none struck Olandi but I. Now do with me what you will, for my
wife hates me and I am sick for sleep."
"This is a bad palaver," said Sanders gravely, "for I trusted you."
"Lord, you may trust no man," said Kambara, "when his woman is the
palaver. I shall be glad to die, for I was her dog. And Olandi came
and stayed one night in my village, and all that I was to her and all
that I have given her was as nothing. And now she weeps all day for
him, as does the Ochori woman I took with her. And, lord, if women
worship only the dead, make an end, for I am sick of her scorn."
Sanders, with his head sunk, his hands clasped behind, his eyes
examining the floor of his cabin--they were on board the
_Zaire_--whistled a tune, a trick of his when he was worried.
"Go back to your village," he said. "You shall pay the family of Olandi
thirty goats and ten bags of salt for his blood."
* * * * *
"Master," said Bosambo. "I have great joy in my heart that you did not
hang this man, for it seems that Olandi did not die too soon. As for
the Ochori girl," he went on, "I would have killed Olandi on her
account--only Kambara was there first. This," he added, "I tell you,
lord, for your secret hearing, for I knew this girl."
Sanders looked at Bosambo keenly.
"They tell me that you have but one wife, Bosambo," he said.
"I have one," said Bosambo evasively, "but in my lifetime I have many
perils, of which the woman my wife knows nothing, for it is written in
the Sura of the Djinn, 'Men know best who know most, but a woman's
happiness lies in her delusions.'"
*CHAPTER VI*
*THE PEDOMETER*
Bosambo, the chief of the Ochori, was wont to style himself in moments
of magnificent conceit, King of the Ochori, Lord Chief of the Elebi
River, High Herd of Untamable Buffaloes and of all Goats.
There were other titles which I forget, but I merely mention his claims
in order that I may remark that he no longer refers to the goats of his
land. There is a reason.
Hikilari, the wise old chief of the Akasava, went hunting in strange
territories. That was the year when game went unaccountably westward,
some say through the spell of M'Shimba M'Shamba; but, as Sanders knew,
because of the floods.
Hikilari went by river for three days and across a swamp, he and his
hunters, before they found elephant. Then they had a good kill, and his
bearers came rollicking back to Akasava city, laden with good teeth,
some weighing as much as two hundred kilos.
It was good fortune, but he paid for it tremendously, for when he
yearned to return he was troubled with extraordinary drowsiness, and had
strange pains in his head. For this he employed the native remedy,
which was binding a wire tightly round his head. None the less he grew
no better, and there came a time when Hikilari, the Wise One, rose in
the middle of the night and, going out into the main street of the
village, danced and sang foolishly, snapping his fingers.
His sons, with his nephews and his brothers, held a palaver, and the
elder of his sons, M'Kovo, an evil man, spoke thuswise:
"It seems that my father is sick with the sickness mongo, for he is now
foolish, and will soon be dead. Yet I desire that no word of this shall
go to Sandi. Let us therefore put my father away safely, saying he has
gone a long journey; and, whilst he is absent, there are many things we
may do and many enemies of whom we may rid ourselves. And if Sandi
comes with the soldiers and says, 'Why did you these things?' we shall
say, 'Lord, who is chief here? A madman. We did as he bid; let it be
on his head.'"
The brother of the sick king thought it would be best to kill him
privily, but against this the king's son set his face.
"Whilst he is alive he is chief," he said significantly; "if he be dead,
be sure Sandi will find somebody to punish, and it may well be me."
For three days they kept the king to his hut, whilst witch-doctors
smeared him with red clay and ingola and chanted and put wet clay on his
eyes. At the end of that time they removed him by night to a hastily
thatched hut in the forest, and there he was left to M'Kovo's creatures.
Sanders, who knew many things of which he was supposed to be ignorant,
did not know this. He knew that Hikilari was a wise man; that he had
been on a journey; that there were no reasons why he (Sanders) should
not make a tour to investigate affairs in the Akasava.
He was collecting hut tax in the N'gombl country from a simple pastoral
people who objected on principle to pay anything, when the news came to
him that a party of Akasava folk had crossed the Ochori border, raided a
village, and, having killed the men, had expeditiously carried away the
women and goats.
Sanders was in the midst of an interminable palaver when the news came,
and the N'gombi people who squatted at his feet regarded him with
expectant hope, a hope which was expressed by a small chief who at the
moment had the ear of the assembly.
"Lord, this is bad news," he said in the friendly manner of his kind,
"and we will not trouble your lordship any farther with our grievances,
which are very small. So, therefore, if on account of our bad crops you
remit a half of our taxation, we will go peaceably to our villages
saying good words about your honour's justice."
"You shall pay all your taxation," said Sanders brusquely. "I waste my
time talking with you."
"Remit one-third," murmured the melancholy speaker. "We are poor men,
and there has been no fish in the river----"
Sanders rose from his seat of state wearily.
"I will return with the moon," he said, "and if all taxes be not paid,
there will be sad hearts in this village and sore backs, believe me.
The palaver is finished."
He sent one messenger to the chief of the Akasava, and he himself went
by a short cut through the forest to the Ochori city, for at the
psychological moment a cylinder head on the _Zaire_ had blown out.
He reached the Ochori by way of Elebi River, through Tunberi--which was
swamp, owing to unexpected, unseasonable, and most atrocious rains.
Three days he waded, from knee-deep to waist-high, till his arms ached
maddeningly from holding his rifle above the black ooze and mud.
And he came upon hippo and water-snake, and once the "boy" who walked
ahead yelled shrilly and went down, and Sanders himself was nearly
knocked off his feet by the quick rush of the crocodile bearing his
victim to the near-by river.
At the end of three days Sanders came to the higher land, where a man
might sleep elsewhere than in trees, and where, too, it was possible to
bathe in spring water, unpack shirts from headborne loads and count
noses.
He was now a day's march from the Ochori, but considerably less than a
day's march from the Ochori army, for two hours after he had resumed his
journey he came upon the chief Bosambo and with him a thousand spears.
And Bosambo was naked, save for his kilt of monkey-tails, and in the
crook of the arm which carried his wicker shield, he carried his five
fighting spears.
He halted his army at the sight of Sanders, and came out to meet him.
"Bosambo," said Sanders quietly, "you do me honour that you bring the
pick of your fighting men to guard me."
"Lord," said Bosambo with commendable frankness, "this is no honour to
you, for I go to settle an account with the King of the Akasava."
Sanders stood before him, his head perched on one side like a bird's,
and he slapped his leg absent-mindedly with his pliant cane.
"Behold," he said, "I am he who settles all accounts as between kings
and kings and men and men, and I tell you that you go back to your city
and sit in patience whilst I do the work for which my lord the King
appointed me."
Bosambo hesitated. He was pardonably annoyed.
"Go back to your city, Bosambo," said Sanders gently.
The chief squared his broad shoulders.
"I am your man," he said, and turned without another word.
Sanders stopped him before he had taken half a dozen paces.
"Give me twenty fighting men," he said, "and two canoes. You shall hold
your men in check whilst I go about the King's business."
An hour later he was going down-stream as fast as a five-knot current
and his swift paddlers could take him.
He came to the Akasava city at noon of the following day, and found it
peaceable enough.
M'Kovo, the king's son, came to the beach to meet him.
"Lord Sandi," he said with an extravagant gesture of surprise, "I see
that the summer comes twice in one season, for you----"
Sanders was in no mood for compliments.
"Where is the old chief, your father?" he asked.
"Master," said M'Kovo earnestly, "I will not lie to you. My father has
taken his warriors into the forest, and I fear that he will do evil."
And he told a story which was long and circumstantial, of the sudden
flaming up of an old man's rages and animosities.
Sanders listened patiently.
An unwavering instinct, which he had developed to a point where it rose
superior to reason, told him that the man was lying. Nor was his faith
in his own judgment shaken when M'Kovo produced his elder men and
witnesses to his sire's sudden fit of depravity.
But Sanders was a cunning man and full of guile.
He dropped his hand of a sudden upon the other's shoulder.
"M'Kovo," he said mildly, "it seems that your chief and father is no
longer worthy. Therefore you shall dwell in the chief's hut. Yet first
you shall bring me the chief Hikilari, and you shall bring him unhurt
and he shall have his eyes. Bring him quickly, M'Kovo."
"Lord," said M'Kovo sullenly, "he will not come, and how may I force
him, for he has many warriors with him?"
Sanders thought the matter out.
"Go now," he said after a while, "and speak with him, telling him that I
await him."
"Lord, that I will do," said M'Kovo, "but I cannot go till night because
I fear your men will follow me, and my father, seeing them, will put me
to death."
Sanders nodded.
That night M'Kovo came to him ready for his journey, and Sanders took
from his pocket a round silver box.
"This you shall hang about your neck," he said, "that your father may
know you come from me."
M'Kovo hung the round box by a piece of string and walked quickly toward
the forest.
Two miles on the forest path he met his cousins and brothers, an
apprehensive assembly.
"My stomach is sick with fear," said his elder cousin Tangiri; "for
Sandi has an eye that sees through trees."
"You are a fool," snarled M'Kovo; "for Sandi is a bat who sees nothing.
What of Hikilari, my father?"
His younger brother extended the point of his spear and M'Kovo saw that
it was caked brown with blood.
"That was best," he said. "Now we will all go to sleep, and in the
morning I will go back to Sandi and tell him a tale."
In the morning his relatives scratched his legs with thorns and threw
dust over him, and an hour later, artificially exhausted, he staggered
to the hut before which Mr. Commissioner Sanders sat at breakfast.
Sanders glanced keenly at the travel-worn figure.
"My friend," he said softly, "you have come a long way?"
"Lord," said M'Kovo, weak of voice, "since I left you I have not rested
save before my father, who sent me away with evil words concerning your
honour."
And the exact and unabridged text of those "evil words" he delivered
with relish.
Sanders reached down and took the little silver box that lay upon the
heaving chest.
"And this you showed to your father?" he asked.
"Lord, I showed him this," repeated the man.
"And you travelled through the night--many miles?"
"Master, I did as I have told," M'Kovo replied.
Sanders touched a spring, and the case of the box flew open. There was
revealed a dial like that of a watch save that it contained many little
hands.
M'Kovo watched curiously as Sanders examined the instrument.
"Look well at this, M'Kovo," said Sanders dryly; "for it is a small
devil which talks truly--and it tells me that you have travelled no
farther than a man may walk in the time that the full moon climbs a
tree."
The _Zaire_ had arrived during the night, and a Houssa guard stood
waiting.
Sanders slipped the pedometer into his pocket, gave a characteristic
jerk of his head, and Sergeant Abiboo seized his prisoner.
"Let him sit in irons," said Sanders in Arabic, "and take six men along
the forest road and bring me any man you may find."
Abiboo returned in an hour with four prisoners, and they were very
voluble--too voluble for the safety of M'Kovo and his younger brother,
for by night Sanders had discovered a forest grave where Hikilari the
wise chief lay.
It was under a tree with wide-spreading branches, and was eminently
suitable for the sequel to that tragedy.
* * * * *
Bosambo was not to blame for every crime laid at his door. He had a
feud with the Akasava, not without reason. The death of M'Kovo his
enemy was not sufficient to extinguish the obligation, for the Akasava
had spilt blood, and that rankled for many months. He was by nature a
thief, being a Krooman from the Liberian coast before he came to be king
over the simple and fearful Ochori.
So when all the trouble between the Akasava and Ochori seemed at rest,
Sanders had occasion to come to the Ochori country in a hurry--and the
river was low.
There is no chart of the big river worth two cents in the dry season,
because unexpected sand banks come barking up in the fairway, and there
are whole stretches of river wherein less than a fathom of water runs.
Sometimes the boy sitting on the bow of the _Zaire_, thrusting a pliant
rod into the stream, would cry through his nose that there were two
fathoms of water when there was but one.
He was, as I have beforetime said, of the Kano folk, and somewhat
religious, dreaming of a pilgrimage to Mecca, and a green band round his
tarboosh.
"I declare to you the glory of God and a fathom and a little."
Bump!
"Get overboard, you talkative devil!" said Sanders, who was more annoyed
because this was the fourteenth bank he had struck since he left
headquarters. So the whole crew jumped waist deep into the water, and
singing a little song as they toiled, pushed the boat clear.
Sanders struck his thirty-ninth bank just before he came to the village
of Ochori, and he landed in a most unamiable mood.
"Bosambo," he said, "I have two minds about you--the one is to hang you
for your many wickednesses, the other is to whip you."
"Master," said Bosambo with grave piety, "all things shall be as
ordained."
"Have no fear but that it will be one or the other," warned the
Commissioner. "I am no dog that I should run from one end of the state
to the other because a thieving black man raids in forbidden territory."
Bosambo, whose guilty conscience suggested many reasons for the
unexpected visit of the Commissioner, seemed less genuinely astonished.
"Master, I am no nigger," he said, "being related by birth and previous
marriages to several kings, also----"
"You are a liar," said Sanders, fuming, "and related by birth and
marriage to the father of liars; and I did not come to talk about your
uninteresting family, but rather to discuss a matter of night raiding."
"As to night raiding" said Bosambo frankly, "I know nothing about that.
I went with my councillors to the Akasava, being anxious to see the new
chief and tell him of my love; also," he said piously, "to say certain
Christian prayers by the grave of my enemy, for, as you know, lord, our
faith teaches this."
"By night you went," said Sanders, ignoring the challenge of "our
faith," "and Akasava city may easily be gained in broad daylight; also,
when the Akasava fell upon you, you had many goats tied up in your
canoes.
"They were my goats," said Bosambo with dignity. "These I brought with
me as a present to the new chief."
In his exasperation Sanders swore long and fluently.
"Blood has paid for blood," he said wrathfully, "and there shall be no
more raidings. More than this, you shall stay in this city and shall
not move therefrom till you have my word."
"Lord Sandi," said Bosambo, "I hear to obey."
A light of unholy joy came momentarily into the eyes of the
Commissioner, flickered a moment, and was gone, leaving his face
impassive.
"You know, Bosambo," he said mildly--for him, "that I have great faith
in you; therefore I leave you a powerful fetish, who shall be as me in
my absence."
He took from the pocket of his uniform jacket a certain round box of
silver, very pleasant to the touch, being somewhat like a flattened egg.
Sanders had set his pedometer that morning.
"Take this and wear it for my sake," he said.
Bosambo threaded a chain through its loop of silver and hung it about
his neck.
"Lord," he said gratefully, "you have done this thing before the eyes of
my people, and now they will believe all I tell them regarding your love
for me."
Sanders left the Ochori city next morning.
"Remember," he warned, "you do not go beyond the borders of your city."
"Master," said Bosambo, "I sit fasting and without movement until your
lordship returns."
He watched the _Zaire_ until she was a white speck on the placid face of
the water; then he went to his hut.
Very carefully he removed the silver case from his neck and laid it in
the palm of his hand.
"Now, little devil," he addressed it, "who watches the coming and going
of men, I think I will learn all about you. O hanger of M'Kovo!"
He pressed the knob--he had once possessed a watch, and was wise in the
way of stem springs--the case flew open, and showed him the little
dials.
He shook the instrument violently, and heard a faint clicking. He saw a
large hand move across the second of a circle.
Bearing the pedometer in his hand, he paced the length of the village
street, and at every pace the instrument clicked and the hand moved.
When he was still it did not move.
"Praise be to all gods!" said Bosambo. "Now I know you, O Talker! For
I have seen your wicked tongue wagging, and I know the manner of your
speech."
He made his way slowly back to his hut.
Before the door his new baby, the light of his eyes, sprawled upon a
skin rug, clutching frantically at the family goat, a staid veteran,
tolerant of the indignities which a small brown man-child might put upon
him. Bosambo stopped to rub the child's little brown head and pat the
goat's sleek neck.
Then he went into the hut, carefully removed the tell-tale instrument
from the chain at his neck, and hid it with other household treasures in
a hole beneath his bed.
At sundown his _lokali_ brought the fighting men together.
"We go to the Akasava," he said, addressing them briefly, "for I know a
village that is fat with corn and the stolen goats of the Ochori. Also
the blood of our brothers calls us, though not so loudly as the goats."
He marched away, and was gone three days, at the end of which time he
returned minus three men--for the Akasava village had resisted his
attentions strenuously--but bringing with him some notable loot.
News travels fast on the river, especially bad news, and this reached
Sanders, who, continuing his quest for hut tax, had reached the Isisi.
On the top of this arrived a messenger from the Akasava chief, and
Sanders went as fast as the _Zaire_ could carry him to the Ochori city.
Bosambo heard of his coming.
"Bring me, O my life and pride," he said to his wife, "a certain silver
box which is under my bed; it is so large and of such a shape."
"Lord," said his wife, "I know the box well."
He slipped the loop of the string that held it over his head, and in all
calmness awaited his master's coming.
Sanders was very angry indeed, so angry that he was almost polite to his
erring chief.
"Lord," said Bosambo, when the question was put to him, "I have not left
my city by day or by night. As you find me, so have I been--sitting
before my hut thinking of holy things and your lordship's goodness."
"Give me that box," said Sanders.
He took it in his hand and snapped it open. He looked at the dials for a
long time; then he looked at Bosambo, and that worthy man returned his
glance without embarrassment.
"Bosambo," said Sanders, "my little devil tells me that you have
travelled for many miles----"
"Lord," said the bewildered chief, "if it says that it lies."
"It is true enough for me," said Sanders. "Now I tell you that you have
gone too far, and therefore I fine you and your people fifty goats, also
I increase your taxation, revoke your hunting privileges in the Isisi
forest, and order you to find me fifty workmen every day to labour in
the Government service."
"Oh, ko!" groaned Bosambo, standing on one leg in his anguish. "That is
just, but hard, for I tell you, Lord Sandi, that I did raid the Akasava,
yet how your devil box should know this I cannot tell, for I wrapped it
in cloth and hid it under my bed."
"You did not carry it?" asked Sanders incredulously.
"I speak the truth, and my wife shall testify," said Bosambo.
He called her by name, and the graceful Kano girl who domineered him
came to the door of his hut.
"Lord, it is true," she said, "for I have seen it, and all the people
have seen it, even while my lord Bosambo was absent."
She stooped down and lifted her fat baby from the dust.
"This one also saw it," she said, the light of pride in her eyes, "and
to please my Lord Bosambo's son, I hung it round the neck of Neta the
goat. Did I wrong?"
"Bright eyes," said Bosambo, "you can do no wrong, yet tell me, did Neta
the goat go far from the city?"
The woman nodded.
"Once only," she said. "She was gone for a day and a night, and I
feared for your box, for this is the season when goats are very
restless."
Bosambo turned to his overlord.
"You have heard, O Sandi," he said. "I am in fault, and will pay the
price."
"That you will," said Sanders, "for the other goat has done no wrong."
*CHAPTER VII*
*THE BROTHER OF BOSAMBO*
Bosambo was a Monrovian. Therefore he was a thief. For just as most
Swedes are born fair and with blue eyes, and most Spaniards come into
this world with swarthy skins, so all Monrovians come into this life
constitutionally dishonest.
In another place I have told the story of the chief's arrival in
Sanders's territory, of the audacious methods by which he usurped the
throne, of that crazy stool of chieftainship, and I hinted at the sudden
and unexpected ends, discreditable to Bosambo, which befell the rightful
heirs to the chieftainship.
Bosambo was a good man by many standards--Christian and pagan. He ruled
his people wisely, and extracted more revenue in one year than any
previous chief had taken from the lazy Ochori in ten years.
Incidentally he made an excellent commission, for it was Bosambo's way
to collect one for the Government and two for himself. He had in those
far-off days, if I remember rightly, been an unruly subject of the
President of Liberia. Before a solemn tribunal he had been convicted of
having stolen a buoy-bell which had been placed in the fairway to warn
navigators of a wreck, and had converted the same to his own use. He
had escaped from captivity and, after months of weary travelling, had
arrived in the Ochori country.
Sanders had found him a loyal man, and trusted him in all matters
affecting good government. There were others who did not trust Bosambo
at all--notably certain chiefs of the Isisi, of the Akasava, and of the
N'gombi.
These men had measured their wits with the foreigner, the ruler of the
Ochori, and been worsted. And because of certain courageous acts
performed in the defence of his country it was well known from one end
of the territories to the other that Bosambo was "well loved by Sandi,"
who rumour said--in no complimentary manner--was related to the chief.
As to how this rumour arose Bosambo knows best. It is an elementary
fact that travelling news accumulates material in its transit.
Thus it came about that in Monrovia, and in Liberia itself, the fame of
the ex-convict grew apace, and he was exalted to a position which he
never pretended to occupy. I believe a Liberian journal, published by a
black man, or men, so far forgot the heinous offence of which Bosambo
stood convicted as to refer to him as "our worthy fellow-citizen, Mr.
Bosambo, High Commissioner for the Ochori."
He was a wealthy prince; he was a king. He was above Commissioner
Sanders in point of importance. He was even credited with exercising an
influence over the Home Government which was without parallel in the
history of the Coast.
Bosambo had relatives along the Coast, and these discovered themselves
in ratio with his greatness. He had a brother named Siskolo, a tall,
bony, and important man.
Siskolo was first in importance by reason of the fact that he had served
on one of his Majesty's ships as a Krooman, that he had a smattering of
English, and that he had, by strict attention to business during the
period of his contact with white men, stolen sufficient to set him up in
Liberia as a native storekeeper.
He was called Mr. Siskolo, and had ambitions at some future period to
become a member of the Legislative Council.
It cannot be said with truth that the possession of a brother such as
Bosambo was gave him any cause for pride or exaltation during the time
when Bosambo's name in Liberia was synonymous with mud. It is even on
record that after having denied the relationship he referred to
Bosambo--when the relationship was a certainty beyond dispute--as a "low
nigger."
When the Liberian Government, in its munificence, offered an adequate
reward for the arrest of this law-breaker, Mr. Siskolo, in the most
public-spirited way, through the columns of the Press, offered to add a
personal reward of his own.
Then the public attitude of Liberia changed towards Bosambo, and with
this change Siskolo's views upon his brother also underwent a change.
Then came a time when Bosambo was honoured in his own land, and men
spoke of him proudly, and, as I have indicated, even the public Press
wrote of him in terms of pride.
Now Mr. Siskolo, as is recounted, gathered around him all people who
were nearly or distantly related to him, and they ranged from the pure
aboriginal grandfather to the frock-coated son-in-law, who ran a boot
factory in Liberia.
"My friends and my comrades," said Mr. Siskolo oracularly, "you all know
that my dear brother Bosambo has now a large territory, and is honoured
beyond any other coloured man upon this coast. Now I have loved Bosambo
for many years, and often in the night I have wrestled in prayer for his
safety. Also, I have spoken well about him to all the white men I have
met, and I have on many occasions sent him large sums of money by
messenger. If this money has not been received," continued Mr. Siskolo
stoutly, "it is because the messengers were thieves, or robbers may have
set upon them by the wayside. But all my clerks and the people who love
me know that I sent this money, also I have sent him letters praising
him, and giving him great riches."
He paused, did Mr. Siskolo, and thrust a bony hand into the pockets of
the dress trousers he had acquired from the valet of the French Consul.
"I have called you together," he said slowly, "because I am going to
make a journey into the country, and I am going to speak face to face
with my beloved brother. For I hear that he has many treasures in his
land, and it is not good that he should be so rich, and we, all of us
who are related to him in blood, and have loved him and prayed for him
for so many years, should be poor."
None of the relations who squatted or sat about the room denied this.
Indeed, there was a murmur of applause, not unmixed, however, with
suspicion, which was voiced by one Lakiro, popularly supposed to be
learned in the law.
"All this is fine talk, Siskolo," he said; "yet how shall we know in
what proportion our dear relation Bosambo will desire to distribute his
wealth amongst those of us who love him?"
This time the applause was unmistakable.
Mr. Siskolo said haughtily: "After I have received treasure from my dear
brother Bosambo--my own brother, related to me in blood, as you will all
understand, and no cousin, as you are--after this brother of mine, whom
I have loved so dearly and for so long, has given me of his treasure, I
will take my half, and the other half I will distribute evenly among
you."
Lakiro assumed his most judicial air.
"It seems to me," he said, "that as we are all blood relations, and have
brought money for this journey which you make, Siskolo, and you
yourself, so far as I know, are not finding so much as a dollar, our
dear friend and relative Bosambo would be better pleased if his great
gifts were distributed equally, though perhaps"--and he eyed the
back-country brethren who had assembled, and who were listening
uncomprehendingly to a conversation which was half in English and half
in Monrovian--"it would be better to give less to those who have no need
of money, or less need than we who have acquired by our high education,
expensive and luxurious tastes, such as champagne, wine and other noble
foods."
For two days and the greater part of two nights the relations of Bosambo
argued over the distribution of the booty which they so confidently
anticipated. At the end of a fortnight Siskolo departed from Liberia on
a coasting steamer, and in the course of time he arrived at Sanders's
headquarters.
Now it may be said that the civilised native--the native of the frock
coat and the top hat--was Mr. Commissioner Sanders's pet abomination.
He also loathed all native men who spoke English--however badly they
spake it--with the sole exception of Bosambo himself, whose stock was
exhausted within fifty words. Yet he listened patiently as Siskolo
unfolded his plan, and with the development of the scheme something like
a holy joy took its place in Sanders's soul.
He even smiled graciously upon this black man.
"Go you, Siskolo," he said gently. "I will send a canoe to carry you to
your brother. It is true, as you say, that he is a great chief, though
how rich he may be I have no means of knowing. I have not your
wonderful eyes."
Siskolo passed over the insult without a word.
"Lord Sandi," he said, dropping into the vernacular, for he received
little encouragement to proceed in the language which was Sanders's own.
"Lord Sandi, I am glad in my heart that I go to see my brother Bosambo,
that I may take him by the hand. As to his treasure, I do not doubt
that he has more than most men, for Bosambo is a very cunning man, as I
know. I am taking him rich presents, amongst them a clock, which goes
by machinery, from my own store, which could not be bought at any Coast
port under three dollars, and also lengths and pieces of cloth."
Mr. Siskolo was up early in a morning of July. Mr. Siskolo in a tall
hat--his frock coat carefully folded and deposited in the little
deckhouse on the canoe, and even his trousers protected against the
elements by a piece of cardboard box--set out on the long journey which
separated him from his beloved brother.
In a country where time does not count, and where imagination plays a
very small part, travelling is a pleasant though lengthy business. It
was a month and three days before Siskolo came to the border of his
brother's territory. He was two miles from Ochori city when he arrayed
himself in the hat, the frock coat, and the trousers of civilisation
that he might make an entry in a manner befitting one who was of kin to
a great and wealthy prince.
Bosambo received the news of his brother's arrival with something akin
to perturbation.
"If this man is indeed my brother," he said, "I am a happy man, for he
owes me four dollars he borrowed _cala-cala_ and has never repaid."
Yet he was uneasy. Relations have a trick of producing curious disorder
in their hosts. This is not peculiar to any race or colour, and it was
with a feeling of apprehension that Bosambo in his state dress went
solemnly in procession to meet his brother.
In his eagerness Siskolo stepped out of the canoe before it was
grounded, and waded ashore to greet his brother.
"You are indeed my brother--my own brother Bosambo," he said, and
embraced him tenderly. "This is a glorious day to me."
"To me," said Bosambo, "the sun shines twice as bright and the little
birds sing very loudly, and I feel so glad, that I could dance. Now
tell me, Siskolo," he went on, striking a more practical note, "why did
you come all this way to see me? For I am a poor man, and have nothing
to give you."
"Bosambo," said Siskolo reproachfully, "I bring you presents of great
value. I do not desire so much as a dollar. All I wish is to see your
beautiful face and to hear your wise words which men speak about from
one end of the country to the other."
Siskolo took Bosambo's hands again.
There was a brief halt whilst Siskolo removed the soaked
trousers--"for," he explained, "these cost me three dollars."
Thus they went into the city of the Ochori--arm in arm, in the white
man's fashion--and all the city gazed spellbound at the spectacle of a
tall, slim man in a frock coat and top hat with a wisp of white shirt
fluttering about his legs walking in an attitude of such affectionate
regard with Bosambo their chief.
Bosambo placed at the disposal of his brother his finest hut. For his
amusement he brought along girls of six different tribes to dance before
this interested member of the Ethiopian Church. Nothing that he could
devise, nothing that the unrewarded labours of his people could perform,
was left undone to make the stay of his brother a happy and a memorable
time.
Yet Siskolo was not happy. Despite the enjoyment he had in all the
happy days which Bosambo provided of evidence of his power, of his
popularity, there still remained a very important proof which Siskolo
required of Bosambo's wealth.
He broached the subject one night at a feast given in his honour by the
chief, and furnished, it may be remarked in parenthesis, by those who
sat about and watched the disposal of their most precious goods with
some resentment.
"Bosambo, my brother," said Siskolo, "though I love you, I envy you.
You are a rich man, and I am a very poor man and I know that you have
many beautiful treasures hidden away from view."
"Do not envy me, Siskolo," said Bosambo sadly, "for though I am a chief
and beloved by Sandi, I have no wealth. Yet you, my brother, and my
friend, have more dollars than the grains of the sand. Now you know I
love you," Bosambo went on breathlessly, for the protest was breaking
from the other's lips, "and I do these things without desire of reward.
I should feel great pain in my heart if I thought you should offer me
little pieces of silver. Yet, if you do so desire, knowing how humble I
am before your face, I would take what you gave me not because I wish
for riches at your hands, but because I am a poor man."
Siskolo's face was lengthening.
"Bosambo," he said, and there was less geniality in his tone, "I am also
a poor man, having a large family and many relations who are also your
relations, and I think it would be a good thing if you would offer me
some fine present that I might take back to the Coast, and, calling all
the people together, say 'Behold, this was given to me in a far country
by Bosambo, my brother, who is a great chief and very rich.'"
Bosambo's face showed no signs of enthusiasm.
"That is true," he said softly, "it would be a beautiful thing to do,
and I am sick in my heart that I cannot do this because I am so poor."
This was a type of the conversation which occupied the attention of the
two brothers whenever the round of entertainments allowed talking space.
Bosambo was a weary man at the end of ten days, and cast forth hints
which any but Bosambo's brother would have taken.
It was:
"Brother," he said, "I had a dream last night that your family were sick
and that your business was ruined. Now I think that if you go swiftly
to your home----"
Or:
"Brother, I am filled with sorrow, for the season approaches in our land
when all strangers suffer from boils."
But Siskolo countered with neatness and resolution, for was he not
Bosambo's brother?
The chief was filled with gloom and foreboding. As the weeks passed and
his brother showed no signs of departing, Bosambo took his swiftest
canoe and ten paddlers and made his way to the I'kan where Sanders was
collecting taxes.
"Master," said Bosambo, squatting on the deck before the weary
Commissioner, "I have a tale to tell you."
"Let it be such a tale," said Sanders, "as may be told between the
settling of a mosquito and the sting of her."
"Lord, this is a short tale," said Bosambo sadly, "but it is a very bad
tale--for me."
And he told the story of the unwelcome brother.
"Lord," he went on, "I have done all that a man can do, for I have given
him food that was not quite good; and one night my young men played a
game, pretending, in their love of me, that they were certain fierce men
of the Isisi, though your lordship knows that they are not fierce,
but----"
"Get on! Get on!" snarled Sanders, for the day had been hot, and the
tax-payers more than a little trying.
"Now I come to you, my master and lord," said Bosambo, "knowing that you
are very wise and cunning, and also that you have the powers of gods.
Send my brother away from me, for I love him so much that I fear I will
do him an injury."
Sanders was a man who counted nothing too small for his
consideration--always excepting the quarrels of women. For he had seen
the beginnings of wars in pin-point differences, and had watched an
expedition of eight thousand men march into the bush to settle a palaver
concerning a cooking-pot.
He thought deeply for a while, then:
"Two moons ago," he said, "there came to me a hunting man of the
Akasava, who told me that in the forest of the Ochori, on the very
border of the Isisi, was a place where five trees grew in the form of a
crescent----"
"Praise be to God and to His prophet Mohammed," said the pious Bosambo,
and crossed himself with some inconsequence.
"In the form of a crescent," Sanders went on, "and beneath the centre
tree, so said this young man of the Akasava, is a great store of dead
ivory" (_i.e._, old ivory which has been buried or stored).
He stopped and Bosambo looked at him.
"Such stories are often told," he said.
"Let it be told again," said Sanders significantly.
Intelligence dawned on Bosambo's eyes.
Two days later he was again in his own city, and at night he called his
brother to a secret palaver.
"Brother," he said, "for many days have I thought about you and how I
might serve you best. As you know, I am a poor man."
"'A king is a poor man and a beggar is poorer,'" quoted Siskolo,
insolently incredulous.
Bosambo drew a long breath.
"Now I will tell you something," he said, lowering his voice. "Against
my old age and the treachery of a disloyal people I have stored great
stores of ivory. I have taken this ivory from my people. I have won it
in bloody battles. I have hunted many elephants. Siskolo, my brother,"
he went on, speaking under stress of emotion, "all this I give you
because I love you and my beautiful relations. Go now in peace, but do
not return, for when my people learn that you are seeking the treasures
of the nation they will not forgive you and, though I am their chief, I
cannot hold them."
All through the night they sat, Bosambo mournful but informative,
Siskolo a-quiver with excitement.
At dawn the brother left by water for the border-line of the Isisi,
where five trees grew in the form of a crescent.
* * * * *
"Lord," said Bosambo, a bitter and an injured man, "I have been a
Christian, a worshipper of devils, a fetish man, and now I am of the
true faith--though as to whether it is true I have reason to doubt." He
stood before Sanders at headquarters.
Away down by the little quay on the river his sweating paddlers were
lying exhausted, for Bosambo had come by the river day and night.
Sanders did not speak. There was a twinkle in his eye, and a smile
hovered at the corners of his mouth.
"And it seems to me," said Bosambo tragically, "that none of the gods
loves me."
"That is your palaver," said Sanders, "and remember your brother loves
you more than ever."
"Master," said Bosambo, throwing out his arms in despair, "did I know
that beneath the middle tree of five was buried ten tusks of ivory?
Lord, am I mad that I should give this dog such blessed treasure? I
thought----"
"I also thought it was an old man's story," said Sanders gently.
"Lord, may I look?"
Sanders nodded, and Bosambo walked to the end of the verandah and looked
across the sea.
There was a smudge of smoke on the horizon. It was the smoke of the
departing mail-boat which carried Siskolo and his wonderful ivory back
to Monrovia.
Bosambo raised a solemn fist and cursed the disappearing vessel.
"O brother!" he wailed. "O devil! O snake! Nigger! Nigger! Dam'
nigger!"
Bosambo wept.
*CHAPTER VIII*
*THE CHAIR OF THE N'GOMBI*
The N'gombi people prized a certain chair beyond all other treasures.
For it was made of ivory and native silver, in which the N'gombi are
clever workers.
Upon this chair sat kings, great warriors, and chiefs of people; also
favoured guests of the land.
Bosambo of the Ochori went to a friendly palaver with the king of the
N'gombi, and sat upon the chair and admired it.
After he had gone away, four men came to the village by night and
carried off the treasure, and though the King of N'gombi and his
councillors searched the land from one end to the other the chair was
never found.
It might never have been found but for a Mr. Wooling, a trader and man
of parts.
He was known from one end of the coast to the other as a wonderful
seller of things, and was by all accounts rich.
One day he decided to conquer new worlds and came into Sanders's
territory with complete faith in his mission, a cargo of junk, and an
intense curiosity.
Hitherto, his trading had been confined to the most civilized stretches
of the country--to places where the educated aboriginal studied the
rates of exchange and sold their crops forward.
He had long desired to tread a country where heathenism reigned and
where white men were regarded as gods and were allowed to swindle on
magnificent scale.
Wooling had many shocks, not the least of which was the discovery that
gin, even when it was German gin in square bottles, gaudily labelled and
enclosed in straw packets, was not regarded as a marketable commodity by
Sanders.
"You can take anything you like," said Sanders, waving his fly-whisk
lazily, "but the bar is up against alcohol and firearms, both of which,
in the hands of an enthusiastic and experimental people, are peculiarly
deadly."
"But, Mr. Sanders!" protested the woolgatherer, with the confident
little smile which represented seventy-five per cent. of his
stock-in-trade. "I am not one of these new chums straight out from
home! Damn it! I know the people, I speak all their lingo, from Coast
talk to Swaheli."
"You don't speak gin to them, anyway," said Sanders; "and the palaver
may be regarded as finished."
And all the persuasive eloquence of Mr. Wooling did not shift the
adamantine Commissioner; and the trader left with a polite reference to
the weather, and an unspoken condemnation of an officious swine of a
British jack-in-office which Sanders would have given money to have
heard.
Wooling went up-country and traded to the best of his ability without
the alluring stock, which had been the long suit in his campaign, and if
the truth be told--and there is no pressing reason why it should not--he
did very well till he tied up one morning at Ochori city and interviewed
a chief whose name was Bosambo.
Wooling landed at midday, and in an hour he had arrayed his beautiful
stores on the beach.
They included Manchester cotton goods from Belgium, genuine Indian junk
from Birmingham, salt which contained a sensible proportion of good
river sand, and similar attractive bargains.
His visit to the chief was something of an event. He found Bosambo
sitting before his tent in a robe of leopard skins.
"Chief," he said in the flowery manner of his kind, "I have come many
weary days through the forest and against the current of the river, that
I may see the greatness of all kings, and I bring you a present from the
King of England, who is my personal friend and is distantly related to
me."
And with some ceremony he handed to his host a small ikon representing a
yellow St. Sebastian perforated with purple arrows--such as may be
purchased from any manufacturer on the Baltic for three cents wholesale.
Bosambo received the gift gravely.
"Lord," he said, "I will put this with other presents which the King has
sent me, some of which are of great value, such as a fine bedstead of
gold, a clock of silver, and a crown so full of diamonds that no man has
ever counted them."
He said this easily; and the staggered Mr. Wooling caught his breath.
"As to this beautiful present," said Bosambo, handling the ikon
carelessly, and apparently repenting of his decision to add it to his
collection, "behold, to show how much I love you--as I love all white
lords--I give it to you, but since it is a bad palaver that a present
should be returned, you shall give me ten silver dollars: in this way
none of us shall meet with misfortune."
"Chief," said Mr. Wooling, recovering himself with a great effort, "that
is a very beautiful present, and the King will be angry when he hears
that you have returned it, for there is a saying, 'Give nothing which
has been given,' and that is the picture of a very holy man."
Bosambo looked at the ikon.
"It is a very holy man," he agreed, "for I see that it is a picture of
the blessed Judas--therefore you shall have this by my head and by my
soul."
In the end Mr. Wooling compromised reluctantly on a five-dollar basis,
throwing in the ikon as a sort of ecclesiastical makeweight.
More than this, Bosambo bought exactly ten dollars' worth of
merchandise, including a length of chiffon, and paid for them with
money. Mr. Wooling went away comforted.
It was many days before he discovered amongst his cash ten separate and
distinct dollar pieces that were unmistakably bad and of the type which
unscrupulous Coast houses sell at a dollar a dozen to the traders who
deal with the unsophisticated heathen.
Wooling got back to the Coast with a profit which was fairly elusive
unless it was possible to include experience on the credit side of the
ledger. Six months later, he made another trip into the interior,
carrying a special line of talking-machines, which were chiefly
remarkable for the fact that the sample machine which he exhibited was a
more effective instrument than the one he sold. Here again he found
himself in Ochori city. He had, in his big trading canoe, one phonograph
and twenty-four things that looked like phonographs, and were in point
of fact phonographs with this difference, that they had no workable
interiors, and phonographs without mechanism are a drug upon the African
market.
Nevertheless, Bosambo purchased one at the ridiculously low price
offered, and the chief viewed with a pained and reproachful mien the
exhaustive tests which Mr. Wooling applied to the purchase money.
"Lord," said Bosambo, gently, "this money is good money, for it was sent
to me by my half-brother Sandi."
"Blow your half-brother Sandi," said Wooling, in energetic English, and
to his amazement the chief replied in the same language:
"You make um swear--you lib for hell one time--you say damn words you
not fit for make angel."
Wooling, arriving at the next city--which was N'gombi--was certainly no
angel, for he had discovered that in some mysterious fashion he had sold
Bosambo the genuine phonograph, and had none wherewith to beguile his
new client.
He made a forced journey back to Ochori city and discovered Bosambo
entertaining a large audience with a throaty presentment of the "Holy
City."
As the enraged trader stamped his way through the long, straggling
street, there floated to him on the evening breeze the voice of the
far-away tenor:
Jer-u-salem! Jer-u-salem!
Sing for the night is o'er!
"Chief!" said Mr. Wooling hotly, "this is a bad palaver, for you have
taken my best devil box, which I did not sell you."
Last night I lay a sleeping,
There came a dream so fair.
sang the phonograph soulfully.
"Lord," said Bosambo, "this devil box I bought--paying you with dollars
which your lordship ate fearing they were evil dollars."
"By your head, you thief!" swore Wooling. "I sold you this." And he
produced from under his arm the excellent substitute.
"Lord," said Bosambo, humbly enough, "I am sorry."
He switched off the phonograph. He dismounted the tin horn with
reluctant fingers; with his own hands he wrapped it in a piece of the
native matting and handed it to the trader, and Wooling, who had
expected trouble, "dashed" his courteous host a whole dollar.
"Thus I reward those who are honest," he said magnificently.
"Master," said Bosambo, "that we may remember one another kindly, you
shall keep one half of this and I the other."
And with no effort he broke the coin in half, for it was made of metal
considerably inferior to silver.
Wooling was a man not easily abashed, yet it is on record that in his
agitation he handed over a genuine dollar and was half way back to
Akasava city before he realised his folly. Then he laughed to himself,
for the phonograph was worth all the trouble, and the money.
That night he assembled the Akasava to hear the "Holy City"--only to
discover that he had again brought away from Ochori city the
unsatisfactory instrument he had taken.
In the city of the Ochori all the night a wheezy voice acclaimed
Jerusalem to the admiration and awe of the Ochori people.
"It is partly your own fault," said Sanders, when the trader complained.
"Bosambo was educated in a civilised community, and naturally has a way
with his fingers which less gifted people do not possess."
"Mr. Sanders," said the woolgatherer earnestly, "I've traded this coast,
man and boy, for sixteen years, and there never was and there never will
be," he spoke with painful emphasis, "an eternally condemned native
nigger in this inevitably-doomed-by-Providence world who can get the
better of Bill Wooling."
All this he said, employing in his pardonable exasperation, certain
lurid similes which need not be reproduced.
"I don't like your language," said Sanders, "but I admire your
determination."
Such was the determination of Mr. Wooling, in fact, that a month later
he returned with a third cargo, this time a particularly fascinating
one, for it consisted in the main of golden chains of surprising
thickness which were studded at intervals with very rare and precious
pieces of coloured glass.
"And this time," he said to the unmoved Commissioner, who for want of
something better to do, had come down to the landing-stage to see the
trader depart, "this time this Bosambo is going to get it abaft the
collar."
"Keep away from the N'gombi people," said Sanders, "they are
fidgety--that territory is barred to you."
Mr. Wooling made a resentful noise, for he had laid down an itinerary
through the N'gombi country, which is very rich in gum and rubber.
He made a pleasant way through the territories, for he was a glib man
and had a ready explanation for those who complained bitterly about the
failing properties of their previous purchases.
He went straight to the Ochori district. There lay the challenge to his
astuteness and especial gifts. He so far forgot the decencies of his
calling as to come straight to the point.
"Bosambo," he said, "I have brought you very rare and wonderful things.
Now I swear to you by," he produced a bunch of variegated deities and
holy things with characteristic glibness, "that these chains," he spread
one of particular beauty for the other's admiration, "are more to me
than my very life. Yet for one tusk of ivory this chain shall be
yours."
"Lord," said Bosambo, handling the jewel reverently, "what virtue has
this chain?"
"It is a great killer of enemies," said Wooling enthusiastically; "it
protects from danger and gives courage to the wearer; it is worth two
teeth, but because I love you and because Sandi loves you I will give
you this for one."
Bosambo pondered.
"I cannot give you teeth," he said, "yet I will give you a stool of
ivory which is very wonderful."
And he produced the marvel from a secret place in his hut.
It was indeed a lovely thing and worth many chains.
"This," said Bosambo, with much friendliness, "you will sell to the
N'gombi, who are lovers of such things, and they will pay you well."
Wooling came to the N'gombi territory with the happy sense of having
purchased fifty pounds for fourpence, and entered it, for he regarded
official warnings as the expression of a poor form of humour.
He found the N'gombi (as he expected) in a mild and benevolent mood.
They purchased by public subscription one of his beautiful chains to
adorn the neck of their chief, and they feted him, and brought dancing
women from the villages about, to do him honour.
They expressed their love and admiration for Sandi volubly, until,
discovering that their enthusiasm awoke no responsive thrill in the
heart or the voice of their hearer, they tactfully volunteered the
opinion that Sandi was a cruel and oppressive master.
Whereupon Wooling cursed them fluently, calling them eaters of fish and
friends of dogs; for it is against the severe and inborn creed of the
Coast to allow a nigger to speak disrespectfully of a white man--even
though he is a Government officer.
"Now listen all people," said Wooling; "I have a great and beautiful
object to sell you----"
* * * * *
Over the tree-tops there rolled a thick yellow cloud which twisted and
twirled into fantastic shapes.
Sanders walked to the bow of the _Zaire_ to examine the steel hawser.
His light-hearted crew had a trick of "tying-up" to the first dead and
rotten stump which presented itself to their eyes.
For once they had found a firm anchorage. The hawser was clamped about
the trunk of a strong young copal which grew near the water's edge. An
inspection of the stern hawser was as satisfactory.
"Let her rip," said Sanders, and the elements answered _instanter_.
A jagged blue streak of flame leapt from the yellow skies, a deafening
crack-crash of thunder broke overhead, and suddenly a great wind smote
the little steamer at her shelter, and set the tops of the trees bowing
with grave unanimity.
Sanders reached his cabin, slid back the door, and pulled it back to its
place after him.
In the stuffy calm of his cabin he surveyed the storm through his
window, for his cabin was on the top deck and he could command as
extensive a view of the scene as it was possible to see from the little
bay.
He saw the placid waters of the big river lashed to waves; saw tree
after tree sway and snap as M'shimba M'shamba stalked terribly through
the forest; heard the high piercing howl of the tempest punctuated by
the ripping crack of the thunder, and was glad in the manner of the
Philistine that he was not where other men were.
Night came with alarming swiftness.
Half an hour before, at the first sign of the cyclone, he had steered
for the first likely mooring. In the last rays of a blood-red sun he
had brought his boat to land.
Now it was pitch dark--almost as he stood watching the mad passion of
the storm it faded first into grey, then into inky blue--then night
obliterated the view.
He groped for the switch and turned it, and the cabin was filled with
soft light. There was a small telephone connecting the cabin with the
Houssa guard, and he pressed the button and called the attention of
Sergeant Abiboo to his need.
"Get men to watch the hawsers," he instructed, and a guttural response
answered him.
Sanders was on the upper reaches of the Tesai, in terra incognita. The
tribes around were frankly hostile, but they would not venture about on
a night like this.
Outside, the thunder cracked and rolled and the lightning flashed
incessantly.
Sanders found a cheroot in a drawer and lighted it, and soon the cabin
was blue with smoke, for it had been necessary to close the ventilator.
Dinner was impossible under the conditions. The galley fire would be
out. The rain which was now beating fiercely on the cabin windows would
have long since extinguished the range.
Sanders walked to the window and peered out. He switched off the light,
the better to observe the condition outside. The wind still howled, the
lightning flickered over the tree-tops, and above the sound of wind and
rushing water came the sulky grumble of thunder.
But the clouds had broken, and fitful beams of moonlight showed on the
white-crested waves. Suddenly Sanders stepped to the door and slid it
open.
He sprang out upon the deck.
The waning forces of the hurricane caught him and flung him back against
the cabin, but he grasped a convenient rail and pulled himself to the
side of the boat.
Out in mid-stream he had seen a canoe and had caught a glimpse of a
white face.
"Noka! Abiboo!" he roared. But the wind drowned his voice. His hand
went to his hip--a revolver cracked, men came along the deck, hand over
hand, grasping the rails.
In dumb show he indicated the boat.
A line was flung, and out of the swift control current of the stream
they drew all that was left of Mr. Wooling.
He gained enough breath to whisper a word--it was a word that set the
_Zaire_ humming with life. There was steam in the boiler--Sanders would
not draw fires in a storm which might snap the moorings and leave the
boat at the mercy of the elements.
"... they chased me down river ... I shot a few ... but they came on ...
then the storm struck us ... they're not far away."
Wrapped in a big overcoat and shivering in spite of the closeness of the
night, he sat by Sanders, as he steered away into the seething waters of
the river.
"What's the trouble?"
The wind blew his words to shreds, but the huddled figure crouching at
his side heard him and answered.
"What's that?" asked Sanders, bending his head.
Wooling shouted again.
Sanders shook his head.
The two words he caught were "chair" and "Bosambo."
They explained nothing to Sanders at the moment.
*CHAPTER IX*
*THE KI-CHU*
The messenger from Sakola, the chief of the little folk who live in the
bush, stood up. He was an ugly little man, four feet in height and
burly, and he wore little save a small kilt of grass.
Sanders eyed him thoughtfully, for the Commissioner knew the bush people
very well.
"You will tell your master that I, who govern this land for the King,
have sent him lord's pleasure in such shape as rice and salt and cloth,
and that he has sworn by death to keep the peace of the forest. Now I
will give him no further present----"
"Lord," interrupted the little bushman outrageously, "he asks of your
lordship only this cloth to make him a fine robe, also ten thousand
beads for his wives, and he will be your man for ever."
Sanders showed his teeth in a smile in which could be discovered no
amusement.
"He shall be my man," he said significantly
The little bushman shuffled his uneasy feet.
"Lord, it will be death to me to carry your proud message to our city,
for we ourselves are very proud people, and Sakola is a man of greater
pride than any."
"The palaver is finished," said Sanders, and the little man descended
the wooden steps to the sandy garden path.
He turned, shading his eyes from the strong sun in the way that bushmen
have, for these folk live in the solemn half-lights of the woods and do
not love the brazen glow of the heavens.
"Lord," he said timidly, "Sakola is a terrible man, and I fear that he
will carry his spears to a killing."
Sanders sighed wearily and thrust his hands into the deep pockets of his
white jacket.
"Also I will carry my spears to a killing," he said. "O ko! Am I a man
of the Ochori that I should fear the chattering of a bushman?"
Still the man hesitated.
He stood balancing a light spear on the palm of his hand, as a man
occupied with his thoughts will play with that which is in reach. First
he set it twirling, then he spun it deftly with his finger and thumb.
"I am the servant of Sakola," he said simply.
Like a flash of light his thin brown arm swung out, the spear held
stiffly.
Sanders fired three times with his automatic Colt, and the messenger of
the proud chief Sakola went down sideways like a drunken man.
Sergeant Abiboo, revolver in hand, leapt through a window of the
bungalow to find his master moving a smouldering uniform jacket--you
cannot fire through your pocket with impunity--and eyeing the huddled
form of the fallen bushman with a thoughtful frown.
"Carry him to the hospital," said Sanders. "I do not think he is dead."
He picked up the spear and examined the point.
There was lock-jaw in the slightest scratch of it, for these men are
skilled in the use of tetanus.
The compound was aroused. Men had come racing over from the Houssa
lines, and a rough stretcher was formed to carry away the debris.
Thus occupied with his affairs Sanders had no time to observe the
arrival of the mail-boat, and the landing of Mr. Hold.
The big American filled the only comfortable seat in the surf-boat, but
called upon his familiar gods to witness the perilous character of his
sitting.
He was dressed in white, white irregularly splashed with dull grey
patches of sea-water, for the Kroomen who manipulated the sweeps had not
the finesse, nor the feather stroke, of a Harvard eight, and they worked
independently.
He was tall and broad and thick--the other way. His face was
clean-shaven, and he wore a cigar two points south-west.
Yet, withal, he was a genial man, or the lines about his face lied
cruelly.
Nearing the long yellow beach where the waters were engaged
everlastingly in a futile attempt to create a permanent sea-wall, his
references to home ceased, and he confined himself to apprehensive
"huh's!"
"Huh!" he grunted, as the boat was kicked into the air on the heels of a
playful roller. "Huh!" he said, as the big surfer dropped from the
ninth floor to a watery basement. "Huh--oh!" he exclaimed--but there
was no accident; the boat was gripped by wading landsmen and slid to
safety.
Big Ben Hold rolled ashore and stood on the firm beach looking
resentfully across the two miles of water which separated him from the
ship.
"Orter build a dock," he grumbled.
He watched, with a jealous eye, the unloading of his kit, checking the
packing cases with a piece of green chalk he dug up from his waistcoat
pocket and found at least one package missing. The only important one,
too. Is this it? No! Is that it? No! Is that--ah, yes, that was it.
He was sitting on it.
"Suh," said a polite Krooman, "you lib for dem k'miss'ner?"
"Hey?"
"Dem Sandi--you find um?"
"Say," said Mr. Hold, "I don't quite get you--I want the
Commissioner--the Englishman--savee."
Later, he crossed the neat and spotless compound of the big, cool
bungalow, where, on the shaded verandah, Mr. Commissioner Sanders
watched the progress of the newcomer without enthusiasm.
For Sanders had a horror of white strangers; they upset things; had
fads; desired escorts for passing through territories where the natural
desire for war and an unnatural fear of Government reprisal were always
delicately balanced.
"Glad to see you. Boy, push that chair along; sit down, won't you?"
Mr. Hold seated himself gingerly.
"When a man turns the scale at two hundred and thirty-eight pounds,"
grumbled Big Ben pleasantly, "he sits mit circumspection, as a Dutch
friend of mine says." He breathed a long, deep sigh of relief as he
settled himself in the chair and discovered that it accepted the strain
without so much as a creak.
Sanders waited with an amused glint in his eyes.
"You'd like a drink?"
Mr. Hold held up a solemn hand. "Tempt me not," he adjured. "I'm on a
diet--I don't look like a food crank, do I?"
He searched the inside pocket of his coat with some labour. Sanders had
an insane desire to assist him. It seemed that the tailor had taken a
grossly unfair advantage of Mr. Hold in building the pocket so far
outside the radius of his short arm.
"Here it is!"
Big Ben handed a letter to the Commissioner, and Sanders opened it. He
read the letter very carefully, then handed it back to its owner. And
as he did so he smiled with a rare smile, for Sanders was not easily
amused.
"You expect to find the ki-chu here?" he asked.
Mr. Hold nodded.
"I have never seen it," said Sanders; "I have heard of it; I have read
about it, and I have listened to people who have passed through my
territories and who have told me that they have seen it with, I am
afraid, disrespect."
Big Ben leant forward, and laid his large and earnest hand on the
other's knee.
"Say, Mr. Sanders," he said, "you've probably heard of me--I'm Big Ben
Hold--everybody knows me, from the Pacific to the Atlantic. I am the
biggest thing in circuses and wild beast expositions the world has ever
seen. Mr. Sanders, I have made money, and I am out of the show business
for a million years, but I want to see that monkey ki-chu----"
"But----"
"Hold hard." Big Ben's hand arrested the other. "Mr. Sanders, I have
made money out of the ki-chu. Barnum made it out of the mermaid, but my
fake has been the tailless ki-chu, the monkey that is so like a man that
no alderman dare go near the cage for fear people think the ki-chu has
escaped. I've run the ki-chu from Seattle to Portland, from Buffalo to
Arizona City. I've had a company of militia to regulate the crowds to
see the ki-chu. I have had a whole police squad to protect me from the
in-fu-ri-ated populace when the ki-chu hasn't been up to sample. I have
had ki-chus of every make and build. There are old ki-chus of mine that
are now raising families an' mortgages in the Middlewest; there are
ki-chus who are running East-side saloons with profit to themselves and
their dude sons, there----"
"Yes, yes!" Sanders smiled again. "But why?"
"Let me tell you, sir," again Big Ben held up his beringed hand, "I am
out of the business--good! But, Mr. Sanders, sir, I have a conscience."
He laid his big hand over his heart and lowered his voice. "Lately I
have been worrying over this old ki-chu. I have built myself a
magnificent dwelling in Boston; I have surrounded myself with the
evidences and services of luxury; but there is a still small voice which
penetrates the sound-proof walls of my bedroom, that intrudes upon the
silences of my Turkish bath--and the voice says, 'Big Ben Hold--there
aren't any ki-chu; you're a fake; you're a swindler; you're a green
goods man; you're rollin' in riches secured by fraud.' Mr. Sanders, I
must see a ki-chu; I must have a real ki-chu if I spend the whole of my
fortune in getting it"; he dropped his voice again, "if I lose my life
in the attempt."
He stared with gloom, but earnestness, at Sanders, and the Commissioner
looked at him thoughtfully. And from Mr. Hold his eyes wandered to the
gravelled path outside, and the big American, following his eyes, saw a
discoloured patch.
"Somebody been spillin' paint?" he suggested. "I had----"
Sanders shook his head.
"That's blood," he said simply, and Mr. Hold jerked.
"I've just shot a native," said Sanders, in a conversational tone. "He
was rather keen on spearing me, and I was rather keen on not being
speared. So I shot him."
"Dead?"
"Not very!" replied the Commissioner. "As a matter of fact I think I
just missed putting him out--there's an Eurasian doctor looking him over
just now, and if you're interested, I'll let you know how he gets
along."
The showman drew a long breath.
"This is a nice country," he said.
Sanders nodded. He called his servants and gave directions for the
visitor's comfortable housing.
A week later, Mr. Hold embarked for the upper river with considerable
misgiving, for the canoe which Sanders had placed at his disposal
seemed, to say the least, inadequate.
It was at this time that the Ochori were in some disfavour with the
neighbouring tribes, and a small epidemic of rebellion and warfare had
sustained the interest of the Commissioner in his wayward peoples.
First, the N'gombi people fought the Ochori, then the Isisi folk went to
war with the Akasava over a question of women, and the Ochori went to
war with the Isisi, and between whiles, the little bush folk warred
indiscriminately with everybody, relying on the fact that they lived in
the forest and used poisoned arrows.
They were a shy, yet haughty people, and they poisoned their arrows with
tetanus, so that all who were wounded by them died of lock-jaw after
many miserable hours.
They were engaged in harrying the Ochori people, when Mr. Commissioner
Sanders, who was not unnaturally annoyed, came upon the scene with fifty
Houssas and a Maxim gun, and although the little people were quick, they
did not travel as fast as a well-sprayed congregation of .303 bullets,
and they sustained a few losses.
Then Timbani, the little chief of the Lesser Isisi, spoke to his people
assembled:
"Let us fight the Ochori, for they are insolent, and their chief is a
foreigner and of no consequence."
And the fighting men of the tribe raised their hands and cried, "Wa!"
Timbani led a thousand spears into the Ochori country, and wished he had
chosen another method of spending a sultry morning, for whilst he was
burning the village of Kisi, Sanders came with vicious unexpectedness
upon his flank, from the bush country.
Two companies of Houssas shot with considerable accuracy at two hundred
yards, and when the spears were stacked and the prisoners squatted,
resigned but curious, in a circle of armed guards, Timbani realised that
it was a black day in his history.
"I only saw this, lord," he said, "that Bosambo has made me a sorrowful
man, for if it were not for his prosperity, I should never have led my
men against him, and I should not be here before your lordship,
wondering which of my wives would mourn me most."
"As to that, Timbani," said Sanders, "I have no means of knowing.
Later, when you work in the Village of Irons, men will come and tell
you."
Timbani drew a deep breath. "Then my lord does not hang me?" he asked.
"I do not hang you because you are a fool," said Sanders. "I hang
wicked men, but fools I send to hard labour."
The chief pondered. "It is in my mind, Lord Sandi," he said, "that I
would as soon hang for villainy as live for folly."
"Hang him!" said Sanders, who was in an obliging mood.
But when the rope was deftly thrown across the limb of a tree, Timbani
altered his point of view, electing to drag out an ignominious
existence. Wherein he was wise, for whilst there is life there is scope,
if you will pardon the perversion.
To the Village of Irons went Timbani, titular chief of the Lesser Isisi,
and found agreeable company there, and, moreover, many predecessors, for
the Isisi folk are notoriously improvident in the matter of chiefs.
They formed a little community of their own, they and their wives, and
at evening time they would sit round a smouldering log of gum wood,
their red blankets about their shoulders, and tell stories of their
former grandeur, and as they moved the loose shackles about their feet
would jingle musically.
On a night when the Houssa sentries, walking along raised platforms,
which commanded all views of the prisoners' compound, were unusually
lax, Timbani effected his escape, and made the best of his way across
country to the bush lands. The journey occupied two months in time, but
native folk are patient workers, and there came a spring morning, when
Timbani, lean and muscular, stood in the presence of Sakola, the bush
king.
"Lord," said he, though he despised all bushmen, "I have journeyed many
days to see you, knowing that you are the greatest of all kings."
Sakola sat on a stool carved crudely to represent snakes. He was under
four feet in height, and was ill-favoured by bush standards--and the
bush standard is very charitable. His big head, his little eyes, the
tuft of wiry whisker under his chin, the high cheek bones, all
contributed to the unhappy total of ugliness.
He was fat in an obvious way, and had a trick of scratching the calf of
his leg as he spoke.
He blinked up at the intruder--for intruder he was, and the guard at
each elbow was eloquent of the fact.
"Why do you come here?" croaked Sakola.
He said it in two short words, which literally mean, "Here--why?"
"Master of the forest," explained Timbani glibly, "I come because I
desire your happiness. The Ochori are very rich, for Sandi loves them.
If you go to them Sandi will be sorry."
The bushman sniffed. "I went to them and I was sorry," he said,
significantly.
"I have a ju-ju," said the eager Timbani, alarmed at the lack of
enthusiasm. "He will help you; and will give you signs."
Sakola eyed him with a cold and calculating eye. In the silence of the
forest they stared at one another, the escaped prisoner with his breast
filled with hatred of his overlord, and the squat figure on the stool.
Then Sakola spoke.
"I believe in devils," he said, "and I will try your ju-ju. For I will
cut you a little and tie you to the top of my tree of sacrifice. And if
you are alive when the sun sets, behold I will think that is a good
sign, and go once again into the Ochori land. But if you are dead, that
shall be a bad sign, and I will not fight."
When the sun set behind the golden green of the tree tops, the stolid
crowd of bushmen who stood with their necks craning and their faces
upturned, saw the poor wreck of a man twist slowly.
"That is a good sign," said Sakola, and sent messengers through the
forest to assemble his fighting men.
Twice he flung a cloud of warriors into the Ochori territory. Twice the
chiefs of the Ochori hurled back the invader, slaying many and taking
prisoners.
About these prisoners. Sanders, who knew something of the gentle
Ochori, had sent definite instructions.
When news of the third raid came, Bosambo gave certain orders.
"You march with food for five days," he said to the heads of his army,
"and behold you shall feed all the prisoners you take from the grain you
carry, giving two hands to each prisoner and one to yourself."
"But, lord," protested the chief, "this is madness, for if we take many
prisoners we shall starve."
Bosambo waved him away. "M'bilini," he said, with dignity, "once I was
a Christian--just as my brother Sandi, was once a Christian--and we
Christians are kind to prisoners."
"But, lord Bosambo," persisted the other, "if we kill our prisoners and
do not bring them back it will be better for us."
"These things are with the gods," said the pious Bosambo vaguely.
So M'bilini went out against the bushmen and defeated them. He brought
back an army well fed, but without prisoners.
Thus matters stood when Big Ben Hold came leisurely up the river, his
canoe paddled close in shore, for here the stream does not run so
swiftly.
It had been a long journey, and the big man in the soiled white ducks
showed relief as he stepped ashore on the Ochori beach and stretched his
legs.
He had no need to inquire which of the party approaching him was
Bosambo. For the chief wore his red plush robe, his opera hat, his
glass bracelets, and all the other appurtenances of his office.
Big Ben had come up the river in his own good time and was now used to
the way of the little chiefs.
His interpreter began a conversational oration, but Bosambo cut him
short.
"Nigger," he said, in English, "you no speak 'um--I speak 'um fine
English. I know Luki, Marki, John, Judas--all fine fellers. You, sah,"
he addressed the impressed Mr. Hold, "you lib for me? Sixpence--four
dollar, good-night, I love you, mister!"
He delivered his stock breathlessly.
"Fine!" said Mr. Hold, awestricken and dazed.
He felt at home in the procession which marched in stately manner
towards the chief's hut; it was as near a circus parade as made no
difference.
Over a dinner of fish he outlined the object of his search and the
reason for his presence.
It was a laborious business, necessitating the employment of the
despised and frightened interpreter until the words "ki-chu" were
mentioned, whereupon Bosambo brightened up.
"Sah," interrupted Bosambo, "I savee al dem talk; I make 'um English one
time good."
"Fine," said Mr. Hold gratefully, "I get you, Steve."
"You lookum ki-chu," continued Bosambo, "you no find 'um; I see 'um; I
am God-man--Christian; I savee Johnny Baptist; Peter cut 'um head
off--dam' bad man; I savee Hell an' all dem fine fellers."
"Tell him----" began Big Ben.
"I spik English same like white man!" said the indignant Bosambo. "You
no lib for make dem feller talky talk--I savee dem ki-chu."
Big Ben sighed helplessly. All along the river the legend of the ki-chu
was common property. Everybody
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