Читать книгу The People of the River - Edgar Wallace - Страница 4

Table of Contents

SANDERS had been away on a holiday.

The Commissioner, whose work lay for the main part in wandering through a malarial country in some discomfort and danger, spent his holiday in travelling through another malarial country in as great discomfort and at no less risk. The only perceptible difference, so far as could be seen, between his work and his holiday was that instead of considering his own worries he had to listen to the troubles of somebody else.

Mr. Commissioner Sanders derived no small amount of satisfaction from such a vacation, which is a sure sign that he was most human.

His holiday was a long one, for he went by way of St. Paul de Loanda overland to the Congo, shot an elephant or two in the French Congo, went by mission steamer to the Sangar River and made his way back to Stanley Pool.

At Matadi he found letters from his relief, a mild youth who had come from headquarters to take his place as a temporary measure, and was quite satisfied in his inside mind that he was eminently qualified to occupy the seat of the Commissioner.

The letter was a little discursive, but Sanders read it as eagerly as a girl reads her first love letter. For he was reading about a land which was very dear to him.

"Umfebi, the headman of Kulanga, has given me a little trouble. He wants sitting on badly, and if I had control... " Sanders grinned unpleasantly and said something about "impertinent swine," but did he not refer to the erring Umfeb? "I find M'laka, the chief of the Little River, a very pleasant man to deal with: he was most attentive to me when I visited his village and trotted out all his dancing girls for my amusement." Sanders made a little grimace. He knew M'laka for a rascal and wondered. "A chief who has been most civil and courteous is Bosambo of the Ochori. I know this will interest you because Bosambo tells me that he is a special protege of yours. He tells me how you had paid for his education as a child and had gone to a lot of trouble to teach him the English language. I did not know of this."

Sanders did not know of it either, and swore an oath to the brazen sky to take this same Bosambo, thief by nature, convict by the wise provision of the Liberian Government, and chief of the Ochori by sheer effrontery, and kick him from one end of the city to the other.

"He is certainly the most civilised of your men," the letter went on. "He has been most attentive to the astronomical mission which came out in your absence to observe the eclipse of the moon. They speak very highly of his attention and he has been most active in his attempt to recover some of their property which was either lost or stolen on their way down the river."

Sanders smiled, for he himself had lost property in Bosambo's territory.

"I think I will go home," said Sanders.

Home he went by the nearest and the quickest way and came to headquarters early one morning, to the annoyance of his relief, who had planned a great and fairly useless palaver to which all the chiefs of all the land had been invited.

"For," he explained to Sanders in a grieved tone, "it seems to me that the only way to ensure peace is to get at the minds of these people, and the only method by which one can get at their minds is to bring them all together."

Sanders stretched his legs contemptuously and sniffed. They sat at chop on the broad stoep before the Commissioner's house, and Mr. Franks—so the deputy Commissioner was named—was in every sense a guest. Sanders checked the vitriolic appreciation of the native mind which came readily to his lips, and inquired:

"When is this prec—when is this palaver?"

"This evening," said Franks.

Sanders shrugged his shoulders.

"Since you have gathered all these chiefs together," he said, "and they are present in my Houssa lines, with their wives and servants, eating my 'special expense' vote out of existence, you had better go through with it."

That evening the chiefs assembled before the residency, squatting in a semi-circle about the chair on which sat Mr. Franks—an enthusiastic young man with a very pink face and gold-mounted spectacles.

Sanders sat a little behind and said nothing, scrutinising the assembly with an unfriendly eye. He observed without emotion that Bosambo of the Ochori occupied the place of honour in the centre, wearing a leopard skin and loop after loop of glittering glass beads. He had ostrich feathers in his hair and bangles of polished brass about his arms and ankles and, chiefest abomination, suspended by a scarlet ribbon from that portion of the skin which covered his left shoulder, hung a large and elaborate decoration.

Beside him the kings and chiefs of other lands were mean, commonplace men. B'fari of the Larger Isisi, Kulala of the N'Gombi, Kandara of the Akasava, Etobi of the River-beyond-the-River, and a score of little kings and overlords might have been so many carriers.

It was M'laka of the Lesser Isisi who opened the palaver.

"Lord Franki," he began, "we are great chiefs who are as dogs before the brightness of your face, which is like the sun that sets through a cloud."

Mr. Franks, to whom this was interpreted, coughed and went pinker than ever.

"Now that you are our father," continued M'laka, "and that Sandi has gone from us, though you have summoned him to this palaver to testify to your greatness, the land has grown fruitful, sickness has departed, and there is peace amongst us."

He avoided Sanders' cold eye whilst the speech was being translated.

"Now that Sandi has gone," M'laka went on with relish, "we are sorry, for he was a good man according to some, though he had not the great heart and the gentle spirit of our lord Franki."

This he said, and much more, especially with regard to the advisability of calling together the chiefs and headmen that they might know of the injustice of taxation, the hardship of life under certain heartless lords—here he looked at Sanders—and need for restoring the old powers of chiefs.

Other orations followed. It gave them great sorrow, they said, because Sandi, their lord, was going to leave them. Sandi observed that the blushing Mr. Franks was puzzled, and acquitted him of spreading the report of his retirement.

Then Bosambo, sometime of Monrovia, and now chief of the Ochori, from-the-border-of-the-river-to-the mountains-by-the-forest.

"Lord Franki," he said, "I feel shame that I must say what I have to say, for you have been to me as a brother."

He said this much, and paused as one overcome by his feelings. Franks was doubly affected, but Sanders watched the man suspiciously.

"But Sandi was our father and our mother," said Bosambo; "in his arms he carried us across swift rivers, and with his beautiful body he shielded us from our enemies; his eyes were bright for our goodness and dim to our faults, and now that we must lose him my stomach is full of misery, and I wish I were dead."

He hung his head, shaking it slowly from side to side, and there were tears in his eyes when he lifted them. David lamenting Jonathan was no more woeful than Bosambo of Monrovia taking a mistaken farewell of his master.

"Franki is good," he went on, mastering himself with visible effort; "his face is very bright and pretty, and he is as innocent as a child; his heart is pure, and he has no cunning."

Franks shifted uneasily in his seat as the compliment was translated.

"And when M'laka speaks to him with a tongue of oil," said Bosambo, "lo! Franki believes him, though Sandi knows that M'laka is a liar and a breaker of laws, who poisoned his brother in Sandi's absence and is unpunished."

M'laka half rose from his seat and reached for his elephant sword.

"Down!" snarled Sanders; his hand went swiftly to his jacket pocket, and M'laka cowered.

"And when Kulala of the N'Gombi raids into Ala-mandy territory stealing girls, our lord is so gentle of spirit—"

"Liar and dog and eater of fish!"

The outraged Kulala was on his feet, his fat figure shaking with wrath.

But Sanders was up now, stiffly standing by his relief, and a gesture sent insulter and insulted squatting to earth.

All that followed was Greek to Mr. Franks, because nobody troubled to translate what was said.

"It seems to me," said Sanders, "that I may divide my chiefs into three parts, saying this part is made of rogues, this part of fools, and this, and the greater part, of people who are rogues in a foolish way. Now I know only one of you who is a pure rogue, and that is Bosambo of the Ochori, and for the rest you are like children.

"For when Bosambo spread the lie that I was leaving you, and when the master Franki called you together, you, being simpletons, who throw your faces to the shadows, thought, 'Now this is the time to speak evilly of Sandi and well of the new master.' But Bosambo, who is a rogue and a liar, has more wisdom than all of you, for the cunning one has said, 'I will speak well of Sandi, knowing that he will stay with us; and Sandi, hearing me, will love me for my kindness.'"

For one of the few times of his life Bosambo was embarrassed, and looked it.

"To-morrow," said Sanders, "when I come from my house, I wish to see no chief or headman, for the sight of you already makes me violently ill. Rather I would prefer to hear from my men that you are hurrying back with all speed to your various homes. Later, I will come and there will be palavers—especially in the matter of poisoning. The palaver is finished."

He walked into the house with Franks, who was not quite sure whether to be annoyed or apologetic.

"I am afraid my ideas do not exactly tally with yours," he said, a little ruefully.

Sanders smiled kindly.

"My dear chap," he said, "nobody's ideas really tally with anybody's! Native folk are weird folk—that is why I know them. I am a bit of a weird bird myself."

When he had settled his belongings in their various places the Commissioner sent for Bosambo, and that worthy came, stripped of his gaudy furnishings, and sat humbly on the stoep before Sanders.

"Bosambo," he said briefly, "you have the tongue of a monkey that chatters all the time."

"Master, it is good that monkeys chatter," said the crestfallen chief, "otherwise the hunter would never catch them."

"That may be," said Sanders; "but it their chattering attracts bigger game to stalk the hunter, then they are dangerous beasts. You shall tell me later about the poisoning of M'laka's brother; but first you shall say why you desire to stand well with me. You need not lie, for we are men talking together."

Bosambo met his master's eye fearlessly.

"Lord," he said, "I am a little chief of a little people. They are not of my race, yet I govern them wisely. I have made them a nation of fighters where they were a nation of women."

Sanders nodded. "All this is true; if it were not so, I should have removed you long since. This you know. Also that I have reason to be grateful to you for certain happenings."

"Lord," said Bosambo, earnestly, "I am no beggar for favours, for I am, as you know, a Christian, being acquainted with the blessed Peter and the blessed Paul and other holy saints which I have forgotten. But I am a better man than all these chiefs and I desire to be a king."

"How much?" asked the astonished Sanders.

"A king, lord," said Bosambo, unashamed; "for I am fitted for kingship, and a witch doctor in the K-roo country, to whom I dashed a bottle of gin, predicted I should rule vast lands."

"Not this side of heaven," said Sanders decisively. He did not say "heaven," but let that pass.

Bosambo hesitated.

"Ochori is a little place and a little people," he said, half to himself; "and by my borders sits M'laka, who rules a large country three times as large and very rich—?"

Sanders clicked his lips impatiently, then the humour of the thing took possession of him.

"Go you to M'laka," he said, with a little inward grin, "say to him all that you have said to me. If M'laka will deliver his kingdom into your hands I shall be content."

"Lord," said Bosambo, "this I will do, for I am a man of great attainments and have a winning way."

With the dignity of an emperor's son he stalked through the garden and disappeared.

The next morning Sanders said good-bye to Mr. Franks—a coasting steamer gave the Commissioner an excuse for hurrying him off. The chiefs had departed at sunrise, and by the evening life had resumed its normal course for Sanders.

It ran smoothly for two months, at the end of which time M'laka paid a visit to his brother-in-law, K-ulala, a chief of N'Gombi, and a man of some importance, since he was lord of five hundred spears, and famous hunters.

They held a palaver which lasted the greater part of a week, and at the end there was a big dance.

It was more than a coincidence that on the last day of the palaver two shivering men of the Ochori were led into the village by their captors and promptly sacrificed.

The dance followed.

The next morning M'laka and his relative went out against the Ochori, capturing on their way a man whom M'laka denounced as a spy of Sandi's. Him they did to death in a conventional fashion, and he died uncomplainingly. Then they rested three days.

M'laka and his men came to the Ochori city at daybreak, and held a brief palaver in the forest.

"Now news of this will come to Sandi," he said; "and Sandi, who is a white devil, will come with his soldiers, and we will say that we were driven to do this because Bosambo invited us to a dance, and then endeavoured to destroy us."

"Bosambo would have destroyed us," chanted the assembly faithfully.

"Further, if we kill all the Ochori, we will say that it was not our people who did the killing, but the Akasava."

"Lord, the killing was done by the Akasava," they chanted again.

Having thus arranged both an excuse and an alibi, M'laka led his men to their quarry.

In the grey light of dawn the Ochori village lay defenceless. No fires spluttered in the long village street, no curl of smoke uprose to indicate activity.

M'laka's army in one long, irregular line went swiftly across the clearing which separated the city from the forest.

"Kill!" breathed M'laka; and along the ranks the order was taken up and repeated.

Nearer and nearer crept the attackers; then from a hut on the outskirts of the town stepped Bosambo, alone.

He walked slowly to the centre of the street, and M'laka saw, in a thin-legged tripod, something straight and shining and ominous.

Something that caught the first rays of the sun as they topped the trees of the forest, and sent them flashing and gleaming back again.

Six hundred fighting men of the N'Gombi checked and halted dead at the sight of it. Bosambo touched the big brass cylinder with his hand and turned it carelessly on its swivel until it pointed in the direction of M'laka, who was ahead of the others, and no more than thirty paces distant.

As if to make assurance doubly sure, he stooped and glanced along the polished surface, and M'laka dropped his short spear at his feet and raised his hands.

"Lord Bosambo," he said mildly, "we come in peace."

"In peace you shall go," said Bosambo, and whistled.

The city was suddenly alive with armed men. From every hut they came into the open.

"I love you as a man loves his goats," said M'laka fervently; "I saw you in a dream, and my heart led me to you."

"I, too, saw you in a dream," said Bosambo; "therefore I arose to meet you, for M'laka, the king of the Lesser Isisi, is like a brother to me."

M'laka, who never took his eyes from the brass-coated cylinder, had an inspiration.

"This much I beg of you, master and lord," he said; "this I ask, my brother, that my men may be allowed to come into your city and make joyful sacrifices, for that is the custom."

Bosambo scratched his chin reflectively.

"This I grant," he said; "yet every man shall leave his spear, stuck head downwards into earth—which is our custom before sacrifice."

M'laka shifted his feet awkwardly. He made the two little double-shuffle steps which native men make when they are embarrassed.

Bosambo's hand went slowly to the tripod.

"It shall be as you command," said M'laka hastily; and gave the order.

Six hundred dejected men, unarmed, filed through the village street, and on either side of them marched a line of Ochori warriors—who were not without weapons. Before Bosambo's hut M'laka, his brother-in-law, Kulala, his headmen, and the headmen of the Ochori, sat to conference which was half meal and half palaver.

"Tell me. Lord Bosambo," asked M'laka, "how does it come about that Sandi gives you the gun that says 'Ha-ha-ha'? For it is forbidden that the chiefs and people of this land should be armed with guns."

Bosambo nodded.

"Sandi loves me," he said simply, "for reasons which I should be a dog to speak of, for does not the same blood run in his veins that runs in mine?"

"That is foolish talk," said Kulala, the brother-in-law; "for he is white and you are black."

"None the less it is true," said the calm Bosambo; "for he is my cousin, his brother having married my mother, who was a chief's daughter. Sandi wished to marry her," he went on reminiscently; "but there are matters which it is shame to talk about. Also he gave me these."

From beneath the blanket which enveloped his shoulders he produced a leather wallet. From this he took a little package. It looked like a short, stumpy bato. Slowly he removed its wrapping of fine native cloth, till there were revealed three small cups of wood. In shape they favoured the tumbler of commerce, in size they were like very large thimbles.

Each had been cut from a solid piece of wood, and was of extreme thinness. They were fitted one inside the other when he removed them from the cloth, and now he separated them slowly and impressively.

At a word, a man brought a stool from the tent and placed it before him.

Over this he spread the wisp of cloth and placed the cups thereon upside down.

From the interior of one he took a small red ball of copal and camwood kneaded together.

Fascinated, the marauding chiefs watched him.

"These Sandi gave me," said Bosambo, "that I might pass the days of the rains pleasantly; with these I play with my headman."

"Lord Bosambo," said M'laka, "how do you play?"

Bosambo looked up to the warm sky and shook his head sadly.

"This is no game for you, M'laka," he said, addressing the heavens; "but for one whose eyes are very quick to see; moreover, it is a game played by Christians."

Now the Isisi folk pride themselves on their keenness of vision. Is it not a proverb of the River, "The N'Gombi to hear, the Bushman to smell, the Isisi to see, and the Ochori to run"?

"Let me see what I cannot see," said M'laka; and, with a reluctant air, Bosambo put the little red ball on the improvised table behind the cup.

"Watch then, M'laka! I put this ball under this cup: I move the cup —?"

Very leisurely he shifted the cups.

"I have seen no game like this," said M'laka; and contempt was in his voice.

"Yet it is a game which pleased me and my men of bright eyes," said Bosambo; "for we wager so much rods against so much salt that no man can follow the red ball."

The chief of the Lesser Isisi knew where the red ball was, because there was a slight scratch on the cup which covered it.

"Lord Bosambo," he said, quoting a saying, "only the rat comes to dinner and stays to ravage—yet if I did not sit in the shadow of your hut, I would take every rod from you."

"The nukusa is a Small animal, but he has a big voice," said Bosambo, giving saying for saying; "and I would wager you could not uncover the red ball."

M'laka leant forward.

"I will stake the spears of my warriors against the spears of the Ochori," he said.

Bosambo nodded.

"By my head," he said.

M'laka stretched forward his hand and lifted the cup, but the red ball was not there. Rather it was under the next cup, as Bosambo demonstrated.

M'laka stared.

"I am no blind man," he said roughly; "and your tongue is like the burning of dry sticks—clack, clack, clack!"

Bosambo accepted the insult without resentment.

"It is the eye," he said meditatively; "we Ochori folk see quickly."

M'laka swallowed an offensive saying.

"I have ten bags of salt in my house," he said shortly, "and it shall be my salt against the spears you have won."

"By my heart and life," said Bosambo, and put the ball under the cup.

Very lazily he moved the cup to and fro, changing their positions.

"My salt against your spears," said M'laka exultantly, for he saw now which was the cup. It had a little stain near the rim.

Bosambo nodded, and M'laka leant forward and lifted the cup. But the ball was not there.

M'laka drew a deep breath, and swore by Iwa—which is death —and by devils of kinds unknown; by sickness and by his father —who had been hanged, and was in consequence canonised.

"It is the eye," said Bosambo sadly; "as they say by the River, 'The Ochori to see—?"

"That is a lie!" hissed M'laka; "the Ochori see nothing but the way they run. Make this game again—?"

And again Bosambo covered the red ball; but this time he bungled, for he placed the cup which covered the ball on an uneven place on the stool. And between the rim of the cup and the cloth there was a little space where a small ball showed redly—and M'laka was not blind.

"Bosambo," he said, holding himself, "I wager big things, for I am a chief of great possessions, and you are a little chief, yet this time I will wager my all."

"M'laka of the Isisi," responded Bosambo slowly, "I also am a great chief and a relative by marriage to Sandi. Also I am a God-man speaking white men's talk and knowing of Santa Antonio, Marki, Luki, the blessed Timothi, and similar magics. Now this shall be the wager; if you find a red ball you shall find a slave whose name is Bosambo of the Ochori, but if you lose the red one you shall lose your country."

"May the sickness mango come to me if I do not speak the truth," swore M'laka, "but to all this I agree."

He stretched out his hand and touched the cup.

"It is here!" he shouted and lifted the cover.

There was no red ball.

M'laka was on his feet breathing quickly through his nose.

He opened his mouth to speak, but there was no need, for an Ochori runner came panting through the street with news; before he could reach the hut where his overlord sat and tell it, the head of Sanders' column emerged from the forest path.

It is said that "the smell of blood carries farther than a man can see." It had been a tactical error to kill one of Sanders' spies.

The Commissioner was stained and soiled and he was unshaven, for the call of war had brought him by forced marches through the worst forest path in the world.

Into the open strode the column, line after line of blue-coated Houssas, bare-legged, sandal-footed, scarlet-headed, spreading out as smoke spreads when it comes from a narrow barrel. Forming in two straggling lines, it felt its way cautiously forward, for the Ochori city might hold an enemy.

Bosambo guessed the meaning of the demonstration and hurried forward to meet the Commissioner. At a word from Sanders the lines halted, and midway between the city and the wood they met—Bosambo and his master.

"Lord," said Bosambo conventionally, "all that I have is yours."

"It seems that you have your life, which is more than I expected," said Sanders. "I know that M'laka, chief of the Lesser Isisi, is sheltering in your village. You shall deliver this man to me for judgment."

"M'laka, I know," said Bosambo, carefully, "and he shall be delivered; but when you speak of the chief of the Lesser Isisi you speak of me, for I won all his lands by a certain game."

"We will talk of that later," said Sanders.

He led his men to the city, posting them on its four sides, then he followed Bosambo to where M'laka and his headman awaited his coming —for the guest of a chief does not come out to welcome other guests.

"M'laka," said Sanders, "there are two ways with chiefs who kill the servants of Government. One is a high and short way, as you know."

M'laka's eyes sought a possible tree, and he shivered.

"The other way," said Sanders, "is long and tiresome, and that is the way for you. You shall sit down in the Village of Irons for my King's pleasure."

"Master, how long?" asked M'laka in a shaky voice.

"Whilst you live," said Sanders.

M'laka accepted what was tantamount to penal servitude for life philosophically—for there are worse things.

"Lord," he said, "you have always hated me. Also you have favoured other chiefs and oppressed me. Me, you deny all privilege; yet to Bosambo, your uncle—?"

Sanders drew a long breath.

"——you give many favours, such as guns."

"If my word had not been given," said Sanders coldly, "I should hang you, M'laka, for you are the father of liars and the son of liars. What guns have I given Bosambo?"

"Lord, that is for you to see," said M'laka and jerked his head to the terrifying tripod.

Sanders walked towards the instrument.

"Bosambo," he said, with a catch in his voice, "I have in mind three white men who came to see the moon."

"Lord, that is so," said Bosambo cheerfully; "they were mad, and they looked at the moon through this thing; also at stars."

He pointed to the innocent telescope. "And this they lost?" said Sanders.

Bosambo nodded.

"It was lost by them and found by an Ochori man who brought it to me," said Bosambo. "Lord, I have not hidden it, but placed it here where all men can see it."

Sanders scanned the horizon. To the right of the forest was a broad strip of marshland, beyond, blurred blue in the morning sunlight rose the little hill that marks the city of the Lesser Isisi.

He stooped down to the telescope and focused it upon the hill. At its foot was a cluster of dark huts.

"Look," he said, and Bosambo took his place. "What do you see?" asked Sanders.

"The city of the Lesser Isisi," said Bosambo.

"Look well," said Sanders, "but that is the city you have won by a certain game."

Bosambo shifted uncomfortably.

"When I come to my new city—" he began.

"I also will come," said Sanders significantly. On the stool before the huts the three little wooden cups still stood, and Sanders had seen them, also the red ball. "To-morrow I shall appoint a new chief to the Lesser Isisi. When the moon is at full I shall come to see the new chief," he said, "and if he has lost his land by 'a certain game' I shall appoint two more chiefs, one for the Isisi and one for the Ochori, and there will be sorrow amongst the Ochori, for Bosambo of Monrovia will be gone from them."

"Lord," said Bosambo, making one final effort for Empire, "you said that if M'laka gave, Bosambo should keep."

Sanders picked up the red ball and slipped it under one cup. He changed their positions slightly.

"If your game is a fair game," he said, "show me the cup with the ball."

"Lord, it is the centre one," said Bosambo without hesitation.

Sanders raised the cup.

There was no ball.

"I see," said Bosambo slowly, "I see that my lord Sandi is also a Christian."

"It was a jest," explained Bosambo to his headmen when Sanders had departed; "thus my lord Sandi always jested even when I nursed him as a child. Menchimis, let the lokali sound and the people be brought together for a greater palaver and I will tell them the story of Sandi, who is my half-brother by another mother."