Читать книгу The People of the River - Edgar Wallace - Страница 6

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THERE was a woman of the N'Gombi people who had a suave tongue. When she spoke men listened eagerly, for she was of the kind peculiar to no race, being born with stirring words.

She stirred the people of her own village to such effect that they went one night and raided French territory, bringing great shame to her father; for Sanders came hurriedly north, and there were some summary whippings, and nearly a burying. Thereupon her father thought it wise to marry this woman to a man who could check her tongue.

So he married her to a chief, who was of the N'Gombi folk, and this chief liked her so much that he made her his principal wife, building a hut for her next to his. About her neck he had fixed a ring of brass, weighing some twenty-four pounds—a great distinction which his other wives envied.

This principal wife was nearly fifteen years old—which is approaching middle age on the River—and was, in consequence, very wise in the ways of men. Too wise, some thought, and certainly her lord had cause for complaint when, returning from a hunting expedition a day or two before he could possibly return, he found his wife more happy than was to his liking and none too lonely.

"M'fashimbi," he said, as she knelt before him with her arms folded meekly on her bare, brown bosom, "in the days of my father I should bend down a stripling tree and rope your neck to it, and when your head was struck from your body I should burn you and he that made me ashamed. But that is not the law of the white man, and I think you are too worthless a woman for me to risk my neck upon."

"Lord, I am of little good," she said.

For a whole day she lay on the ground surrounded by the whole of the village, to whom she talked whilst the workmen sawed away at the brass collar. At the end of that time the collar was removed from her neck, and the chief sent her back to the parent from whom he had most expensively bought her. He sent her back in the face of great opposition, for she had utilised her time profitably and the village was so moved by her eloquence that it was ripe for rebellion.

For no woman is put away from her man, whether she wears the feathers and silks of Paris or the camwood and oil of the N'Gombi, without harbouring for that man a most vengeful and hateful feeling, and no sooner had M'fashimbi paddled clear of her husband's village than she set herself the task of avenging herself upon him.

There accompanied her into exile the man with whom, and for whom, she had risked and lost so much. He was named Otapo, and he was a dull one.

As they paddled, she, kneeling in the canoe behind him, said: "Otapo, my husband has done me a great wrong and put dust on my head, yet you say nothing."

"Why should I speak when you have spoken so much?" asked Otapo calmly. "I curse the day I ever saw you, M'fashimbi, for my error has cost me a fishing-net, which was the best in the village, also a new piece of cloth I bought from a trader; these our lord chief has taken."

"If you had the heart of a man you would have killed Namani, my husband," she said.

"I have killed myself and lost my net," said Otapo; "also my piece of cloth."

"You are like a woman," she jeered.

"I could wish that my mother had borne a girl when she bore me," said Otapo, "then I should not have been disgraced."

She paddled in silence for a while, and then she said of a sudden:

"Let us go to the bank, for I have hidden some treasures of my husband near this spot."

Otapo turned the head of the canoe to the shore with one long stroke.

As they neared the bank she reached behind her and found a short spear, such as you use for hunting animals where the grass is thick.

She held it in both hands, laying the point on a level with the second rib beneath his shoulder blade.

As the prow of the canoe grounded gently on the sandy shore she drove her spear forward, with all her might. Otapo half rose like a man who was in doubt whether he would rise or not, then he tumbled languidly into the shallow water.

M'fashimbi waded to the shore, first securing the canoe, then she guided the body to land, and exerting all her strength, drew it to a place beneath some trees.

"Otapo, you are dead," she said to the figure, "and you are better dead than living, for by your death you shall revenge me, as living you feared to do."

She took the spear and flung it a few yards farther off from where the body lay. Then she got into the canoe, washed away such bloodstains as appeared on its side, and paddled downstream.

In a day's time she came to her father's village, wailing.

She wailed so loud and so long that the village heard her before she reached the shore and came out to meet her. Her comely body she had smeared with ashes, about her waist hung long green leaves, which is a sign of sorrow; but her grief she proclaimed long and loud, and her father, who was the chief of the village, said to his elders, as with languid strokes—themselves eloquent of her sorrow—she brought her canoe to land:

"This woman is either mad or she has suffered some great wrong."

He was soon to learn, for she came running up to the bank towards him and fell before him, clasping his feet.

"Ewa! Death to my husband, Namani, who has lied about me and beaten me, O father of fathers!" she cried.

"Woman," said the father, "what is this?"

She told him a story—an outrageous story. Also, which was more serious, she told a story of the killing of Otapo.

"This man, protecting me, brought me away from my husband, who beat me," she sobbed, "and my husband followed, and as we sat at a meal by the bank of the river, behold my husband stabbed him from behind. Oe ai!"

And she rolled in the dust at her father's feet.

The chief was affected, for he was of superior rank to Namani and, moreover, held the peace of that district for my lord the Commissioner.

"This is blood and too great a palaver for me," he said, "and, moreover, you being my daughter, it may be thought that I do not deal justice fairly as between man and man."

So he embarked on his canoe and made for Isau, where Sanders was.

The Commissioner was recovering from an attack of malarial fever, and was not pleased to see the chief. Less pleased was he when he heard the story the "Eloquent Woman" had to tell.

"I will go to the place of killing and see what is to be seen." He went on board the Zaire, and with steam up the little stern-wheeler made post-haste for the spot indicated by the woman. He landed where the marks of the canoe's prow still showed on the soft sand, for hereabouts the river neither rises nor falls perceptibly in the course of a month.

He followed the woman into the wood, and here he saw all that was mortal of Otapo; and he saw the spear.

M'fashimbi watched him closely.

"Lord," she said with a whimper, "here it was that Namani slew the young man Otapo as we sat at food."

Sanders' keen eyes surveyed the spot.

"I see no sign of a fire," said Sanders suddenly.

"A fire, lord?" she faltered.

"Where people sit at food they build a fire," said Sanders shortly, "and here no fire has been since the beginning of the world."

He took her on board again and went steaming upstream to the village of Namani.

"Go you," he said to the Houssa sergeant privately, "and if the chief does not come to meet me, arrest him, and if he does come you shall take charge of his huts and his women."

Namani was waiting to greet him and Sanders ordered him on board.

"Namani," said Sanders, "I know you as an honest man, and no word has been spoken against you. Now this woman, your wife, sayest you are a murderer, having killed Otapo."

"She is a liar!" said Namani calmly. "I know nothing of Otapo."

A diligent inquiry which lasted two days failed to incriminate the chief. It served rather to inflict some damage upon the character of M'fashimbi; but in a land where women have lovers in great numbers she suffered little.

At the end of the two days Sanders delivered judgment.

"I am satisfied Otapo is dead," he said; "for many reasons I am not satisfied that Namani killed him. I am in no doubt that M'fashimbi is a woman of evil acts and a great talker, so I shall banish her to a far country amongst strangers."

He took her on board his steamer, and the Zaire cast off.

In twenty-four hours he came to the "city of the forest," which is the Ochori city, and at the blast of his steamer's siren the population came running to the beach.

Bosambo, chief of the Ochori, was the last to arrive, for he came in procession under a scarlet umbrella, wearing a robe of tinselled cloth and having before him ten elder men bearing tinselled sticks.

Sanders watched the coming of the chief from the bridge of the steamer and his face betrayed no emotion. When Bosambo was come on board the Commissioner asked him:

"What childish folly is this, Bosambo?"

"Lord," said Bosambo, "thus do great kings come to greater kings, for I have seen certain pictures in a book which the god-woman gave me and by these I know the practice."

"Thus also do people dress themselves when they go out to make the foolish laugh," said Sanders unpleasantly. "Now I have brought you a woman who talks too much, and who has been put away by one man and has murdered another by my reckoning, and I desire that she shall live in your village."

"Lord, as you say," said the obedient Bosambo, and regarded the girl critically.

"Let her marry as she wishes," said Sanders; "but she shall be of your house, and you shall be responsible for her safe keeping until then."

"Lord, she shall be married this night," said Bosambo earnestly.

When Sanders had left and the smoke of the departing steamer had disappeared behind the trees, Bosambo summoned his headman and his captains to palaver.

"People," he said, "the Lord Sandi, who loves me dearly, has come bringing presents—behold this woman." He waved his hand to the sulky girl who stood by his side on the little knoll where the palaver house stood.

"She is the most beautiful of all the women of the N'Gombi," said Bosambo, "and her name is N'lami-n'safo, which means the Pearl, and Sandi paid a great price for her, for she dances like a leopard at play, and has many loving qualities."

The girl knew enough of the unfamiliar Ochori dialect to realise that her merits were being extolled, and she shifted her feet awkwardly.

"She is a wife of wives," said Bosambo impressively, "gentle and kind and tender, a great cooker of manioc, and a teller of stories—yet I may not marry her, for I have many wives and I am wax in their hands. So you shall take her, you who pay readily and fearlessly, for you buy that which is more precious than goats or salt."

For ten goats and a thousand rods this "gift" of Sandi's passed into the possession of his headman.

Talking to his chief wife of these matters, Bosambo said: "Thus is Sandi obeyed; thus also am I satisfied; all things are according to God's will."

"If you had taken her Mahomet," said the wife, who was a Kano woman and a true believer, "you would have been sorry."

"Pearl of bright light," said Bosambo humbly, "you are the first in my life, as God knows; for you I have deserted all other gods, believing in the one beneficent and merciful; for you also I have taken an umbrella of state after the manner of the Kano kings."

The next day Bosambo went hunting in the forest and did not return till a week was past.

It is the practice of the Ochori people, as it is of other tribes, to go forth to meet their chief on his return from hunting, and it was strange that none came to greet him with the Song of the Elephant.

With his twenty men he came almost unnoticed to his own hut.

Half-way along the village street he came upon an elder man, who ran to him.

"Lord," he said, "go not near the hut of Fabadimo, your chief headman."

"Has he sickness?" asked Bosambo.

"Worse, lord," said the old cynic. "He has a wife, and for six days and the greater part of six nights all the city has sat at her feet listening."

"What talk does she make?" asked Bosambo.

"Lord, she talks so that all things are clear," said the old man; "and all her words have meanings; and she throws a light like the very sun upon dark brains, and they see with her."

Bosambo had twenty men with him, men he could trust. The darkness was coming on, and at the far end of the city he could see the big fire where the "Eloquent Woman" talked and talked and talked.

He went first to his hut. He found his Kano wife alone, for the other women of his house had fled.

"Lord, I did not expect to see you alive," she said, "so I waited for death when the time came."

"That shall be many years away," said Bosambo.

He sent her with two of his men to the woods to wait his coming, then the rest of the party, in twos and threes, made their way to the outskirt of the throng before his headman's hut.

It was admirably placed for a forum. It stood on the crest of a sharp rise, flanked on either side by other huts.

Half-way down the slope a big fire blazed, and the leaping flames lit the slim figure that stood with arms outstretched before the hut.

"... Who made you the slaves of a slave—the slave of Bosambo? Who gave him power to say 'Go forth' or 'Remain'? None. For he is a man like you, no different in make, no keener of eye, and if you stab him with a spear, will he not die just as you will die?

"And Sandi, is he not a man, though white? Is he stronger than Efambi or Elaki or Yako? Now I say to you that you will not be a free people whilst Bosambo lives or Sandi lives."

Bosambo was a man with keen animal instincts. He felt the insurrection in the air; he received through every tingling nerve the knowledge that his people were out of hand. He did not hesitate.

A solid mass of people stood between him and the woman. He could not reach her.

Never taking his eyes from her, he put his hand beneath his shield and drew his throwing spear. He had space for the swing; balanced and quivering, it lay on his open palm, his arm extended to the fullest.

"Whew-w!"

The light lance flickered through the air quicker than eye could follow.

But she had seen the outstretched arm and recognised the thrower, and leapt on one side.

The spear struck the man who stood behind her—and Fabadimo, the chief headman, died without speaking.

"Bosambol" screamed the girl, and pointed. "Bosambo, kill— kill!"

He heard the rustle of disengaging spears, and fled into the darkness.

Sanders, at headquarters, was lying in a hammock swung between a pole of his verandah and a hook-fastened to the wall of his bungalow. He was reading, or trying to read, a long and offensive document from headquarters. It had to do with a census return made by Sanders, and apparently this return had fallen short in some respects.

Exactly how, Sanders never discovered, for he fell asleep three times in his attempt and the third time he was awakened by his orderly, who carried a tired pigeon in his hand.

"Master, here is a book,"* said the man.

[Any written thing—a letter, a note.]

Sanders was awake instantly and out of his hammock in a second. Fastened about one red leg of the bird by a long india-rubber band was a paper twice the size of a cigarette paper and of the same texture. He smoothed it out.

Written in copying pencil were a few words in Arabic: "From Abiboo, the servant of God, to Sandi, the ever-wakeful father of his people.

"Peace be to you and on your house. Declaring that there is but one God, the true and indivisible, I send you news that the woman you gave to Bosambo is causing great trouble. This has come to me by messengers, Bosambo having fled with twenty men to the edge of the Isisi country.

"Written at a place on the Isisi River, where there are three crocodile creeks meeting in the form of an arrow."

Now Abiboo had been left in the village from which M'fashimbi had been ejected. He had been left to clear up the mystery of Otapo's death and he was not a man easily alarmed.

Pulling on his mosquito boots, Sanders walked over to the house occupied by the officer of Houssa.

He found that gentleman sipping tea in solitary state.

"I shall want you," said Sanders; "there's a dust-up in the Ochori country."

The officer raised his eyebrows. He was a young man on the cynical side of twenty-five.

"Not the gentle Bosambo," he protested ironically; "not that mirror of chivalry?"

"Don't be comic, my man," snarled Sanders. "The Ochori are up, and there is a lady missionary somewhere on the border."

The Houssa captain sprang to his feet.

"Bless the woman, I forgot her!" he said in a worried tone. He took a whistle from his breast pocket and blew it, and a bare-legged bugler raced across the little parade ground from the guard hut.

"Ta-ta-ta!" said the Houssa captain, and the quavering note of the assembly sounded.

"What is the palaver?" demanded the officer, and briefly Sanders related the circumstances.

With a full head of steam the little Zaire pushed her way up-stream. Day and night she steamed till she came to the place "where three crocodile creeks meet in the form of an arrow," and here Sanders stopped to relieve Abiboo and his handful of Houssas.

Sanders learnt with relief that the fighting had not threatened the mission stations.

"What of Bosambo?" he asked.

"Living or dead, I do not know," said Abiboo philosophically; "and if he is dead he died a believer, for the Kano woman he took to wife is a believer in the one Allah and of Mahmut, his prophet."

"All this may be true," said Sanders patiently, "yet I am less concerned by his prospects of immortality than the present disposition of his body."

About this Abiboo could tell him nothing, save that ten miles farther on Bosambo had held an island in the middle of the river, and that up to two days before he was still holding it.

Hereabouts the river twists and turns, and there was no sight of the middle island till the Zaire came curving round a sharp bend. "Stand by those maxims!" said Sanders sharply.

The Houssa captain sank on the saddle seat of one little brass-coated gun, and Abiboo took the other.

The water was alive with canoes.

The Ochori were attacking the island; the thunder of the Zaire's wheel drowned all sound.

"They're fighting all right," said the captain. "What do you say, Sanders?"

Sanders, with his hands on the wheel, waited, his eyes fixed ahead.

Now he saw clearly. A party had landed, and there was fierce hand-to-hand fighting.

"Let 'em go," he said, and two trembling pencils of flame leapt from the guns.

For answer the canoes formed like magic into first two, then three, then four lines, and down stream they came at a furious rate.

Then one of the maxims jammed and as it did there came a shower of spears, one of which just missed Sanders.

In an instant the little boat was surrounded—the magic of the maxim had failed for the first time on the big river. It was so unexpected, so inexplicable, that a man might be excused if he lost his head; but Sanders' hand did not tremble as he swung the wheel over, and the steamer turned in a full circle.

The Houssas were shooting point-blank with their carbines; the Houssa captain, bleeding from the head, was re-adjusting the breech-lock of the maxim without concern.

Down-stream at full speed went the Zaire. The canoes could not keep up with it save one that had fastened itself to the side; the Houssas bayoneted the occupants without asking or accepting explanation.

"I've got the gun fixed," said the Houssa officer as he slipped in a fresh belt of cartridges.

Sanders nodded. A word to the steersman and the Zaire turned. She came back towards the lines of canoes, her maxim firing steadily.

The second line wavered and broke; the third never formed. In the centre of the fleeing canoes was one larger than another. At the stern stood a woman, waving her arms and talking.

"Abiboo," said Sanders, and the Houssa turned his gun over to a comrade and came to his master. "Do you see that woman in the canoe?"

"Lord, I see her," said Abiboo.

"It seems to me," said Sanders gravely, "that this woman would be better dead."

He rang the telegraph to stop, and the grind of the engines ceased. The Zaire moved slowly forward without a tremble, and Abiboo, lying on the deck with the butt of his rifle pressed to his cheek, took careful aim.

They found Bosambo conscious beneath a heap of dead. He lay across the Kano woman, who was also alive, for Bosambo had taken the spear-thrusts meant for her.

He had, as Sanders counted, twenty-five wounds.

"Lord," he whispered as Sanders stood by his side, "did I not tell you the Ochoris could fight?"

"They have fought to some purpose, my child," said Sanders grimly.

Bosambo grinned faintly.

"Lord," he said softly, "when I go back to them they will be sorry."

And sorry indeed they were, as I will tell you.