Читать книгу Sandi the King-Maker - Edgar Wallace - Страница 8

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ON the great hog-back crests of the Ghost Mountains at certain seasons of the year the spirits of chiefs come to eat salt with the most powerful ju-jus. Here comes M'shimba-M'shamba, who munches great swathes of forests and swallows whole villages for his satisfaction, and M'giba-M'gibi, who transforms himself into any manner of thing his fancy dictates. He is the one who walks behind you on dark nights, and though you turn ever so quickly, he vanishes. His is the face you remember and then do not remember. So that when you meet a man on the highway and stop suddenly, half raising your hand in salutation, and as suddenly you discover that his is the face of a stranger, spit once to the left and once to the right, for this is M'giba-M'gibi, "He Who Is Not."

Men travel many miles to watch the cold salt spread upon the ranges. It comes in a night, a thin powder through which the black and brown of rock show in piebald patches, and some there are who have seen the Ugly Ones gather in the dawn hour, and some, a daring few, have climbed to the peaks to steal ghost salt, only to find that, by the magic of the ju-ju, the salt has turned in their hands to water of terrifying coldness.

Through these mountains runs one road which winds upwards to the saddle of the highest ridge. Here in the right season the salt of the spirits drifts thigh-deep, and for just so long as the season lasts—never more than a month—no man ventures to cross the great barrier. Yet in such a time came a tall man who feared neither devils nor snows, for there was a greater fear in his heart which urged him onward, and bare-legged, bare, breasted, naked but for the kilt of monkey-tails about his middle, and having no other protection from the chill winds but his oval wicker shield, he trudged through the drifts.

He carried three short fighting-spears, and hanging from his belt was a broad-bladed sword fitting into a scabbard made from an elephant's car. He crossed the mountains, setting his face to the Great King's country, and the spies of the Great King saw him and beat out the news upon their signal drums.

None molested him, for the Great King's drum had rattled incessantly all one night with this instruction, and he who disobeyed the Old One did not wait for death, neither he nor his family.

He reached the first village on the wrong side of the mountain—for him—as the first flush of dawn lay pinkly on the snows. The village was awake and assembled, every man and woman and even the young children.

"I see you!" he boomed before the little chief. "I am a tired and a hungry man. Let me sleep and eat."

The chief said nothing. He gave the stranger the flesh of a young goat and a mess of mealies and fish, and then took him to a hut.

The stranger slept like a log for five hours, then walked to a little river and swam for a while. The sun dried him, and the chief again fed him. But none spoke to him, for all the village knew that he was the king's meat.

The guest asked for no information and gave none. He waved his farewell, and the chief nodded silently and watched him disappear round a bend of the narrow path into the forest. Then he called a palaver of all his people.

"Who saw a stranger?" he intoned.

"None saw him," the whole village chanted.

"Did he come?"

"He did not come."

"Did he go?"

"He did not come; he did not go; none saw him."

So passed the stranger—a nothing.

Up in Rimi-Rimi, the city of the Great King, the evening came down redly, and the seven hills of the city crawled and swarmed with life, for in the shallow about which the squat hills rise the big fire of the king was burning, and his carved stool stood before the hut of his chief wife. Here in the shadow of his palace the Old One had delivered justice for innumerable years. He was older than memory, and some said that he had begun with the world. Yet it was agreed that he was not so old as the Devil Woman of Limbi, who was immortal.

As the sun's edge tipped the mountain, his war drums volleyed their summons, and K'salugu M'popo the king showed his gums. Thus he smiled always when the drums rumbled, for was not the skin of one the skin of Oofoobili, his brother who had risen the Territories in rebellion against him, and was not the other the skin of M'guru, the Akasava chief who had carried off the king's daughter?

The crazy grass huts that covered six of the hills—the seventh was bare and sacred to the processes of the king's justice—gave forth their members to the number of fifty thousand, the aged and the young and those who were dying, these latter being carried on litters, for when the Old King's fire burnt and his war-drums rumbled, the searchers of the king's guard slew all that was living within the huts.

They sat in a great half-moon of faces, divided straightly by five paths that radiated from the king's chair like the spokes of a wheel, so that his ministers and servants might have free access to evil-doers, and witnesses a clear way to the throne, and they sat in a solemn unbroken silence,

An hour, two hours he kept them waiting and then, without warning the drums ceased and sixty thousand hands were raised in salute—even the hands of those in the litters on the fringe of the great assembly being held up by their friends and relatives. The Old Man came from his white hut and walked slowly to his chair. There was a grizzle of grey at his chin, and the faintest powder of white on his bony head. About his shrunken form was wrapped a cloak of native silk of a certain colour.

Helpers threw great logs of gumwood on the fire, and it blazed up with a roar.

"Let my wives be numbered," said the Old Man with a cracked voice, and his minister Lubolama, Chief of the Fongini, seni-seni, and commander-in-chief of his armies, walked behind the king's chair and counted the king's wives, for they were not exempt.

"Lord, all your women are here."

The Old King nodded. He sat with his foot on a stool, his elbow on his knee, and his chin resting on the palm of his hand, looking at the fire moodily, and thus he sat for a long time, and none dare break the silence.

"Let her come," he said at last, and Lubolama made a signal.

Through the last of the lanes came four of the king's guard, and in the midst of them a prisoner Presently she knelt before the king's majesty a slip of a woman, obviously a foreigner, for her nose was straight, and her lips were thin, and her skin of a light chestnut colour.

The king stared down at her through the slits of his eyes. "O Woman," he said, with the halting deliberation of an old man, "this night you die."

"Lord, I do not deserve death, for I have done no harm to your people," said the girl. "Also I am not of your race."

The king chuckled and half-turned in his chair.

"He was not of my race, and yet he died." And she lifted her eyes and saw by the king's hut a straight pole where something hung—something that was dried and shrunken by the month's sun, something to which thin rags still hung. She shivered and cast down her eyes.

"He was not of my people, yet he came. By the road over the mountains he came, a little chief showing him the way."

He stroked his chin thoughtfully.

"Now, it is not good that I, the Great King, shall be betrayed by little foreign chiefs who show the white man secret paths to my country, and I have waited very long, woman, before I sent my young men into your land to take you and bring you to me. And they waited long also, for they are young and cunning, and presently, when your little chief had gone to the forest, hunting, they came upon you at night and brought you from the land."

The girl licked her dry lips and said nothing, for her abduction was ancient history to her.

"Therefore I set these two great sticks that you and your man might follow together the way the white lord went."

Again she raised her eyes and saw for the first time in the gloom two great poles which flanked the pitiable Something which once had been a loving, laughing, thinking man. She drew a long breath.

"My lord, you have not got him," she said with spirit, "for he is too great for you and too cunning. Your young men would not cross the mountains and meet his army on the plain-by-the-forest."

The Old King chuckled again and waved his hand. "He comes!" he said. "He comes!"

The girl twisted her head and stared. Down one of the lanes a tall man was striding toward her unattended, his wicker shield on his arm, the steel tips of his fighting-spears glittering in the light of the fire.

"Lord!" she wailed, and ran to meet him as he reached the clear space before the king, falling at his feet and clasping his knees.

Instantly four giant guards were about him, but, tall as they were, he topped them by inches. He made no resistance, but offered his shield and his spears. Unarmed he came before the king's face, holding the girl by the hand.

"Lord," he said boldly, "what shame is this you put upon me and my master? For behind me are the spears of a million men and guns that say 'ha ha', and men drop dead."

The king's eyes were hardly visible now, so tight were his lids held together. He screwed his neck to look up at the big man's face.

"There is no king in this land but K'salugu M'popo," he said. "Where is M'siti?" he asked, and the guards and ministers who stood about him chanted:

"His hut is broken."

"Where is Goobini, the mighty one?"

"His hut is broken."

"Where is B'lili and all his forest of spears?"

"His hut is broken."

He was wide-eyed now, and there glared within their depths a cold fire.

"This night, little chief, you die," he said, "for you sent a white spy into my land that you might poison me and my people. And, because of you, Sandi is come to the land with his soldiers. And, chief, you shall not see him or tell of the white man Tomini. Therefore by my great cleverness have I brought you here, where Sandi cannot come because of the swift waters. O cunning one, where is your cunning now, for did not I lead you here without a spear behind you when I took your woman?"

The big man nodded his head.

"Lord, that is true." he said simply. "This woman is life to me, and I would rather die at her side this night than live with my people. This also Sandi will know, for I left him a book saying I was gone into your country. But, lord, because I come in peace and love I brought you these."

He took from his waistband a heavy bag, and, kneeling down, spilt the contents at the king's feet. They were coins of gold and silver, and they made a little heap.

The king looked at the presents with avaricious eyes, for he knew that these strange round pieces brought many desirable things from an outside world, and that from the Portugisi he could buy square bottles full of hot delight. Only for an instant did he waver, then he made a gesture, and Lubolama, stooping, scooped up the coins and, walking to the edge of the fire, threw them in, and the big man stiffened. The king had burnt his gifts before his eyes, and that meant death.

He turned to the woman at his side and caught her up in his arms, speaking to her in a language which the king did not understand. Then almost instantly they were torn apart and thrown to the ground. The big man made no resistance. The gangways now were blocked by armed men, and behind the king's hut the circle was completed by rank after rank of guards.

Those whose office it was to sacrifice bound wrist and ankle, and, lifting them up, laid them with their feet at the king's feet. Above them stood the sunburnt naked figure of the executioner, his broad knife in his hand.

"Speak well of me to the spirits, to the ghosts, and to the great ones of the mountains," the king repeated the formula monotonously, "also to M'shimba-M'shamba, and speak kindly of me to all ju-jus—strike!"

The executioner measured, touched the throat of the big man tentatively with his knife, as a golfer all but touches the ball he is about to strike, and then raised the keen blade about his head.

And there it remained, for a soul-piercing shriek, a terrible sound which ended in a howl, momentarily paralysed all within its hearing. The king half-started from his carved stool, his mouth agape, and, regardless of the doom which awaits all who take their eyes from the king's face, fifty thousand heads turned in the direction of the sound.

"O Lubolama, what sound was that?" asked the king in a high voice.

"Lord, I do not know," said the trembling man.

It was the captive on the ground, his eyes blazing, who might have supplied the solution, but an interruption came from another quarter.

Clear in the light of the fire a group of men were walking down one of the lanes toward the king's chair, and the armed guard melted out of their way. Two were native soldiers, carrying something which they deposited within a few paces of the dumbfounded king's feet, the other two were indubitably white men, and it was the smaller who spoke.

"O king," he said, "know me."

"Who are you, white man?" The king found his voice with difficulty, for he knew.

"I am he they call Sandi of the River, and I have been sent by my king to be the overlord of these lands, and I have brought you a rich gift which will bring happiness to you, and shall protect me from evil."

The king's eyes strayed slowly from Sanders's lean face to the thing at his feet. It was a hideous figure straddled on three scarlet legs, and surmounted by a head of peculiar hideousness. The pear-shaped body was painted with flaming designs, and the big wooden head bore the tribe marks of the Tofolaka people, and had ears which the Houssas had used for handles as they straightened the monstrous, pot-bellied thing under the king's gaze. Nor was this all the decoration, for stuck in the hideous wooden head were four small flags which were unfamiliar to the king.

"O Sandi," he said—he was still shaking as much from the effect of the Zaire's syren as from this tremendous visitation—"I—"

Again that shrill shriek arose, sobbing and wailing and echoing against the high bluffs of the plateau on which Rimi-Rimi was situated, and the king shrank back in his stool.

"I hope to Heaven Bones isn't overdoing it," said Hamilton in Sanders's ear, and Sanders shook his head slightly.

"What was that?" whispered K'salugu M'popo, the Old One.

"That was my spirit, king." said Sanders. "Now I have come to talk to you as king to king, and I have brought you a wonderful present, and there are many things I would say to you."

He had seen the captives as he came in, but had not looked down at them.

"First, O great one," he said, "there shall be no sacrifices in this land." And he stooped down swiftly and with his knife cut the grass ropes which bound the two captives.

He did this so quickly and so skilfully that the old man was startled to silence.

"Lord!" whispered the big captive, and Sanders nearly dropped his knife.

"Bosambo, by heavens!" he gasped. "Go quickly, Bosambo," he whispered; "there is death in this city."

By now the king had recovered himself.

"Sandi," he said harshly, "you have come to my city, but who knows when you shall go?"

"I alone know, king," said Sanders softly, "for I go now, and, if you move, my little gun which says 'ha ha' shall spit at your stomach, and you will have many days of agony, and none shall give you ease until you die."

The king did not move. He dropped his eyes only to the level of the black pistol in Sanders's hand. Had the white man whose dried skin now rattled against the crucifix come so into the king's presence, he might have lived—for a while—but they had pulled him down at the entrance to the city.

"O Sandi," said the king mildly, "I will do you no harm, and you shall have a hut in my city, for I see you are a great one and very cunning. Who but a man of magic could walk through the swift waters? As to this man and woman—"

"They come with me," said Sanders equably.

The king hesitated. "Let it be," he said.

Sanders gave an order and started to back away, and Bosambo, gathering up his wicker shield and spears, which lay where they had been thrown, covered the rear.

"O king," said Sanders, in his deep Bomongo tongue, "see I walk like a crab, and all the time my little gun is looking into your heart, and if you move or speak you will die."

The king said nothing, and the little party moved backwards through the clear alleyway, and nobody stopped them. They had reached the lines of litters before Sanders turned.

"There is no possible chance of getting to the boat," he said. "The old ram will remain friendly so long as he's covered by my gun. As soon as he gets into the hut, we shall have the whole guard after us."

"Can't we make the landing and the boat?"

Sanders shook his head. "That would be impossible now," he said. "Look!"

A line of figures was leaping into the bush. He saw them dimly by the flickering light of the king's fire.

"They are going to head us off. It is the hill of execution, as I expected," he said. "We can hold that for an hour."

"And after?" asked Hamilton dryly.

"All things are with God," said Sanders piously, as he raced through one of the flimsy suburbs to the bare hill where no house stood and where only the bones of innumerable martyrs lay.

"They'll hardly come to the hill tonight," he said breathlessly, as they gained the top; "There are too many ghosts about even for the king's guard."

From where they stood they looked down into the basin, and could see the commotion their escape had produced. Through his night-glasses Sanders saw the old man still sitting in his chair of state, and chuckled.

"I'm afraid Guy Fawkes isn't going to do us much good," said Hamilton. "But the old man seems to be examining our god with three legs."

"Wait," said Sanders.

"Suppose the Old King isn't impressed by the unburnable Guy?" asked Hamilton.

Sanders did not reply. From the basin below rose a hubbub of sound. The people were scattering, and long orderly lines of soldiers were filing before the king.

"I thought it was worth trying," he said, "and it struck me at the time as rather amusing." And he chuckled.

"What is it supposed to be, sir?"

"The ju-ju of the League of Nations," said Sanders, without a smile.

The Old King had risen. They saw that from the hill.

"O people," he was saying, and the sound of his voice came faintly and unintelligibly, "O soldiers, you have seen this night a shame upon my house. Now you shall go and seek out these devils, and tomorrow we will have a great palaver."

He pointed to the three-legged idol, and two of his men lifted it and threw it upon the fire.

Bosambo needed no night-glasses. He stood at Sanders's elbow.

"Lord," he said in a whisper, "they have burnt your present, and that is death."

"So I think," said Sanders, and as he spoke there leapt from the fire a white tongue of blinding light, and there came to their ears a roar louder than any man had heard, and a shock that almost threw them from their feet.

"Good heavens!" gasped Hamilton. "What was that?"

"That was the body of Guy Fawkes—an aeroplane bomb!" said Sanders softly. "Somehow I didn't think it would burn very well."

He stood looking down at the havoc and the fury of flame which sent thousands wailing to the edge of the river.

"Do you know, Hamilton,"—he turned to the other with great seriousness, for the niceties of official matters worried Sanders—"I'm rather troubled about those flags I stuck on Guy Fawkes's head. Is America in the League of Nations?"