Читать книгу The River of Stars - Edgar Wallace - Страница 3
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THE PROLOGUE
THE road from Alebi is a bush road. It is a track scarcely discernible, that winds through forest and swamp, across stretches of jungle land, over thickly vegetated hills.
No tributary of the great river runs to the Alebi country, where, so people say, wild and unknown tribes dwell; where strange magic is practiced, and curious rites observed.
Here, too, is the River of Stars.
Once there went up into these bad lands an expedition under a white man. He brought with him carriers, and heavy loads of provisions and landed from a coast steamer one morning in October. There were four white men, one being in supreme authority; a pleasant man of middle age, tall, broad, and smiling.
There was one who made no secret of the fact that he did not intend accompanying the expedition.
He also was a tall man, heavier of build, plump of face, and he spent the days of waiting, whilst the caravan was being got ready, in smoking long cigars and cursing the climate.
A few days before the expedition marched he took the leader aside.
"Now, Sutton," he said, "this affair has cost me a lot of money, and I don't want to lose it through any folly of yours—I am a straight-speaking man, so don't lose your temper. If you locate this mine, you're to bring back samples, but most of all are you to take the exact bearings of the place. Exactly where the River is, I don't know. You've got the pencil plan that the Portuguese gave us—"
The other man interrupted him with a nervous little laugh.
"It is not in Portuguese territory, of course," he said.
"For Heaven sake, Sutton," implored the big man in a tone of exasperation, "get that Portuguese maggot out o' your brain—I've told you twenty times there is no question of Portuguese territory. The River runs through British soil—"
"Only, you know, that the Colonial Office—"
"I know all about the Colonial Office," interrupted the man roughly, "it's forbidden, I know, and it's a bad place to get to, anyhow—here "— he drew from his pocket a flat round case, and opened it—" use this compass the moment you strike the first range of hills—have you got any other compasses?"
"I have got two," said the other wonderingly.
"Let me have 'em."
"But—"
"Get 'em, my dear chap," said the stout man testily; and the leader, with a good-humoured shrug of his shoulders, left him, to return in a few minutes with the two instruments. He took in exchange the one the man held and opened it.
It was a beautiful instrument. There was no needle, the whole dial revolving as he turned it about. Something he saw surprised him, for he frowned.
"That's curious," he said wonderingly; "are you sure this compass is true? The north should lie exactly over that flag-staff on the Commissioner's house—I tested it yesterday from this very—"
"Stuff!" interrupted the other loudly. "Rubbish; this compass has been verified; do you think I want to lead you astray—after the money I've sunk—"
On the morning before the expedition left, when the carriers were shouldering their loads, there came a brown-faced little man with a big white helmet over the back of his head and a fly whisk in his hand.
"Sanders, Commissioner," he introduced himself laconically," I've just come down from the interior; sorry I did not arrive before: you are going into the bush?"
"Yes."
"Diamonds, I understand?"
Sutton nodded.
"You'll find a devil of a lot of primitive opposition to your march. The Alebi people will fight you, and the Otaki folk will chop you, sure." He stood thinking, and swishing his whisk from side to side.
"Avoid trouble," he said, "I do not want war in my territories—and keep away from the Portuguese border."
Sutton smiled.
"We shall give that precious border a wide berth —the Colonial Office has seen the route, and approves."
The Commissioner nodded again and eyed Sutton gravely. "Good luck," he said.
The next day the expedition marched with the dawn, and disappeared into the wood beyond the Isisi River.
A week later the stout man sailed for England.
Months passed and none returned, nor did any news come of the expedition either by messenger, or by Lokali. A year went by, and another, and still no sign came.
Beyond the seas, people stirred uneasily, cablegram and letter, and official dispatch came to the Commissioner, urging him to seek for the lost expedition of the white men who had gone to find the River of Stars. Sanders of Bofabi shook his head.
What search could be made? Elsewhere, a swift little steamer following the courses of a dozen rivers, might penetrate—the fat water-jacket of a maxim gun persuasively displayed over the bow— into regions untouched by European influence, but the Alebi country was bush. Investigation meant an armed force; an armed force meant money— the Commissioner shook his head.
Nevertheless he sent two spies secretly into the bush, cunning men, skilled in woodcraft. They were absent about three months, and returned one leading the other.
"They caught him, the wild people of the Alebi," said the leader without emotion, "and put out his eyes: that night, when they would have burnt him, I killed his guard and carried him to the bush."
Sanders stood before his bungalow, in the green moonlight, and looked from the speaker to the blind man, who stood uncomplainingly, patiently twiddling his fingers.
"What news of the white men?" he asked at last, and the speaker, resting on his long spear, turned to the sightless one at his side.
"What saw you, Messambi?" he asked in the vernacular.
"Bones," croaked the blind man, "bones I saw; bones and nearly bones. They crucified the white folk in a big square before the chief's house, and there is no man left alive so men say."
"So I thought," said Sanders gravely, and made his report to England.
Months passed and the rains came and the green season that follows the rains, and Sanders was busy, as a West Central African Commissioner can be busy, in a land where sleeping sickness and tribal feuds contribute steadily to the death rate.
He had been called into the bush to settle a witch-doctor palaver. He travelled sixty miles along the tangled road that leads to the Alebi country, and established his seat of justice at a small town called M'Saga. He had twenty Houssas with him, else he might not have gone so far with impunity. He sat in the thatched palaver house and listened to incredible stories of witchcraft, of spells cast, of wasting sickness that fell in consequence, of horrible rites between moonset and sunrise, and gave judgment.
The witch-doctor was an old man, but Sanders had no respect for grey hairs.
"It is evident to me that you are an evil man," he said, "and—"
"Master!"
It was the complainant who interrupted him, a man wasted by disease and terror, who came into the circle of soldiery and stolid townspeople.
"Master, he is a bad man—"
"Be silent," commanded Sanders.
"He practises devil spells with white men's blood," screamed the man, as two soldiers seized him at a gesture from the Commissioner. "He keeps a white man chained in the forest—"
"Eh?"
Sanders was alert and interested. He knew natives better than any other man; he could detect a lie—more difficult an accomplishment, he could detect the truth. Now he beckoned the victim of the witch-doctor's enmity towards him.
"What is this talk of white men?" he asked.
The old doctor said something in a low tone, fiercely, and the informer hesitated.
"Go on," said Sanders.
"He says—"
"Go on!"
The man was shaking from head to foot.
"There is a white man in the forest—he came from the River of Stars—the Old One found him and put him in a hut, needing his blood for charms...."
The man led the way along a forest path, behind him came Sanders, and, surrounded by six soldiers, the old witch-doctor with his hands strapped together.
Two miles from the village was a hut. The elephant grass grew so high about it that it was scarcely visible. Its roof was rotten and sagging, the interior was vile...
Sanders found a man lying on the floor, chained by the leg to a heavy log; a man who laughed softly to himself, and spoke like a gentleman. The soldiers carried him into the open, and laid him carefully on the ground. His clothes were in tatters, his hair and his beard were long, there were many little scars on either forearm where the witch-doctor's knife had drawn blood.
"M—m," said Sanders, and shook his head.
"...The River of Stars," said the wreck, with a chuckle, "pretty name—what? Kimberley? Why, Kimberley is nothing compared to it... I did not believe it until I saw it with my eyes... the bed of the river is packed with diamonds, and you'd never find it, Lambaire, even with the chart, and your infernal compass... I've left a cache of tools, and food for a couple of years...."
He thrust his hand into his rag of a shirt and brought out a scrap of paper. Sanders bent down to take it, but the man pushed him back with his thin hand.
"No, no, no," he breathed. "You take the blood, that's your job—I'm strong enough to stand it—one day I'll get away..."
Ten minutes later he fell into a sound sleep. Sanders found the soiled paper, and put it into his uniform pocket.
He sent back to the boat and his men brought two tents which were pitched in a clearing near the hut. The man was in such a deplorable condition that Sanders dared not take the risk of moving him. That night, when the camp lay wrapped in sleep and the two native women whom the Commissioner had commanded to watch the sick man were snoring by their charge, the wreck woke. Stealthily he rose from bed and crept out into the starry night.
Sanders woke to find an empty hut and a handful of rags that had once been a white man's coat on the banks of the tiny forest stream, a hundred yards from the camp.
* * * * *
THE witch doctor of M'Saga, summoned to an early morning palaver, came in irons and was in no doubt as to the punishment which awaited him, for nearby in the forest the houssas had dug up much evidence of sacrifice.
"Master," said the man, facing the stare of grey eyes, "I see death in your face."
"That is God's truth," said Sanders, and hanged him then and there.
