A FRONTIER AND A CODE
To understand this story you must know that at one point of Ochori
borderline, the German, French, and Belgian territories shoot three
narrow tongues that form, roughly, the segments of a half-circle.
Whether the German tongue is split in the middle by N'glili River, so
that it forms a flattened broad arrow, with the central prong the river
is a moot point. We, in Downing Street, claim that the lower angle of
this arrow is wholly ours, and that all the flat basin of the Field of
Blood (as they call it) is entitled to receive the shadow which a
flapping Union Jack may cast.
If Downing Street were to send that frantic code-wire to "Polonius" to
Hamilton in these days he could not obey the instructions, for reasons
which I will give. As a matter of fact the code has now been changed,
Lieutenant Tibbetts being mainly responsible for the alteration.
Hamilton, in his severest mood, wrote a letter to Bones, and it is worth
reproducing.
That Bones was living a dozen yards from Captain Hamilton, and that they
shared a common mess-table, adds rather than distracts from the
seriousness of the correspondence. The letter ran:
"The Residency,
"September 24th.
"From Officer commanding Houssas detachment Headquarters, to
Officer commanding "B" company of Houssas.
"Sir,--
"I have the honour to direct your attention to that paragraph of
King's regulations which directs that an officer's sole attention
should be concentrated upon executing the lawful commands of his
superior.
"I have had occasion recently to correct a certain tendency on your
part to employing War Department property and the servants of the
Crown for your own special use. I need hardly point out to you that
such conduct on your part is subversive to discipline and directly
contrary to the spirit and letter of regulations. More especially
would I urge the impropriety of utilizing government telegraph
lines for the purpose of securing information regarding your
gambling transactions. Matters have now reached a very serious
crisis, and I feel sure that you will see the necessity for
refraining from these breaches of discipline.
"I have the honour to be, sir,
"Your obedient servant,
"P. G. Hamilton, 'Captain.'"
When two white men, the only specimen of their race and class within a
radius of hundreds of miles, are living together in an isolated post,
they either hate or tolerate one another. The exception must always be
found in two men of a similar service having similar objects to gain,
and infused with a common spirit of endeavour.
Fortunately neither Lieutenant Tibbetts nor his superior were long
enough associated to get upon one another's nerves.
Lieutenant Tibbetts received this letter while he was shaving, and came
across the parade ground outrageously attired in his pyjamas and his
helmet. Clambering up the wooden stairs, his slippers flap-flapping
across the broad verandah, he burst into the chief's bedroom,
interrupting a stern and frigid Captain Hamilton in the midst of his
early morning coffee and roll.
"Look here, old sport," said Bones, indignantly waving a frothy shaving
brush at the other, "what the dooce is all this about?"
He displayed a crumpled letter.
"Lieutenant Tibbetts," said Hamilton of the Houssas severely, "have you
no sense of decency?"
"Sense of decency, my dear old thing!" repeated Bones. "I am simply full
of it. That is why I have come."
A terrible sight was Bones at that early hour with the open pyjama
jacket showing his scraggy neck, with his fish mouth drooping dismally,
his round, staring eyes and his hair rumpled up, one frantic tuft at
the back standing up in isolation.
Hamilton stared at him, and it was the stern stare of a disciplinarian.
But Bones was not to be put out of countenance by so small a thing as an
icy glance.
"There is no sense in getting peevish with me, old Ham," he said,
squatting down on the nearest chair; "this is what I call a stupid,
officious, unnecessary letter. Why this haughtiness? Why these crushing
inferences? Why this unkindness to poor old Bones?"
"The fact of it is, Bones," said Hamilton, accepting the situation, "you
are spending too much of your time in the telegraph station."
Bones got up slowly.
"Captain Hamilton, sir!" he said reproachfully, "after all I have done
for you."
"Beyond selling me one of your beastly sweepstake tickets for five
shillings," said Hamilton, unpleasantly; "a ticket which I dare say you
have taken jolly good care will not win a prize, I fail to see in what
manner you have helped me. Now, Bones, you will have to pay more
attention to your work. There is no sense in slacking; we will have
Sanders back here before we know where we are, and when he starts nosing
round there will be a lot of trouble. Besides, you are shirking."
"Me!" gasped Bones, outraged. "Me--shirking? You forget yourself, sir!"
Even Bones could not be dignified with a lather brush in one hand and a
half-shaven cheek, testifying to the hastiness of his departure from
his quarters.
"I only wish to say, sir," said Bones, "that during the period I have
had the honour to serve under your command I have settled possibly more
palavers of a distressingly ominous character than the average
Commissioner is called upon to settle in the course of a year."
"As you have created most of the palavers yourself," said Hamilton
unkindly, "I do not deny this. In other words, you have got yourself
into more tangles, and you've had to crawl out more often."
"It is useless appealing to your better nature, sir," said Bones.
He saluted with the hand that held the lather brush, turned about like
an automaton, tripped over the mat, recovered himself with an effort,
and preserving what dignity a man can preserve in pink-striped pyjamas
and a sun helmet, stalked majestically back to his quarters. Half-way
across he remembered something and came doubling back, clattering into
Hamilton's room unceremoniously.
"There is one thing I forgot to say," he said, "about those sweepstake
tickets. If I happen to be killed on any future expedition that you may
send me, you will understand that the whole of my moveable property is
yours, absolutely. And I may add, sir," he said at the doorway with one
hand on the lintel ready to execute a strategic flank movement out of
range, "that with this legacy I offer you my forgiveness for the
perfectly beastly time you have given me. Good morning, sir."
There was a commanding officer's parade of Houssas at noon. It was not
until he stalked across the square and clicked his heels together as he
reported the full strength of his company present that Hamilton saw his
subordinate again.
The parade over, Bones went huffily to his quarters.
He was hurt. To be told he had been shirking his duty touched a very
tender and sensitive spot of his.
In preparation for the movement which he had expected to make he had
kept his company on the move for a fortnight. For fourteen terrible days
in all kinds of weather, he had worked like a native in the forest; with
sham fights and blank cartridge attacks upon imaginary positions, with
scaling of stockades and building of bridges--all work at which his soul
revolted--to be told at the end he had shirked his work!
Certainly he had come down to headquarters more often perhaps than was
necessary, but then he was properly interested in the draw of a
continental sweepstake which might, with any kind of luck, place him in
the possession of a considerable fortune. Hamilton was amiable at lunch,
even communicative at dinner, and for him rather serious.
For if the truth be told he was desperately worried. The cause was, as
it had often been with Sanders, that French-German-Belgian territory
which adjoins the Ochori country. All the bad characters, not only the
French of the Belgian Congo, but of the badly-governed German lands--all
the tax resisters, the murderers, and the criminals of every kind, but
the lawless contingents of every nation, formed a floating nomadic
population in the tree-covered hills which lay beyond the country
governed by Bosambo.
Of late there had been a larger break-away than usual. A strong force of
rebellious natives was reported to be within a day's march of the Ochori
boundary. This much Hamilton knew. But he had known of such occurrences
before; not once, but a score of times had alarming news come from the
French border.
He had indeed made many futile trips into the heart of the Ochori
country.
Forced marches through little known territory, and long and tiring waits
for the invader that never came, had dulled his senses of apprehension.
He had to take a chance. The Administrator's office would warn him from
time to time, and ask him conventionally to make his arrangements to
meet all contingencies and Sanders would as conventionally reply that
the condition of affairs on the Ochori border was engaging his most
earnest attention.
"What is the use of worrying about it now?" asked Bones at dinner.
Hamilton shook his head.
"There was a certain magic in old Sanders' name," he said.
Bones' lips pursed.
"My dear old chap," he said, "there is a bit of magic in mine."
"I have not noticed it," said Hamilton.
"I am getting awfully popular as a matter of fact," said Bones
complacently. "The last time I was up the river, Bosambo came ten miles
down stream to meet me and spend the day."
"Did you lose anything?" asked Hamilton ungraciously.
Bones thought.
"Now you come to mention it," he said slowly, "I did lose quite a lot of
things, but dear old Bosambo wouldn't play a dirty trick on a pal. I
know Bosambo."
"If there is one thing more evident than another," said Hamilton, "it is
that you do not know Bosambo."
Hamilton was wakened at three in the next morning by the telegraph
operator. It was a "clear the line" message, coded from headquarters,
and half awake he went into Sanders' study and put it into plain
English.
"Hope you are watching the Ochori border," it ran, "representations from
French Government to the effect that a crossing is imminent."
He pulled his mosquito boots on over his pyjamas, struggled into a coat
and crossed to Lieutenant Tibbetts' quarters.
Bones occupied a big hut at the end of the Houssa lines, and Hamilton
woke him by the simple expedient of flashing his electric hand lamp in
his face.
"I have had a telegram," he said, and Bones leapt out of bed wide awake
in an instant.
"I knew jolly well I would draw a horse," he said exultantly. "I had a
dream----"
"Be serious, you feather-minded devil."
With that Hamilton handed him the telegram.
Bones read it carefully, and interpreted any meanings into its
construction which it could not possibly bear.
"What are you going to do?" he asked.
"There is only one thing to do," said Hamilton. "We shall have to take
all the men we can possibly muster, and go north at daybreak."
"Spoken like a jolly old Hannibal," said Bones heartily, and smacked his
superior on the back. A shrill bugle call aroused the sleeping lines,
and Hamilton went back to his quarters to make preparations for the
journey. In the first grey light of dawn he flew three pigeons to
Bosambo, and the message they carried about their red legs was brief.
"Take your fighting regiments to the edge of Frenchi land; presently I
will come with my soldiers and support you. Let no foreigner pass on
your life and on your head."
When the rising sun tipped the tops of the palms with gold, and the wild
world was filled with the sound of the birds, the _Zaire_, her decks
alive with soldiers, began her long journey northward.
Just before the boat left, Hamilton received a further message from the
Administrator. It was in plain English, some evidence of Sir Robert
Sanleigh's haste.
"Confidential: This matter on the Ochori border extremely delicate.
Complete adequate arrangements to keep in touch with me."
For one moment Hamilton conceived the idea of leaving Bones behind to
deal with the telegram and come along. A little thought, however,
convinced him of the futility of this method. For one thing he would
want every bit of assistance he could get, and although Bones had his
disadvantages he was an excellent soldier, and a loyal and gallant
comrade.
It might be necessary for Hamilton to divide up his forces; in which
case he could hardly dispense with Lieutenant Tibbetts, and he explained
unnecessarily to Bones:
"I think you are much better under my eye where I can see what you're
doing."
"Sir," said Bones very seriously, "it is not what I do, it is what I
think. If you could only see my brain at work----"
"Ha, ha!" said Hamilton rudely.
For at least three days relations were strained between the two
officers. Bones was a man who admitted at regular intervals that he was
unduly sensitive. He had explained this disadvantage to Hamilton at
various times, but the Houssa stolidly refused to remember the fact.
Most of the way up the river Hamilton attended to his business
navigation--he knew the stream very well--whilst Bones, in a cabin which
had been rigged up for him in the after part of the ship, played
Patience, and by a systematic course of cheating himself was able to
accomplish marvels. They found the Ochori city deserted save for a
strong guard, for Bosambo had marched the day previous; sending a war
call through the country.
He had started with a thousand spears, and his force was growing in
snowball fashion as he progressed through the land. The great road which
Notiki, the northern chief, had started by way of punishment was
beginning to take shape. Bosambo had moved with incredible swiftness.
Too swift, indeed, for a certain Angolian-Congo robber who had headed a
villainous pilgrimage to a land which, as he had predicted, flowed with
milk and honey; was guarded by timorous men and mainly populated by slim
and beautiful maidens. The Blue Books on this migration gave this man's
name as Kisini, but he was in fact an Angolian named Bizaro--a composite
name which smacks suspiciously of Portuguese influence.
Many times had the unruly people and the lawless bands which occupied
the forest beyond the Ochori threatened to cross into British territory.
But the dangers of the unknown, the awful stories of a certain white
lord who was swift to avenge and monstrously inquisitive had held them.
Year after year there had grown up tribes within tribes, tiny armed
camps that had only this in common, that they were outside the laws
from which they had fled, and that somewhere to the southward and the
eastward were strong forces flying the tricolour of France or the yellow
star of the Belgian Congo, ready to belch fire at them, if they so much
as showed their flat noses.
It would have needed a Napoleon to have combined all the conflicting
forces, to have lulled all the mutual suspicions, and to have moulded
these incompatible particles into a whole; but, Bizaro, like many
another vain and ambitious man, had sought by means of a great palaver
to produce a feeling of security sufficiently soothing to the nerves and
susceptibilities of all elements, to create something like a nationality
of these scattered remnants of the nations.
And though he failed, he did succeed in bringing together four or five
of the camps, and it was this news carried to the French Governor by
spies, transmitted to Downing Street, and flashed back again to the
Coast, which set Hamilton and his Houssas moving; which brought a
regiment of the King's African Rifles to the Coast ready to reinforce
the earlier expedition, and which (more to the point) had put Bosambo's
war drums rumbling from one end of the Ochori to the other.
Bizaro, mustering his force, came gaily through the sun-splashed aisles
of the forest, his face streaked hideously with camwood, his big
elephant spear twirled between his fingers, and behind him straggled his
cosmopolitan force.
There were men from the Congo and the French Congo; men from German
lands; from Angola; wanderers from far-off Barotseland, who had drifted
on to the Congo by the swift and yellow Kasai. There were hunters from
the forests of far-off Bongindanga where the _okapi_ roams. For each
man's presence in that force there was good and sinister reason, for
these were no mere tax-evaders, poor, starved wretches fleeing from the
rule which _Bula Matadi_[4] imposed. There was a blood price on almost
every head, and in a dozen prisons at Boma, at Brazaville, and
Equatorville, and as far south as St. Paul de Loduda, there were
leg-irons which had at some time or other fitted their scarred ankles.
[Footnote 4: The stone breaker, the native name for the Congo
Government.]
Now there are four distinct physical features which mark the border line
between the border land and the foreign territory. Mainly the line is a
purely imaginary one, not traceable save by the most delicate
instruments--a line which runs through a tangle of forest.
But the most noticeable crossing place is N'glili.[5]
[Footnote 5: Probably a corruption of the word "English."]
Here a little river, easily fordable, and not more than a dozen spear
lengths across flows from one wood into another. Between the two woods
is a clear space of thick grass and shrub. In the spring of the year the
banks of the stream are white with arum-lilies, and the field beyond,
at a later period, is red with wild anemone.
The dour fugitives on the other side of the stream have a legend that
those who safely cross the "Field of Blood"--so they call the
anemone-sprinkled land beyond--without so much as crushing a flower may
claim sanctuary under the British flag.
So that when Bizaro sighted the stream, and the two tall trees that
flanked the ford, from afar off and said: "To-day we will walk between
the flowers," he was signifying the definite character of his plans.
"Master," said one of the more timid of his muster, when they had halted
for a rest in sight of the promised land, "what shall we do when we come
to these strange places?"
"We shall defeat all manner of men," said Bizaro optimistically.
"Afterwards they shall come and sue for peace, and they shall give us a
wide land where we may build us huts and sow our corn. And they also
will give us women, and we shall settle in comfort, and I will be chief
over you. And, growing with the moons, in time I shall make you a great
nation."
They might have crossed the stream that evening and committed themselves
irrevocably to their invasion. Bizaro was a criminal, and a lazy man,
and he decided to sleep where he was--an act fatal to the smooth
performance of his enterprise, for when in the early hours of the
morning he marched his horde to the N'glili river he found two thousand
spears lining the opposite bank, and they were under a chief who was at
once insolent and unmoved by argument.
"O chief," said Bosambo pleasantly, "you do not cross my beautiful
flowers to-day."
"Lord," said Bizaro humbly, "we are poor men who desire a new land."
"That you shall have," said Bosambo grimly, "for I have sent my warriors
to dig big holes wherein you may take your rest in this land you
desire."
An unhappy Bizaro carried his six hundred spears slowly back to the land
from whence he had come and found on return to the mixed tribes that he
had unconsciously achieved a miracle. For the news of armed men by the
N'glili river carried terror to these evil men--they found themselves
between two enemies and chose the force which they feared least.
On the fourth day following his interview with Bosambo, Bizaro led five
thousand desperate men to the ford and there was a sanguinary battle
which lasted for the greater part of the morning and was repeated at
sundown.
Hamilton brought his Houssas up in the nick of time, when one wing of
Bosambo's force was being thrust back and when Bizaro's desperate
adventurers had gained the Ochori bank. Hamilton came through the
clearing, and formed his men rapidly.
Sword in hand, in advance of the glittering bayonets, Bones raced
across the red field, and after one brief and glorious mêlée the invader
was driven back, and a dropping fire from the left, as the Houssas shot
steadily at the flying enemy, completed the disaster to Bizaro's force.
"That settles _that_!" said Hamilton.
He had pitched his camp on the scene of his exploit, the bivouac fires
of the Houssas gleamed redly amongst the anemones.
"Did you see me in action?" asked Bones, a little self-consciously.
"No, I didn't notice anything particularly striking about the fight in
your side of the world," said Hamilton.
"I suppose you did not see me bowl over a big Congo chap?" asked Bones,
carelessly, as he opened a tin of preserved tongue. "Two at once I
bowled over," he repeated.
"What do you expect me to do?" asked Hamilton unpleasantly. "Get up and
cheer, or recommend you for the Victoria Cross or something?"
Bones carefully speared a section of tongue from the open tin before he
replied.
"I had not thought about the Victoria Cross, to tell you the truth," he
admitted; "but if you feel that you ought to recommend me for something
or other for conspicuous courage in the face of the enemy, do not let
your friendship stand in the way."
"I will not," said Hamilton.
There was a little pause, then without raising his eyes from the task in
hand which was at that precise moment the covering of a biscuit with a
large and generous layer of marmalade, Bones went on.
"I practically saved the life of one of Bosambo's headmen. He was on the
ground and three fellows were jabbing at him. The moment they saw me
they dropped their spears and fled."
"I expect it was your funny nose that did the trick," said Hamilton
unimpressed.
"I stood there," Bones went on loftily ignoring the gratuitous insult,
"waiting for anything that might turn up; exposed, dear old fellow, to
every death-dealing missile, but calmly directing, if you will allow me
to say so, the tide of battle. It was," he added modestly, "one of the
bravest deeds I ever saw."
He waited, but Hamilton had his mouth full of tongue sandwich.
"If you mention me in dispatches," Bones went on suggestively.
"Don't worry--I shan't," said Hamilton.
"But if you did," persisted Lieutenant Tibbetts, poising his sticky
biscuit, "I can only say----"
"The marmalade is running down your sleeve," said Hamilton; "shut up,
Bones, like a good chap."
Bones sighed.
"The fact of it is, Hamilton," he was frank enough to say, "I have been
serving so far without hope of reward and scornful of honour, but now I
have reached the age and the position in life where I feel I am entitled
to some slight recognition to solace my declining years."
"How long have you been in the army?" asked Hamilton, curiously.
"Eighteen months," replied Bones; "nineteen months next week, and it's a
jolly long time, I can tell you, sir."
Leaving his dissatisfied subordinate, Hamilton made the round of the
camp. The red field, as he called it, was in reality a low-lying meadow,
which rose steeply to the bank of the river on the one side and more
steeply--since it first sloped downward in that direction--to the Ochori
forest, two miles away. He made this discovery with a little feeling of
alarm. He knew something of native tactics, and though his scouts had
reported that the enemy was effectually routed, and that the nearest
body was five miles away, he put a strong advance picquet on the other
side of the river, and threw a wide cordon of sentries about the camp.
Especially he apportioned Abiboo, his own sergeant, the task of watching
the little river which flowed swiftly between its orderly banks past the
sunken camp. For two days Abiboo watched and found nothing to report.
Not so the spies who were keeping watch upon the moving remnants of
Bizaro's army.
They came with the news that the main body had mysteriously disappeared.
To add to Hamilton's anxiety he received a message by way of
headquarters and the Ochori city from the Administrator.
"Be prepared at the first urgent message from myself to fall back
on the Ochori city. German Government claim that whole of country
for two miles north of river N'glili is their territory. Most
delicate situation. International complications feared. Rely on
your discretion, but move swiftly if you receive orders."
"Leave this to me," said Bones when Hamilton read the message out; "did
I ever tell you, sir, that I was intended for the diplomatic
service----"
* * * * *
The truth about the Ochori border has never been thoroughly exposed. If
you get into your mind the fact that the Imperialists of four nations
were dreaming dreams of a trans-African railway which was to tap the
resources of the interior, and if you remember that each patriotic
dreamer conceived a different kind of railway according to his
nationality and that they only agreed upon one point, namely, that the
line must point contiguous with the Ochori border, you may understand
dimly some reason for the frantic claim that that little belt of
territory, two miles wide, was part of the domain of each and every one
of the contestants.
When the news was flashed to Europe that a party of British Houssas were
holding the banks of the N'glili river, and had inflicted a loss upon a
force of criminals, the approval which civilization should rightly have
bestowed upon Captain Hamilton and his heroic lieutenant was tempered
largely by the question as to whether Captain Hamilton and his Houssas
had any right whatever to be upon "the red field." And in consequence
the telegraph lines between Berlin and Paris and Paris and London and
London and Brussels were kept fairly busy with passionate statements of
claims couched in the stilted terminology of diplomacy.
England could not recede from the position she had taken. This she said
in French and in German, and in her own perfidious tongue. She stated
this uncompromisingly, but at the same time sent secret orders to
withdraw the force that was the bone of contention. This order she soon
countermanded. A certain speech delivered by a too voluble Belgian
minister was responsible for the stiffening of her back, and His
Excellency the Administrator of the territory received official
instructions in the middle of the night: "Tell Hamilton to stay where he
is and hold border against all comers."
This message was re-transmitted.
Now there is in existence in the British Colonial Service, and in all
branches which affect the agents and the servants of the Colonial
Office, an emergency code which is based upon certain characters in
Shakespearean plays.
I say "there is"; perhaps it would be better and more to the point if I
said "there was," since the code has been considerably amended.
Thus, be he sub-inspector or commissioner, or chief of local native
police who receives the word "Ophelia," he knows without consulting any
book that "Ophelia" means "unrest of natives reported in your district,
please report"; or if it be "Polonius" it signifies to him--and this he
knows without confirming his knowledge--that he must move steadily
forward. Or if it be "Banquo" he reads into it, "Hold your position till
further orders." And "Banquo" was the word that the Administrator
telegraphed.
* * * * *
Sergeant Abiboo had sat by the flowing N'glili river without noticing
any slackening of its strength or challenging of its depth.
There was reason for this.
Bizaro, who was in the forest ten miles to the westward, and working
moreover upon a piece of native strategy which natives the world over
had found successful, saw that it was unnecessary to dam the river and
divert the stream.
Nature had assisted him to a marvellous degree. He had followed the
stream through the forest until he reached a place where it was a
quarter of a mile wide, so wide and so newly spread that the water
reached half-way up the trunks of the sodden and dying trees.
Moreover, there was a bank through which a hundred men might cut a
breach in a day or so, even though they went about their work most
leisurely, being constitutionally averse to manual labour.
Bizaro was no engineer, but he had all the forest man's instincts of
water-levels. There was a clear run down to the meadows beyond that, as
he said, he "smelt."
"We will drown these dogs," he said to his headman, "and afterwards we
will walk into the country and take it for our own."
Hamilton had been alive to the danger of such an attack. He saw by
certain indications of the soil that this great shallow valley had been
inundated more than once, though probably many years had passed since
the last overflow of water. Yet he could not move from where he had
planted himself without risking the displeasure of his chief and without
also risking very serious consequences in other directions.
Bosambo, frankly bored, was all for retiring his men to the comforts of
the Ochori city.
"Lord, why do we sit here?" he asked, "looking at this little stream
which has no fish and at this great ugly country, when I have my
beautiful city for your lordship's reception, and dancing folk and great
feasts?"
"A doocid sensible idea," murmured Bones.
"I wait for a book," answered Hamilton shortly. "If you wish to go, you
may take your soldiers and leave me."
"Lord," said Bosambo, "you put shame on me," and he looked his reproach.
"I am really surprised at you, Hamilton," murmured Bones.
"Keep your infernal comments to yourself," snapped his superior. "I tell
you I must wait for my instructions."
He was a silent man for the rest of the evening, and had settled himself
down in his canvas chair to doze away the night, when a travel-stained
messenger came from the Ochori and he brought a telegram of one word.
Hamilton looked at it, he looked too with a frown at the figures that
preceded it.
"And what you mean," he muttered, "the Lord knows!"
The word, however, was sufficiently explicit. A bugle call brought the
Houssas into line and the tapping of Bosambo's drums assembled his
warriors.
Within half an hour of the receipt of the message Hamilton's force was
on the move.
They crossed the great stretch of meadow in the darkness and were
climbing up towards the forest when a noise like thunder broke upon
their ears.
Such a roaring, crashing, hissing of sound came nearer and nearer,
increasing in volume every second. The sky was clear, and one swift
glance told Hamilton that it was not a storm he had to fear. And then it
came upon him, and he realized what this commotion meant.
"Run!" he cried, and with one accord naked warriors and uniformed
Houssas fled through the darkness to the higher ground. The water came
rushing about Hamilton's ankles, one man slipped back again into the
flood and was hauled out again by Bones, exclaiming loudly his own act
lest it should have escaped the attention of his superior, and the party
reached safety without the loss of a man.
"Just in time," said Hamilton grimly. "I wonder if the Administrator
knew this was going to happen?"
They came to the Ochori by easy marches, and Hamilton wrote a long wire
to headquarters sending it on ahead by a swift messenger.
It was a dispatch which cleared away many difficulties, for the disputed
territory was for everlasting under water, and where the "red field" had
blazed brilliantly was a calm stretch of river two miles wide filled
with strange silent brown objects that floated and bobbed to the
movement of the tide. These were the men who in their folly had loosened
the waters and died of their rashness. Most notable of these was Bizaro.
There was a shock waiting for Hamilton when he reached the Ochori city.
The wire from the Administrator was kindly enough and sufficiently
approving to satisfy even an exigent Bones. "But," it ran, "why did you
retire in face of stringent orders to remain? I wired you 'Banquo.'"
Hamilton afterwards learnt that the messenger carrying this important
dispatch had passed his party in their retirement through the forest.
"Banquo," quoted Hamilton in amazement. "I received absolute
instructions to retire."
"Hard cheese," said Bones, sympathetically. "His dear old Excellency
wants a good talking to; but are you sure, dear old chap, that you
haven't made a mistake."
"Here it is," he said, "but I must confess that I don't understand the
numbers."
He handed it to Bones. It read:
"Mercutio 17178."
Bones looked at it a moment, then gasped. He reached out his hand
solemnly and grasped that of the astounded Hamilton.
"Dear old fellow," he said in a broken voice, "Congratulate me, I have
drawn a runner!"
"A runner?"
"A runner, dear old sport," chortled Bones, "in the Cambridgeshire! You
see I've got a ticket number seventeen, seventeen eight in my pocket,
dear old friend! If Mercutio wins," he repeated solemnly, "I will stand
you the finest dinner that can be secured this side of Romano's."