BONES AT M'FA
Hamilton of the Houssas coming down to headquarters met Bosambo by
appointment at the junction of the rivers.
"O Bosambo," said Hamilton, "I have sent for you to make a _likambo_
because of certain things which my other eyes have seen and my other
ears have heard."
To some men this hint of report from the spies of Government might bring
dismay and apprehension, but to Bosambo, whose conscience was clear,
they awakened only curiosity.
"Lord, I am your eyes in the Ochori," he said with truth, "and God knows
I report faithfully."
Hamilton nodded. He was yellow with fever, and the hand that filled the
briar pipe shook with ague. All this Bosambo saw.
"It is not of you I speak, nor of your people, but of the Akasava and
the N'gombi and the evil little men who live in the forest--now is it
true that they speak mockingly of my lord Tibbetti?"
Bosambo hesitated.
"Lord," said he, "what dogs are they, that they should speak of the
mighty? Yet I will not lie to you, M'ilitani: they mock Tibbetti,
because he is young and his heart is pure."
Hamilton nodded again, and stuck out his jaw in troubled meditation.
"I am a sick man," he said, "and I must rest, sending Tibbetti to watch
the river, because the crops are good and there is fish for all men, and
because the people are prosperous, for, Bosambo, in such times there is
much boastfulness, and the tribes are ripe for foolish deeds deserving
to appear wonderful in the eyes of woman."
"All this I know, M'ilitani," said Bosambo, "and because you are sick,
my heart and my stomach are sore. For though I do not love you as I love
Sandi, who is more clever than you, yet I love you well enough to
grieve. And Tibbetti also----"
He paused.
"He is young," said Hamilton, "and not yet grown to himself--now you,
Bosambo, shall check men who are insolent to his face, and be to him as
a strong right hand."
"On my head and my life," said Bosambo, "yet, lord M'ilitani, I think
that his day will find him, for it is written in the Sura of the Djin
that all men are born three times, and the day will come when Bonzi will
be born again."
He was in his canoe before Hamilton realized what he had said.
"Tell me, Bosambo," said he, leaning over the side of the _Zaire_,
"what name did you call my lord Tibbetti?"
"Bonzi," said Bosambo, innocently, "for such I have heard you call him."
"Oh, dog of a thief!" stormed Hamilton. "If you speak without respect of
Tibbetti, I will break your head."
Bosambo looked up with a glint in his big, black eyes.
"Lord," he said, softly, "it is said on the river 'speak only the words
which high ones speak, and you can say no wrong,' and if you, who are
wiser than any, call my lord 'Bonzi'--what goat am I that I should not
call him 'Bonzi' also?"
Hamilton saw the canoe drift round, saw the flashing paddles dip
regularly, and the chant of the Ochori boat song came fainter and
fainter as Bosambo's state canoe began its long journey northward.
Hamilton reached headquarters with a temperature of 105, and declined
Bones' well-meant offers to look after him.
"What you want, dear old officer," said Bones, fussing around, "is
careful nursin'. Trust old Bones and he'll pull you back to health, sir.
Keep up your pecker, sir, an' I'll bring you back so to speak from the
valley of the shadow--go to bed an' I'll have a mustard plaster on your
chest in half a jiffy."
"If you come anywhere near me with a mustard plaster," said Hamilton,
pardonably annoyed, "I'll brain you!"
"Don't you think!" asked Bones anxiously, "that you ought to put your
feet in mustard and water, sir--awfully good tonic for a feller, sir.
Bucks you up an' all that sort of thing, sir; uncle of mine who used to
take too much to drink----"
"The only chance for me," said Hamilton, "is for you to clear out and
leave me alone. Bones--quit fooling: I'm a sick man, and you've any
amount of responsibility. Go up to the Isisi and watch things--it's
pretty hard to say this to you, but I'm in your hands."
Bones said nothing.
He looked down at the fever-stricken man and thrust his hands in his
pockets.
"You see, old Bones," said Hamilton, and now his friend heard the
weariness and the weakness in his voice, "Sanders has a hold on these
chaps that I haven't quite got ... and ... and ... well, you haven't got
at all. I don't want to hurt your feelings, but you're young, Bones, and
these devils know how amiable you are."
"I'm an ass, sir," muttered Bones, shakily, "an' somehow I understand
that this is the time in my jolly old career when I oughtn't to be an
ass.... I'm sorry, sir."
Hamilton smiled up at him.
"It isn't for Sanders' sake or mine or your own, Bones--but for--well,
for the whole crowd of us--white folk. You'll have to do your best, old
man."
Bones took the other's hand, snivelled a bit despite his fierce effort
of restraint, and went aboard the _Zaire_.
* * * * *
"Tell all men," said B'chumbiri, addressing his impassive relatives,
"that I go to a great day and to many strange lands."
He was tall and knobby-kneed, spoke with a squeak at the end of his
deeper sentences, and about his tired eyes he had made a red circle with
camwood. Round his head he had twisted a wire so tightly that it all but
cut the flesh: this was necessary, for B'chumbiri had a headache which
never left him day or night.
Now he stood, his lank body wrapped in a blanket, and he looked with
dull eyes from face to face.
"I see you," he said at last, and repeated his motto which had something
to do with monkeys.
They watched him go down the street towards the beech where the easiest
canoe in the village was moored.
"It is better if we go after him and put out his eyes," said his elder
brother; "else who knows what damage he will do for which we must pay?"
Only B'chumbiri's mother looked after him with a mouth that drooped at
the side, for he was her only son, all the others being by other wives
of Mochimo.
His father and his uncle stood apart and whispered, and presently when,
with a great waving of arms, B'chumbiri had embarked, they went out of
the village by the forest path and ran tirelessly till they struck the
river at its bend.
"Here we will wait," panted the uncle, "and when B'chumbiri comes we
will call him to land, for he has the sickness _mongo_."
"What of Sandi?" asked the father, who was no gossip.
"Sandi is gone," replied the other, "and there is no law."
Presently B'chumbiri came sweeping round the bend, singing in his poor,
cracked voice about a land and a people and treasures ... he turned his
canoe at his father's bidding, and came obediently to land....
Overhead the sky was a vivid blue, and the water which moved quickly
between the rocky channel of the Lower Isisi caught something of the
blue, though the thick green of elephant grass by the water's edge and
the overhanging spread of gum trees took away from the clarity of
reflection.
There was, too, a gentle breeze and a pleasing absence of flies, so that
a man might get under the red and white striped awning of the _Zaire_
and think or read or dream dreams, and find life a pleasant experience,
and something to be thankful for.
Such a day does not often come upon the river, but if it does, the deep
channel of the Isisi focuses all the joy of it. Here the river runs as
straight as a canal for six miles, the current swifter and stronger
between the guiding banks than elsewhere. There are rocks, charted and
known, for the bed of the river undergoes no change, the swift waters
carry no sands to choke the fairway, navigation is largely a matter of
engine power and rule of thumb. Going slowly up stream a little more
than two knots an hour, the _Zaire_ was for once a pleasure steamer. Her
long-barrelled Hotchkiss guns were hidden in their canvas jackets, the
Maxims were lashed to the side of the bridge out of sight, and
Lieutenant Augustus Tibbetts, who sprawled in a big wicker-work chair
with an illustrated paper on his knees, a nasal-toned phonograph at his
feet, and a long glass of lemon squash at his elbow, had little to do
but pass the pleasant hours in the most pleasant occupation he could
conceive, which was the posting of a diary, which he hoped on some
future occasion to publish.
A shout, quick and sharp, brought him to his feet, a stiffly
outstretched hand pointed to the waters.
"What the dooce----" demanded Bones indignantly, and looked over the
side.... He saw the pitiful thing that rolled slowly in the swift
current, and the homely face of Bones hardened.
"Damn," he said, and the wheel of the _Zaire_ spun, and the little boat
came broadside to the stream before the threshing wheel got purchase on
the water.
It was Bones' sinewy hand that gripped the poor arm and brought the body
to the side of the canoe into which he had jumped as the boat came
round.
"Um," said Bones, seeing what he saw; "who knows this man?"
"Lord," said a wooding man, "this is B'chumbiri who was mad, and he
lived in the village near by."
"There will we go," said Bones, very gravely.
Now all the people of M'fa knew that the father of B'chumbiri and his
uncle had put away the tiresome youth with his headache and his silly
talk, and when there came news that the _Zaire_ was beating her way to
the village there was a hasty _likambo_ of the eldermen.
"Since this is neither Sandi nor M'ilitani who comes," said the chief,
an old man, N'jela ("the Bringer"), "but Moon-in-the-Eye, who is a
child, let us say that B'chumbiri fell into the water so that the
crocodiles had him, and if he asks us who slew B'chumbiri--for it may be
that he knows--let none speak, and afterwards we will tell M'ilitani
that we did not understand him."
With this arrangement all agreed; for surely here was a palaver not to
be feared.
Bones came with his escort of Houssas.
From the dark interiors of thatched huts men and women watched his thin
figure going up the street, and laughed.
Nor did they laugh softly. Bones heard the chuckles of unseen people,
divined that contempt, and his lips trembled. He felt an immense
loneliness--all the weight of government was pressed down upon his head,
it overwhelmed, it smothered him.
Yet he kept a tight hold upon himself, and by a supreme effort of will
showed no sign of his perturbation.
The palaver was of little value to Bones; the village was blandly
innocent of murder or knowledge of murder. More than this, all men
stoutly swore that the thing that lay upon the foreshore for
identification, surrounded by a crowd of frowning and frightened little
boys lured by the very gruesomeness of the spectacle, was unknown, and
laughed openly at the suggestion that it was B'chumbiri, who (said they)
had gone a Journey into the forest.
There was little short of open mockery and defiance when they pointed
out certain indications that went to prove that this man was not of the
Akasava, but of the higher Isisi.
So Bones' visit was fruitless.
He dismissed the palaver and walked back to his ship, and worked the
river, village by village, with no more satisfactory result. That night
in the little town of M'fa there was a dance and a jubilation to
celebrate the cunning of a people who had outwitted and overawed the
lords of the land, but the next day came Bosambo, who had established a
system of espionage more far-reaching, and possibly more effective, than
the service which the Government had instituted.
Liberties they might take with Bones; but they sat discomforted in
palaver before this alien chief, swathed in monkey tails, his shield in
one hand, and his bunch of spears in the other.
"All things I know," said Bosambo, when they told him what they had to
tell, "and it has come to me that you have spoken lightly of Tibbetti,
who is my friend and my master, and is well beloved of Sandi. Also they
tell me that you smiled at him. Now I tell you there will come a day
when you will not smile, and that day is near at hand."
"Lord," said the chief, "he made with us a foolish palaver, believing
that we had put away B'chumbiri."
"And he shall return to that foolish palaver," said Bosambo grimly, "and
if he goes away unsatisfied, behold I will come, and I will take your
old men, and I will hang them by hooks into a tree and roast their feet.
For if there is no Sandi and no law, behold I am Sandi and I law, doing
the will of a certain bearded king, Togi-tani."
He left the village of M'fa a little unhappy for the space of a day,
when, native-like, they forgot all that he had said.
In the meantime, up and down the river went Bones, palavers which lasted
from sunrise to sunset being his portion.
He had in his mind one vital fact, that for the honour of his race and
for the credit of his administration he must bring to justice the man
who slew the thing which he had found in the river. Chiefs and elders
met him with scarcely concealed scorn, and waited expectantly to hear
his strong, foreign language. But in this they were disappointed, for
Bones spoke nothing but the language of the river, and little of it.
He went on board the _Zaire_ on the ninth night after his discovery,
dispirited and sick at heart.
"It seems to me, Ahmet," he said to the Houssa sergeant who stood
waiting silently by the table where his meagre dinner was laid, "that no
man speaks the truth in this cursed land, and that they do not fear me
as they fear Sandi."
"Lord, it is so," said Ahmet; "for, as your lordship knows, Sandi was
very terrible, and then, O Tibbetti, he is an older man, very wise in
the ways of these people, and very cunning to see their heart. All great
trees grow slowly, O my lord! and that which springs up in a night dies
in a day."
Bones pondered this for a while, then:
"Wake me at dawn," he said. "I go back to M'fa for the last palaver, and
if this palaver be a bad one, be sure you shall not see my face again
upon the river."
Bones spoke truly, his resignation, written in his sprawling hand, lay
enveloped and sealed in his cabin ready for dispatch. He stopped his
steamer at a village six miles from M'fa, and sent a party of Houssas to
the village with a message.
The chief was to summon all eldermen, and all men responsible to the
Government, the wearers of medals and the holders of rights, all landmen
and leaders of hunters, the captains of spears, and the first headmen.
Even to the witch doctors he called together.
"O soldier!" said the chief, dubiously, "what happens to me if I do not
obey his commands? For my men are weary, having hunted in the forest,
and my chiefs do not like long palavers concerning law."
"That may be," said Ahmet, calmly. "But when my lord calls you to
palaver you must obey, otherwise I take you, I and my strong men, to the
Village of Irons, there to rest for a while to my lord's pleasure."
So the chief sent messengers and rattled his _lokali_ to some purpose,
bringing headmen and witch doctors, little and great chiefs, and
spearmen of quality, to squat about the palaver house on the little hill
to the east of the village.
Bones came with an escort of four men. He walked slowly up the cut steps
in the hillside and sat upon the stool to the chief's right; and no
sooner had he seated himself than, without preliminary, he began to
speak. And he spoke of Sanders, of his splendour and his power; of his
love for all people and his land, and also M'ilitani, who these men
respected because of his devilish blue eyes.
At first he spoke slowly, because he found a difficulty in breathing,
and then as he found himself, grew more and more lucid and took a larger
grasp of the language.
"Now," said he, "I come to you, being young in the service of the
Government, and unworthy to tread in my lord Sandi's way. Yet I hold the
laws in my two hands even as Sandi held them, for laws do not change
with men, neither does the sun change whatever be the land upon which
it shines. Now, I say to you and to all men, deliver to me the slayer of
B'chumbiri that I may deal with him according to the law."
There was a dead silence, and Bones waited.
Then the silence grew into a whisper, from a whisper into a babble of
suppressed talk, and finally somebody laughed. Bones stood up, for this
was his supreme moment.
"Come out to me, O killer!" he said softly, "for who am I that I can
injure you? Did I not hear some voice say _g'la_, and is not _g'la_ the
name of a fool? O, wise and brave men of the Akasava who sit there
quietly, daring not so much as to hit a finger before one who is a
fool!"
Again the silence fell. Bones, his helmet on the back of his head, his
hands thrust into his pockets, came a little way down the hill towards
the semi-circle of waiting eldermen.
"O, brave men!" he went on, "O, wonderful seeker of danger! Behold! I,
_g'la_, a fool, stand before you and yet the killer of B'chumbiri sits
trembling and will not rise before me, fearing my vengeance. Am I so
terrible?"
His wide open eyes were fixed upon the uncle of B'chumbiri, and the old
man returned the gaze defiantly.
"Am I so terrible?" Bones went on, gently. "Do men fear me when I walk?
Or run to their huts at the sound of my puc-a-puc? Do women wring their
hands when I pass?"
Again there was a little titter, but M'gobo, the uncle of B'chumbiri,
grimacing now in his rage, was not amongst the laughers.
"Yet the brave one who slew----"
M'gobo sprang to his feet.
"Lord," he said harshly, "why do you put all men to shame for your
sport?"
"This is no sport, M'gobo," answered Bones quickly. "This is a palaver,
a killing palaver. Was it a woman who slew B'chumbiri? so that she is
not present at this palaver. Lo, then I go to hold council with women!"
M'gobo's face was all distorted like a man stricken with paralysis.
"Tibbetti!" he said, "I slew B'chumbiri--according to custom--and I will
answer to Sandi, who is a man, and understands such palavers."
"Think well," said Bones, deathly white, "think well, O man, before you
say this."
"I killed him, O fool," said M'gobo loudly, "though his father turned
woman at the last--with these hands I cut him, using two knives----"
"Damn you!" said Bones, and shot him dead.
* * * * *
Hamilton, so far convalescent that he could smoke a cigarette, heard the
account without interruption.
"So there you are, sir," said Bones at the side. "An' I felt like a
jolly old murderer, but, dear old officer, what was I to do?"
Still Hamilton said nothing, and Bones shifted uncomfortably.
"For goodness gracious sake don't sit there like a bally old owl," he
said, fretfully. "Was I wrong?"
Hamilton smiled.
"You're a jolly old commissioner, sir," he mimicked, "and for two pins
I'd mention you in dispatches."
Bones examined the piping of his khaki jacket and extracted the pins.