THE MAN WHO DID NOT SLEEP
No doubt whatever but that Lieutenant Tibbetts of the Houssas had a
pretty taste for romance. It led him to exercise certain latent powers
of imagination and to garnish his voluminous correspondence with details
of happenings which had no very solid foundation in fact.
On one occasion he had called down the heavy sarcasm of his superior
officer by a reference to lions--a reference which Hamilton's sister had
seen and, in the innocence of her heart, had referred to in a letter to
her brother.
Whereupon Bones swore to himself that he would carefully avoid
corresponding with any person who might have the remotest acquaintance
with the remotest of Hamilton's relatives.
Every mail night Captain Hamilton underwent a cross-examination which at
once baffled and annoyed him.
Picture a great room, the walls of varnished match-boarding, the bare
floor covered in patches by skins. There are twelve windows covered
with fine mesh wire and looking out to the broad verandah which runs
round the bungalow. The furniture is mainly wicker work, a table or two
bearing framed photographs (one has been cleared for the huge gramophone
which Bones has introduced to the peaceful life of headquarters). There
are no pictures on the walls save the inevitable five--Queen Victoria,
King Edward, Queen Alexandra, and in a place of honour above the door
the King and his Consort.
A great oil lamp hangs from the centre of the boarded ceiling, and under
this the big solid table at either side of which two officers write
silently and industriously, for the morrow brings the mail boat.
Silent until Bones looked up thoughtfully.
"Do you know the Gripps, of Beckstead, dear old fellow?"
"No."
"None of your people know 'em?" hopefully.
"No--how the dickens do I know?"
"Don't get chuffy, dear old chap."
Then would follow another silence, until----
"Do you happen to be acquainted with the Lomands of Fife?"
"No."
"I suppose none of your people know 'em?"
Hamilton would put down his pen, resignation on his face.
"I have never heard of the Lomands--unless you refer to the Loch
Lomonds; nor to the best of my knowledge and belief are any of my
relations in blood or in law in any way acquainted with them."
"Cheer oh!" said Bones, gratefully.
Another ten minutes, and then:
"You don't know the Adamses of Oxford, do you, sir?"
Hamilton, in the midst of his weekly report, chucked down his pen.
"No; nor the Eves of Cambridge, nor the Serpents of Eton, nor the Angels
of Harrow."
"I suppose----" began Bones.
"Nor are my relations on speaking terms with them. They don't know the
Adamses, nor the Cains, nor the Abels, nor the Moseses, nor the Noahs."
"That's all I wanted to know, sir," said an injured Bones. "There's no
need to peeve, sir."
Step by step Bones was compiling a directory of people to whom he might
write without restraint, providing he avoided mythical lion hunts and
confined himself to anecdotes which were suggestively complimentary to
himself.
Thus he wrote to one pal of his at Biggestow to the effect that he was
known to the natives as "The-Man-Who-Never-Sleeps," meaning thereby that
he was a most vigilant and relentless officer, and the recipients of
this information, fired with a sort of local patriotism, sent the
remarkable statement to the _Biggestow Herald and Observer and Hindhead
Guardian_, thereby upsetting all Bones' artful calculations.
"What the devil does 'Man-Who-Never-Sleeps' mean?" asked a puzzled
Hamilton.
"Dear old fellow," said Bones, incoherently, "don't let's discuss it ...
I can't understand how these things get into the bally papers."
"If," said Hamilton, turning the cutting over in his hand, "if they
called you 'The-Man-Who-Jaws-So-Much-That-Nobody-Can-Sleep,' I'd
understand it, or if they called you
'The-Man-Sleeps-With-His-Mouth-Open-Emitting-Hideous-Noises,' I could
understand it."
"The fact is, sir," said Bones, in a moment of inspiration, "I'm an
awfully light sleeper--in fact, sir, I'm one of those chaps who can get
along with a couple of hours' sleep--I can sleep anywhere at any
time--dear old Wellin'ton was similarly gifted--in fact, sir, there are
one or two points of resemblance between Wellington and I, which you
might have noticed, sir."
"Speak no ill of the dead," reproved Hamilton; "beyond your eccentric
noses I see no points of resemblance."
It was on a morning following the dispatch of the mail that Hamilton
took a turn along the firm sands to settle in his mind the problem of a
certain Middle Island.
Middle Islands, that is to say the innumerable patches of land which
sprinkle the river in its broad places, were a never-ending problem to
Sanders and his successor. Upon these Middle Islands the dead were laid
to rest--from the river you saw the graves with fluttering ragged flags
of white cloth planted about them--and the right of burial was a matter
of dispute when the mainland at one side of the river was Isisi land,
and Akasava the other. Also some of the larger Middle Islands were
colonized.
Hamilton had news of a coming palaver in relation to one of these.
Now, on the river, it is customary for all who desire inter-tribal
palavers to announce their intention loudly and insistently. And if
Sanders had no objection he made no move, if he did not think the
palaver desirable he stopped it. It was a simple arrangement, and it
worked.
Hamilton came back from his four-mile constitutional satisfied in his
mind that the palaver should be held. Moreover, they had, on this
occasion, asked permission. He could grant this with an easy mind, being
due in the neighbourhood of the disputed territory in the course of a
week.
It seemed that an Isisi fisherman had been spearing in Akasava waters,
and had, moreover, settled, he and his family to the number of forty, on
Akasava territory. Whereupon an Akasava fishing community, whose rights
the intruder had violated, rose up in its wrath and beat Issmeri with
sticks.
Then the king of the Isisi sent a messenger to the king of Akasava
begging him to stay his hand "against my lawful people, for know this,
Iberi, that I have a thousand spears and young men eager for fire."
And Iberi replied with marked unpleasantness that there were in the
Akasava territory two thousand spears no less inclined to slaughter.
In a moment of admirable moderation, significant of the change which Mr.
Commissioner Sanders had wrought in these warlike peoples, they accepted
Hamilton's suggestion--sent by special envoy--and held a "small
palaver," agreeing that the question of the disputed fishing ground
should be settled by a third person.
And they chose Bosambo, paramount and magnificent chief of the Ochori,
as arbitrator. Now, it was singularly unfortunate that the question was
ever debatable. And yet it was, for the fishing ground in question was
off one of the many Middle Islands. In this case the island was occupied
by Akasava fishermen on the one shore and by the intruding Isisi on the
other. If you can imagine a big "Y" and over it a little "o" and over
that again an inverted "Y" thus "+" and drawing this you prolong the
four prongs of the Y's, you have a rough idea of the topography of the
place. To the left of the lower "Y" mark the word "Isisi," to the right
the word "Akasava" until you reach a place where the two right hand
prongs meet, and here you draw a line and call all above it "Ochori."
The "o" in the centre is the middle island--set in a shallow lake
through which the river (the stalk, of the Y's) runs.
Bosambo came down in state with ten canoes filled with counsellors and
bodyguard. He camped on the disputed ground, and was met thereon by the
chiefs affected.
"O, Iberi and T'lingi!" said he, as he stepped ashore, "I come in peace,
bringing all my wonderful counsellors, that I may make you as brothers,
for as you know I have a white man's way of knowing all their magic, and
being a brother in blood to our Lord Tibbetti, Moon-in-the-Eye."
"This we know, Bosambo," said Iberi, looking askance at the size of
Bosambo's retinue, "and my stomach is proud that you bring so vast an
army of high men to us, for I see that you have brought rich food for
them."
He saw nothing of the sort, but he wanted things made plain at the
beginning.
"Lord Iberi," said Bosambo, loftily, "I bring no food, for that would
have been shameful, and men would have said: 'Iberi is a mean man who
starves the guests of his house.' But only one half of my wise people
shall sit in your huts, Iberi, and the other half will rest with T'lingi
of the Akasava, and feed according to law. And behold, chiefs and
headmen, I am a very just man not to be turned this way or that by the
giving of gifts or by kindness shown to my people. Yet my heart is so
human and so filled with tenderness for my people, that I ask you not to
feed them too richly or give them presents of beauty, lest my noble mind
be influenced."
Whereupon his forces were divided, and each chief ransacked his land for
delicacies to feed them.
It was a long palaver--too long for the chiefs.
Was the island Akasava or Isisi? Old men of either nation testified with
oaths and swearings of death and other high matters that it was both.
From dawn to sunset Bosambo sat in the thatched palaver house, and on
either side of him was a brass pot into which he tossed from time to
time a grain of corn.
And every grain stood for a successful argument in favour of one or the
other of the contestants--the pot to the right being for the Akasava,
and that to the left for the Isisi.
And the night was given up to festivity, to the dancing of girls and the
telling of stories and other noble exercises.
On the tenth day Iberi met T'lingi secretly.
"T'lingi," said Iberi, "it seems to me that this island is not worth the
keeping if we have to feast this thief Bosambo and search our lands for
his pleasure."
"Lord Iberi," agreed his rival, "that is also in my mind--let us go to
this robber of our food and say the palaver shall finish to-morrow, for
I do not care whether the island is yours or mine if we can send Bosambo
back to his land."
"You speak my mind," said Iberi, and on the morrow they were blunt to
the point of rudeness.
Whereupon Bosambo delivered judgment.
"Many stories have been told," said he, "also many lies, and in my
wisdom I cannot tell which is lie and which is truth. Moreover, the
grains of corn are equal in each pot. Now, this I say, in the name of
my uncle Sandi, and my brother Tibbetti (who is secretly married to my
sister's cousin), that neither Akasava nor Isisi shall sit in this
island for a hundred years."
"Lord, you are wise," said the Akasava chief, well satisfied, and Iberi
was no less cheered, but asked: "Who shall keep this island free from
Akasava or Isisi? For men may come and there will be other palavers and
perhaps fighting?"
"That I have thought of," said Bosambo, "and so I will raise a village
of my own people on this island, and put a guard of a hundred men--all
this I will do because I love you both--the palaver is finished."
He rose in his stately way, and with his drums beating and the bright
spearheads of his young men a-glitter in the evening sunlight, embarked
in his ten canoes, having expanded his territory without loss to himself
like the Imperialist he was.
For two days the chiefs of the Akasava and the Isisi were satisfied with
the justice of an award which robbed them both without giving an
advantage to either. Then an uneasy realization of their loss dawned
upon them. Then followed a swift exchange of messages and Bosambo's
colonization scheme was unpleasantly checked.
Hamilton was on the little lake which is at the end of the N'gini River
when he heard of the trouble, and from the high hills at the far end of
the lake sent a helio message staring and blinking across the waste.
Bones, fishing in the river below Ikan, picked up the instructions, and
went flying up the river as fast as the new naphtha launch could carry
him.
He arrived in time to cover the shattered remnants of Bosambo's fleet as
they were being swept northward from whence they came.
Bones went inshore to the island, the water jacket of a Maxim gun
exposed over the bow, but there was no opposition.
"What the dooce is all this about--hey?" demanded Lieutenant Tibbetts
fiercely, and Iberi, doubly uneasy at the sound of an unaccustomed
language, stood on one leg in his embarrassment.
"Lord, the thief Bosambo----" he began, and told the story.
"Lord," he concluded humbly, "I say all this though Bosambo is your
relation since you have secretly married his sister's cousin."
Whereupon Bones went very red and stammered and spluttered in such a way
that the chief knew for sure that Bosambo had spoken the truth.
Bones, as I have said before, was no fool. He confirmed Bosambo's order
for the evacuation of the island, but left a Houssa guard to hold it.
Then he hurried north to the Ochori.
Bosambo formed his royal procession, but there was no occasion for it,
for Bones was in no processional mood.
"What the dooce do you mean, sir?" demanded a glaring and threatening
Bones, his helmet over his neck, his arms akimbo. "What do you mean,
sir, by saying I'm married to your infernal aunt?"
"Sah," said Bosambo, virtuous and innocent, "I no savvy you--I no
compreney, sah! You lib for my house--I give you fine t'ings. I make um
moosic, sah----"
"You're a jolly old rotter, Bosambo!" said Bones, shaking his finger in
the chief's face. "I could punish you awfully for telling wicked
stories, Bosambo. I'm disgusted with you, I am indeed."
"Lord who never sleeps," began Bosambo, humbly.
"Hey?"
Bones stared at the other in amazement, suspicion, hope, and
gratification in his face.
"O, Bosambo," said he mildly, and speaking in the native tongue, "why do
you call me by that name?"
Now, Bosambo in his innocence had used a phrase (_M'wani-m'wani_) which
signifies "the sleepless one," and also stands in the vernacular for
"busy-body," or one who is eternally concerned with other people's
business.
"Lord," said Bosambo, hastily, "by this name are you known from the
mountains to the sea. Thus all men speak of you, saying: 'This is he who
does not sleep but watches all the time.'"
Bones was impressed, he was flattered, and he ran his finger between the
collar of his uniform jacket and his scraggy neck as one will do who is
embarrassed by praise and would appear unconcerned under the ordeal.
"So men call me, Bosambo," said he carelessly "though my lord M'ilitani
does not know this--therefore in the day when M'ilitani comes, speak of
me as _M'wani-m'wani_ that he may know of whom men speak when they say
'the sleepless one.'"
Everybody knows that _Cala cala_ great chiefs had stored against the
hour of their need certain stocks of ivory.
Dead ivory it is called because it had been so long cut, but good cow
ivory, closer in grain than the bull elephant brought to the hunter,
more turnable, and of greater value.
There is no middle island on the river about which some legend or buried
treasure does not float.
Hamilton, hurrying forward to the support of his second-in-command,
stopped long enough to interview two sulky chiefs.
"What palaver is this?" he demanded of Iberi, "that you carry your
spears to a killing? For is not the river big enough for all, and are
there no burying-places for your old men that you should fight so
fiercely?"
"Lord," confessed Iberi, "upon that island is a treasure which has been
hidden from the beginning of time, and that is the truth--N'Yango!"
Now, no man swears by his mother unless he is speaking straightly, and
Hamilton understood.
"Never have I spoken of this to the Chief of the Isisi," Iberi went on,
"nor he to me, yet we know because of certain wise sayings that the
treasure stays and young men of our houses have searched very diligently
though secretly. Also Bosambo knows, for he is a cunning man, and when
we found he had put his warriors to the seeking we fought him, lord, for
though the treasure may be Isisi or Akasava, of this I am sure it is not
of the Ochori."
Hamilton came to the Ochori city to find a red-eyed Bones stalking
majestically up and down the beach.
"What is the matter with you?" demanded Hamilton. "Fever?"
"Not at all," replied Bones, huskily; but with a fine carelessness.
"You look as if you hadn't had a sleep for months," said Hamilton.
Bones shrugged his shoulders.
"Dear old fellow," said he, "it isn't for nothing that I'm called 'the
sleepless one'--don't make sceptical noises, dear old officer, but
pursue your inquiries among the indigenous natives, especially
Bosambo--an hour is all I want--just a bit of a snooze and a bath and
I'm bright an' vigilant."
"Take your hour," said Hamilton briefly. "You'll need it."
His interview with Bosambo was short and, for Bosambo, painful.
Nevertheless he unbent in the end to give the chief a job after his
heart.
Launch and steamer turned their noses down the stream, and at sunset
came to the island. In the morning, Hamilton conducted a search which
extended from shore to shore and he came upon the cairn unexpectedly
after a two hours' search. He uncovered two tons of ivory, wrapped in
rotten native cloth.
"There will be trouble over this," he said, thoughtfully, surveying the
yellow tusks. "I'll go downstream to the Isisi and collect information,
unless these beggars can establish their claim we will bag this lot for
government."
He left Bones and one orderly on the island.
"I shall be gone two days," he said. "I must send the launch to bring
Iberi to me; keep your eyes peeled."
"Sir," said Bones, blinking and suppressing a yawn with difficulty, "you
can trust the sleepless one."
He had his tent pitched before the cairn, and in the shade of a great
gum he seated himself in his canvas chair.... He looked up and struggled
to his feet. He was half dead with weariness, for the whole of the
previous night, while Bosambo snored in his hut, Bones, pinching
himself, had wandered up and down the street of the city qualifying for
his title.
Now, as he rose unsteadily to his feet, it was to confront
Bosambo--Bosambo with four canoes grounded on the sandy beach of the
island.
"Hello, Bosambo!" yawned Bones.
"O Sleepless One," said Bosambo humbly, "though I came in silence yet
you heard me, and your bright eyes saw me in the little-light."
"Little-light" it was, for the sun had gone down.
"Go now, Bosambo," said Bones, "for it is not lawful that you should be
here."
He looked around for Ahmet, his orderly, but Ahmet was snoring like a
pig.
"Lord, that I know," said Bosambo, "yet I came because my heart is sad
and I have sorrow in my stomach. For did I not say that you had married
my aunt?"
"Now listen whilst I tell you the full story of my wickedness, and of my
aunt who married a white lord----"
Bones sat down in his chair and laid back his head, listening with
closed eyes.
"My aunt, O Sleepless One," began Bosambo, and Bones heard the story in
fragments. "... Coast woman ... great lord ... fine drier of cloth...."
Bosambo droned on in a monotonous tone, and Bones, open-mouthed, his
head rolling from side to side, breathed regularly.
At a gesture from Bosambo, the man who sat in the canoe slipped lightly
ashore. Bosambo pointed to the cairn, but he himself did not move, nor
did he check his fluent narrative.
Working with feverish, fervent energy, the men of Bosambo's party loaded
the great tusks in the canoes. At last all the work was finished and
Bosambo rose.
* * * * *
"Wake up, Bones."
Lieutenant Tibbetts stumbled to his feet glaring and grimacing wildly.
"Parade all correct, sir," he said, "the mail boat has just come in, an'
there's a jolly old salmon for supper."
"Wake up, you dreaming devil," said Hamilton.
Bones looked around. In the bright moonlight he saw the _Zaire_ moored
to the shelving beach, saw Hamilton, and turned his head to the empty
cairn.
"Good Lord!" he gasped.
"O Sleepless One!" said Hamilton softly, "O bright eyes!"
Bones went blundering to the cairn, made a closer inspection, and came
slowly back.
"There's only one thing for me to do, sir," he said, saluting. "As an
officer an' a gentleman, I must blow my brains out."
"Brains!" said Hamilton scornfully.
* * * * *
"As a matter of fact I sent Bosambo to collect the ivory which I shall
divide amongst the three chiefs--it's perished ivory, anyhow; and he had
my written authority to take it, but being a born thief he preferred to
steal it; you'll find it stacked in your cabin, Bones."
"In my cabin, sir!" said an indignant Bones; "there isn't room in my
cabin, sir. How the dickens am I going to sleep?"
THE END
POPULAR NOVELS
BY
EDGAR WALLACE
PUBLISHED BY
WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED.
_In Various Editions_.
SANDERS OF THE RIVER
BONES
BOSAMBO OF THE RIVER
BONES IN LONDON
THE KEEPERS OF THE KING'S PEACE
THE COUNCIL OF JUSTICE
THE DUKE IN THE SUBURBS
THE PEOPLE OF THE RIVER
DOWN UNDER DONOVAN
PRIVATE SELBY
THE ADMIRABLE CARFEW
THE MAN WHO BOUGHT LONDON
THE JUST MEN OF CORDOVA
THE SECRET HOUSE
KATE, PLUS TEN
LIEUTENANT BONES
THE ADVENTURES OF HEINE
JACK O' JUDGMENT
THE DAFFODIL MYSTERY
THE NINE BEARS
THE BOOK OF ALL POWER
MR. JUSTICE MAXELL
THE BOOKS OF BART
THE DARK EYES OF LONDON
CHICK
SANDI, THE KING-MAKER
THE THREE OAK MYSTERY
THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE FROG
BLUE HAND
GREY TIMOTHY
A DEBT DISCHARGED
THOSE FOLK OF BULBORO'
THE MAN WHO WAS NOBODY
THE GREEN RUST
THE FOURTH PLAGUE
THE RIVER OF STARS
_Made and Printed in Great Britain by_
WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED, LONDON.
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES
Every effort has been made to remain true to the original text; minor
changes have been made to regularize spelling and hyphenation within the
book. The _ character has been used to indicate that the enclosed
word(s) were originally typeset as italic font; on line 7136, where an
inverted "Y" was present in the original text, this character has been
replaced with a "+".