There was another long pause.
"And I tell you this, because there are no secrets between you and me. It was I who persuaded the little chief not to come."
Sanders nodded. "That I know," he said.
"For, lord, I desired that this should be a very pleasant day for your lordship, and that you should go away with your heart filled with gladness, singing great songs; also, as your lordship knows, the Ochori guard has left the Akasava border."
There was no mistaking the significance.
"Why should Bimebibi make me otherwise?" asked Sanders, ignoring the addition.
"Lord," said Bosambo loftily, "I am, as you know, of the true faith, believing neither in devils nor spells, save those which are prescribed by the blessed Prophet, it is well known that Bimebibi is a friend of ghosts, and has the eye which withers and kills. Therefore, lord, he is an evil man, and all the chiefs and peoples of this land are for chopping him – all save the people of the Lesser Isisi, who greatly love him."
Again Sanders nodded.
The Lesser Isisi were the fighting Isisi; they held the land between the Ochori and the Akasava, and were fierce men in some moments, though gentle enough in others. Yet he had had no word from N'mika that trouble was brewing. This was strange. Sanders sat in thought for the greater part of ten minutes. Then he spoke.
"War is very terrible," he said, "for if one mad man comes up against five men who are not mad, behold! they become all mad together. I tell you this, Bosambo, if you do well for me in this matter, I will pay you beyond your dreams."
"How can a man do well?" asked Bosambo.
"He shall hold this war," said Sanders.
Bosambo raised his right arm stiffly.
"This I would do, lord," he said gravely; "but it is not for me, for Bimebibi will cross with the Akasava just as soon as he knows that the Ochori do not hold the border."
"He must never know until I bring my soldiers," said Sanders; "and none can tell him." He looked up quietly, and met the chief's eye. "And none can tell him?" he challenged.
Bosambo shook his head. "N'mika sits in his village, lord," said he; "and N'mika is a great lover of his wife by all accounts."
Sanders smiled. "If N'mika betrays me," he said, "there is no man in the world I will ever trust."
* * * * *N'mika faced his wife. He wore neither frown nor smile, but upon her face was the terror of death. On a stool in the centre of the hut was the tail of the white antelope, but to this she gave no attention, for her mind was busy with the thoughts of terrible reprisals.
They sat in silence; the fire in the centre of the big hut spluttered and burnt, throwing weird shadows upon the wattle walls.
When N'mika spoke his voice was even and calm.
"Kira, my wife," he said, "you have taken my heart out of me, and left a stone, for you do not love me."
She licked her dry lips and said nothing.
"Now, I may put you away," he went on, "for the shame you have brought, and the sorrow, and the loneliness."
She opened her mouth to speak. Twice she tried, but her tongue refused. Then, again:
"Kill me," she whispered, and kept her staring eyes on his.
N'mika, the Wonderful Lover, shook his head.
"You are a woman, and you have not my strength," he said, half to himself, "and you are young. I have trusted you, and I am afraid."
She was silent.
If the man, her lover, did what she had told him to do in the frantic moment when she had been warned of her husband's return, she might have saved her life – and more.
He read her thoughts in part.
"You shall take no harm from me," he said; "for I love you beyond understanding; and though I stand on the edge of death for my kindness, I will do no ill to you."
She sprang up. The fear in her eyes was gone; hate shone there banefully. He saw the look, and it scorched his very soul – and he heard.
It was the soft pad-pad of the king's guard, and he turned to greet Bimebibi's head chief.
His wife would have run to the guard, but N'mika's hand shot out and held her.
"Take him – take him!" she cried hoarsely "He will kill me – also he plots against the king, for he is Sandi's man!"
Chekolana, the king's headman, watched her curiously, but no more dispassionate was the face her husband turned upon her.
"Kira," he said, "though you hate me, I love you. Though I die for this at the hands of the king, I love you."
She laughed aloud.
She was safe – and N'mika was afraid. Her outstretched finger almost touched his face.
"Tell this to the king," she cried, "N'mika is Sandi's man, and knows his heart – "
The headman, Chekolana, made a step forward and peered into N'mika's face.
"If this is true," he said, "you shall tell Bimebibi all he desires to know. Say, N'mika, how many men of the Ochori hold the border?"
N'mika laughed.
"Ask Sandi that," he said.
"Lord! lord!" – it was the woman, her eyes blazing – "this I will tell you, if you put my man away. On the border there is – "
She gasped once and sighed like one grown weary, then she slid down to the floor of the hut – dead, for N'mika was a quick killer, and his hunting-knife very sharp.
"Take me to the king," he said, his eyes upon the figure at his feet, "saying N'mika has slain the woman he loved; N'mika, the Wonderful Lover; N'mika, the Child of Sacrifice, who loved his wife well, and loved his high duty best."
No other word spoke N'mika.
They crucified him on a stake before the chief's hut, and there Sanders found him three days later, Bimebibi explained the circumstances.
"Lord, this man murdered a woman, so I killed him," he said.
He might have saved his breath, for he had need of it.
CHAPTER XI
"THEY"
In the Akarti country they worshipped many devils, and feared none, save one strange devil, who was called "Wu," which in our language means "They."
"Remember this," said Sanders of the River, as he grasped the hand of Grayson Smith, his assistant.
"I will not forget," said that bright young man; "and, by the way, if anything happens to me, you might find out how it all came about, and drop a note to my people – suppressing the beastly details."
Sanders nodded.
"I will make it a pretty story," he said; "and, whatever happens, your death will be as instantaneous and as painless as my fountain-pen can make it."
"You're a brick!" said Grayson Smith, and turned to swear volubly in Swaheli at his headman – for Smith, albeit young, was a great linguist.
Sanders watched the big canoe as it swung into the yellow waters of the Fasai; watched it until it disappeared round a bank, then sent his steamer round to the current, and set his course homeward.
To appreciate the full value of the Akartis' independence, and their immunity from all attack, it must be remembered that the territory ranged from the Forest-by-the-Waters to the Forest-by-the-Mountains. It was a stretch of broad, pastoral lands, enclosed by natural defences. Forest and swamp on the westward kept back the rapacious people of the Great King, mountain and forest on the south held the Ochori, the Akasava, and the Isisi.
The boldest of the N'gombi never ventured across the saw-shaped peaks of the big mountains, even though loot and women were there for the taking.
The king of the Akarti was undisputed lord of vast territories, and he had ten regiments of a thousand men, and one regiment of women, whom he called his "Angry Maidens," who drank strong juices, and wrestled like men.
Since he was king from the Forest-by-the-Mountains to the Forest-by-the-Waters he was powerful and merciless, and none said "nay" to N'raki's "yea," for he was too fierce, and too terrible a man to cross.
Culuka of the Wet Lands once came down into N'raki's territory, and brought a thousand spears.
Now the Wet Lands are many miles from the city of the king, and the raid that Culuka planned injured none, for the raided territories were poor and stony.
But N'raki, the killer, was hurt in his tenderest spot, and he led his thousands across the swamps to the city of Culuka, and he fought him up to the stockades and beyond. The city he burnt. The men and children he slew out of hand. Culuka he crucified before his flaming hut, and, thereafter, the borders of the killer were immune from attack.
This was a lesson peculiarly poignant, and when the French Government – for Culuka dwelt in a territory which was nominally under the tricolour – sent a mission to inquire into the wherefores of the happening, N'raki cut off the head of the leader, and sent it back with unprintable messages intended primarily for the governor of French West Africa, and eventually for the Quai d'Orsay.
N'raki lived, therefore, undisturbed, for the outrage coincided with the findings of the Demarcation Commission which had been sitting for two years to settle certain border-line questions. By the finding of the Commission all the Akarti country became, in the twinkling of an eye, British territory, and N'raki a vassal of the King of England – though he was sublimely unconscious of the honour.
N'raki was an autocrat of autocrats, and of his many battalions of skilled fighting men, all very young and strong, with shining limbs and feathered heads, he was proudest of his first regiment.
These were the tallest, the strongest, the fleetest, and the fiercest of fighters, and he forbade them to marry, for all men know that women have an evil effect upon warriors; and no married man is brave until he has children to defend, and by that time he is fat also.
So this austere regiment knew none of the comforts or languor of love, and they were proud that their lord, the king, had set them apart from all other men, and had so distinguished them.
At the games they excelled, because they were stronger and faster, knowing nothing of women's influence; and the old king saw their excellence, and said "Wa!"
There was a man of the regiment whose name was Taga'ka, who was a fine man of twenty. There was also in the king's city a woman of fifteen, named Lapai, who was a straight, comely girl, and a great dancer.
She was a haughty woman, because her uncle was the chief witch-doctor, and such was her power that she had put away two husbands.
One day, at the wells, she saw Taga'ka, and loved him; and meeting him alone in the forest, she fell down before him and clasped his feet.
"Lord Taga'ka," said she, "you are the one man in the world I desire."
"I am beyond desire," said Taga'ka, in his arrogant pride; "for I am of the king's regiment, and women are grass for our feet."
And not all her allurements could tempt him to so much as stroke her face; and the heart of the woman was wild with grief.
Then the king fell sick, and daily grew worse.
The witch-doctors made seven sacrifices, and learnt from grisly portents, which need not be described in detail, that the king should take a long journey to the far end of his kingdom, where he should meet a man with one eye, who would live in the shadow of the royal hut.
This he did, journeying for three months, till he came to the appointed place, where he met a man afflicted in accordance with the prediction. And the man sat in the shadow of the king's hut.
Now, it is a fact, which none will care to deny, that the niece of the chief witch-doctor had planned the treatment of the king. She had planned it with great cleverness, and she it was who saw to it that the deformed man waited at the king's hut.
For she loved Taga'ka with all the passion of her soul, and when the long months passed, and the king remained far away, and Lapai whispered into the young man's ear, he took her to wife, though death would be his penalty for his wrong-doing.
The other men of the royal regiment, who held Taga'ka a model in all things austere, seeing this happen, said: "Behold! Taga'ka, the favourite of the king, has taken a woman to himself. Now, if we all do this, it would be better for Taga'ka, and better for us. The king, the old man, will forgive him, and not punish us."
It might have been that N'raki, the king, would have ended his days in the place to which his medicine-man had sent him, but there arose in that district a greater magician than any – a certain wild alien of the Wet Lands, who possessed magical powers, and cured pains in the king's legs by a no more painful process than the laying on of hands, and whom the king appointed his chief magician. And this was the end of the uncle of Lapai; for, if no two kings can rule in one land, most certainly no two witch-doctors can hold power.
And they killed the deposed uncle of Lapai, and used the blood for making spells.
One morning the new witch-doctor stood in the presence of N'raki the king.
"Lord king," he said, "I have had a dream, and it says that your lordship shall go back to your city, and that you shall travel secretly, so that the devils who guard the way shall not lay hands upon you."
N'raki, the king, went back to his city unattended, save by his personal guard, and unheralded, to the discomfort of the royal regiment.
And when he learnt what he learnt, he administered justice swiftly. He carried the forbidden wives to the top of a high mountain and cast them over a cliff, one by one, to the number of six hundred.
And that mountain is to this day called "The Mountain of Sorrowful Women."
One alone he spared – Lapai. Before the assembled people in judgment he spared her.
"Behold this woman, people of the Akarti!" he said; "she that has brought sorrow and death to my regiment. To-day she shall watch her man, Taga'ka, burn; and from henceforth she shall live amongst you to remind you that I am a very jealous king, and terrible in my anger."
The news of the massacre filtered slowly through the territories. It came to the British Government, but the British Government is a cautious Government where primitive natives are concerned.
Sanders, sitting between Downing Street and the District Commissioners of many far-away and isolated spots, realised the futility of an expedition. He sent two special messages, one of which was to a young man named Farquharson, who, at the moment, was shooting snipe on the big swamp south of the Ambalina Mountains. And this young man swore like a Scotsman because his sport had been interrupted, but girded up his loins, and, with half a company of the King's African Rifles, trekked for the city.
On his way he ran into an ambush, and swore still more, for he realised that death had overtaken him before he had had his annual holiday.
He called for his orderly.
"Hafiz," he said in Arabic, "if you should escape, cross the country to the Ochori land by the big river. There you will find Sandi; give him my dear love, and say that Fagozoni sent a cheerful word, also that the Slayer of Regiments is killing his people."
An hour later Farquharson, or Fagozoni, as they called him, was lying before the king, his unseeing eyes staring at the hard, blue heavens, his lips parted in the very ghost of a smile.
"This is a bad palaver," said the king, looking at the dead man. "Now they will come, and I know not what will happen."
In his perturbation he omitted to take into his calculations the fact that he had in his city a thousand men sick with grief at the loss of their wives.
N'raki, the king, was no coward. There was a prompt smelling out of all suspicious characters. Even the councillors about his person were not exempt, for the new witch-doctor found traces of disloyalty in every one.
With the aid of his regiment of virgins, he held his city, and ruthlessly disposed of secret critics. These included men who stood at his very elbow, and there came a time when he found none to whom he might transmit his thoughts with any feeling of security.
News came to him that there was an Arab caravan traversing his western border, trading with his people, and the report he received was flattering to the intelligence and genius of the man in charge of the party.
N'raki sent messengers with gifts and kind words to the intruder, and on a certain day there was brought before him the slim Arab, Ussuf.
"O Ussuf," said the king, "I have heard of you, and of your wisdom. Often you have journeyed through my territories, and no man has done you hurt."
"Lord king," said the Arab, "that is true."
The king looked at him thoughtfully. N'raki, in those days, had reached his maturity; he was a wise, cunning man, and had no illusions.
"Arabi," he said, "this is in my mind: that you shall stay here with me, living in the shadow of my hut, and be my chief man, for you are very clever, and know the ways of foreign people. You shall have treasures beyond your dreams, for in this land there is much dead ivory hidden by the people of my fathers."
"Lord king," said Ussuf, "this is a very great honour, and I am too mean and small a man to serve you. Yet it is true I know the ways of foreign people, and I am wise in the government of men."
"This also I say to you," the king went on slowly, "that I do not fear men or devils, yet I fear 'They,' because of their terrible cruelty. Now if you will serve me, so that I avert the wrath of these, you shall sit down here in peace and happiness."
Thus it came about that Ussuf, the Arab, became Prime Minister to the King of Akarti, and two days after his arrival the new witch-doctor was put away with promptitude and dispatch by a king who had no further use for him.
All the news that came from the territories to Sanders was that the country was being ruled with some wisdom. The fear of "They" was an ever-present fear with the king. The long evenings he sat with his Arab counsellor, thinking of that mysterious force which lay beyond the saw-back.
"I tell you this, Ussuf," he said, "that my heart is like water within me when I think of 'They,' for it is a terrible devil, and I make sacrifices at every new moon to appease its anger."
"Lord king," said Ussuf, "I am skilled in the way of 'They,' and I tell you that they do not love sacrifices."
The king shifted on his stool irritably.
"That is strange," he said, "for the gods told me in a dream that I must sacrifice Lapai."
He shot a swift glance at the Arab, for this Ussuf was the only man in the city who did not deal scornfully with the lonely, outcast woman, whose every day was a hell.
It was the king's order that she should walk through the city twice between sunrise and sunset, and it was the king's pleasure that every man she met should execrate her; and although the native memory is short, and the recollection of the tragedy had died, men feared the king too much to allow her to pass without a formal curse.
Ussuf alone had walked with her, and men had gasped to see the kindly Arabi at her side.
"You may have this woman," said the king suddenly, "and take her into your house."
The Arab turned his calm eyes upon the wizened face of the other.
"Lord," he said, "she is not of my faith, being an unbeliever and an infidel, and, according to my gods, unworthy."
He was wise to the danger his undiplomatic friendship had brought him. He knew the reigns of Prime Ministers were invariably short.
He had become less indispensable than he had been, for the king had regained some of his lost confidence in the loyalty of his people; moreover, he had aroused suspicion in the Akartis' mind, and that was fatal.
The king dismissed him, and Ussuf went back to his hut, where his six Arab followers were.
"Ahmed," he said to one of these, "it is written in the blessed Word that the life of man is very short. Now I particularly desire that it shall be no shorter than the days our God has given to me. Be prepared to-morrow, therefore, to leave this city, for I see an end to my power."
He rose early in the morning, and went to the palaver which began the day. He was not perturbed to discover the seat usually reserved on the right of the king occupied by a lesser chief, and his own stool placed four seats down on the left.
"I have spoken with my wise counsellors," said the king, "also with witch-doctors, and these wise men have seen that the crops are bad, and that there is no fortune in this land, and because of this we will make a great sacrifice."
Ussuf bowed his head.
"Now, I think," said King N'raki slowly, "because I love my people very dearly, and I will not take any young maidens, as is the custom, for the fire, and for the killing, that it would be good for all people if I took the woman Lapai."
All eyes were fixed on Ussuf. His face was calm and motionless.
"Also," the king went on, "I hear terrible things, which fill my stomach with sorrow."
"Lord, I hear many things also," said Ussuf calmly; "but I am neither sorry nor glad, for such stories belong to the women at their cooking-pots and to men who are mad because of sickness."
N'raki made a little face.
"Women or madmen," he said shortly, "they say that you are under the spell of this woman, and that you are plotting against this land, and have also sent secret messengers to 'They,' and that you will bring great armies against my warriors, eating up my country as Sandi ate up the Akasava and the lands of the Great King."
Ussuf said nothing. He would not deny this for many reasons.
"When the moon comes up," said the king, and he addressed the assembly generally, "you shall tie Lapai to a stake before my royal house, and all the young maidens shall dance and sing songs, for good fortune will come to us, as it came in the days of my father, when a bad woman died."
Ussuf made no secret of his movements that day. First he went to his hut at the far end of the village, and spoke to the six Arabs who had come with him into the kingdom.
To the headman he said:
"Ahmed, this is a time when death is very near us all, be ready at moonrise to die, if needs be. But since life is precious to us all, be at the little plantation at the edge of the city at sunset, as soon as darkness falls and the people come in to sacrifice."
He left them and walked through the broad, palm-fringed street of the Akarti city till he came to the lonely hut, where the outcast woman dwelt. It was such a hut as the people of Akarti built for those who are about to die, so that no dwelling-place might be polluted with the mustiness of death.
The girl was starting on her daily penance – a tall, fine woman. She watched the approach of the king's minister without expressing in her face any of the torments which raged in her bosom.
"Lapai," said Ussuf, "this night the king makes a sacrifice."
He made no further explanation, nor did the girl require one.
"If he had made this sacrifice earlier, he would have been kind," she said quietly, "for I am a very sorrowful woman."
"That I know, Lapai," said the Arab gently.
"That you do not know," she corrected. "I had sorrow because I loved a man and destroyed him, because I love my people and they hate me, and now because I love you, Ussuf, with a love which is greater than any."
He looked at her; there was a strange pity in his eyes, and his thin, brown hands went out till they reached to her shoulders.
"All things are with the gods," he said. "Now, I cannot love you, Lapai, although I am full of pity for you, for you are not of my race, and there are other reasons. But because you are a woman, and because of certain teachings which I received in my youth, I will take you out of this city, and, if needs be, die for you."
He watched her as she walked slowly down towards where the people of the Akarti waited for her, drawn by morbid curiosity, since the king's intention was no secret. Then he shrugged his shoulders helplessly.
At nine o'clock, when the virgin guards and the old king went to find her for the killing, she had gone.
So also had Ussuf and his six Arabi. The king's lokali beat furiously, summoning all the country to deliver into his hands the woman and the man.
* * * * *Sanders, at that moment, was hunting for the Long Man, whose name was O'Fasa. O'Fasa was twelve months gone in sleeping-sickness, and had turned from being a gentle husband and a kindly father into a brute beast. He had speared his wife, cut down the Houssa guard left by Sanders to keep the peace of his village, and had made for the forest.
Now, a madman is a king, holding his subjects in the thrall of fear, and since there was no room in the territory for two kings and Sanders, the Commissioner came full tilt up the river, landed half a company of black infantry, and followed on the ravaging trace of the madman.
