"It is partly your own fault," said Sanders, when the trader complained. "Bosambo was educated in a civilised community, and naturally has a way with his fingers which less gifted people do not possess."
"Mr. Sanders," said the woolgatherer earnestly, "I've traded this coast, man and boy, for sixteen years, and there never was and there never will be," he spoke with painful emphasis, "an eternally condemned native nigger in this inevitably-doomed-by-Providence world who can get the better of Bill Wooling."
All this he said, employing in his pardonable exasperation, certain lurid similes which need not be reproduced.
"I don't like your language," said Sanders, "but I admire your determination."
Such was the determination of Mr. Wooling, in fact, that a month later he returned with a third cargo, this time a particularly fascinating one, for it consisted in the main of golden chains of surprising thickness which were studded at intervals with very rare and precious pieces of coloured glass.
"And this time," he said to the unmoved Commissioner, who for want of something better to do, had come down to the landing-stage to see the trader depart, "this time this Bosambo is going to get it abaft the collar."
"Keep away from the N'gombi people," said Sanders, "they are fidgety – that territory is barred to you."
Mr. Wooling made a resentful noise, for he had laid down an itinerary through the N'gombi country, which is very rich in gum and rubber.
He made a pleasant way through the territories, for he was a glib man and had a ready explanation for those who complained bitterly about the failing properties of their previous purchases.
He went straight to the Ochori district. There lay the challenge to his astuteness and especial gifts. He so far forgot the decencies of his calling as to come straight to the point.
"Bosambo," he said, "I have brought you very rare and wonderful things. Now I swear to you by," he produced a bunch of variegated deities and holy things with characteristic glibness, "that these chains," he spread one of particular beauty for the other's admiration, "are more to me than my very life. Yet for one tusk of ivory this chain shall be yours."
"Lord," said Bosambo, handling the jewel reverently, "what virtue has this chain?"
"It is a great killer of enemies," said Wooling enthusiastically; "it protects from danger and gives courage to the wearer; it is worth two teeth, but because I love you and because Sandi loves you I will give you this for one."
Bosambo pondered.
"I cannot give you teeth," he said, "yet I will give you a stool of ivory which is very wonderful."
And he produced the marvel from a secret place in his hut.
It was indeed a lovely thing and worth many chains.
"This," said Bosambo, with much friendliness, "you will sell to the N'gombi, who are lovers of such things, and they will pay you well."
Wooling came to the N'gombi territory with the happy sense of having purchased fifty pounds for fourpence, and entered it, for he regarded official warnings as the expression of a poor form of humour.
He found the N'gombi (as he expected) in a mild and benevolent mood. They purchased by public subscription one of his beautiful chains to adorn the neck of their chief, and they fêted him, and brought dancing women from the villages about, to do him honour.
They expressed their love and admiration for Sandi volubly, until, discovering that their enthusiasm awoke no responsive thrill in the heart or the voice of their hearer, they tactfully volunteered the opinion that Sandi was a cruel and oppressive master.
Whereupon Wooling cursed them fluently, calling them eaters of fish and friends of dogs; for it is against the severe and inborn creed of the Coast to allow a nigger to speak disrespectfully of a white man – even though he is a Government officer.
"Now listen all people," said Wooling; "I have a great and beautiful object to sell you – "
* * * * *Over the tree-tops there rolled a thick yellow cloud which twisted and twirled into fantastic shapes.
Sanders walked to the bow of the Zaire to examine the steel hawser. His light-hearted crew had a trick of "tying-up" to the first dead and rotten stump which presented itself to their eyes.
For once they had found a firm anchorage. The hawser was clamped about the trunk of a strong young copal which grew near the water's edge. An inspection of the stern hawser was as satisfactory.
"Let her rip," said Sanders, and the elements answered instanter.
A jagged blue streak of flame leapt from the yellow skies, a deafening crack-crash of thunder broke overhead, and suddenly a great wind smote the little steamer at her shelter, and set the tops of the trees bowing with grave unanimity.
Sanders reached his cabin, slid back the door, and pulled it back to its place after him.
In the stuffy calm of his cabin he surveyed the storm through his window, for his cabin was on the top deck and he could command as extensive a view of the scene as it was possible to see from the little bay.
He saw the placid waters of the big river lashed to waves; saw tree after tree sway and snap as M'shimba M'shamba stalked terribly through the forest; heard the high piercing howl of the tempest punctuated by the ripping crack of the thunder, and was glad in the manner of the Philistine that he was not where other men were.
Night came with alarming swiftness.
Half an hour before, at the first sign of the cyclone, he had steered for the first likely mooring. In the last rays of a blood-red sun he had brought his boat to land.
Now it was pitch dark – almost as he stood watching the mad passion of the storm it faded first into grey, then into inky blue – then night obliterated the view.
He groped for the switch and turned it, and the cabin was filled with soft light. There was a small telephone connecting the cabin with the Houssa guard, and he pressed the button and called the attention of Sergeant Abiboo to his need.
"Get men to watch the hawsers," he instructed, and a guttural response answered him.
Sanders was on the upper reaches of the Tesai, in terra incognita. The tribes around were frankly hostile, but they would not venture about on a night like this.
Outside, the thunder cracked and rolled and the lightning flashed incessantly.
Sanders found a cheroot in a drawer and lighted it, and soon the cabin was blue with smoke, for it had been necessary to close the ventilator. Dinner was impossible under the conditions. The galley fire would be out. The rain which was now beating fiercely on the cabin windows would have long since extinguished the range.
Sanders walked to the window and peered out. He switched off the light, the better to observe the condition outside. The wind still howled, the lightning flickered over the tree-tops, and above the sound of wind and rushing water came the sulky grumble of thunder.
But the clouds had broken, and fitful beams of moonlight showed on the white-crested waves. Suddenly Sanders stepped to the door and slid it open.
He sprang out upon the deck.
The waning forces of the hurricane caught him and flung him back against the cabin, but he grasped a convenient rail and pulled himself to the side of the boat.
Out in mid-stream he had seen a canoe and had caught a glimpse of a white face.
"Noka! Abiboo!" he roared. But the wind drowned his voice. His hand went to his hip – a revolver cracked, men came along the deck, hand over hand, grasping the rails.
In dumb show he indicated the boat.
A line was flung, and out of the swift control current of the stream they drew all that was left of Mr. Wooling.
He gained enough breath to whisper a word – it was a word that set the Zaire humming with life. There was steam in the boiler – Sanders would not draw fires in a storm which might snap the moorings and leave the boat at the mercy of the elements.
"… they chased me down river … I shot a few … but they came on … then the storm struck us … they're not far away."
Wrapped in a big overcoat and shivering in spite of the closeness of the night, he sat by Sanders, as he steered away into the seething waters of the river.
"What's the trouble?"
The wind blew his words to shreds, but the huddled figure crouching at his side heard him and answered.
"What's that?" asked Sanders, bending his head.
Wooling shouted again.
Sanders shook his head.
The two words he caught were "chair" and "Bosambo."
They explained nothing to Sanders at the moment.
CHAPTER IX
THE KI-CHU
The messenger from Sakola, the chief of the little folk who live in the bush, stood up. He was an ugly little man, four feet in height and burly, and he wore little save a small kilt of grass.
Sanders eyed him thoughtfully, for the Commissioner knew the bush people very well.
"You will tell your master that I, who govern this land for the King, have sent him lord's pleasure in such shape as rice and salt and cloth, and that he has sworn by death to keep the peace of the forest. Now I will give him no further present – "
"Lord," interrupted the little bushman outrageously, "he asks of your lordship only this cloth to make him a fine robe, also ten thousand beads for his wives, and he will be your man for ever."
Sanders showed his teeth in a smile in which could be discovered no amusement.
"He shall be my man," he said significantly
The little bushman shuffled his uneasy feet.
"Lord, it will be death to me to carry your proud message to our city, for we ourselves are very proud people, and Sakola is a man of greater pride than any."
"The palaver is finished," said Sanders, and the little man descended the wooden steps to the sandy garden path.
He turned, shading his eyes from the strong sun in the way that bushmen have, for these folk live in the solemn half-lights of the woods and do not love the brazen glow of the heavens.
"Lord," he said timidly, "Sakola is a terrible man, and I fear that he will carry his spears to a killing."
Sanders sighed wearily and thrust his hands into the deep pockets of his white jacket.
"Also I will carry my spears to a killing," he said. "O ko! Am I a man of the Ochori that I should fear the chattering of a bushman?"
Still the man hesitated.
He stood balancing a light spear on the palm of his hand, as a man occupied with his thoughts will play with that which is in reach. First he set it twirling, then he spun it deftly with his finger and thumb.
"I am the servant of Sakola," he said simply.
Like a flash of light his thin brown arm swung out, the spear held stiffly.
Sanders fired three times with his automatic Colt, and the messenger of the proud chief Sakola went down sideways like a drunken man.
Sergeant Abiboo, revolver in hand, leapt through a window of the bungalow to find his master moving a smouldering uniform jacket – you cannot fire through your pocket with impunity – and eyeing the huddled form of the fallen bushman with a thoughtful frown.
"Carry him to the hospital," said Sanders. "I do not think he is dead."
He picked up the spear and examined the point.
There was lock-jaw in the slightest scratch of it, for these men are skilled in the use of tetanus.
The compound was aroused. Men had come racing over from the Houssa lines, and a rough stretcher was formed to carry away the débris.
Thus occupied with his affairs Sanders had no time to observe the arrival of the mail-boat, and the landing of Mr. Hold.
The big American filled the only comfortable seat in the surf-boat, but called upon his familiar gods to witness the perilous character of his sitting.
He was dressed in white, white irregularly splashed with dull grey patches of sea-water, for the Kroomen who manipulated the sweeps had not the finesse, nor the feather stroke, of a Harvard eight, and they worked independently.
He was tall and broad and thick – the other way. His face was clean-shaven, and he wore a cigar two points south-west.
Yet, withal, he was a genial man, or the lines about his face lied cruelly.
Nearing the long yellow beach where the waters were engaged everlastingly in a futile attempt to create a permanent sea-wall, his references to home ceased, and he confined himself to apprehensive "huh's!"
"Huh!" he grunted, as the boat was kicked into the air on the heels of a playful roller. "Huh!" he said, as the big surfer dropped from the ninth floor to a watery basement. "Huh – oh!" he exclaimed – but there was no accident; the boat was gripped by wading landsmen and slid to safety.
Big Ben Hold rolled ashore and stood on the firm beach looking resentfully across the two miles of water which separated him from the ship.
"Orter build a dock," he grumbled.
He watched, with a jealous eye, the unloading of his kit, checking the packing cases with a piece of green chalk he dug up from his waistcoat pocket and found at least one package missing. The only important one, too. Is this it? No! Is that it? No! Is that – ah, yes, that was it.
He was sitting on it.
"Suh," said a polite Krooman, "you lib for dem k'miss'ner?"
"Hey?"
"Dem Sandi – you find um?"
"Say," said Mr. Hold, "I don't quite get you – I want the Commissioner – the Englishman – savee."
Later, he crossed the neat and spotless compound of the big, cool bungalow, where, on the shaded verandah, Mr. Commissioner Sanders watched the progress of the newcomer without enthusiasm.
For Sanders had a horror of white strangers; they upset things; had fads; desired escorts for passing through territories where the natural desire for war and an unnatural fear of Government reprisal were always delicately balanced.
"Glad to see you. Boy, push that chair along; sit down, won't you?"
Mr. Hold seated himself gingerly.
"When a man turns the scale at two hundred and thirty-eight pounds," grumbled Big Ben pleasantly, "he sits mit circumspection, as a Dutch friend of mine says." He breathed a long, deep sigh of relief as he settled himself in the chair and discovered that it accepted the strain without so much as a creak.
Sanders waited with an amused glint in his eyes.
"You'd like a drink?"
Mr. Hold held up a solemn hand. "Tempt me not," he adjured. "I'm on a diet – I don't look like a food crank, do I?"
He searched the inside pocket of his coat with some labour. Sanders had an insane desire to assist him. It seemed that the tailor had taken a grossly unfair advantage of Mr. Hold in building the pocket so far outside the radius of his short arm.
"Here it is!"
Big Ben handed a letter to the Commissioner, and Sanders opened it. He read the letter very carefully, then handed it back to its owner. And as he did so he smiled with a rare smile, for Sanders was not easily amused.
"You expect to find the ki-chu here?" he asked.
Mr. Hold nodded.
"I have never seen it," said Sanders; "I have heard of it; I have read about it, and I have listened to people who have passed through my territories and who have told me that they have seen it with, I am afraid, disrespect."
Big Ben leant forward, and laid his large and earnest hand on the other's knee.
"Say, Mr. Sanders," he said, "you've probably heard of me – I'm Big Ben Hold – everybody knows me, from the Pacific to the Atlantic. I am the biggest thing in circuses and wild beast expositions the world has ever seen. Mr. Sanders, I have made money, and I am out of the show business for a million years, but I want to see that monkey ki-chu – "
"But – "
"Hold hard." Big Ben's hand arrested the other. "Mr. Sanders, I have made money out of the ki-chu. Barnum made it out of the mermaid, but my fake has been the tailless ki-chu, the monkey that is so like a man that no alderman dare go near the cage for fear people think the ki-chu has escaped. I've run the ki-chu from Seattle to Portland, from Buffalo to Arizona City. I've had a company of militia to regulate the crowds to see the ki-chu. I have had a whole police squad to protect me from the in-fu-ri-ated populace when the ki-chu hasn't been up to sample. I have had ki-chus of every make and build. There are old ki-chus of mine that are now raising families an' mortgages in the Middlewest; there are ki-chus who are running East-side saloons with profit to themselves and their dude sons, there – "
"Yes, yes!" Sanders smiled again. "But why?"
"Let me tell you, sir," again Big Ben held up his beringed hand, "I am out of the business – good! But, Mr. Sanders, sir, I have a conscience." He laid his big hand over his heart and lowered his voice. "Lately I have been worrying over this old ki-chu. I have built myself a magnificent dwelling in Boston; I have surrounded myself with the evidences and services of luxury; but there is a still small voice which penetrates the sound-proof walls of my bedroom, that intrudes upon the silences of my Turkish bath – and the voice says, 'Big Ben Hold – there aren't any ki-chu; you're a fake; you're a swindler; you're a green goods man; you're rollin' in riches secured by fraud.' Mr. Sanders, I must see a ki-chu; I must have a real ki-chu if I spend the whole of my fortune in getting it"; he dropped his voice again, "if I lose my life in the attempt."
He stared with gloom, but earnestness, at Sanders, and the Commissioner looked at him thoughtfully. And from Mr. Hold his eyes wandered to the gravelled path outside, and the big American, following his eyes, saw a discoloured patch.
"Somebody been spillin' paint?" he suggested. "I had – "
Sanders shook his head.
"That's blood," he said simply, and Mr. Hold jerked.
"I've just shot a native," said Sanders, in a conversational tone. "He was rather keen on spearing me, and I was rather keen on not being speared. So I shot him."
"Dead?"
"Not very!" replied the Commissioner. "As a matter of fact I think I just missed putting him out – there's an Eurasian doctor looking him over just now, and if you're interested, I'll let you know how he gets along."
The showman drew a long breath.
"This is a nice country," he said.
Sanders nodded. He called his servants and gave directions for the visitor's comfortable housing.
A week later, Mr. Hold embarked for the upper river with considerable misgiving, for the canoe which Sanders had placed at his disposal seemed, to say the least, inadequate.
It was at this time that the Ochori were in some disfavour with the neighbouring tribes, and a small epidemic of rebellion and warfare had sustained the interest of the Commissioner in his wayward peoples.
First, the N'gombi people fought the Ochori, then the Isisi folk went to war with the Akasava over a question of women, and the Ochori went to war with the Isisi, and between whiles, the little bush folk warred indiscriminately with everybody, relying on the fact that they lived in the forest and used poisoned arrows.
They were a shy, yet haughty people, and they poisoned their arrows with tetanus, so that all who were wounded by them died of lock-jaw after many miserable hours.
They were engaged in harrying the Ochori people, when Mr. Commissioner Sanders, who was not unnaturally annoyed, came upon the scene with fifty Houssas and a Maxim gun, and although the little people were quick, they did not travel as fast as a well-sprayed congregation of .303 bullets, and they sustained a few losses.
Then Timbani, the little chief of the Lesser Isisi, spoke to his people assembled:
"Let us fight the Ochori, for they are insolent, and their chief is a foreigner and of no consequence."
And the fighting men of the tribe raised their hands and cried, "Wa!"
Timbani led a thousand spears into the Ochori country, and wished he had chosen another method of spending a sultry morning, for whilst he was burning the village of Kisi, Sanders came with vicious unexpectedness upon his flank, from the bush country.
Two companies of Houssas shot with considerable accuracy at two hundred yards, and when the spears were stacked and the prisoners squatted, resigned but curious, in a circle of armed guards, Timbani realised that it was a black day in his history.
"I only saw this, lord," he said, "that Bosambo has made me a sorrowful man, for if it were not for his prosperity, I should never have led my men against him, and I should not be here before your lordship, wondering which of my wives would mourn me most."
"As to that, Timbani," said Sanders, "I have no means of knowing. Later, when you work in the Village of Irons, men will come and tell you."
Timbani drew a deep breath. "Then my lord does not hang me?" he asked.
"I do not hang you because you are a fool," said Sanders. "I hang wicked men, but fools I send to hard labour."
The chief pondered. "It is in my mind, Lord Sandi," he said, "that I would as soon hang for villainy as live for folly."
"Hang him!" said Sanders, who was in an obliging mood.
But when the rope was deftly thrown across the limb of a tree, Timbani altered his point of view, electing to drag out an ignominious existence. Wherein he was wise, for whilst there is life there is scope, if you will pardon the perversion.
To the Village of Irons went Timbani, titular chief of the Lesser Isisi, and found agreeable company there, and, moreover, many predecessors, for the Isisi folk are notoriously improvident in the matter of chiefs.
They formed a little community of their own, they and their wives, and at evening time they would sit round a smouldering log of gum wood, their red blankets about their shoulders, and tell stories of their former grandeur, and as they moved the loose shackles about their feet would jingle musically.
On a night when the Houssa sentries, walking along raised platforms, which commanded all views of the prisoners' compound, were unusually lax, Timbani effected his escape, and made the best of his way across country to the bush lands. The journey occupied two months in time, but native folk are patient workers, and there came a spring morning, when Timbani, lean and muscular, stood in the presence of Sakola, the bush king.
"Lord," said he, though he despised all bushmen, "I have journeyed many days to see you, knowing that you are the greatest of all kings."
Sakola sat on a stool carved crudely to represent snakes. He was under four feet in height, and was ill-favoured by bush standards – and the bush standard is very charitable. His big head, his little eyes, the tuft of wiry whisker under his chin, the high cheek bones, all contributed to the unhappy total of ugliness.
He was fat in an obvious way, and had a trick of scratching the calf of his leg as he spoke.
He blinked up at the intruder – for intruder he was, and the guard at each elbow was eloquent of the fact.
"Why do you come here?" croaked Sakola.
He said it in two short words, which literally mean, "Here – why?"
"Master of the forest," explained Timbani glibly, "I come because I desire your happiness. The Ochori are very rich, for Sandi loves them. If you go to them Sandi will be sorry."
The bushman sniffed. "I went to them and I was sorry," he said, significantly.
"I have a ju-ju," said the eager Timbani, alarmed at the lack of enthusiasm. "He will help you; and will give you signs."
Sakola eyed him with a cold and calculating eye. In the silence of the forest they stared at one another, the escaped prisoner with his breast filled with hatred of his overlord, and the squat figure on the stool.
Then Sakola spoke.
"I believe in devils," he said, "and I will try your ju-ju. For I will cut you a little and tie you to the top of my tree of sacrifice. And if you are alive when the sun sets, behold I will think that is a good sign, and go once again into the Ochori land. But if you are dead, that shall be a bad sign, and I will not fight."
When the sun set behind the golden green of the tree tops, the stolid crowd of bushmen who stood with their necks craning and their faces upturned, saw the poor wreck of a man twist slowly.
"That is a good sign," said Sakola, and sent messengers through the forest to assemble his fighting men.
Twice he flung a cloud of warriors into the Ochori territory. Twice the chiefs of the Ochori hurled back the invader, slaying many and taking prisoners.
