"'The movin' finger hits, an', havin' hit,Moves on, tum tumty tumty tay,And all a feller does won't make the slightest difference.'"
"'The movin' finger hits, an', havin' hit,Moves on, tum tumty tumty tay,And all a feller does won't make the slightest difference.'"
"Is that Omar or Shakespeare?" asked the dazed Hamilton.
"Be quiet, dear. What was the illness, Bones?"
"Measles," said Hamilton brutally, "and German measles at that."
"Viciously put, dear old officer, but, nevertheless, true," said Bones buoyantly. "But when the hut's finished, I'll return good for evil. There's goin' to be a revolution, Miss Patricia Hamilton. No more fever, no more measles—health, wealth, an' wisdom, by gad!"
"Sunstroke," diagnosed Hamilton. "Pull yourself together, Bones—you're amongst friends."
But Bones was superior to sarcasm.
There was a creature of Lieutenant Tibbetts a solemn, brown man, who possessed, in addition to a vocabulary borrowed from a departed professor of bacteriology, a rough working knowledgeof the classics. This man's name was, as I have already explained, Abid Ali or Ali Abid, and in him Bones discovered a treasure beyond price.
Bones had recently built himself a large square hut near the seashore—that is to say, he had, with the expenditure of a great amount of midnight oil, a pair of compasses, a box of paints, and a ⊤-square, evolved a somewhat complicated plan whereon certain blue oblongs stood for windows, and certain red cones indicated doors. To this he had added an elevation in the severe Georgian style.
With his plan beautifully drawn to scale, with sectional diagrams and side elevations embellishing its margin, he had summoned Mojeri of the Lower Isisi, famous throughout the land as a builder of great houses, and to him he had entrusted the execution of his design.
"This you shall build for me, Mojeri," said Bones, sucking the end of his pencil and gazing lovingly at the plan outspread before him, "and you shall be famous all through the world. This room shall be twice as large as that, and you shall cunningly contrive a passage so that I may move from one to the other, and none see me come or go. Also, this shall be my sleeping-place, and this a great room where I will practise powerful magics."
Mojeri took the plan in his hand and looked at it. He turned it upside down and looked atit that way. Then he looked at it sideways.
"Lord," said he, putting down the plan with a reverent hand, "all these wonders I shall remember."
"And did he?" asked Hamilton, when Bones described the interview.
Bones blinked and swallowed.
"He went away and built me a square hut—just a plain square hut. Mojeri is an ass, sir—a jolly old fraud an' humbug, sir. He——"
"Let me see the plan," said Hamilton, and his subordinate produced the cartridge paper.
"H'm!" said Hamilton, after a careful scrutiny. "Very pretty. But how did you get into your room?"
"Through the door, dear old officer," said the sarcastic Bones.
"I thought it might be through the roof," said Hamilton, "or possibly you made one of your famous dramatic entries through a star-trap in the floor—
"'Who is it speaks in those sepulchral tones?It is the demon king—the grisly Bones!Bing!'
"'Who is it speaks in those sepulchral tones?It is the demon king—the grisly Bones!Bing!'
"and up you pop amidst red fire and smoke."
A light dawned on Bones.
"Do you mean to tell me, jolly old Ham, that I forgot to put a door into my room?" he asked incredulously, and peered over his chief's shoulder.
"That is what I mean, Bones. And where does the passage lead to?"
"That goes straight from my sleepin' room to the room marked L," said Bones, in triumph.
"Then youweregoing to be a demon king," said the admiring Hamilton. "But fortunately for you, Bones, the descent to L is not so easy—you've drawn a party wall across——"
"L stands for laboratory," explained the architect hurriedly. "An' where's the wall? God bless my jolly old soul, so I have! Anyway, that could have been rectified in a jiffy."
"Speaking largely," said Hamilton, after a careful scrutiny of the plan, "I think Mojeri has acted wisely. You will have to be content with the one room. What was the general idea of the house, anyway?"
"Science an' general illumination of the human mind," said Bones comprehensively.
"I see," said Hamilton. "You were going to make fireworks. A splendid idea, Bones."
"Painful as it is to undeceive you, dear old sir," said Bones, with admirable patience, "I must tell you that I'm takin' up my medical studies where I left off. Recently I've been wastin' my time, sir: precious hours an' minutes have been passed in frivolous amusement—tempus fugit, sir an' captain,festina lente, an' I might add——"
"Don't," begged Hamilton; "you give me a headache."
There was a look of interest in Bones's eyes.
"If I may be allowed to prescribe, sir——" he began.
"Thanks, I'd rather have the headache," replied Hamilton hastily.
It was nearly a week before the laboratory was fitted that Bones gave a house-warming, which took the shape of an afternoon tea. Bones, arrayed in a long white coat, wearing a ferocious lint mask attached to huge mica goggles, through which he glared on the world, met the party at the door and bade them a muffled welcome. They found the interior of the hut a somewhat uncomfortable place. The glass retorts, test tubes, bottles, and the paraphernalia of science which Bones had imported crowded the big table, the shelves, and even overflowed on to the three available chairs.
"Welcome to my little workroom," said the hollow voice of Bones from behind the mask. "Wel——Don't put your foot in the crucible, dear old officer! You're sittin' on the methylated spirits, ma'am! Phew!"
Bones removed his mask and showed a hot, red face.
"Don't take it off, Bones," begged Hamilton; "it improves you."
Sanders was examining the microscope, which stood under a big glass shade.
"You're very complete, Bones," he said approvingly. "In what branch of science are you dabbling?"
"Tropical diseases, sir," said Bones promptly, and lifted the shade. "I'm hopin' you'll allow me to have a look at your blood after tea."
"Thank you," said Sanders. "You had better practise on Hamilton."
"Don't come near me!" threatened Hamilton.
It was Patricia who, when the tea-things had been removed, played the heroine.
"Take mine," she said, and extended her hand.
Bones found a needle, and sterilized it in the flame of a spirit lamp.
"This won't hurt you," he quavered, and brought the point near the white, firm flesh. Then he drew it back again.
"This won't hurt you, dear old miss," he croaked, and repeated the performance.
He stood up and wiped his streaming brow.
"I haven't the heart to do it," he said dismally.
"A pretty fine doctor you are, Bones!" she scoffed, and took the needle from his hand. "There!"
Bones put the tiny crimson speck between his slides, blobbed a drop of oil on top, and focussed the microscope.
He looked for a long time, then turned a scared face to the girl.
"Sleepin' sickness, poor dear old Miss Hamilton!" he gasped. "You're simply full of tryps! Good Lord! What a blessin' for you I discovered it!"
Sanders pushed the young scientist aside andlooked. When he turned his head, the girl saw his face was white and drawn, and for a moment a sense of panic overcame her.
"You silly ass," growled the Commissioner, "they aren't trypnosomes! You haven't cleaned the infernal eyepiece!"
"Not trypnosomes?" said Bones.
"You seem disappointed, Bones," said Hamilton.
"As a man, I'm overjoyed," replied Bones gloomily; "as a scientist, it's a set-back, dear old officer—a distinct set-back."
The house-warming lasted a much shorter time than the host had intended. This was largely due to the failure of a very beautiful experiment which he had projected. In order that the rare and wonderful result at which he aimed should be achieved, Bones had the hut artificially darkened, and they sat in a hot and sticky blackness, whilst he knocked over bottles and swore softly at the instruments his groping hand could not discover. And the end of the experiment was a large, bad smell.
"The women and children first," said Hamilton, and dived for the door.
They took farewell of Bones at a respectful distance.
Hamilton went across to the Houssa lines, and Sanders walked back to the Residency with the girl. For a little while they spoke of Bones and his newest craze, and then suddenly the girl asked—
"You didn't really think there were any of those funny things in my blood, did you?"
Sanders looked straight ahead.
"I thought—you see, we know—the tryp is a distinct little body, and anybody who had lived in this part of the world for a time can pick him out. Bones, of course, knows nothing thoroughly—I should have remembered that."
She said nothing until they reached the verandah, and she turned to go to her room.
"It wasn't nice, was it?" she said.
Sanders shook his head.
"It was a taste of hell," he said simply. And she fetched a quick, long sigh and patted his arm before she realized what she was doing.
Bones, returning from his hut, met Sanders hurrying across the square.
"Bones, I want you to go up to the Isisi," said the Commissioner. "There's an outbreak of some weird disease, probably due to the damming of the little river by Ranabini, and the flooding of the low forests."
Bones brightened up.
"Sir an' Excellency," he said gratefully, "comin' from you, this tribute to my scientific——"
"Don't be an ass, Bones!" said Sanders irritably. "Your job is to make these beggars work. They'll simply sit and die unless you start them on drainage work. Cut a few ditches with a fall to the river; kick Ranabini for me; take up a few kilos of quinine and dose them."
Nevertheless, Bones managed to smuggle on board quite a respectable amount of scientific apparatus, and came in good heart to the despondent folk of the Lower Isisi.
Three weeks after Bones had taken his departure, Sanders was sitting at dinner in a very thoughtful mood.
Patricia had made several ineffectual attempts to draw him into a conversation, and had been answered in monosyllables. At first she had been piqued and a little angry, but, as the meal progressed, she realized that matters of more than ordinary seriousness were occupying his thoughts, and wisely changed her attitude of mind. A chance reference to Bones, however, succeeded where more pointed attempts had failed.
"Yes," said Sanders, in answer to the question she had put, "Bones has some rough idea of medical practice. He was a cub student at Bart.'s for two years before he realized that surgery and medicines weren't his forte."
"Don't you sometimes feel the need of a doctor here?" she asked, and Sanders smiled.
"There is very little necessity. The military doctor comes down occasionally from headquarters, and we have a native apothecary. We have few epidemics amongst the natives, and those the medical missions deal with—sleep-sickness, beri-beri and the like. Sometimes, of course, we have a pretty bad outbreak which spreads——Don't go, Hamilton—I want to see you for a minute."
Hamilton had risen, and was making for his room, with a little nod to his sister.
At Sanders's word he turned.
"Walk with me for a few minutes," said Sanders, and, with an apology to the girl, he followed the other from the room.
"What is it?" asked Hamilton.
Sanders was perturbed—this he knew, and his own move towards his room was in the nature of a challenge for information.
"Bones," said the Commissioner shortly. "Do you realize that we have had no news from him since he left?"
Hamilton smiled.
"He's an erratic beggar, but nothing could have happened to him, or we should have heard about it."
Sanders did not reply at once. He paced up and down the gravelled path before the Residency, his hands behind him.
"No news has come from Ranabini's village for the simple reason that nobody has entered or left it since Bones arrived," he said. "It is situated, as you know, on a tongue of land at the confluence of two rivers. No boat has left the beaches, and an attempt to reach it by land has been prevented by force."
"By force?" repeated the startled Hamilton.
Sanders nodded.
"I had the report in this morning. Two men of the Isisi from another village went to call onsome relations. They were greeted with arrows, and returned hurriedly. The headman of M'gomo village met with the same reception. This came to the ears of my chief spy Ahmet, who attempted to paddle to the island in his canoe. At a distance of two hundred yards he was fired upon."
"Then they've got Bones?" gasped Hamilton.
"On the contrary, Bones nearly got Ahmet, for Bones was the marksman."
The two men paced the path in silence.
"Either Bones has gone mad," said Hamilton, "or——"
"Or——?"
Hamilton laughed helplessly.
"I can't fathom the mystery," he said. "McMasters will be down to-morrow, to look at some sick men. We'll take him up, and examine the boy."
It was a subdued little party that boarded theZairethe following morning, and Patricia Hamilton, who came to see them off, watched their departure with a sense of impending trouble.
Dr. McMasters alone was cheerful, for this excursion represented a break in a somewhat monotonous routine.
"It may be the sun," he suggested. "I have known several fellows who have gone a little nutty from that cause. I remember a man at Grand Bassam who shot——"
"Oh, shut up, Mac, you grisly devil!" snapped Hamilton. "Talk about butterflies."
TheZaireswung round the bend of the river that hid Ranabini's village from view, but had scarcely come into sight when—
"Ping!"
Sanders saw the bullet strike the river ahead of the boat, and send a spiral column of water shooting into the air. He put up his glasses and focussed them on the village beach.
"Bones!" he said grimly. "Take her in, Abiboo."
As the steersman spun the wheel—
"Ping!"
This time the shot fell to the right.
The three white men looked at one another.
"Let every man take cover," said Sanders quietly. "We're going to that beach even if Bones has a battery of 75's!"
An exclamation from Hamilton arrested him.
"He's signalling," said the Houssa Captain, and Sanders put up his glasses again.
Bones's long arms were waving at ungainly angles as he semaphored his warning.
Hamilton opened his notebook and jotted down the message—
"Awfully sorry, dear old officer," he spelt, and grinned at the unnecessary exertion of this fine preliminary flourish, "but must keep you away. Bad outbreak of virulent smallpox——"
Sanders whistled, and pulled back the handle of the engine-room telegraph to "stop."
"My God!" said Hamilton through his teeth,for he had seen such an outbreak once, and knew something of its horrors. Whole districts had been devastated in a night. One tribe had been wiped out, and the rotting frames of their houses still showed amidst the tangle of elephant grass which had grown up through the ruins.
He wiped his forehead and read the message a little unsteadily, for his mind was on his sister—
"Had devil of fight, and lost twenty men, but got it under. Come and get me in three weeks. Had to stay here for fear careless devils spreading disease."
"Had devil of fight, and lost twenty men, but got it under. Come and get me in three weeks. Had to stay here for fear careless devils spreading disease."
Sanders looked at Hamilton, and McMasters chuckled.
"This is where I get a swift vacation," he said, and called his servant.
Hamilton leapt on to the rail, and steadying himself against a stanchion, waved a reply—
"We are sending you a doctor."
Back came the reply in agitated sweeps of arm—
"Doctor be blowed! What am I?"
"What shall I say, sir?" asked Hamilton after he had delivered the message.
"Just say 'a hero,'" said Sanders huskily.
Patricia Hamilton, an observant young lady, had not failed to notice that every day, at a certain hour, Bones disappeared from view. It was not for a long time that she sought an explanation.
"Where is Bones?" she asked one morning, when the absence of her cavalier was unusually protracted.
"With his baby," said her brother.
"Please don't be comic, dear. Where is Bones? I thought I saw him with the ship's doctor."
The mail had come in that morning, and the captain and surgeon of the s.s.Boma Queenhad been their guests at breakfast.
Hamilton looked up from his book and removed his pipe.
"Do you mean to tell me that Bones has kept his guilty secret all this time?" he asked anxiously.
She sat down by his side.
"Please tell me the joke. This isn't the firsttime you have ragged Bones about 'the baby'; even Mr. Sanders has done it."
She looked across at the Commissioner with a reproving shake of her pretty head.
"HaveIragged Bones?" asked Sanders, in surprise. "I never thought I was capable of ragging anybody."
"The truth is, Pat," said her brother, "there isn't any rag about the matter. Bones adopted a piccanin."
"A child?"
"A baby about a month old. Its mother died, and some old bird of a witch-doctor was 'chopping' it when Bones appeared on the scene."
Patricia gave a little gurgle of delight and clapped her hands. "Oh, please tell me everything about it."
"It was Sanders who told her of Henry Hamilton Bones, his dire peril and his rescue; it was Hamilton who embellished the story of how Bones had given his adopted son his first bath.
"Just dropped him into a tub and stirred him round with a mop."
Soon after this Bones came blithely up from the beach and across the parade-ground, his large pipe in his mouth, his cane awhirl.
Hamilton watched him from the verandah of the Residency, and called over his shoulder to Patricia.
It had been an anxious morning for Bones,and even Hamilton was compelled to confess to himself that he had felt the strain, though he had not mentioned the fact to his sister.
Outside in the roadstead the intermediate Elder Dempster boat was waiting the return of the doctor. Bones had been to see him off. An important day, indeed, for Henry Hamilton Bones had been vaccinated.
"I think it 'took,'" said Bones gravely, answering the other's question. "I must say Henry behaved like a gentleman."
"What did Fitz say?"
(Fitzgerald, the doctor, had come in accordance with his promise to perform the operation.)
"Fitz?" said Bones, and his voice trembled. "Fitz is a cad!"
Hamilton grinned.
"He said that babies didn't feel pain, and there was Henry howling his young head off. It was horrible!"
Bones wiped his streaming brow with a large and violent bandana, and looked round cautiously.
"Not a word, Ham, to her!" he said, in a loud whisper.
"Sorry!" said Hamilton, picking up his pipe. "Her knows."
"Good gad!" said Bones, in despair, and turned to meet the girl.
"Oh, Bones!" she said reproachfully, "you never told me!"
Bones shrugged his shoulders, opened his mouth,dropped his pipe, blinked, spread out his hands in deprecation, and picked up his pipe.
From which it may be gathered that he was agitated.
"Dear old Miss Hamilton," he said tremulously, "I should be a horrid bounder if I denied Henry Hamilton Bones—poor little chap. If I never mentioned him, dear old sister, it is because——Ah, well, you will never understand."
He hunched his shoulders dejectedly.
"Don't be an ass, Bones. Why the dickens are you making a mystery of the thing?" asked Hamilton. "I'll certify you're a jolly good father to the brat."
"Not 'brat,' dear old sir," begged Bones. "Henry is a human being with a human heart. That boy"—he wagged his finger solemnly—"knows me the moment I go into the hut. To see him sit up an' say 'Da!' dear old sister Hamilton," he went on incoherently, "to see him open his mouth with a smile, one tooth through, an' one you can feel with your little finger—why, it's—it's wonderful, jolly old Miss Hamilton! Damn it, it's wonderful!"
"Bones!" cried the shocked girl.
"I can't help it, madame," said Bones miserably. "Fitz cut his poor little, fat little arm. Oh, Fitz is a low cad! Cut it, my dear old Patricia, mercilessly—yes, mercilessly, brutally, an' the precious little blighter didn't so much as call for the police. Good gad, it was terrible!"
His eyes were moist, and he blew his nose with great vigour.
"I'm sure it was awful," she soothed him. "May I come and see him?"
Bones raised a warning hand, and, though the habitat of the wonderful child could not have been less than half a mile away, lowered his voice.
"He's asleep—fitfully, but asleep. I've told them to call me if he has a turn for the worse, an' I'm goin' down with a gramophone after dinner, in case the old fellow wants buckin' up. But now he's asleep, thankin' you for your great kindness an' sympathy, dear old miss, in the moment of singular trial."
He took her hand and shook it heartily, tried to say something, and swallowed hard, then, turning, walked from the verandah in the direction of his hut.
The girl was smiling, but there were tears in her eyes.
"What a boy!" she said, half to herself.
Sanders nodded.
"Bones is very nice," he said, and she looked at him curiously.
"That is almost eloquent," she said quietly.
"I thought it was rather bald," he replied. "You see, few people really understand Bones. I thought, the first time I saw him, that he was a fool. I was wrong. Then I thought he was effeminate. I was wrong again, for he has playedthe man whenever he was called upon to do so. Bones is one of those rare creatures—a man with all the moral equipment of a good woman."
Her eyes were fixed on his, and for a moment they held. Then hers dropped quickly, and she flushed ever so slightly.
"I think you have defined the perfect man," she said, turning the leaves of her book.
The next morning she was admitted to an audience with that paragon of paragons, Henry Hamilton Bones.
He lived in the largest of the Houssa huts at the far end of the lines, and had for attendants two native women, for whom Bones had framed the most stringent and regimental of orders.
The girl paused in the porch of the hut to read the typewritten regulations which were fastened by drawing-pins to a green baize board.
They were bi-lingual, being in English and in coast Arabic, in which dialect Bones was something of a master. The girl wondered why they should be in English.
"Absolutely necessary, dear old lady friend," explained Bones firmly. "You've no idea what a lot of anxiety I have had. Your dear old brother—God bless him!—is a topping old sport, but with children you can't be too careful, and Ham is awfully thoughtless. There, I've said it!"
The English part of the regulations was brief, and she read it through.
Henry Hamilton Bones(Care of).1. Visitors are requested to make as little noise as possible. How would you like to be awakened from refreshing sleep! Be unselfish, and put yourself in his place.2. It is absolutely forbidden to feed the child except with articles a list of which may be obtained on application. Nuts and chocolates are strictly forbidden.3. The undersigned will not be responsible for articles broken by the child, such as watches. If watches are used to amuse child, they should be held by child's ear, when an interested expression will be observed on child's face. On no account should child be allowed—knowing no better—to bite watch, owing to danger from glass, minute hand, etc.4. In lifting child, grasp above waist under arms and raise slowly, taking care that head does not fall back. Bring child close to holder's body, passing left arm under child and right arm over. Child should not be encouraged to sit up—though quite able to, being very forward for eight months—owing to strain on back. On no account should child be thrown up in the air and caught.5. Any further information can be obtained at Hut 7.(Signed)Augustus Tibbetts, Lieutenant.
Henry Hamilton Bones(Care of).
1. Visitors are requested to make as little noise as possible. How would you like to be awakened from refreshing sleep! Be unselfish, and put yourself in his place.
2. It is absolutely forbidden to feed the child except with articles a list of which may be obtained on application. Nuts and chocolates are strictly forbidden.
3. The undersigned will not be responsible for articles broken by the child, such as watches. If watches are used to amuse child, they should be held by child's ear, when an interested expression will be observed on child's face. On no account should child be allowed—knowing no better—to bite watch, owing to danger from glass, minute hand, etc.
4. In lifting child, grasp above waist under arms and raise slowly, taking care that head does not fall back. Bring child close to holder's body, passing left arm under child and right arm over. Child should not be encouraged to sit up—though quite able to, being very forward for eight months—owing to strain on back. On no account should child be thrown up in the air and caught.
5. Any further information can be obtained at Hut 7.
(Signed)
Augustus Tibbetts, Lieutenant.
"All based upon my personal observation andexperience," said Bones triumphantly—"not a single tip from anybody."
"I think you are really marvellous, Bones," said the girl, and meant it.
Henry Hamilton Bones sat upright in a wooden cot. A fat-faced atom of brown humanity, bald-headed and big-eyed, he sucked his thumb and stared at the visitor, and from the visitor to Bones.
Bones he regarded with an intelligent interest which dissolved into a fat chuckle of sheer delight.
"Isn't it—isn't it simply extraordinary?" demanded Bones ecstatically. "In all your long an' painful experience, dear old friend an' co-worker, have you ever seen anything like it? When you remember that babies don't open their eyes until three weeks after they're born——"
"Da!" said Henry Hamilton Bones.
"Da yourself, Henry!" squawked his foster-father.
"Do da!" said Henry.
The smile vanished from Bones's face, and he bit his lip thoughtfully.
"Do da!" he repeated. "Let me see, what is 'do da'?"
"Do da!" roared Henry.
"Dear old Miss Hamilton," he said gently, "I don't know whether Henry wants a drink or whether he has a pain in his stomach, but I think that we had better leave him in more experienced hands."
He nodded fiercely to the native woman nurse and made his exit.
Outside they heard Henry's lusty yell, and Bones put his hand to his ear and listened with a strained expression on his face.
Presently the tension passed.
"Itwasa drink," said Bones. "Excuse me whilst I make a note." He pulled out his pocket-book and wrote: "'Do da' means 'child wants drink.'"
He walked back to the Residency with her, giving her a remarkable insight into Henry's vocabulary. It appeared that babies have a language of their own, which Bones boasted that he had almost mastered.
She lay awake for a very long time that night, thinking of Bones, his simplicity and his lovableness. She thought, too, of Sanders, grave, aloof, and a little shy, and wondered....
She woke with a start, to hear the voice of Bones outside the window. She felt sure that something had happened to Henry. Then she heard Sanders and her brother speaking, and realized that it was not Henry they were discussing.
She looked at her watch—it was three o'clock.
"I was foolish to trust that fellow," Sanders was saying, "and I know that Bosambo is not to blame, because he has always given a very wide berth to the Kulumbini people, though they live on his border."
She heard him speak in a strange tongue to some unknown fourth, and guessed that a spy of the Government had come in during the night.
"We'll get away as quickly as we can, Bones," Sanders said. "We can take our chance with the lower river in the dark; it will be daylight before we reach the bad shoals. You need not come, Hamilton."
"Do you think Bones will be able to do all you want?" Hamilton's tone was dubious.
"Pull yourself together, dear old officer," said Bones, raising his voice to an insubordinate pitch.
She heard the men move from the verandah, and fell asleep again, wondering who was the man they spoke of and what mischief he had been brewing.
On a little tributary stream, which is hidden by the island of bats, was the village of Kulumbini. High elephant grass hid the poor huts even from they who navigate a cautious way along the centre of the narrow stream. On the shelving beach one battered old canoe of ironwood, with its sides broken and rusted, the indolence of its proprietor made plain by the badly spliced panels, was all that told the stranger that the habitations of man were nigh.
Kulumbini was a term of reproach along the great river and amongst the people of the Akasava, the Isisi, and the N'gombi, no less than among that most tolerant of tribes the Ochori. Theywere savage people, immensely brave, terrible in battle, but more terrible after.
Kulumbini, the village and city of the tribe, was no more than an outlier of a fairly important tribe which occupied forest land stretching back to the Ochori boundary. Their territory knew no frontier save the frontiers of caprice and desire. They had neither nationality nor national ambition, and would sell their spears for a bunch of fish, as the saying goes. Their one consuming passion and one great wish was that they should not be overlooked, and, so long as the tribes respected this eccentricity, the Kulumbini distressed no man.
How this desire for isolation arose, none know. It is certain that once upon a time they possessed a king who so shared their views that he never came amongst them, but lived in a forest place which is called to this day S'furi-S'foosi, "The trees (or glade) of the distant king." They had demurred at Government inspection, and Sanders, coming up the little river on the first of his visits, was greeted by a shower of arrows, and his landing opposed by locked shields.
There are many ways of disposing of opposition, not the least important of which is to be found in two big brass-barrelled guns which have their abiding place at each end of theZaire'sbridge. There is also a method known as peaceful suasion. Sanders had compromised by going ashore for a peace palaver with a revolver in each hand.
He had a whole fund of Bomongo stories, most of which are unfit for printing, but which, nevertheless, find favour amongst the primitive humorists of the Great River. By parable and story, by nonsense tale and romance, by drawing upon his imagination to supply himself with facts, by invoking ju-jus, ghosts, devils, and all the armoury of native superstition, he had, in those far-off times, prevailed upon the people of Kulumbini not only to allow him a peaceful entrance to their country, but—wonder of wonders!—to contribute, when the moon and tide were in certain relative positions, which in English means once every six months, a certain tithe or tax, which might consist of rubber, ivory, fish, or manioc, according to the circumstances of the people.
More than this, he stamped a solemn treaty—he wrote it in a tattered laundry-book which had come into the chief's possession by some mysterious means—and he hung about the neck of Gulabala, the titular lord of these strange people, the medal and chain of chieftainship.
Not to be outdone in courtesy, the chief offered him the choice of all the maidens of Kulumbini, and Sanders, to whom such offers were by no means novel, had got out of a delicate situation in his usual manner, having resort to witchcraft for the purpose. For he said, with due solemnity and hushed breath, that it had been predicted by a celebrated witch-doctor of the lower river that the next wife he should take to himself woulddie of the sickness-mongo, and said Sanders—
"My heart is too tender for your people, O Chief, to lead one of your beautiful daughters to death."
"O Sandi," replied Gulabala hopefully, "I have many daughters, and I should not miss one. And would it not be good service for a woman of my house to die in your hut?"
"We see things differently, you and I," said Sanders, "for, according to my religion, if any woman dies from witchcraft, her ghost sits for ever at the foot of my bed, making terrifying faces."
Thus Sanders had made his escape, and had received at odd intervals the tribute of these remote people.
For years they had dwelt without interference, for they were an unlucky people to quarrel with, and, save for one or two trespasses on the part of Gulabala, there was no complaint made concerning them. It is not natural, however, for native people to prosper, as these folks did, without there growing up a desire to kill somebody. For does not the river saying run: "The last measure of a full granary is a measure of blood"?
In the dead of a night Gulabala took three hundred spears across the frontier to the Ochori village of Netcka, and returned at dawned with the spears all streaky. And he brought back with him some twenty women, who would have sung the death-song of their men but for thefact that Gulabala and his warriors beat them.
Gulabala slept all the day, he and his spears, and woke to a grisly vision of consequence.
He called his people together and spoke in this wise—
"Soon Sandi and his headmen will come, and, if we are here, there will be many folk hanged, for Sandi is a cruel man. Therefore let us go to a far place in the forest, carrying our treasure, and when Sandi has forgiven us, we will come back."
A good plan but for the sad fact that Bosambo of the Ochori was less than fifty miles away at the dawn of that fatal day, and was marching swiftly to avenge his losses, for not only had Gulabala taken women, but he had taken sixty goats, and that was unpardonable.
The scouts which Gulabala had sent out came back with the news that the way to sanctuary was barred by Bosambo.
Now, of all the men that the Kulumbini hated, they hated none more than the Chief of the Ochori. For he alone never scrupled to overlook them, and to dare their anger by flogging such of them as raided his territory in search of game.
"Ko," said Gulabala, deeply concerned, "this Bosambo is Sandi's dog. Let us go back to our village and say we have been hunting, for Bosambo will not cross into our lands for fear of Sandi's anger."
They reached the village, and were preparing to remove the last evidence of their crime—onegoat looks very much like another, but women can speak—when Sanders came striding down the village street, and Gulabala, with his curved execution knife in his hand, stood up by the side of the woman he had slain.
"O Gulabala," said Sanders softly, "this is an evil thing."
The chief looked left and right helplessly.
"Lord," he said huskily, "Bosambo and his people put me to shame, for they spied on me and overlooked me. And we are proud people, who must not be overlooked—thus it has been for all time."
Sanders pursed his lips and stared at the man.
"I see here a fine high tree," he said, "so high that he who hangs from its top branch may say that no man overlooks him. There you shall hang, Gulabala, for your proud men to see, before they also go to work for my King, with chains upon their legs as long as they live."
"Lord," said Gulabala philosophically, "I have lived."
Ten minutes later he went the swift way which bad chiefs go, and his people were unresentful spectators.
"This is the tenth time I have had to find a new chief in this belt," said Sanders, pacing the deck of theZaire, "and who on earth I am to put in his place I do not know."
Thelokalisof the Kulumbini were already calling headmen to grand palaver. In the shade ofthe reed-thatchedlokalihouse, before the hollow length of tree-trunk, the player worked his flat drumsticks of ironwood with amazing rapidity. The call trilled and rumbled, rising and falling, now a patter of light musical sound, now a low grumble.
Bosambo came—by the river route—as Sanders was leaving theZaireto attend the momentous council.
"How say you, Bosambo—what man of the Kulumbini folk will hold these people in check?"
Bosambo squatted at his lord's feet and set his spear a-spinning.
"Lord," he confessed, "I know of none, for they are a strange and hateful people. Whatever king you set above them they will despise. Also they worship no gods or ghosts, nor have they ju-ju or fetish. And, if a man does not believe, how may you believe him? Lord, this I say to you—set me above the Kulumbini, and I will change their hearts."
But Sanders shook his head.
"That may not be, Bosambo," he said.
The palaver was a long and weary one. There were twelve good claimants for the vacant stool of office, and behind the twelve there were kinsmen and spears.
From sunset to nigh on sunrise they debated the matter, and Sanders sat patiently through it all, awake and alert. Whether this might be said of Bones is questionable. Bones swears that hedid not sleep, and spent the night, chin in hand, turning over the problem in his mind.
It is certain he was awake when Sanders gave his summing up.
"People of this land," said Sanders, "four fires have been burnt since we met, and I have listened to all your words. Now, you know how good it is that there should be one you call chief. Yet, if I take you, M'loomo"—he turned to one sullen claimant—"there will be war. And if I take B'songi, there will be killing. And I have come to this mind—that I will appoint a king over you who shall not dwell with you nor overlook you."
Two hundred pairs of eyes watched the Commissioner's face. He saw the gleam of satisfaction which came at this concession to the traditional characteristic of the tribe, and went on, almost completely sure of his ground.
"He shall dwell far away, and you, the twelve kinsmen of Gulabala, shall reign in his place—one at every noon shall sit in the chief's chair and keep the land for your king, who shall dwell with me."
One of the prospective regents rose.
"Lord, that is good talk, for so did Sakalaba, the great king of our race, live apart from us at S'furi-S'foosi, and were we not prosperous in those days? Now tell us what man you will set over us."
For one moment Sanders was nonplussed. He was rapidly reviewing the qualifications of all thelittle chiefs, the headmen, and the fisher leaders who sat under him, and none fulfilled his requirements.
In that moment of silence an agitated voice whispered in his ear, and Bones's lean hand clutched his sleeve.
"Sir an' Excellency," breathed Bones, all of a twitter, "don't think I'm takin' advantage of my position, but it's the chance I've been lookin' for, sir. You'd do me an awful favour—you see, sir, I've got his career to consider——"
"What on earth——" began Sanders.
"Henry Hamilton Bones, sir," said Bones tremulously. "You'd set him up for life, sir. I must think of the child, hang it all! I know I'm a jolly old rotter to put my spoke in——"
Sanders gently released the frenzied grip of his lieutenant, and faced the wondering palaver.
"Know all people that this day I give to you as king one whom you shall call M'songuri, which means in your tongue 'The Young and the Wise,' and who is called in my tongue N'risu M'ilitani Tibbetti, and this one is a child and well beloved by my lord Tibbetti, being to him as a son, and by M'ilitani and by me, Sandi."
He raised his hand in challenge.
"Wa! Whose men are you?" he cried.
"M'songuri!"
The answer came in a deep-throated growl, and the assembly leapt to its feet.
"Wa! Who rules this land?"
"M'songuri!"
They locked arms and stamped first with the right foot and then with the left, in token of their acceptance.
"Take your king," said Sanders, "and build him a beautiful hut, and his spirit shall dwell with you. This palaver is finished."
Bones was speechless all the way down river. At irregular intervals he would grip Sanders's hand, but he was too full for speech.
Hamilton and his sister met the law-givers on the quay.
"You're back sooner than I expected you, sir," said Hamilton. "Did Bones behave?"
"Like a little gentleman," said Sanders.
"Oh, Bones," Patricia broke in eagerly, "Henry has cut another tooth."
Bones's nod was grave and even distant.
"I will go and see His Majesty," he said. "I presume he is in the palace?"
Hamilton stared after him.
"Surely," he asked irritably, "Bones isn't sickening for measles again?"
Native folk, at any rate, are but children of a larger growth. In the main, their delinquencies may be classified under the heading of "naughtiness." They are mischievous and passionate, and they have a weakness for destroying things to discover the secrets of volition. A too prosperous nation mystifies less fortunate people, who demand of their elders and rulers some solution of the mystery of their rivals' progress. Such a ruler, unable to offer the necessary explanation, takes his spears to the discovery, and sometimes discovers too much for his happiness.
The village of Jumburu stands on the edge of the bush country, where the lawless men of all nations dwell. This territory is filled with fierce communities, banded together against a common enemy—the law. They call this land the B'wigini, which means "the Nationless," and Jumburu's importance lies in the fact that it is the outpost of order and discipline.
In Jumburu were two brothers, O'ka and B'suru,who had usurped the chieftainship of their uncle, the very famous K'sungasa, "very famous," since he had been in his time a man of remarkable gifts, which he still retained to some extent, and in consequence enjoyed what was left of life.
He was, by all accounts, as mad as a man could be, and in circumstances less favourable to himself his concerned relatives would have taken him a long journey into the forest he loved so well, and they would have put out his eyes and left him to the mercy of the beasts, such being the method of dealing with lunacy amongst people who, all unknown to themselves, were eugenists of a most inflexible kind.
But to leave K'sungasa to the beasts would have been equivalent to delivering him to the care of his dearest friends, for he had an affinity for the wild dwellers of the bush, and all his life he had lived amongst them and loved them.
It is said that he could arrest the parrot in the air by a "cl'k!" and could bring the bird screeching and fluttering to his hand. He could call the shy little monkeys from the high branches where they hid, and even the fiercest of buffaloes would at his word come snuffling and nosing his brown arm.
So that, when he grew weak-minded, his relatives, after a long palaver, decided that for once the time-honoured customs of the land should be overridden, and since there was no other method of treating the blind but that prescribed by precedent,he should be allowed to live in a great hut at the edge of the village with his birds and snakes and wild cats, and that the direction of village affairs should pass to his nephews.
Mr. Commissioner Sanders knew all this, but did nothing. His task was to govern the territory, which meant to so direct affairs that the territory governed itself. When the fate of K'sungasa was in the balance, he sent word to the chief's nephews that he was somewhere in the neighbourhood, and that the revival of the bad old custom of blinding would be followed by the introduction of the bad new custom of hanging; but this had less effect upon the council of relatives—to whom Sanders's message was not transmitted—than the strange friendship which K'sungasa had for the forest folk.
The nephews might have governed the village, exacted tribute, apportioned fishing rights, and administered justice for all time, but for the fact that there came a period of famine, when crops were bad and fish was scarce, and when, remarkably enough, the village of L'bini, distant no more than a few hours' paddling, had by a curious coincident raised record crops, and had, moreover, a glut of fish in their waters.
There was the inevitable palaver and the inevitable solution. O'ka and B'suru led ten canoes to the offending village, slaughtered a few men and burnt a few huts. For two hours the combatants pranced and yelled and thrust at oneanother amidst a pandemonium of screaming women, and then Lieutenant Tibbetts dropped from the clouds with a most substantial platoon of Houssas, and there was a general sorting out.
Sanders held a court on one of the middle islands near the Residency, and B'suru was sent to the Village of Irons for the term of his natural life. O'ka, who had fled to the bush, escaped, however, and with him a headman and a few followers.
Lieutenant Tibbetts, who had spent two profitable days in the village of Jumburu, came back to the Residency a very thoughtful young man.
"What is the matter with Bones?" asked Captain Hamilton.
His sister smiled over her book, but offered no other comment.
"Do you know, Pat?" demanded Hamilton sternly.
Sanders looked at the girl with a twinkle in his grey eyes, and lit a cheroot. The relationships between Patricia Hamilton and Bones were a source of constant joy to him. Taciturn and a thought dour as he was, Pat would never have suspected the bubbling laughter which arose behind that lean brown face, unmovable and, in his moments of most intense enjoyment, expressionless.
"Bones and I have a feud," said the girl.
Sanders smiled.
"Not as violent a feud as O'ka and I have, I hope?" he said.
She frowned a little and looked at him anxiously.
"But you don't worry about the threats of the people you have punished?" she asked.
"I haven't punished O'ka," said Sanders, "and an expedition into the bush would be too expensive an affair. He has apparently settled with the B'wigini people. If they take up his feud, they might give trouble. But what is your trouble with Bones?"
"You must ask him," she said.
Hamilton's opportunity came next day, when Bones applied for leave.
"Leave?" said Captain Hamilton incredulously. "Leave, Bones? What the dickens do you want leave for?"
Bones, standing as stiff as a ramrod before the office table at which his superior sat, saluted.
"Urgent private affairs, sir," he said gruffly.
"But you haven't any private affairs," protested Hamilton. "Your life is an open book—you were bragging about that fact yesterday."
"Sir and brother-officer," said Bones firmly, "a crisis has arisen in my young life. My word, sir, has been called into doubt by your jolly old sister. I desire to vindicate my honour, my reputation, an' my veracity."
"Pat has been pulling your leg!" suggested Hamilton, but Bones shook his head.
"Nothin' so indelicate, sir. Your revered an'lovely relative—God bless her jolly old heart!—expressed her doubt inreleopards an' buffaloes. I'm goin' out, sir, into the wilds—amidst dangers, Ham, old feller, that only seasoned veterans like you an' me can imagine—to bring proof that I am not only a sportsman, but a gentleman."
The timely arrival of Miss Patricia Hamilton, very beautiful in dazzling white, with her solar helmet perched at an angle, smote Bones to silence.
"What have you been saying to Bones?" asked Hamilton severely.
"She said——"
"I said——"
They began and finished together.
"Bones, you're a tell-tale," accused the girl.
"Go on," said Bones recklessly. "Don't spare me. I'm a liar an' a thief an' a murderer—don't mind me!"
"I simply said that I didn't believe he shot the leopard—the one whose skin is in his hut."
"Oh, no," said Bones, with heavy sarcasm, "I didn't shoot it—oh, no! I froze it to death—I poisoned it!"
"But did you shoot it?" she asked.
"Did I shoot it, dear old Ham?" asked Bones, with great calmness.
"Did you?" asked Hamilton innocently.
"Did I shoot at that leopard," Bones went on deliberately, "an' was he found next mornin'cold an' dead, with a smile on his naughty old face?"
Hamilton nodded, and Bones faced the girl expectantly.
"Apologize, child," he said.
"I shall do nothing of the kind," she replied, with some heat. "Did Bones shoot the leopard?"
She appealed to her brother.
Hamilton looked from one to the other.
"When the leopard was found——" he began.
"Listen to this, dear old sister," murmured Bones.
"When the leopard was found, with a spear in its side——"
"Evidently done after death by a wanderin' cad of a native," interposed Bones hastily.
"Be quiet, Bones," commanded the girl, and Bones shrugged his shoulders and obeyed.
"When the leopard was found," continued Hamilton, "he was certainly beyond human aid, and though no bullet mark was discovered, Bones conclusively proved——"
"One moment, dear old officer," interrupted Bones. He had seen out of the tail of his eye a majestic figure crossing the square.
"Will you allow me to produce scientific an' expert evidence?"
Hamilton assented gravely, and Bones went to the door of the orderly room and roared a name.
"I shall produce," he said quietly, but firmly,"the evidence of one who enjoyed the confidence of dear old Professor What's-his-name, the eminent thigumy-ologist. Oh, Ali!"
Ali Abid, a solemn figure, salaamed in the doorway.
Not for nothing had he been factotum to a great bacteriologist before the demise of his master had driven him to service with a lieutenant of Houssas. His vocabulary smelt of the laboratory, his English was pure, undefiled, and unusual.
"Ali, you remember my leopard?"
"Sir," said Ali, shaking his head, "who can forget?"
"Did I kill him, Ali?" asked Bones. "Tell the lady everything."
Ali bowed to the girl.
"Miss or madame," he said, "the leopard (Felis pardus), a wild beast of the Felidæ family, is indigenous to forest territory. The subject in question—to wit, the skin thereof exhibited by Sir Bones—was particularly ferocious, and departed this life as a result of hunting conducted by aforesaid. Examination of subject after demise under most scientific scrutiny revealed that said leopard (Felis pardus) suffered from weak heart, and primary cause of death was diagnosed as shock occasioned by large 'bang' from Sir Bones's rifle."
"What did I say?" asked Bones complacently.
"Do you mean to tell me," gasped the girl, "that youfrightenedthe leopard to death?"
Bones spread out his hands disparagingly.
"You have heard the evidence, dear old sister," he said; "there is nothing to add."
She threw back her head and laughed until her grey eyes were swimming in tears.
"Oh, Bones, you humbug!" she laughed.
Bones drew himself up more stiffly than ever, stuck his monocle in his eye, and turned to his chief.
"Do I understand, sir," he said, "that my leave is granted?"
"Seven days," said Hamilton, and Bones swung round on his heel, knocked over Hamilton's stationery rack, stumbled over a chair, and strode gloomily from the hut.
When Patricia Hamilton woke the next morning, she found a note pinned to her pillow.
We may gloss over the impropriety of the proceedings which led to this phenomenon. Bones was an artist, and so small a matter as the proprieties did not come into his calculations.
Patricia sat up in bed and read the letter.