Bones Part 16

"We've been very patient, Mr. Sanders," she pouted; "we are all dying to hear of your wonderful country, and Bosambo, and fetishes and things, and you haven't said a word."

"There is little to say," he smiled; "perhaps if I told you--something about fetishes...?"

There was a chorus of approval.

Sanders had gained enough courage from his experience before the Ethnological Society, and began to talk.

"Wait," said Lady Betty; "let's have all these glaring lights out--they limit our imagination."

There was a click, and, save for one bracket light behind Sanders, the room was in darkness. He was grateful to the girl, and well rewarded her and the party that sat round on chairs, on benches around the edge of the billiard-table, listening. He told them stories ... curious, unbelievable; of ghost palavers, of strange rites, of mysterious messages carried across the great s.p.a.ce of forests.

"Tell us about fetishes," said the girl's voice.

Sanders smiled. There rose to his eyes the spectacle of a hot and weary people bringing in a giant tree through the forest, inch by inch.

And he told the story of the fetish of the Akasava.

"And I said," he concluded, "that I would come from the end of the world----"

He stopped suddenly and stared straight ahead. In the faint light they saw him stiffen like a setter.

"What is wrong?"

Lord Castleberry was on his feet, and somebody clicked on the lights.

But Sanders did not notice.

He was looking towards the end of the room, and his face was set and hard.

"O, M'fosa," he snarled, "O, dog!"

They heard the strange staccato of the Bomongo tongue and wondered.

Lieutenant Tibbetts, helmetless, his coat torn, his lip bleeding, offered no resistance when they strapped him to the smooth high pole.

Almost at his feet lay the dead Houssa orderly whom M'fosa had struck down from behind.

In a wide circle, their faces half revealed by the crackling fire which burnt in the centre, the people of the Akasava city looked on impressively.

N'gori, the chief, his brows all wrinkled in terror, his shaking hands at his mouth in a gesture of fear, was no more than a spectator, for his masterful son limped from side to side, consulting his counsellors.

Presently the men who had bound Bones stepped aside, their work completed, and M'fosa came limping across to his prisoners.

"Now," he mocked. "Is it hard for you this fetish stick which Sandi has placed?"

"You're a low cad," said Bones, dropping into English in his wrath.

"You're a low, beastly bounder, an' I'm simply disgusted with you."

"What does he say?" they asked M'fosa.

"He speaks to his G.o.ds in his own tongue," answered the limper; "for he is greatly afraid."

Lieutenant Tibbetts went on:

"Hear," said he in fluent and vitriolic Bomongo--for he was using that fisher dialect which he knew so much better than the more sonorous tongue of the Upper River--"O hear, eater of fish, O lame dog, O nameless child of a monkey!"

M'fosa's lips went up one-sidedly.

"Lord," said he softly, "presently you shall say no more, for I will cut your tongue out that you shall be lame of speech ... afterwards I will burn you and the fetish stick, so that you all tumble together."

"Be sure you will tumble into h.e.l.l," said Bones cheerfully, "and that quickly, for you have offended Sandi's Ju-ju, which is powerful and terrible."

If he could gain time--time for some miraculous news to come to Hamilton, who, blissfully unconscious of the treachery to his second-in-command, was sleeping twenty miles downstream--unconscious, too, of the Akasava fleet of canoes which was streaming towards his little steamer.

Perhaps M'fosa guessed his thoughts.

"You die alone, Tibbetti," he said, "though I planned a great death for you, with Bosambo at your side; and in the matter of ju-jus, behold! you shall call for Sandi--whilst you have a tongue."

He took from the raw-hide sheath that was strapped to the calf of his bare leg, a short N'gombi knife, and drew it along the palm of his hand.

"Call now, O Moon-in-the-Eye!" he scoffed.

Bones saw the horror and braced himself to meet it.

"O Sandi!" cried M'fosa, "O planter of ju-ju, come quickly!"

"Dog!"

M'fosa whipped round, the knife dropping from his hand.

He knew the voice, was paralysed by the concentrated malignity in the voice.

There stood Sandi--not half a dozen paces from him.

A Sandi in strange black clothing with a big white-breasted s.h.i.+rt ...

but Sandi, hard-eyed and threatening.

"Lord, lord!" he stammered, and put up his hands to his eyes.

He looked again--the figure had vanished.

"Magic!" he mumbled, and lurched forward in terror and hate to finish his work.

Then through the crowd stalked a tall man.

A rope of monkeys' tails covers one broad shoulder; his left arm and hand were hidden by an oblong s.h.i.+eld of hide.

In one hand he held a slim throwing spear and this he balanced delicately.