Bones Part 25

"Who says this?" asked Bosambo.

"Fibini, the fisherman," said the councillor, "for this he says, that having toothache, he sat in the shadow of his hut near the warm fire and saw the Walker pa.s.s through the village and with him, lord, one who was like a devil, being big and very ugly."

"Go to Fibini," said a justly annoyed Bosambo, "and beat him on the feet till he cries--for he is a liar and a spreader of alarm."

Yet Fibini had done his worst before the bastinado (an innovation of Bosambo's) had performed its silencing mission, and Ochori mothers shepherded their little flocks with greater care when the sun went down that night, for this new terror which had come to the land, this black ghost with the wildfire fame was reputed especially devilish. In a week he had become famous--so swift does news carry in the territories.

Men had seen him pa.s.sing through forest paths, or speeding with incredible swiftness along the silent river. Some said that he had no boat and walked the waters, others that he flew like a bat with millions of bats behind him. One had met him face to face and had sunk to the ground before eyes "that were very hot and red and thrusting out little lightnings."

He had been seen in many places in the Ochori, in the N'gombi city, in the villages of the Akasava, but mainly his hunting ground was the narrow strip of territory which is called Lombobo.

B'limi Saka, the chief of the land, himself a believer in devils, was especially perturbed lest the Silent Walker should be a spy of Government, for he had been guilty of practices which were particularly obnoxious to the white men who were so swift to punish.

"Yet," said he to his daughter and (to the disgust of his people, who despised women) his chief councillor, "none know my heart save you, Lamalana."

Lamalana, with her man shoulders and her flat face, peered at her grizzled father sideways.

"Devils hear hearts," she said huskily, "and when they talk of killings and sacrifices are not all devils pleased? Now I tell you this, my father, that I wait for sacrifices which you swore by death you would show me."

B'limi Saka looked round fearfully. Though the ferocity of this chief was afterwards revealed, though secret places in the forest held his horrible secret killing-houses, yet he was a timid man with a certain affection of his eyes which made him dependent upon the childless widow who had been his strength for two years.

The Lombobo were the cruellest of Sanders' people; their chiefs the most treacherous. Neither akin to the N'gombi, the Isisi, the Akasava nor the Ochori, they took on the worst attributes of each race.

Seldom in open warfare did they challenge the Administration, but there was a long tale of slain and mutilated enemies who floated face downwards in the stream; of disappearance of faithful servants of Government, and of acts of cannibalism which went unidentified and unpunished.

For though all the tribes, save the Ochori, had been cannibals, yet by fire and rope, tempered with wisdom, had the Administration brought about a newer era to the upper river.

But reformation came not to the Lombobo. A word from Sanders, a carelessly expressed view, and the Lombobo people would have been swept from existence--wiped ruthlessly from the list of nations, but that was not the way of Government, which is patient and patient and patient again till in the end, by sheer heavy weight of patience, it crushes opposition to its wishes.

They called Lamalana the barren woman, the Drinker of Life, but she had at least drunken without ostentation, and if she murdered with her own large hands, or staked men and women from a sheer l.u.s.t of cruelty, there were none alive to speak against her.

Outside the town of Lombobo[6] was a patch of beaten ground where no gra.s.s grew, and this place was called "wa boma," the killing ground.

[Footnote 6: The territories are invariably named after the princ.i.p.al city, which is sometimes, perhaps, a little misleading.--E. W.]

Here, before the white men came, sacrifices were made openly, and it was perhaps for this a.s.sociation and because it was, from its very openness, free from the danger of the eavesdropper, that Lamalana and her father would sit by the hour, whilst he told her the story of ancient horrors--never too horrible for the woman who swayed to and fro as she listened as one who was hypnotized.

"Lord," said she, "the Walker of the Night comes not alone to the Lombobo; all people up and down the river have seen him, and to my mind he is a sign of great fortune showing that ghosts are with us. Now, if you are very brave, we will have a killing greater than any. Is there no hole in the hill[7] which Bosambo dug for your shame? And, lord, do not the people of the Ochori say that this child M'sambo is the light of his father's life? O ko! Bosambo shall be sorry."

[Footnote 7: _See_ "The Right of Way."]

Later they walked in the forest speaking, for they had no fear of the spirits which the last slanting rays of the dying sun unlocked from the trees. And they talked and walked, and Lombobo huntsmen, returning through the wood, gave them a wide berth, for Lamalana was possessed of an eye which was notoriously evil.

"Let us go back to the city," said Lamalana, "for now I see that you are very brave and not a blind old man."

"There will be a great palaver and who knows but M'ilitani will come with his soldiers?"

She laughed loudly and hoa.r.s.ely, making the silent forest ring with harsh noise.

"O ko!" she said, then laughed no more.

In the centre of the path was a man; in the half light she saw the leopard skin and the strange belt of metal about his waist.

"O Lamalana," he said softly, "laugh gently, for I have quick ears and I smell blood."

He pointed to the darkening forest path down which they had come.

"Many have been sacrificed and none heard them," he said, "this I know now. Let there be an end to killing, for I am M'gani, the Walker of the Night, and very terrible."

"Wa!" screamed Lamalana, and leapt at him with clawing hands and her white teeth agrin. Then something soft and damp struck her face--full in the mouth like a spray of water, and she fell over struggling for her breath, and rose gasping to her feet to find the Walker had gone.

III

Before Bosambo's hut Bones sat in a long and earnest conversation, and the subject of his discourse was children. For, alarmed by the ominous suggestion which Bones had put forward, that his superior should be responsible for the well-being of Henry in the absence of his foster-parent, Hamilton had yielded to the request that Henry should accompany Bones on his visit to the north.

And now, on a large rug before Bosambo and his lord, there sat two small children eyeing one another with mutual distrust.

"Lord," said Bosambo, "it is true that your lords.h.i.+p's child is wonderful, but I think that M'sambo is also wonderful. If your lords.h.i.+p will look with kind eyes he will see a certain cunning way which is strange in so young a one. Also he speaks clearly so that I understand him."

"Yet," contested Bones, "as it seems to me, Bosambo, mine is very wise, for see how he looks to me when I speak, raising his thumb."

Bones made a clucking noise with his mouth, and Henry turned frowningly, regarded his protector with cool indifference, and returned to his scrutiny of the other strange brown animal confronting him.

"Now," said Bones that night, "what of the Walker?"

"Lord, I know of him," said Bosambo, "yet I cannot speak for we are blood brothers by certain magic rites and speeches; this I know, that he is a good man as I shall testify to Sandi when he comes back to his own people."

"You sit here for Government," said Bones, "and if you don't play the game you're a jolly old rotter, Bosambo!"

"I know 'um, I no speak 'um, sah," said Bosambo, "I be good fellah, sah, no Yadasi fellah, sah--I be Peter feller, cut 'em ear some like, sah!"

"You're a naughty old humbug," said Bones, and went to bed on the _Zaire_ leaving Henry with the chief's wife....

In the dark hours before the dawn he led his Houssas across the beach, revolver in hand, but came a little too late. The surprise party had been well planned. A speared sentry lay twisting before the chief's hut, and Bosambo's face was smothered in blood. Bones took in the situation.

"Fire on the men who fly to the forest," he said, but Bosambo laid a shaking hand upon his arm.

"Lord," he said, "hold your fire, for they have taken the children, and I fear the woman my wife is stricken."

He went into the hut, Bones following.

The chief's wife had a larger hut than Bosambo's own, communicating with her lord's through a pa.s.sage of wicker and clay, and the raiders had clubbed her to silence, but Bones knew enough of surgery to see that she was in no danger.

In ten minutes the fighting regiments of the Ochori were sweeping through the forest, trackers going ahead to pick up the trail.

"Let all G.o.ds hear me," sobbed Bosambo, as he ran, "and send M'gani swiftly to M'sambo my son."