Bones Part 28

"Lord, we go to a place which is written," he said; "for Idoosi has said, 'Go forth to the natives at war, they that fight by the river; on the swift water shall you go, even against the water'--many times have we come to the river, master, but ever have we turned back; but now it seems that the prophecy has been fulfilled, for there are bleeding men in these holes and the sound of thunders."

The People of the Well crossed to the Isisi, using the canoes of the Akasava headmen, and made a slow progress through territory which gave them no opportunity of exercising their hobby, since water lay less than a spade's length beneath the driest ground.

"Poor old Sanders," said Hamilton ruefully, when he was again on the _Zaire_, "I've so mixed up his people that he'll have to get a new map made to find them again."

"You might tell me off to show him round, sir," suggested Bones, but Hamilton did not jump at the offer.

He was getting more than a little rattled. Sanders was due back in a month, and it seemed that scarcely a week pa.s.sed but some complication arose that further entangled a situation which was already too full of loose and straying threads for his liking.

"I suppose the country is settled for a week at any rate," he said with a little sigh of relief--but he reckoned without his People of the Well.

They moved, a straggling body of men and women, with their stiff walk and their doleful song, a wild people with strange, pinched faces and long black hair, along the river's edge.

A week's journeyings brought them to the Ochori country and to Bosambo, who was holding a most important palaver.

It was held on Ochori territory, for the forbidden strip was by this time so thickly planted with young trees that there was no place for a man to sit.

"Lord," said Bosambo, "if you will return me the land which you have stolen, so that I may pa.s.s unhindered from one part of my territory to the other, I will give you many islands on the river."

"That is a foolish palaver," said B'limisaka; "for you have no islands to give."

"Now I tell you, B'limisaka," said Bosambo, "my young men are crying out against you, for, as you know, you have planted your trees on the high ground, and my people, taking to their canoes, must climb down to the water's edge a long way, so that it wearies their legs, soon, I fear, I shall not hold them, for they are very fierce and full of arrogance."

"Lord," said B'limisaka, significantly, "my young men are also fierce."

The palaver was dispersing, and the last of the Lombobo councillors were disappearing in the forest, when the Diggers of the Well came through the forbidden territory to the place where Bosambo sat.

"We are they of whom you have heard, O my Lord," said the old man, who led them, "also we carry a book for you."

He unwound the cloth about his thin middle, and with many fumblings produced a paper which Bosambo read.

"From M'ilitani, by Ogibo's village in the Akasava.

"To Bosambo--may G.o.d preserve him!

"I give this to the chief of Well diggers that you shall know they are favoured by me, being simple people and very timid. Give them a pa.s.sage through your territory, for they seek a holy land, and find them high places for the digging of holes, for they seek truth. Now peace on your house, Bosambo."

"On my s.h.i.+p, by channel of rocks."

"Lord, it is true," said the old chief, "we seek a s.h.i.+ning thing that will stay white when it is white, and black when it is black, and the wise Idoosi has said, 'Go down into the earth for truth, seek it in the deeps of the earth, for it lies in secret places, in centre of the world it lies.'"

Bosambo thought long and rapidly, then there came to him the bright light of an inspiration.

"What manner of holes do you dig, old man?"

"Lord, we dig them deep, for we are cunning workers, and do not fear death as common men do; also we dig them straightly--into the very heart of hills we dig them."

Bosambo looked at the sloping ground covered with hateful gum.

"Old man," said he softly, "here shall you dig, you and your people, for in the heart of this hill is such a truth as you desire--my young men shall bring you food and build huts for you, and I will place one who is cunning in the way of hills to show you the way."

The old man's eyes gleamed joyously, and he clasped the ankles of his magnanimous host.

"Lord," said he humbly, "now is the prophecy fulfilled, for it was said by the great Idoosi, 'You shall come to a land where the barbarian rules, and he shall be to you as a brother!'"

"n.i.g.g.e.r," said Bosambo in his vile English--yet with a certain hauteur, "you shall dig 'um tunnel--you no cheek 'um, no chat 'um, you lib for dear tunnel one time."

He watched them as, singing the song of the well, they went to work, women, men, and even little children undermining the Chief B'limisaka's territory and creating for Bosambo the right of way for which his soul craved.

CHAPTER IX

THE GREEN CROCODILE

_Cala cala_, as they say, seven brothers lived near the creek of the Green One. It was not called the creek of the Green One in those far-off days, for the monstrous thing had no existence.

And the seven brothers had seven wives who were sisters, and it would appear from the legend that these seven wives were unfaithful to their husbands, and upon a certain night in the full of the moon, the brothers returning from an expedition into the forest, discovered the extent of their infamy, and they tied the sisters together, the wrists of one to the ankles of the other, and they led them to the stream, and no sooner had they disappeared beneath the black waters than there was almighty splas.h.i.+ng and bubbling of water, and there came crawling from the place where the unfaithful wives had sunk so terrible a monster that the seven brothers fled in fear.

This was the Green One, with his long ugly snout, cold, vicious eyes, and his great clawed feet. Some say that these women had been changed by magic into the Crocodile of the Pool, and many people believe this and speak of the Green One in the plural.

Certain it is, that this terrible crocodile lived through the ages--none hunting her, she was left in indisputable possession of the flat sand-bank wherein to lay her eggs, and ranged the sandy sh.o.r.e of the creek undisturbed.

She was regarded with awe; sacrifices, living and dead, were offered to her from time to time, and sometimes a cripple or two was knocked on the head and left by the water's edge for her pleasure. She was indeed a veritable scavenger of crime for the neighbouring villages about, and earned some sort of respect, for, as the saying went:

"Sandi does not speak the language of the Green One."

Sometimes M'zooba would go afield, leaving the quietude of the creek and the pool, which was her own territory, for the more adventurous life of the river, and here one day she lay, the whole of her body submerged and only her wicked eyes within an eighth of an inch of the water's surface, when a timorous young roebuck came picking a cautious way through the forest across the open plantations to the water's edge. He stopped from time to time apprehensively, trembling in every limb at the slightest sound, looking this way and that, then taking a few more steps and again searching the cruel world for danger before he reached the water's edge.

Then, after a final look round, he lowered his soft muzzle to the cool waters. Swift as lightning the Green One flashed her long snout out of the water, and gripped the tender head of the buck. Ruthlessly she pulled, dragging the struggling deer after her till first its neck and then its shoulders, then finally the last frantic waving stump of its white tail went under the dark waters.

Out in midstream a white little boat was moving steadily up the river and on the awning-shaded bridge an indignant young man witnessed the tragedy. The Green One had her larder under a large shelving rock half a dozen feet beneath the water. Into this cavity her long hard nose flung her dead victim, and her four powerful hands covered the entrance to the water cave with sand and rock. More than satisfied with her morning's work, the Green One came to the surface of the water to bask in the glowing warmth of the morning sunlight.

She took a survey upon the world, made up of low-lying sh.o.r.es and a hot blue sky. She saw a river, broad and oily, and a strange white object which she had seen often before smoking towards her.

And that was the last thing she ever saw; for Bones, on the bridge of the _Zaire_, squinted along the sights of his Express and pressed the trigger. Struck in the head by an explosive bullet, the Green One went out in a flurry of stormy water.

"Thus perish all rotten old crocodiles," said Bones, immensely pleased with himself, and he placed the rifle on the rack.

"What the devil are you shooting at, so early in the morning?" asked Hamilton.

He came out in his pyjamas, sun helmet on his head, pliant mosquito boots reaching to his knees.

"A crocodile, sir," said Bones.

"Why waste good ammunition on crocodiles?" asked Hamilton; "was it something exceptional?"