Bones Of The River Part 5

His foot was in the waiting canoe when he heard the harsh sound of the explosion.

The devil in the black egg had spoken as only a devil can speak when the incautious N's.h.i.+mba released his grip of the Mills' bomb which Bones had pressed into his hand.

A NICE GEL.

Because Terence Doughty was possessed of an immense fortune, was unmarried, and had neither sister nor brother, it was a delicate matter to chide him. At least, so thought his aunts and cousins and other likely beneficiaries of his will.

He was thirty, a little pompous in a reserved way, exceedingly good-looking, and learned to such a terrifying degree that ordinary people cleared their throats before they so much as remarked to him that it was a fine day.

He had written a text-book on Arabic, and he spoke most modern languages. It was a chance reference to the irregular Bomongo verbs, that he read in Notes and Queries Notes and Queries, that decided him upon taking up the study of native dialects. It happened that there was in London at that time (on sick leave) a missionary from the great river, and from this gentleman Terence learnt, with his usual facility, enough of the language to induce in him a desire for an even further acquaintance.

He announced his scheme to the one aunt who did not stand in awe of the bachelor-millionaire scientist.

"Rubbis.h.!.+" she snapped. "I've never heard such nonsense! The idea of going into Central Africa to learn verbs! You're either a poseur poseur or a fool, Terence. You had much better find a nice gel and settle down in England." or a fool, Terence. You had much better find a nice gel and settle down in England."

Mr Doughty shuddered. "Gel" always made him shudder.

"My dear aunt! Nice gel!" he mimicked. "I have been looking for that nice gel these ten years! Unfortunately I am cursed with the possession of ideals. These ladies you and the rest of the family have been good enough to choose for me my G.o.d! They are dreadful! There isn't one that doesn't shock all the aestheticism in me."

"What kind of gel do you want?" asked Lady Morestel, curiously.

Lying back in his deep chair, his eyes half closed, his fingertips touching, Mr Terence Doughty enumerated the desirable qualities.

"She must be pretty, of course, that kind of delicate, spiritual prettiness that gives to a woman her most precious mystery. She must be intellectual, yet womanly, in a wistful way. I must be able to love her mind. Refinement of speech and thought, impregnability of ideals these are amongst the qualities that I seek but do not find."

"You'll not find them in Africa," said her ladys.h.i.+p grimly, and Terence smiled.

"I shall be looking for verbs in Africa," he said. Two months later, Terence Doughty poised himself on the gunwale of the surfboat, his hand upon the bare, brown shoulder of a rower, and, watching his opportunity, jumped almost dry-footed to the yellow sands. One of the crew threw a new suitcase after him.

"Thanks," said Terence.

He was tall and fairly athletic, his face was thin and tanned, his appearance suggested the patronage of a good colonial tailor. Stopping only to light a cigarette, then picking up his grip, he walked toward the residency. Sanders came to meet him.

"Mr Doughty," he said, and Doughty lifted his helmet.

"I'm afraid you hate my coming, sir," he said apologetically.

"I have a bad reputation along the coast," smiled Mr Commissioner Sanders, "and I suppose it is justified. I do not like traders, and I am not, as a rule, enthusiastic about scientific explorers." He walked by the side of the visitor. "What is your itinerary?" he asked.

"I intend going up as far as the Akasava country, then, striking across the French territory to the Congo, follow the river as far as Stanley Falls. After I reach Stanley Falls I shall decide whether I go by rail to Tanganyika and on to Rhodesia, or whether I push across Uganda to the sea. There is one point on which I wanted to speak to you, Mr Sanders, and it is this: I have no timetable, I am moving at my leisure, and it is likely that I shall stop over in certain villages for months at a time. So that if I disappear, I hope I shall not give you any uneasiness."

"You will," said Sanders promptly. "I do not think there is any danger, for the tribes are very quiet just now, but in this land 'to-morrow is a different day,' as the saying goes."

Mr Doughty was introduced to Hamilton of the Houssas, and to Lieutenant Tibbetts, whose other name was Bones, and whilst tiffin was in course of preparation he went down to the quay to examine his heavy baggage that had come on before him, and to try his missionary Bomongo upon the crew of the big canoe which had come down from the Akasava country to take him up river.

"Deuced nice fellow," said Bones thoughtfully. "I've often wished, as you'll bear witness, dear old officer, to make a complete study of these jolly old verbs what about sending me up with the doughty old Doughty to look after him?"

"I'll say this for you, Bones," said Hamilton, "you're never at a loss to find an excuse for loafing. You stay here and study the jolly old verbs and the payroll and the stores account. And you might give the men a few days' field exercise; they're slacking fearfully."

Bones sighed and abandoned his dream.

So Mr Terence Doughty went alone, and after a month's idling along the river, came in the dark of an evening to a beach.

"We will sleep here tonight," he said, and the headman of the boat grew unexpectedly agitated.

"Lord, we will go on to the city, which we shall reach by the morning. For though my strong paddlers are tired, they will be happy."

"Why not here?" asked Terence in surprise.

The man tapped his teeth with his knuckles. "Lord, this is a magic place. For here is the Tree of the World, and devils live in abundance, so that you cannot walk without treading on their tails. Now let us go on, for my men have fear in their stomachs."

"Land me alone and my little tent," said Terence, now thoroughly interested. "In the morning come for me."

He went ash.o.r.e on the flat beach and watched the hurried and fearful erection of his tent. They lit a fire for him (all in frantic haste) and paddled away.

Terence had brewed himself a cup of tea and was preparing a meal of canned chicken breast and biscuit, when, raising his eyes suddenly, he saw, standing in the light of the fire, a slim figure. For a second he was startled, and then: "I am M'mina of The Tree," said the girl simply, "and I am a great friend of ghosts."

"O woman, sit with me and eat," said Terence, and she obeyed.

There is a tree in the Forest of Happy Dreams, which is in the Akasava country, that has stood from the beginning of time. It is the Tree of the World, and floated in the waters which, according to legend that is so splendidly confirmed by the Jeano-men, was the beginning of all substance. And to the bare roots of the tree came earth, and more earth, and rocks to keep the earth in its place, and mountains to hold the rocks, and so the world was made. It is a cedar of enormous height, which in itself is miraculous, for no other cedars grow in the Akasava. Its branches spread amazingly. Beneath, you may see the rotting stumps of other trees which in the course of hundreds of years have been cut down that the Tree of the World might grow. Some day, so the legend runs, that tree will wither, and on that day the world will begin to go back to the water. First the mountains will crumble and fall into the great river; then the rocks will go to dust, and lastly the earth will dissolve into water and there will be no more earth.

Near by the tree, in a large hut, lived Ogon.o.bo, the Keeper of the Tree, a wise old man, reputedly friend of devils and in the fellows.h.i.+p of ju-jus.

So potent was the mystery of Ogon.o.bo that even M's.h.i.+mba M'shamba, most ruthless and disrespectful of all great spirits, spared his house on the night of the great wind, when villages and cities were levelled and great gum-trees were plucked up by the roots as though they were corn-stalks.

Yet for all his magic and aloofness, Ogon.o.bo was no ascetic. He had taken to himself many wives, and each he had put away because none bore him children. Then he found a fisher girl of no great account and took her into his hut, and she gave him M'mina, a straight-backed, grave-eyed daughter. Some say one thing and some say another about this miracle of a daughter who came to Ogon.o.bo in his old age. Such is the Akasava love for scandal. That his wife had many lovers is true, but what woman of the Akasava is without lovers? Do they not say, "This day I have married a woman who has three husbands" at every wedding feast? Be that as it may, M'mina was a fact, and when old Ogon.o.bo sold his wife to a petty chief this M'mina became the supreme woman of his house, tended his small garden, crushed his corn and cooked for him.

Such men as saw her, hunters who strayed into the ghost forest led by their quarry, feared her. One brought a story that he had seen M'mina sitting on the ground surrounded by thousands of parrots that squawked and chattered to her. And another had seen her in the company of many little birds that came to her when she whistled. It is certain that M'mina was a great charmer of birds, and at her whistle even the fierce hawks stooped and came with a beating of wings to her feet. This was her own peculiar magic.

Incidentally the spirit of the forest came to her, and she communed with devils. One day she came to the old man, her father, and told him.

"Ogon.o.bo," she said, "I saw a little yellow devil sitting under the Tree of the World. He had red eyes, and from his knees grew two hands that pinched me as I pa.s.sed."

Ogon.o.bo said nothing. He took a long and pliant length of hippo-hide, and he flogged her until he could flog her no more, "Now, woman," said he, "see no more devils."

M'mina went through the days that followed as though nothing had happened. She slept in a small hut at the back of her father's house, and one night, having a pain in his head, he went to call her that she might boil water for him. She was not on her bed, and, spying, he saw her slip from the forest in the dawn hour and go straight to her hut. He watched her three nights in succession, and every night she went away into the forest and came back with the dawn.

Then he spoke to her. "Woman," he said, "if you have a lover, let him come to me. But if you go in the night to speak to devils, that is bad. For a lover can give you nothing but life, but devils bring trouble. Tell me now, M'mina, which is true?"

"Lord, I go to see devils and one who is greater than all. For he lives in a tree and fire comes from his eyes when he speaks, and one day he will take me into his hut and we shall be happy."

Ogon.o.bo went in search of his thong, and this time the flogging was severe.

"You shall bring no sons of devils into my house, woman," said Ogon.o.bo breathlessly, for he was an old man.

M'mina got up from the floor, rubbing her whealed thighs. Her dark, grave eyes searched the old man's face, and she said: "This night your arm shall die."

"This day my arm is strong," said Ogon.o.bo, and thrashed her again. In this primitive manner did he wage war against the illusions which solitude and a too prolonged austerity might bring to an imaginative mind.

He was sitting before his hut eating his dinner as the sun was setting, and M'mina was crus.h.i.+ng corn in a big stone pestle. As the sun touched the trees, the bowl fell from Ogon.o.bo's hand, and when he tried to pick it up his right arm refused to obey. From shoulder to fingertip he was paralysed.

"Woman, come here," he said, and the girl obeyed, standing before him, silent and watchful.

"My arm is dead, as you promised. Now I see that you are a great witch, and I am afraid. Touch my arm and make it well."

As she bent down to perform this service, his well hand shot out, and he caught her swiftly by the throat and threw her backward over his knees.

"It is better that I have one arm than none," he said, "or no arms than that I be dead. I am too old to live in fear of death; therefore, M'mina, my daughter, you go quickly to the Place of Ghosts."

She lay unstruggling as the pressure of his sinewy fingers increased, and when it seemed to him that she was resigned to death, with a strength that he had not guessed, she flung herself free from him and fled into the hut. He rose a little awkwardly and followed. As he stooped to enter the low door, she struck at him twice with the long- handled N'gombi axe that he kept to trim away the tree. Ogon.o.bo coughed thickly and went down on to his knees, clutching with his one hand at the doorway's edge.

"Death," said M'mina, and brought the keen edge to his unprotected neck with all her power...

When she had buried him and had cleaned away the mess, she went back to her corn, and, carrying the pestle into the hut, lay down on her bed and slept. And she sat in Ogon.o.bo's place and said magic words to the tree, and held communion with ghosts of all colours.

One day she went on a journey into the city of the king and stood before his house, and Ofaba, the king, who had heard of her, came out.

"I see you, M'mina, daughter of Ogon.o.bo, the Keeper of the Tree. Where is your father?"

"Lord, he is dead, and his mystery is mine. And I sit in the Forest of Dreams and many pleasant devils make love to me. One I shall marry soon, and on that night M's.h.i.+mba M'shamba shall come to my hut and sing my marriage song."

Ofaba s.h.i.+vered and spat. "How did Ogon.o.bo die, woman?" he asked. "One of my young men when hunting saw blood on the leaves."

"A devil killed him with a great axe that was bigger than the Tree of the World. And I fought with the devil by my magic, and he is dead too. And I cut him into pieces, and one of his legs I threw into the Little River, and it overflowed, as all men know."

That the Little River had overflown Ofaba knew. The rains had been heavy, but the Little River had never overflown before. Here, then, was an explanation more in harmony with Ofaba's known predilection for the mysterious and the magical.

"This I came to tell you, lord," she said. "Also that I had a dream, and in this dream I saw Bosambo of the Ochori, who was on his knees before you, Ofaba, and you put your foot on his neck, and said 'Wa,' and Bosambo shook with fear."

Ofaba himself trembled with something that was not fear, for she had dreamt his dream. This he did not tell her, sending her away with presents, and by certain wonderful acts confirming her in her office.

It is a saying in the Akasava country, that the child of the eaten moon is a great glutton, and Ofaba M'lama, the son of B'suri, King of the Akasava and paramount lord of the Ten Little Rivers, was so born. For the moon was at its last quarter when he came squealing into the world, and B'suri, looking up at the fading crescent, said, having a grievance: "This child will eat. Let him eat the Ochori."

A wise saying, so frequently repeated to Ofaba, long after he had taken B'suri's stool of office and his great silver medal of chieftains.h.i.+p; long after B'suri had been paddled stark to the middle island where dead men lie in shallow graves.

Ofaba needed little to remind him that the Akasava hated the Ochori, because that was traditional. Cala cala Cala cala, which means "Years ago," the Ochori had been the slave tribe, a debased and fearful people who, at the first hint of danger, ran away into the woods with their wives and children and such goats as they could grab. Sometimes they left their wives behind, but there is no record of their having gone entirely goatless.

So it was that, what any nation needed, they took from the Ochori, and if the taking was bloodless, no strong word went down to the ear of Mr Commissioner Sanders, who sat between sea and river in a large thatched house and gave judgment impartially. But there came to the Ochori a certain man from the Kroo Coast, an escaped convict, one Bosambo, who, by the employment of questionable methods, had secured his election to the kings.h.i.+p. And with his coming there had arisen a new spirit in the Ochori, so that when the Akasava or the Isisi raided their lands, they were met by locked s.h.i.+elds and a phalanx of spears, and there was a killing or two.

Ofaba was now a man of twenty-three, and in the year when M'mina became the Keeper of the Tree, the harvests of the Akasava failed, for no especial or understandable reason. Ofaba and his wise men gathered in secret council, and in the dark hours of the night they took from his bed a youth who was silly with sleeping sickness, and, carrying him into the woods, they cut his throat with the razor edge of Ofaba's hunting spear, and sprinkled his blood on that old and sacred tree which had stood from the beginning of time.

M'mina watched the ceremony from the door of her hut, and when it was over came forth.

"I see you, Ofaba, also this man whom you have killed because your crops have failed. Now, I have talked with my husband, who comes to me every night in the shape of a bat, and he says that the crops have failed because of Bosambo, the chief man of the Ochori. That day you bring him to me, that day shall the crops grow and the game come back to the forest. For I will make a great magic with Bosambo that will be wonderful to see. You shall make an end to Bosambo, as I have made to his spies. Come."

Bewildered, the king followed her through the dark forest and came to the beach. Here, hidden by bushes, were three graves.

"O woman!" he gasped. "What evil have you done? For if Sandi knows"

"Shall Sandi know the blooding of the tree?" she asked significantly, and Ofaba sweated. "Now, I tell you that when Bosambo himself comes, as he will, you shall bring him here. and be happy."

At headquarters, Mr Commissioner Sanders was in a peculiarly complacent frame of mind. For two months there had been no sign or sound of trouble in his territory. Mr Terence Doughty, that fastidious grammarian, had pa.s.sed to the French territory (Bosambo had sent a long message by pigeon post announcing his pa.s.sage); the crops, with the exception of the Akasava mealie crop, had been good. Taxation was being voluntarily liquidated.

"In fact, everything is almost too good to be true," he said one evening as they sat in the cool of the verandah.

That night he was wakened from a sound sleep by a hullaballoo that brought him to the open, revolver in hand. A knot of men were struggling noisily somewhere in the darkness, and Hamilton, who joined him, offered an explanation.

"One of my infernal Houssas," he swore. "Where these devils get gin from, heaven knows Bones!"

Bones answered from the darkness. "Naughty old thief trying to get into the residency, Ham, old thing"

Five minutes later a dishevelled Bones in pyjamas and mosquito boots came to report.

"Chucked him in the guard-room," he said. "By gad, if I hadn't seen him you might have been robbed, dear old excellency murdered, dear old Ham. If this isn't worth a special report and a DSO, then there's no justice on this wicked old earth."

"Did you spot him?" asked Hamilton incredulously.

"I didn't exactly spot him, sir and brother officer," said Bones with care. "In theory I did, old captain. Ahmet saw him sneaking across the square, and of course I was on the spot in two shakes of a duck's jolly old rudder."

Sergeant Ahmet supplemented the information. He had seen the marauder and had leapt at him.

"When we wakened my lord Tibbetti, he ordered the bad man to prison."

"What do you mean 'wakened'?" demanded Bones indignantly. "O Ahmet, was I not there did I not?"

"Why ask this unfortunate man to perjure himself?" demanded Hamilton. "Go back to bed, Phyllis; you're losing your beauty sleep."

The buglers were sounding reveille, and the brown-legged guard stood rigidly before the guardhouse, their rifles at the slope, their expressionless brown faces strained and intense, looking at nothingness.

Lieutenant Tibbetts, in khaki, a long sword slapping at his leg, stalked over from his hut, his helmet tilted over one eye in the fas.h.i.+on set by a remarkable admiral, and coming to a halt before the guard, glared at the four inoffensive soldiers.

"The guard is present, lord," the sergeant said in queer, guttural Arabic.

"Let it be dismissed, Ahmet," said Bones. "Now bring me the prisoner."

There came, blinking into the light from the dark prison hut, a man, at the sight of whom Lieutenant Tibbetts' jaw dropped and it took a lot (as Bones often said) to surprise him.

"Bosambo!" he squeaked in English. "Goodness gracious heavens alive, well I'm dashed!"

The big man grinned sheepishly. "I be d.a.m.ned, sah, too, one time. I make 'um foolish all time, Bonesi."