The Essential Edgar Wallace Collection. Edgar Wallace
At dawn, on the beach of the city, N'gori met his ally. "I thank all my little gods you have come, my lord," said he, humbly; "for in the night one of my young men saw an Isisi army coming against us."
"Where is the army?" demanded a weary Bosambo.
"Lord, it has not come," said N'gori, glibly; "for hearing of your lordship and your swift canoes, I think it had run away."
Bosambo's force paddled back to the Ochori city the next day. Two nights after, the call was repeated--this time with greater detail. An N'gombi force of countless spears had seized the village of Doozani and was threatening the capital.
Again Bosambo carried his spears to a killing, and again was met by an apologetic N'gori.
"Lord, it was a lie which a sick maiden spread," he explained, "and my stomach is filled with sorrow that I should have brought the mighty Bosambo from his wife's bed on such a night." For the dark hours had been filled with rain and tempest, and Bosambo had nearly lost one canoe by wreck.
"Oh, fool!" said he, justly exasperated, "have I nothing to do--I, who have all Sandi's high and splendid business in hand--but I must come through the rain because a sick maiden sees visions?"
"Bosambo, I am a fool," agreed N'gori, meekly, and again his rescuer returned home.
"Now," said N'gori, "we will summon a secret palaver, sending messengers for all men to assemble at the rise of the first moon. For the N'gombi have sent me new spears, and when next the dog Bosambo comes, weary with rowing, we will fall upon him and there will be no more Bosambo left; for Sandi is gone and there is no law in the land."
III
Curiously enough, at that precise moment, the question of law was a very pressing one with two young Houssa officers who sat on either side of Sanders' big table, wet towels about their heads, mastering the intricacies of the military code; for Tibbetts was entering for an examination and Hamilton, who had only passed his own by a fluke, had rashly offered to coach him.
"I hope you understand this, Bones," said Hamilton, staring up at his subordinate and running his finger along the closely printed pages of the book before him.
"'Any person subject to military law,'" read Hamilton impressively, "'who strikes or ill-uses his superior officer shall, if an officer, suffer death or such less punishment as in this Act mentioned.' Which means," said Hamilton, wisely, "that if you and I are in action and you call me a liar, and I give you a whack on the jaw----"
"You get shot," said Bones, admiringly, "an' a rippin' good idea, too!"
"If, on the other hand," Hamilton went on, "I called you a liar--which I should be justified in doing--and you give me a whack on the jaw, I'd make you sorry you were ever born."
"That's military law, is it?" asked Bones, curiously.
"It is," said Hamilton.
"Then let's chuck it," said Bones, and shut up his book with a bang. "I don't want any book to teach me what to do with a feller that calls me a liar. I'll go you one game of picquet, for nuts."
"You're on," said Hamilton.
* * * * *
"My nuts I think, sir."
Bones carefully counted the heap which his superior had pushed over, "And--hullo! what the dooce do you want?"
Hamilton followed the direction of the other's eyes. A man stood in the doorway, naked but for the wisp of skirt at his waist. Hamilton got up quickly, for he recognized the chief of Sandi's spies.
"O Kelili," said Hamilton in his easy Bomongo tongue, "why do you come and from whence?"
"From the island over against the Ochori, Lord," croaked the man, dry-throated. "Two pigeons I sent, but these the hawks took--a fisherman saw one taken by the Kasai, and my own brother, who lives in the Village of Irons, saw the other go--though he flew swiftly."
Hamilton's grave face set rigidly, for he smelt trouble. You do not send pleasant news by pigeons.
"Speak," he said.
"Lord," said Kelili, "there is to be a killing palaver between the Ochori and the Akasava on the first rise of the full moon, for N'gori speaks of Bosambo evilly, and says that the Chief has raided him. In what manner these things will come about," Kelili went on, with the lofty indifference of one who had done his part of the business, so that he had left no room for carelessness, "I do not know, but I have warned all eyes of the Government to watch."
Bones followed the conversation without difficulty.
"What do people say?" asked Hamilton.
"Lord, they say that Sandi has gone and there is no law."
Hamilton of the Houssas grinned. "Oh, ain't there?" said he, in English, vilely.
"Ain't there?" repeated an indignant Bones, "we'll jolly well show old Thinggumy what's what."
Bosambo received an envoy from the Chief of the Akasava, and the envoy brought with him presents of dubious value and a message to the effect that N'gori spent much of his waking moments in wondering how he might best serve his brother Bosambo, "The right arm on which I and my people lean and the bright eyes through which I see beauty."
Bosambo returned the messenger, with presents more valueless, and an assurance of friendship more sonorous, more complete in rhetoric and aptness of hyperbole, and when the messenger had gone Bosambo showed his appreciation of N'gori's love by doubling the guard about the Ochori city and sending a strong picket under his chief headman to hold the river bend.
"Because," said this admirable philosopher, "life is like certain roots: some that taste sweet and are bitter in the end, and some that are vile to the lips and pleasant to the stomach."
It was a wild night, being in the month of rains. M'shimba M'shamba was abroad, walking with his devastating feet through the forest, plucking up great trees by their roots and tossing them aside as though they were so many canes. There was a roaring of winds and a crashing of thunders, and the blue-white lightning snicked in and out of the forest or tore sprawling cracks in the sky. In the Ochori city they heard the storm grumbling across the river and were awakened by the incessant lightning--so incessant that the weaver birds who lived in palms that fringed the Ochori streets came chattering to life.
It was too loud a noise, that M'shimba M'shamba made for the _lokali_ man of the Ochori to hear the message that N'gori sent--the panic-message designed to lure Bosambo to the newly-purchased spears.
Bones heard it--Bones, standing on the bridge of the _Zaire_ pounding away upstream, steaming past the Akasava city in a sheet of rain.
"Wonder what the jolly old row is?" he muttered to himself, and summoned his sergeant. "Ali," said he, in faultless Arabic, "what beating of drums are these?"
"Lord," said the sergeant, uneasily, "I do not know, unless they be to warn us not to travel at night. I am your man, Master," said he in a fret, "yet never have I travelled with so great a fear: even our Lord Sandi does not move by night, though the river is his own child."
"It is written," said Bones, cheerfully, and as the sergeant saluted and turned away, the reckless Houssa made a face at the darkness. "If old man Ham would give me a month or two on the river," he mused, "I'd set 'em alight, by Jove!"
By the miraculous interposition of Providence Bones reached the Ochori village in the grey clouded dawn, and Bosambo, early astir, met the lank figure of the youth, his slick sword dangling, his long revolver holster strapped to his side, and his helmet on the back of his head, an eager warrior looking for trouble.
"Lord, of you I have heard," said Bosambo, politely; "here in the Ochori country