Sanders of the River

"Lord," said the girl, "I will say all this."

And she went, half running, in the direction of the village, leaving Imgani to continue on his way.

Now this village had many young men eager to please the girl, who carried manioc, for she was a chief's daughter, and she was, moreover, fourteen, a marriageable age. So when she came flying along the village street, half hysterical in her fear, crying, babbling, incoherent, there was not wanting sympathy nor knight valiant to wipe out the insult.

Six young men, with spears and short swords, danced before the chief and the chief's daughter (how important she felt, any woman of any race will tell you), and one of them, E'kebi, a man gifted with language, described from sunset to moonrise, which is roughly four hours, exactly what would happen to Imgani when the men of the Isisi fell upon him; how his eyes would shrivel as before a great and terrible fire, and his limbs wither up, and divers other physiological changes which need not be particularised.

"That is good talk," said the chief; "yet, since Sandi is our master and has spies everywhere, do not shed blood, for the smell of blood is carried farther than a man can see. And Sandi is very devilish on this question of killing. Moreover, this Lonely One is a stranger, and if we catch him we may sell him to the Arabi, who will give us cloth and gin for him."

Having heard all this, they sacrificed a young goat and marched. They came upon the house of Imgani, but the Lonely One was not there, for he was trapping beasts in the forest; so they burnt his house, uprooted his poor garden, and, being joined by many other Isisi people, who had followed at a respectful distance, lest Imgani's estimate of his own prowess were justified by results, they held high revel, until of a sudden the sun came up over the middle island, and all the little stars in the sky went out.

Imgani saw all this, leaning on his spears in the shadow of the forest, but was content to be a spectator.

For, he reasoned, if he went out against them they would attempt to kill him or beat him with rods, and that his high spirit could not endure.

He saw the flames lick away the house he had built with such labour.

"They are foolish people," he mused, "for they burn their own, and perhaps the spirits of the dead will be displeased and give them boils."

When all that was left of his habitation was a white heap of ash, a dark-red glow, and a hazy wisp of smoke, Imgani turned his face to the forest.

All day long he walked, halting only to eat the fish he carried, and at night time he came upon another Isisi village, which was called O'Fasi.

He came through the village street with his shoulders squared, his head erect, swinging his spears famously. He looked neither to the left nor to the right; and the villagers, crowding to the doors of their huts, put their clenched knuckles to their mouths, and said: "O ho!" which means that they were impressed.

So he stalked through the entire length of the village, and was making for the forest-path beyond, when a messenger came pattering after him.

"Lord," said the messenger, "the capita of this village, who is responsible to the Government for all people who pass, and especially for thieves who may have escaped from the Village of Irons, desires your presence, being sure that you are no thief, but a great one, and wishing to do honour to you."

Thus he recited, and being a peaceable man, who had been chosen for the part because he was related by marriage to the principal wife of the chief, he kept a cautious eye on the broad-headed spear, and determined the line of his flight.

"Go back to your master, slave," said Imgani, "and say to him that I go to find a spot of sufficient loneliness, where I may sleep this night and occupy myself with high thoughts. When I have found such a place I will return. Say, also, that I am a prince of my own people, and that my father has legions of such quantity that, if every fighting man of the legions were to take a handful of sand from the bottom of the river, the river would be bottomless; also say that I am named Imgani, and that I love myself better than any man has loved himself since the moon went white that it might not look like the sun."

He went on, leaving the messenger filled with thought.

True to his promise, Imgani returned.

He came back to find that there was a palaver in progress, the subject of the palaver being the unfortunate relative by marriage to the chief's principal wife.

"Who," the chief was saying, "has put shame upon me, being as great a fool as his cousin, my wife."

"Master," said the poor relation humbly, "I entreated him to return; but he was a man of great pride, and, moreover, impatient to go."

"Your mother was a fool," said the chief; "her mother also was a fool, and your father, whoever he was, and no man knows, was a great fool."

This interesting beginning to a crude address on hereditary folly was interrupted by the return of Imgani, and as he came slowly up the little hillock the assembly took stock of him, from the square, steel razor stuck in the tight-fitting leopard-skin cap to the thin bangles of brass about his ankles.

The chief, a portly man of no great courage, observed the spears, noting that the hafts were polished smooth by much handling.

"Lord," said he mildly, "I am chief of this village, appointed by the Government, who gave me a medal to wear about my neck, bearing on one side the picture of a great man with a beard, and on the other side certain devil marks and writings of vast power. This was given to me that all people might know I was chief, but I have lost the medal. None the less, I am chief of this village, as this will show."

He fumbled in the bosom of his cloth and brought out a bag of snake skin, and from this he extracted a very soiled paper.

With tender care he unfolded it, and disclosed a sheet of official notepaper with a few scrawled words in the handwriting of Mr. Commissioner Sanders. They ran:

"To all Sub-Commissioners, Police Officers, and Commanders of Houssa Ports:

"Arrest and detain the bearer if found in any other territory than the Isisi."

There was a history attached to this singular document. It had to do with an unauthorised raid upon certain Ochori villages and a subsequent trial at headquarters, where a chief, all aquiver with apprehension, listened to a terse but knowledgable prophecy as to what fate awaited him if he put foot out of his restricted dominion.

Imgani took the paper in his hand and was interested. He turned it about, rubbed the writing lightly with his fingers to see whether it was permanent, and returned it to the chief.

"That is very wonderful, though I do not fear magic, except an especial kind such as is practised by a certain witch-doctor of my father's," he said; "nor do I know any government which can govern me."

After which he proceeded to tell them of his father, and of his legions and wives, and various other matters of equal interest.

"I do not doubt that you will understand me," he said. "I am a Lonely One, hating the company of men, who are as changeable as the snow upon the mountains. Therefore, I have left my house with my wives, who were faithful as women go, and I have taken with me no legion, since they are my father's."

The chief was puzzled.

"Why you are lonely, I cannot tell," he said; "but certainly you did right to leave your father's legions. This is a great matter, which needs a palaver of older men."

And he ordered the lo-koli to be sounded and the elders of the village to be assembled.

They came, bringing their own carved stools, and sat about the thatched shelter, where the chief sat in his presidency.

Again Imgani told his story; it was about fifty wives, and legions of warriors as countless as the sand of the river's beach; and the trustful Isisi listened and believed.

"And I need this," said Imgani, in his peroration; "a little house built on the edge of the river, in such a place that no path passes me and no human being comes within sight of me, for I am very lonely by nature – and a great hater of men."

Imgani went to live in the clearing Nature had made for him, and in a hut erected by his new-found friends. Other hospitalities he refused.

"I have no wish for wives," he stated, "being full of mighty plans to recover my kingdom from evil men who are my father's councillors."

Lonely he was in very truth, for none saw him except on very special occasions. It was his practice to go hunting by night and to sleep away the hot days. Sometimes, when the red ball of the sun dropped down behind the trees on the western bank of the river, the villagers saw the straight, blue film of his smoke as he cooked his evening meal; sometimes a homeward-bound boatman saw him slipping silently through the thin edge of the forest on his way to a kill.

They called him the Silent One, and he enjoyed a little fame.

More than this, he enjoyed the confidence of his hosts. The Isisi country is within reach of the Foreign River, down which strangely-shaped boats come by night empty, and return by night full of people who are chained neck to neck, and the officials of French West Africa – which adjoins the Isisi country – receive stories of raids and of burnings which they have not the facilities for investigating, for the Isisi border is nearly six hundred miles from the French headquarters, and lies through a wilderness.

Imgani, in his hunting trips, saw things which might have filled him with amazement, but for the fact that he was a man who was not given to emotion.

He saw little caravans that came stealing from the direction of the territory of France, with whimpering women and groaning men in bondage.

He saw curious midnight shippings of human souls, and grew to know the white-robed Arabs who handled the whip so deftly.

One night as he stood watching all these things, El Mahmud, that famous trader, espied him in the moonlight and saw that he was of a strange people.

"What man are you?" he asked.

"Lord," said Imgani, "I am of a strange people – the N'Gombi."

"That is a lie," said the slaver, "for you have not the face marks of the N'Gombi; you are a half-bred Arab," and he addressed him in Arabic.

Imgani shook his head.

"He does not understand," said the slaver to his lieutenant; "find out where this man's hut is; one night we will take him, for he is worth money."

He spoke in Arabic, and his subordinate nodded.

When the slaver came again three men visited Imgani's house, but he was hunting, and he was hunting every time the long boats came by night to O'Fasi.

Sanders did not go to O'Fasi for six months, during which time, it should be emphasised, nothing happened which by any stretch of imagination could be held to justify any loss of prestige.

He was due to make his half-yearly visit to the Isisi. The crops had been good, the fish plentiful, the rains gentle, and there had been no sickness. All these facts you may bear in mind.

One morning, when swirls of grey mist looped from tree to tree and the east was growing grey, Imgani came back from the forest bearing on his shoulders all that was material of a small buck which he had snared in the night.

When he saw a little fire before his hut and a man squatting chin on knee, he twirled those spears of his cheerfully and went on, for he was afraid of no man.

"Is the world so full of people that you come to disturb my loneliness?" he asked. "I have a thought that I shall kill you and fry your heart, for I do not like to see you sitting by a fire before my hut."

He said all this with a ferocious mien, and the man before the fire shifted uneasily.

"Master, I expected this," he said, "for I see you are a proud man; but I come because of your pride, knowing your wisdom."

Imgani tossed the buck to one side and sat down, staring threateningly and laying the haft of his spears across his bare knee.

Then the other man craned his neck forward and spoke eagerly.

The sun came up and flushed the world rosy; but still he sat talking with great force, Imgani listening.

"So, master," he concluded, "we will kill Sandi when he comes to palaver. Ifiba, M'bwka, and a cousin of my mother's, will put spears into him very quickly, and we shall be a great people."

Imgani nodded his head wisely.

"That is true," he said, "people who kill white men must be greatly honoured, because all the other nations will say: 'Behold, these are the people who kill white men!'"

"And when he is dead," the messenger went on, "many young men will go to the boat that smokes and slay all who are with him."

"That is wise also," said Imgani; "when I kill white men I also kill their friends."

He discussed his deeds to some length and with great detail. After the man had gone, Imgani made a meal of fish and manioc, polished the steel blades of his spears with wet sand, dried them carefully with grass, and laid himself down in the shade of the hut to sleep.

He was awake in the early part of the afternoon, and went plunging into the river, swimming far towards the middle stream with great, strong strokes.

Then he swam back to shore, let the sun dry him, and dressed himself in his leopard skin.

He came to the village slowly, and found it agitated. More especially so was the chief, that wise capita, for news had arrived that Sandi was coming in the night, and that even now his steamer was rounding the bend of the river.

A plan had miscarried; Sanders was two days ahead of time, and Ifiba and M'bwka, his trusty men, were away on an expedition, and there was no time to substitute unseasoned assassins.

The steamer drifted broadside to the shore, one stern wheel revolving lazily, and then they saw, Imgani amongst the rest, that the decks were crowded with soldiers, impassive brown men in blue uniforms and fezes.

A plank bumped down, and holding their rifles high the soldiers came pattering to the shore, and with them a white officer but not Sandi.

It was a brusque, white man.

"Who is the chief here?" he said crossly.

"Lord, I am that man," said the stout chief, all a-flutter.

"Take that man."

A sergeant of Houssas grasped the chief and deftly swung him round; a corporal of Houssas snapped a pair of handcuffs on his wrists.

"Lord," he whined, "why this shame?"

"Because you are a great thief," said the Houssa officer, "a provoker of war and a dealer in slaves."

"If any man says that, it is a lie," said the chief, "for no Government man has witnessed such abominations."

Imgani stepped forward.

"Chief," he said, "I have seen it."

"You are a great liar," fumed the portly capita, trembling with rage, "and Sandi, who is my friend, will not believe you."

"I am Sandi," said Imgani, and smiled crookedly.

CHAPTER XIII

THE SEER

There are many things that happen in the very heart of Africa that no man can explain; that is why those who know Africa best hesitate to write stories about it.

Because a story about Africa must be a mystery story, and your reader of fiction requires that his mystery shall be, in the end, X-rayed so that the bones of it are visible.

You can no more explain many happenings which are the merest commonplaces in latitude 2° N., longitude (say) 46° W., than you can explain the miracle of faith, or the wonder of telepathy, as this story goes to show.

In the dead of a night Mr. Commissioner Sanders woke.

His little steamer was tied up by a wooding – a wooding he had prepared for himself years before by lopping down trees and leaving them to rot.

He was one day's steam either up or down the river from the nearest village, but he was only six hours' march from the Amatombo folk, who live in the very heart of the forest, and employ arrows poisoned by tetanus.

Sanders sat up in bed and listened.

A night bird chirped monotonously; he heard the "clug-clug" of water under the steamer's bows and the soft rustling of leaves as a gentle breeze swayed the young boughs of the trees that overhung the boat. Very intently he listened, then reached down for his mosquito boots and his socks.

He drew them on, found his flannel coat hanging behind the door of his tiny cabin, and opened the door softly. Then he waited, standing, his head bent.

In the darkness he grinned unpleasantly, and, thumbing back the leather strap that secured the flap of the holster which hung by his bunk he slipped out the Colt-automatic, and noiselessly pulled back the steel envelope.

He was a careful man, not easily flurried, and his every movement was methodical. He was cautious enough to push up the little safety-catch which prevents premature explosion, tidy enough to polish the black barrel on the soft sleeve of his coat, and he waited a long time before he stepped out into the hot darkness of the night.

By and by he heard again the sound which had aroused him. It was the faint twitter of a weaver bird.

Now weaver birds go to sleep at nights like sensible people, and they live near villages, liking the society of human beings. Certainly they do not advertise their presence so brazenly as did this bird, who twittered and twittered at intervals.

Sanders watched patiently.

Then suddenly, from close at hand, from the very deck on which he stood, came an answering call.

Sanders had his little cabin on the bridge of the steamer; he walked farther away from it. In the corner of the bridge he crouched down, his thumb on the safety-catch.

He felt, rather than saw, a man come from the forest; he knew that there was one on board the steamer who met him.

Then creeping round the deck-house came two men. He could just discern the bulk of them as they moved forward till they found the door of the cabin and crept in. He heard a little noise, and grinned again, though he knew that their spear-heads were making sad havoc of his bedclothes.

Then there was a little pause, and he saw one come out by himself and look around.

He turned to speak softly to the man inside.

Sanders rose noiselessly.

The man in the doorway said "Kah!" in a gurgling voice and went down limply, because Sanders had kicked him scientifically in the stomach, which is a native's weak spot. The second man ran out, but fell with a crash over the Commissioner's extended leg, and, falling, received the full weight of a heavy pistol barrel in the neighbourhood of his right ear.

"Yoka!" called Sanders sharply, and there was a patter of feet aft, for your native is a light sleeper, "tie these men up. Get steam, for we will go away from here; it is not a nice place."

Sanders, as I have tried to explain, was a man who knew the native; he thought like a native, and there were moments when he acted not unlike a barbarian.

Clear of the danger, he tied up to a little island in mid-stream just as the dawn spread greyly, and hustled his two prisoners ashore.

"My men," said he, "you came to kill me in the dark hours."

"Lord, that is true," said one, "I came to kill, and this other man, who is my brother, told me when to come – yet it might have been another whom he called, for I am but one of many."

Sanders accepted the fact that a chain of cheerful assassins awaited his advent without any visible demonstration of annoyance.

"Now you will tell me," he said, "who gave the word for the killing, and why I must die."

The man he addressed, a tall, straight youth of the Amatombo people, wiped the sweat from his forehead with his manacled hands.

"Lord, though you chop me," he said, "I will not tell you, for I have a great ju-ju, and there are certain fetishes which would be displeased."

Sanders tried the other man with no greater success. This other was a labourer he had taken on at a village four days' journey down stream.

"Lord, if I die for my silence I will say nothing," he said.

"Very good," said Sanders, and nodded his head to Abiboo. "I shall stake you out," he added, "flat on the ground, your legs and arms outstretched, and I will light a little fire on your chests, and by and by you will tell me all I want to know."

Staked out they were, with fluffy little balls of dried creeper on each breast, and Sanders took a lighted stick from the fire his servants had built.

The men on the ground watched his every movement. They saw him blow the red stick to a flame and advance toward them, then one said —

"Lord, I will speak."

"So I thought," said Sanders; "and speak truth, or I will make you uncomfortable."

If you ask me whether Sanders would have employed his lighted stick, I answer truthfully that I think it possible; perhaps Sanders knew his men better than I know Sanders.

The two men, released from their unhappy position, talked frankly, and Sanders was a busy man taking notes in English of the conversation which was mainly in Bomongo.

When his interrogation was completed, Sanders gathered up his notes and had the men taken on board the steamer. Two hours later the Zaire was moving at its fullest speed in the direction of a village of the Akasava, which is called in the native tongue Tukalala.

There was a missionary to Tukalala, a devoted young American Methodist, who had elected to live in the fever belt amongst heathen men that he might bring their hearts to the knowledge of God.

Sanders had no special regard for missionaries; indeed, he had views on the brotherhood which did him no particular credit, but he had an affection for the young man who laboured so cheerfully with such unpromising material, and now he paced the little bridge of his steamer impatiently, for it was very necessary that he should reach Tukalala before certain things happened.

He came round a bend of the little river just as the sun was going down behind the trees on the western bank, and the white beach before the mission station showed clearly.

He motioned with two fingers to the man at the wheel, and the little steamer swung almost broadside to the swift stream and headed for the bank, and the black water of the river humped up against his port bow as though it were a sluice gate.

Into the beach he steamed; "pucka-pucka-pucka-puck," sang the stern wheel noisily.

Where the missionary's house had stood was a chaos of blackened debris, and out of it rose lazy little wisps of smoke.

He found the missionary dressed in white duck, greatly soiled, lying face downwards, and he found some difficulty in raising him, because he was pinned to the ground with a broad-bladed elephant spear which had been broken off flush with his shoulders.

Sanders turned him on his back, closed the patient's eyes, staring, it seemed, hungrily at the darkening sky as though at the last questioning God's wisdom.

The Commissioner took a gaudy bandana handkerchief from his pocket, and laid it on the dead man's face.

"Abiboo," he said softly to his sergeant, "dig me a great hole by that copal gum, for this man was a great chief amongst his people, and had communion with gods."

"He was a Christ man," said Abiboo sagely, who was a devout follower of the Prophet, "and in the Sura of Mary it is written:

"'The sects have fallen to variance about Jesus, but woe, because of the assembly of a great day to those who believe not!'"

Abiboo bore the title of Haj because he had been to Mecca and knew the Koran better than most Christians know the Bible.

Sanders said nothing. He took a cigar from his pocket and lit it, casting his eyes around.

No building stood. Where the mission station with its trim garden had been, was desolation. He saw scraps of cloth in the fading light. These were other victims, he knew.

In the mellow light of the moon he buried the missionary, saying the Lord's Prayer over him, and reciting as much of the Burial Service as he could remember.

Then he went back to the Zaire and set a guard. In the morning Sanders turned the nose of the Zaire down stream, and at sunset came to the big river – he had been sailing a tributary – and where the two rivers meet is the city of the Akasava.

They brought the paramount chief of all the people to him, and there was a palaver on the little bridge with a lantern placed on the deck and one limp candle therein to give light to the assembly.

"Chief," said Sanders, "there is a dead white man in your territory, and I will have the hearts of the men who killed him, or by The Death I will have your head."