Bosambo of the River

"Bosambo," said Sanders, "I have given you these upper streams to your care. Yet Abdul Hazim walks through the land without hurt, and I think it is shame to you and to me."

"Master," said Bosambo, "it is a shameful thing. Yet the streams hereabouts are so many, and Abdul is a cunning man, and has spies. Also, my people are afraid to offend him lest he 'chop' them, or sell them into the interior."

Sanders nodded and rose to join the Zaire.

"Bosambo," he said, "this government put a price upon this Abdul, even as a certain government put a price upon you."

"What is his price, lord?" asked Bosambo, with an awakening of interest.

"One hundred pounds in silver," said Sanders.

"Lord," said Bosambo, "that is a good price."

Two days afterwards, when Arachi came to Bosambo, this chief was engaged in the purely domestic occupation of nursing his one small son.

"Greeting, Bosambo," said Arachi, "to you and to your beautiful son, who is noble in appearance and very quiet."

"Peace be to you, Arachi. I have nothing to lend you," said Bosambo.

"Lord," said Arachi loftily, "I am now a rich man – richer than chiefs – and I do not borrow."

"Ko, ko!" said Bosambo, with polite incredulity.

"Bosambo," Arachi went on, "I came to you because I love you, and you are not a talking man, but rather a wise and silent one."

"All this I know, Arachi," said Bosambo cautiously. "And again I say to you that I lend no man anything."

The exasperated Arachi raised his patient eyes to heaven.

"Lord Bosambo," he said, in the tone of one hurt, "I came to tell you of that which I have found, and to ask your lordship to help me secure it. For in a certain place I have come across a great stock of ivory, such as the old kings buried against their need."

"Arachi," said Bosambo, of a sudden, "you tell me that you are rich. Now you are a little man and I am a chief, yet I am not rich."

"I have many friends," said Arachi, trembling with pride, "and they give me rods and salt."

"That is nothing," said Bosambo. "Now I understand richness, for I have lived amongst white folk who laugh at rods and throw salt to dogs."

"Lord Bosambo," said the other eagerly, "I am rich also by white men's rule. Behold!"

From his waist pouch he took a handful of silver, and offered it in both hands for the chief's inspection.

Bosambo examined the money respectfully, turning each coin over gingerly.

"That is good riches," he said, and he breathed a little faster than was his wont. "And it is new, being bright. Also the devil marks, which you do not understand, are as they should be."

The gratified Arachi shoved his money back into his pouch. Bosambo sat in meditative silence, his face impassive.

"And you will take me, Arachi, to the place of buried treasure?" he asked slowly. "Ko! you are a generous man, for I do not know why you should share with me, knowing that I once beat you."

Bosambo put the child down gently. These kings' stores were traditional. Many had been found, and it was the dream of every properly constituted man to unearth such.

Yet Bosambo was not impressed, being in his heart sceptical.

"Arachi," he said, "I believe that you are a liar! Yet I would see this store, and, if it be near by, will see with my own eyes."

It was one day's journey, according to Arachi.

"You shall tell me where this place is," said Bosambo.

Arachi hesitated.

"Lord, how do I not know that you will not go and take this store?" he asked.

Bosambo regarded him sternly.

"Am I not an honest man?" he asked. "Do not the people from one end of the world to the other swear by the name of Bosambo?"

"No," said Arachi truthfully.

Yet he told of the place. It was by the River of Shadows, near the Crocodile Pool Where-the-Floods Had-Changed-The-Land.

Bosambo went to his hut to make preparations for the journey.

Behind his house, in a big grass cage, were many little pigeons. He laboriously wrote in his vile Arabic a laconic message, and attached it to the leg of a pigeon.

To make absolutely sure, for Bosambo left nothing to chance, he sent away a canoe secretly that night for a certain destination.

"And this you shall say to Sandi," said the chief to his trusted messenger, "that Arachi is rich with the richness of silver, and that silver has the devil marks of Zanzibar – being the home of all traders, as your lordship knows."

Next day, at dawn, Bosambo and his guide departed. They paddled throughout the day, taking the smaller stream that drained the eastern side of the river, and at night they camped at a place called Bolulu, which means "the changed land."

They rose with the daylight to resume their journey. But it was unnecessary, for, in the darkness before the dawn, Abdul Hazim had surrounded the camp, and, at the persuasive muzzle of a Snider rifle, Bosambo accompanied his captors ten minutes' journey into the wood where Abdul awaited him.

The slaver, sitting before the door of his tent on his silken carpet, greeted his captive in the Ochori dialect. Bosambo replied in Arabic.

"Ho, Bosambo!" said Abdul. "Do you know me?"

"Sheikh," said Bosambo, "I would know you in hell, for you are the man whose head my master desires."

"Bosambo," said Abdul calmly, "your head is more valuable, so they say, for the Liberians will put it upon a pole, and pay me riches for my enterprise."

Bosambo laughed softly. "Let the palaver finish," he said, "I am ready to go."

They brought him to the river again, tied him to a pole, and laid him in the bottom of a canoe, Arachi guarding him.

Bosambo, looking up, saw the borrower squatting on guard.

"Arachi," he said, "if you untie my hands, it shall go easy with you."

"If I untie your hands," said Arachi frankly, "I am both a fool and a dead man, and neither of these conditions is desirable."

"To every man," quoth Bosambo, "there is an easy kill somewhere,2 and, if he misses this, all kills are difficult."

Four big canoes composed the waterway caravan. Abdul was in the largest with his soldiers, and led the van.

They moved quickly down the tiny stream, which broadened as it neared the river.

Then Abdul's headman suddenly gasped.

"Look!" he whispered.

The slaver turned his head.

Behind them, paddling leisurely, came four canoes, and each was filled with armed men.

"Quickly," said Abdul, and the paddlers stroked furiously, then stopped.

Ahead was the Zaire, a trim, white steamer, alive with Houssas.

"It is God's will," said Abdul. "These things are ordained."

He said no more until he stood before Sanders, and the Commissioner was not especially communicative.

"What will you do with me?" asked Abdul.

"I will tell you when I have seen your stores," said Sanders. "If I find rifles such as the foolish Lobolo people buy, I shall hang you according to law."

The Arab looked at the shaking Arachi. The borrower's knees wobbled fearfully.

"I see," said Abdul thoughtfully, "that this man whom I made rich has betrayed me."

If he had hurried or moved jerkily Sanders would have prevented the act; but the Arab searched calmly in the fold of his bournous as though seeking a cigarette.

His hand came out, and with it a curved knife.

Then he struck quickly, and Arachi went blubbering to the deck, a dying man.

"Borrower," said the Arab, and he spoke from the centre of six Houssas who were chaining him, so that he was hidden from the sobbing figure on the floor, "I think you have borrowed that which you can at last repay. For it is written in the Sura of the Djinn that from him who takes a life, let his life be taken, that he may make full repayment."

CHAPTER II

THE TAX RESISTERS

Sanders took nothing for granted when he accounted for native peoples. These tribes of his possessed an infinite capacity for unexpectedness – therein lay at once their danger and their charm. For one could neither despair at their sin nor grow too confidently elated at their virtue, knowing that the sun which went down on the naughtiness of the one and the dovelike placidity of the other, might rise on the smouldering sacrificial fires in the streets of the blessed village, and reveal the folk of the incorrigible sitting at the doors of their huts, dust on head, hands outspread in an agony of penitence.

Yet it seemed that the people of Kiko were models of deportment, thrift, and intelligence, and that the gods had given them beautiful natures. Kiko, a district of the Lower Isisi, is separated from all other tribes and people by the Kiko on the one side, the Isisi River on the other, and on the third by clumps of forest land set at irregular intervals in the Great Marsh.

Kiko proper stretches from the marsh to the tongue of land at the confluence of the Kiko and Isisi, in the shape of an irregular triangle.

To the eastward, across the Kiko River, are the unruly N'gombi tribes; to the westward, on the farther bank of the big river, are the Akasava; and the Kiko people enjoy an immunity from sudden attack, which is due in part to its geographical position, and in part to the remorseless activities of Mr. Commissioner Sanders.

Once upon a time a king of the N'gombi called his headmen and chiefs together to a great palaver.

"It seems to me," he said, "that we are children. For our crops have failed because of the floods, and the thieving Ochori have driven the game into their own country. Now, across the river are the Kiko people, and they have reaped an oat harvest; also, there is game in plenty. Must we sit and starve whilst the Kiko swell with food?"

A fair question, though the facts were not exactly stated, for the N'gombi were lazy, and had sown late; also the game was in their forest for the searching, but, as the saying is, "The N'gombi hunts from his bed and seeks only cooked meats."

One night the N'gombi stole across the river and fell upon Kiko city, establishing themselves masters of the country.

There was a great palaver, which was attended by the chief and headman of the Kiko.

"Henceforward," said the N'gombi king – Tigilini was his name – "you are as slaves to my people, and if you are gentle and good and work in the fields you shall have one-half of all you produce, for I am a just man, and very merciful. But if you rebel, I will take you for my sport."

Lest any misunderstanding should exist, he took the first malcontent, who was a petty chief of a border village, and performed his programme.

This man had refused tribute, and was led, with roped hands, before the king, all headmen having been summoned to witness the happening.

The rebel was bound with his hands behind him, and was ordered to kneel. A young sapling was bent over, and one end of a native rope was fixed to its topmost branches, and the other about his neck. The tree was slowly released till the head of the offender was held taut.

"Now!" said the king, and his executioner struck off the head, which was flung fifty yards by the released sapling.

It fell at the feet of Mr. Commissioner Sanders, who, with twenty-five Houssas and a machine gun, had just landed from the Zaire.

Sanders was annoyed; he had travelled three days and four nights with little sleep, and he had a touch of fever, which made him irritable.

He walked into the village and interrupted an eloquent address on the obligations of the conquered, which the N'gombi thief thought it opportune to deliver.

He stopped half-way through his speech, and lost a great deal of interest in the proceedings as the crowd divided to allow of Sanders's approach.

"Lord," said Tigilini, that quick and subtle man, "you have come at a proper time, for these people were in rebellion against your lordship, and I have subdued them. Therefore, master, give me rewards as you gave to Bosambo of the Ochori."

Sanders gave nothing save a brief order, and his Houssas formed a half circle about the hut of the king – Tigilini watching the manoeuvre with some apprehension.

"If," he said graciously. "I have done anything which your lordship thinks I should not have done, or taken that which I should not have taken, I will undo and restore."

Sanders, hands on hips, regarded him dispassionately.

"There is a body." He pointed to the stained and huddled thing on the ground. "There, by the path, is a head. Now, you shall put the head to that body and restore life."

"That I cannot do," said the king nervously, "for I am no ju-ju."

Sanders spoke two words in Arabic, and Tigilini was seized.

They carried the king away, and no man ever saw his face again, and it is a legend that Tigilini, the king, is everlastingly chained to the hind leg of M'shimba M'shamba, the green devil of the Akasava. If the truth be told, Tigilini went no nearer to perdition than the convict prison at Sierra Leone, but the legend is not without its value as a deterrent to ambitious chiefs.

Sanders superintended the evacuation of the Kiko, watched the crestfallen N'gombi retire to their own lands, and set up a new king without fuss or ceremony. And the smooth life of the Kiko people ran pleasantly as before.

They tilled the ground and bred goats and caught fish. From the marsh forest, which was their backland, they gathered rubber and copal, and this they carried by canoe to the mouth of the river and sold.

So they came to be rich, and even the common people could afford three wives.

Sanders was very wise in the psychology of native wealth. He knew that people who grew rich in corn were dangerous, because corn is an irresponsible form of property, and had no ramifications to hold in check the warlike spirit of its possessors.

He knew, too, that wealth in goats, in cloth, in brass rods, and in land was a factor for peace, because possessions which cannot be eaten are ever a steadying influence in communal life.

Sanders was a wise man. He was governed by certain hard and fast rules, and though he was well aware that failure in any respect to grapple with a situation would bring him a reprimand, either because he had not acted according to the strict letter of the law, or because he "had not used his discretion" in going outside that same inflexible code, he took responsibility without fear.

It was left to his discretion as to what part of the burden of taxation individual tribes should bear, and on behalf of his government he took his full share of the Kiko surplus, adjusting his demands according to the measure of the tribe's prosperity.

Three years after the enterprising incursion of the N'gombi, he came to the Kiko country on his half-yearly visit.

In the palaver house of the city he listened to complaints, as was his custom.

He sat from dawn till eight o'clock in the morning, and after the tenth complaint he turned to the chief of the Kiko, who sat at his side.

"Chief," he said, with that air of bland innocence which would have made men used to his ways shake in their tracks, "I observe that all men say one thing to me – that they are poor. Now this is not the truth."

"I am in your hands," said the chief diplomatically; "also my people, and they will pay taxation though they starve."

Sanders saw things in a new light.

"It seems," he said, addressing the serried ranks of people who squatted about, "that there is discontent in your stomachs because I ask you for your taxes. We will have a palaver on this."

He sat down, and a grey old headman, a notorious litigant and a league-long speaker, rose up.

"Lord," he said dramatically, "justice!"

"Kwai!" cried the people in chorus.

The murmur, deep-chested and unanimous, made a low, rumbling sound like the roll of a drum.

"Justice!" said the headman. "For you, Sandi, are very cruel and harsh. You take and take and give us nothing, and the people cry out in pain."

He paused, and Sanders nodded.

"Go on," he said.

"Corn and fish, gum and rubber, we give you," said the spokesman; "and when we ask whither goes this money, you point to the puc-a-puc3 and your soldiers, and behold we are mocked. For your puc-a-puc comes only to take our taxes, and your soldiers to force us to pay."

Again the applauding murmur rolled.

"So we have had a palaver," said the headman, "and this we have said among ourselves: 'Let Sandi remit one-half our taxes; these we will bring in our canoes to the Village-by-the-Big-Water, for we are honest men, and let Sandi keep his soldiers and his puc-a-puc for the folk of the Isisi and the Akasava and the N'gombi, for these are turbulent and wicked people.'"

"Kwai!"

It was evidently a popular movement, and Sanders smiled behind his hand.

"As for us," said the headman, "we are peaceable folk, and live comfortably with all nations, and if any demand of us that we shall pay tribute, behold it will be better to give freely than to pay these taxes."

Sanders listened in silence, then he turned to the chief.

"It shall be as you wish," he said, "and I will remit one half of your taxation – the palaver is finished."

He went on board the Zaire that night and lay awake listening to the castanets of the dancing women – the Kiko made merry to celebrate the triumph of their diplomacy.

Sanders left next day for the Isisi, having no doubt in his mind that the news of his concession had preceded him. So it proved, for at Lukalili no sooner had he taken his place in the speech-house than the chief opened the proceedings.

"Lord Sandi," he began, "we are poor men, and our people cry out against taxation. Now, lord, we have thought largely on this matter, and this say the people: 'If your lordship would remit one-half our taxes we should be happy, for this puc-a-puc' – "

Sanders waved him down.

"Chiefs and people," he said, "I am patient, because I love you. But talk to me more about taxation and about puc-a-pucs, and I will find a new chief for me, and you will wish that you had never been born."

After that Sanders had no further trouble.

He came to the Ochori, and found Bosambo, wholly engrossed with his new baby, but ripe for action.

"Bosambo," said the Commissioner, after he had gingerly held the new-comer and bestowed his natal present, "I have a story to tell you."

He told his story, and Bosambo found it vastly entertaining.

Five days later, when Sanders was on his way home, Bosambo with ten picked men for paddlers, came sweeping up the river, and beached at Kiko city.

He was greeted effusively; a feast was prepared for him, the chief's best hut was swept clean.

"Lord Bosambo," said the Kiko chief, when the meal was finished, "I shall have a sore heart this night when you are gone."

"I am a kind man," said Bosambo, "so I will not go to-night, for the thought of your sorrow would keep sleep from my eyes."

"Lord," said the chief hastily, "I am not used to sorrow, and, moreover, I shall sleep heavily, and it would be shameful if I kept you from your people, who sigh like hungry men for your return."

"That is true," said Bosambo, "yet I will stay this night, because my heart is full of pleasant thoughts for you."

"If you left to-night," said the embarrassed chief, "I would give you a present of two goats."

"Goats," said Bosambo, "I do not eat, being of a certain religious faith – "

"Salt I will give you also," said the chief.

"I stay to-night," said Bosambo emphatically; "to-morrow I will consider the matter."

The next morning Bosambo went to bathe in the river, and returned to see the chief of the Kiko squatting before the door of his hut, vastly glum.

"Ho, Cetomati!" greeted Bosambo, "I have news which will gladden your heart."

A gleam of hope shone in the chief's eye.

"Does my brother go so soon?" he asked pointedly.

"Chief," said Bosambo acidly, "if that be good news to you, I go. And woe to you and your people, for I am a proud man, and my people are also proud. Likewise, they are notoriously vengeful."

The Kiko king rose in agitation.

"Lord," he said humbly, "my words are twisted, for, behold, all this night I have spent mourning in fear of losing your lordship. Now, tell me your good news that I may rejoice with you."

But Bosambo was frowning terribly, and was not appeased for some time.

"This is my news, O king!" he said. "Whilst I bathed I beheld, far away, certain Ochori canoes, and I think they bring my councillors. If this be so, I may stay with you for a long time – rejoice!"

The Kiko chief groaned.

He groaned more when the canoes arrived bringing reinforcements to Bosambo – ten lusty fighting men, terribly tall and muscular.

He groaned undisguisedly when the morrow brought another ten, and the evening some twenty more.

There are sayings on the river which are uncomplimentary to the appetites of the Ochori.

Thus: "Men eat to live fat, but the Ochori live to eat." And: "One field of corn will feed a village for a year, ten goats for a month, and an Ochori for a day."

Certainly Bosambo's followers were excellent trenchermen. They ate and they ate and they ate; from dawn till star time they alternated between the preparation of meals and their disposal. The simple folk of the Kiko stood in a wondering circle about them and watched in amazement as their good food vanished.

"I see we shall starve when the rains come," said the chief in despair.

He sent an urgent canoe to Sanders, but Sanders was without sympathy.

"Go to your master," he said to the envoy, "telling him that all these things are his palaver. If he does not desire the guests of his house, let him turn them away, for the land is his, and he is chief."

Cold comfort for Cetomati this, for the Ochori sat in the best huts, eating the best foods, finding the best places at the dance-fires.

The king called a secret palaver of his headmen.

"These miserable Ochori thieves ruin us," he said. "Are we men or dogs? Now, I tell you, my people and councillors, that to-morrow I send Bosambo and his robbers away, though I die for it!"

"Kwai!" said the councillors in unison.

"Lord," said one, "in the times of cala-calathe Kiko folk were very fierce and bloody; perchance if we rouse the people with our eloquence they are still fierce and bloody."

The king looked dubious.

"I do not think," he said, "that the Kiko people are as fierce and bloody as at one time, for we have had many fat years. What I know, O friend, is that the Ochori are very fierce indeed, and Bosambo has killed many men."

He screwed up his courage through the night, and in the morning put it to the test.

Bosambo, in his most lordly way, had ordered a big hunting, and he and his men were assembling in the village street when the king and his councillors approached.

"Lord," said the king mildly, "I have that within me which I must tell."

"Say on," said Bosambo.

"Now, I love you, Bosambo," said the chief, "and the thought that I must speed you on your way – with presents – is very sad to me."

"More sad to me," said Bosambo ominously.

"Yet lord," said the desperate chief, "I must, for my people are very fierce with me that I keep you so long within our borders. Likewise, there is much sickness, and I fear lest you and your beautiful men also become sick, and die."

"Only one man in all the world, chief," said Bosambo, speaking with deliberation, "has ever put such shame upon me – and, king, that man – where is he?"

The king of the Kiko did not say, because he did not know. He could guess – oh, very well he could guess! – and Bosambo's next words justified his guesswork.

"He is dead," said Bosambo solemnly. "I will not say how he died, lest you think I am a boastful one, or whose hand struck him down, for fear you think vainly – nor as to the manner of his dying, for that would give you sorrow!"

"Bosambo," said the agitated chief of the Kiko, "these are evil words – "

"I say no evil words," said Bosambo, "for I am, as you know, the brother-in-law of Sandi, and it would give him great grief. I say nothing, O little king!"

With a lofty wave of his hand he strode away, and, gathering his men together, he marched them to the beach.

It was in vain that the chief of the Kiko had stored food in enormous quantities and presents in each canoe, that bags of salt were evenly distributed amongst the paddlers.