Bones

II

Bosambo, with his arms folded across his brawny chest, looked curiously at the deputation which had come to him.

"This is a bad palaver," said Bosambo, "for it seems to me that when little chiefs do that which is wrong, it is an ill thing; but when great kings, such as your master Iberi, stand at the back of such wrongdoings, that is the worst thing of all, and though this M'bisibi is a wise man, as we all know, and indeed the only wise man of your people, has brought out this devil-child, and makes a killing palaver, then M'ilitani will come very quickly with his soldiers and there will be an end to little chiefs and big chiefs alike."

"Lord, that will be so," said the messenger, "unless all chiefs in the land stand in brotherhood together. And because we know Sandi loves you, and M'ilitani also, and that Tibbetti himself is as tender to you as a brother, M'bisibi sent this word saying, 'Go to Bosambo, and say M'bisibi, the wise man, bids him come to a great and fearful palaver touching the matter of several devils. Tell him also that great evil will come to this land, to his land and to mine, to his wife and the wives of his counsellors, and to his children and theirs, unless we make an end to certain devils.'"

Bosambo, chin on clenched fist, looked thoughtfully at the other.

"This cannot be," said he in a troubled voice; "for though I die and all that is wonderful to me shall pass out of this world, yet I must do no thing which is unlawful in the eyes of Sandi, my master, and of the great ones he has left behind to fulfil the law. Say this to M'bisibi from me, that I think he is very wise and understands ghosts and such-like palavers. Also say that if he puts curses upon my huts I will come with my spearmen to him, and if aught follows I will hang him by the ears from a high tree, though he sleeps with ghosts and commands whole armies of devils; this palaver is finished."

The messenger carried the word back to M'bisibi and the council of the chiefs and the eldermen who sat in the palaver house, and old as he was and wise by all standards, M'bisibi shivered, for, as he explained, that which Bosambo said would he do. For this is peculiar to no race or colour, that old men love life dearer than young.

"Bogolono, you shall bring the child," he said, turning to one who sat at his side, string upon string of human teeth looped about his neck and his eyes circled with white ashes, "and it shall be sacrificed according to the custom, as it was in the days of my fathers and of their fathers."

They chose a spot in the forest, where four young trees stood at corners of a rough square. With their short bush knives they lopped the tender branches away, leaving four pliant poles that bled stickily. With great care they drew down the tops of these trees until they nearly met, cutting the heads so that there was no overlapping. To these four ends they fastened ropes, one for each arm and for each ankle of the devil child, and with other ropes they held the saplings to their place.

"Now this is the magic of it," said M'bisibi, "that when the moon is full to-night we shall sacrifice first a goat, and then a fowl, casting certain parts into the fire which shall be made of white gum, and I will make certain marks upon the child's face and upon his belly, and then I will cut these ropes so that to the four ends of the world we shall cast forth this devil, who will no longer trouble us."

That night came many chiefs, Iberi of the Akasava, Tilini of the Lesser Isisi, Efele (the Tornado) of the N'gombi, Lisu (the Seer) of the Inner Territories, but Lilongo12 (as they called Bosambo of the Ochori), did not come.

III

Bones reached the village two hours before the time of sacrifice and landed a force of twenty Houssas and a small Maxim gun. The village was peaceable, and there was no sign of anything untoward. Save this. The village was given over to old people and children. M'bisibi was an hour—two hours—four hours in the forest. He had gone north—east—south—none knew whither.

The very evasiveness of the replies put Bones into a fret. He scouted the paths and found indications of people having passed over all three.

He sent his gun back to the Zaire, divided his party into three, and accompanied by half a dozen men, he himself took the middle path.

For an hour he trudged, losing his way, and finding it again. He came upon a further division of paths and split up his little force again.

In the end he found himself alone, struggling over the rough ground in a darkness illuminated only by the electric lamp he carried, and making for a faint gleam of red light which showed through the trees ahead.

M'bisibi held the child on his outstretched hands, a fat little child, with large, wondering eyes that stared solemnly at the dancing flames, and sucked a small brown thumb contentedly.

"Behold this child, oh chiefs and people," said M'bisibi, "who was born as I predicted, and is filled with devils!"

The baby turned his head so that his fat little neck was all rolled and creased, and said "Ah!" to the pretty fire, and chuckled.

"Even now the devils speak," said M'bisibi, "but presently you shall hear them screaming through the world because I have scattered them," and he made his way to the bowed saplings.

Bones, his face scratched and bleeding, his uniform torn in a dozen places, came swiftly after him.

"My bird, I think," said Bones, and caught the child unscientifically.

Picture Bones with a baby under his arm—a baby indignant, outraged, infernally uncomfortable, and grimacing a yell into being.

"Lord," said M'bisibi, breathing quickly, "what do you seek?"

"That which I have," said Bones, waving him off with the black muzzle of his automatic Colt. "Tomorrow you shall answer for many crimes."

He backed quickly to the cover of the woods, scenting the trouble that was coming.

He heard the old man's roar.

"O people … this white man will loose devils upon the land!"

Then a throwing spear snicked the trunk of a tree, and another, for there were no soldiers, and this congregation of exorcisers were mad with wrath at the thought of the evil which Tibbetti was preparing for them.

"Snick!"

A spear struck Bones' boot.

"Shut your eyes, baby," said Bones, and fired into the brown. Then he ran for his life. Over roots and fallen trees he fell and stumbled, his tiny passenger yelling desperately.

"Oh, shut up!" snarled Bones, "what the dickens are you shouting about—hey? Haven't I saved your young life, you ungrateful little devil?"

Now and again he would stop to consult his illuminated compass. That the pursuit continued he knew, but he had the dubious satisfaction of knowing, too, that he had left the path and was in the forest.

Then he heard a faint shot, and another, and another, and grinned.

His pursuers had stumbled upon a party of Houssas.

From sheer exhaustion the baby had fallen asleep. Babies were confoundedly heavy—Bones had never observed the fact before, but with the strap of his sword belt he fashioned a sling that relieved him of some of the weight.

He took it easier now, for he knew M'bisibi's men would be frightened off. He rested for half an hour on the ground, and then came a snuffling leopard walking silently through the forest, betraying his presence only by the two green danger-lamps of his eyes.

Bones sat up and flourished his lamp upon the startled beast, which growled in fright, and went scampering through the forest like the great cat that he was.

The growl woke Bones' charge, and he awoke hungry and disinclined to further sleep without that inducement and comfort which his nurse was in no position to offer, whereupon Bones snuggled the whimpering child.

"He's a wicked old leopard!" he said, "to come and wake a child at this time of the night."

The knuckle of Bones' little finger soothed the baby, though it was a poor substitute for the nutriment it had every right to expect, and it whimpered itself to sleep.

Lieutenant Tibbetts looked at his compass again. He had located the shots to eastward, but he did not care to make a bee-line in that direction for fear of falling upon some of the enemy, whom he knew would be, at this time, making their way to the river.

For two hours before dawn he snatched a little sleep, and was awakened by a fierce tugging at his nose. He got up, laid the baby on the soft ground, and stood with arms akimbo, and his monocle firmly fixed, surveying his noisy companion.

"What the dooce are you making all this row about?" he asked indignantly. "Have a little patience, young feller, exercise a little suaviter in modo, dear old baby!"

But still the fat little morsel on the ground continued his noisy monologue, protesting in a language which is of an age rather than of a race, against the cruelty and the thoughtlessness and the distressing lack of consideration which his elder and better was showing him.

"I suppose you want some grub," said Bones, in dismay; and looked round helplessly.

He searched the pocket of his haversack, and had the good fortune to find a biscuit; his vacuum flask had just half a cup of warm tea. He fed the baby with soaked biscuit and drank the tea himself.

"You ought to have a bath or something," said Bones, severely; but it was not until an hour later that he found a forest pool in which to perform the ablution.

At three o'clock in the afternoon, as near as he could judge, for his watch had stopped, he struck a path, and would have reached the village before sundown, but for the fact that he again missed the path, and learnt of this fact about the same time he discovered he had lost his compass.

Bones looked dismally at the wide-awake child.

"Dear old companion in arms," he said, gloomily, "we are lost."

The baby's face creased in a smile.

"It's nothing to laugh about, you silly ass," said Bones.

IV

"Master, of our Lord Tibbetti I do not know," said M'bisibi sullenly.

"Yet you shall know before the sun is black," said Hamilton, "and your young men shall find him, or there is a tree for you, old man, a quick death by Ewa!"

"I have sought, my lord," said M'bisibi, "all my hunters have searched the forest, yet we have not found him. A certain devil-pot is here."

He fumbled under a native cloth and drew forth Bones' compass.

"This only could we find on the forest path that leads to Inilaki."

"And the child is with him?"

"So men say," said M'bisibi, "though by my magic I know that the child will die, for how can a white man who knows nothing of little children give him life and comfort? Yet," he amended carefully, since it was necessary to preserve the character of the intended victim, "if this child is indeed a devil child, as I believe, he will lead my lord Tibbetti to terrible places and return himself unharmed."

"He will lead you to a place more terrible," said M'ilitani, significantly, and sent a nimble climber into the trees to fasten a block and tackle to a stout branch, and thread a rope through.

It was so effective that M'bisibi, an old man, became most energetically active. Lokali and swift messengers sent his villages to the search. Every half-hour the Hotchkiss gun of the Zaire banged noisily; and Hamilton, tramping through the woods, felt his heart sink as hour after hour passed without news of his comrade.

"I tell you this, lord," said the headman, who accompanied him, "that I think Tibbetti is dead and the child also. For this wood is filled with ghosts and savage beasts, also many strong and poisonous snakes. See, lord!" He pointed.

They had reached a clearing where the grass was rich and luxuriant, where overshadowing branches formed an idealic bower, where heavy white waxen flowers were looped from branch to branch holding the green boughs in their parasitical clutch. Hamilton followed the direction of his eyes. In the middle of the clearing a long, sinuous shape, dark brown, and violently coloured with patches of green and vermillion, that was swaying backward and forward, hissing angrily at some object before it.

"Good God!" said Hamilton, and dropped his hand on his revolver, but before it was clear of his holster, there came a sharp crack, and the snake leapt up and fell back as a bullet went snip-snapping through the undergrowth. Then Hamilton saw Bones. Bones in his shirtsleeves, bareheaded, his big pipe in his mouth, who came hurriedly through the trees pistol in hand.

"Naughty boy!" he said, reproachfully, and stooping, picked up a squalling brown object from the ground. "Didn't Daddy tell you not to go near those horrid snakes? Daddy spank you–"

Then he caught sight of the amazed Hamilton, clutched the baby in one hand, and saluted with the other.

"Baby present and correct, sir," he said, formally.

"What are you going to do with it?" asked Hamilton, after Bones had indulged in the luxury of a bath and had his dinner.

"Do with what, sir?" asked Bones.

"With this?"

Hamilton pointed to a crawling morsel who was at that moment looking up to Bones for approval.

"What do you expect me to do, sir?" asked Bones, stiffly; "the mother is dead and he has no father. I feel a certain amount of responsibility about Henry."

"And who the dickens is Henry?" asked Hamilton.

Bones indicated the child with a fine gesture.

"Henry Hamilton Bones, sir," he said grandly. "The child of the regiment," he went on; "adopted by me to be a prop for my declining years, sir."

"Heaven and earth!" said Hamilton, breathlessly.

He went aft to recover his nerve, and returned to become an unseen spectator to a purely domestic scene, for Bones had immersed the squalling infant in his own india-rubber bath, and was gingerly cleaning him with a mop.

CHAPTER XI

BONES AT M'FA

Hamilton of the Houssas coming down to headquarters met Bosambo by appointment at the junction of the rivers.

"O Bosambo," said Hamilton, "I have sent for you to make a likambo because of certain things which my other eyes have seen and my other ears have heard."

To some men this hint of report from the spies of Government might bring dismay and apprehension, but to Bosambo, whose conscience was clear, they awakened only curiosity.

"Lord, I am your eyes in the Ochori," he said with truth, "and God knows I report faithfully."

Hamilton nodded. He was yellow with fever, and the hand that filled the briar pipe shook with ague. All this Bosambo saw.

"It is not of you I speak, nor of your people, but of the Akasava and the N'gombi and the evil little men who live in the forest—now is it true that they speak mockingly of my lord Tibbetti?"

Bosambo hesitated.

"Lord," said he, "what dogs are they, that they should speak of the mighty? Yet I will not lie to you, M'ilitani: they mock Tibbetti, because he is young and his heart is pure."

Hamilton nodded again, and stuck out his jaw in troubled meditation.

"I am a sick man," he said, "and I must rest, sending Tibbetti to watch the river, because the crops are good and there is fish for all men, and because the people are prosperous, for, Bosambo, in such times there is much boastfulness, and the tribes are ripe for foolish deeds deserving to appear wonderful in the eyes of woman."

"All this I know, M'ilitani," said Bosambo, "and because you are sick, my heart and my stomach are sore. For though I do not love you as I love Sandi, who is more clever than you, yet I love you well enough to grieve. And Tibbetti also–"

He paused.

"He is young," said Hamilton, "and not yet grown to himself—now you, Bosambo, shall check men who are insolent to his face, and be to him as a strong right hand."

"On my head and my life," said Bosambo, "yet, lord M'ilitani, I think that his day will find him, for it is written in the Sura of the Djin that all men are born three times, and the day will come when Bonzi will be born again."

He was in his canoe before Hamilton realized what he had said.

"Tell me, Bosambo," said he, leaning over the side of the Zaire, "what name did you call my lord Tibbetti?"

"Bonzi," said Bosambo, innocently, "for such I have heard you call him."

"Oh, dog of a thief!" stormed Hamilton. "If you speak without respect of Tibbetti, I will break your head."

Bosambo looked up with a glint in his big, black eyes.

"Lord," he said, softly, "it is said on the river 'speak only the words which high ones speak, and you can say no wrong,' and if you, who are wiser than any, call my lord 'Bonzi'—what goat am I that I should not call him 'Bonzi' also?"

Hamilton saw the canoe drift round, saw the flashing paddles dip regularly, and the chant of the Ochori boat song came fainter and fainter as Bosambo's state canoe began its long journey northward.

Hamilton reached headquarters with a temperature of 105, and declined Bones' well-meant offers to look after him.

"What you want, dear old officer," said Bones, fussing around, "is careful nursin'. Trust old Bones and he'll pull you back to health, sir. Keep up your pecker, sir, an' I'll bring you back so to speak from the valley of the shadow—go to bed an' I'll have a mustard plaster on your chest in half a jiffy."

"If you come anywhere near me with a mustard plaster," said Hamilton, pardonably annoyed, "I'll brain you!"

"Don't you think!" asked Bones anxiously, "that you ought to put your feet in mustard and water, sir—awfully good tonic for a feller, sir. Bucks you up an' all that sort of thing, sir; uncle of mine who used to take too much to drink–"

"The only chance for me," said Hamilton, "is for you to clear out and leave me alone. Bones—quit fooling: I'm a sick man, and you've any amount of responsibility. Go up to the Isisi and watch things—it's pretty hard to say this to you, but I'm in your hands."

Bones said nothing.

He looked down at the fever-stricken man and thrust his hands in his pockets.

"You see, old Bones," said Hamilton, and now his friend heard the weariness and the weakness in his voice, "Sanders has a hold on these chaps that I haven't quite got … and … and … well, you haven't got at all. I don't want to hurt your feelings, but you're young, Bones, and these devils know how amiable you are."

"I'm an ass, sir," muttered Bones, shakily, "an' somehow I understand that this is the time in my jolly old career when I oughtn't to be an ass.... I'm sorry, sir."

Hamilton smiled up at him.

"It isn't for Sanders' sake or mine or your own, Bones—but for—well, for the whole crowd of us—white folk. You'll have to do your best, old man."

Bones took the other's hand, snivelled a bit despite his fierce effort of restraint, and went aboard the Zaire.

"Tell all men," said B'chumbiri, addressing his impassive relatives, "that I go to a great day and to many strange lands."

He was tall and knobby-kneed, spoke with a squeak at the end of his deeper sentences, and about his tired eyes he had made a red circle with camwood. Round his head he had twisted a wire so tightly that it all but cut the flesh: this was necessary, for B'chumbiri had a headache which never left him day or night.

Now he stood, his lank body wrapped in a blanket, and he looked with dull eyes from face to face.

"I see you," he said at last, and repeated his motto which had something to do with monkeys.

They watched him go down the street towards the beech where the easiest canoe in the village was moored.

"It is better if we go after him and put out his eyes," said his elder brother; "else who knows what damage he will do for which we must pay?"

Only B'chumbiri's mother looked after him with a mouth that drooped at the side, for he was her only son, all the others being by other wives of Mochimo.

His father and his uncle stood apart and whispered, and presently when, with a great waving of arms, B'chumbiri had embarked, they went out of the village by the forest path and ran tirelessly till they struck the river at its bend.

"Here we will wait," panted the uncle, "and when B'chumbiri comes we will call him to land, for he has the sickness mongo."

"What of Sandi?" asked the father, who was no gossip.

"Sandi is gone," replied the other, "and there is no law."

Presently B'chumbiri came sweeping round the bend, singing in his poor, cracked voice about a land and a people and treasures … he turned his canoe at his father's bidding, and came obediently to land....

Overhead the sky was a vivid blue, and the water which moved quickly between the rocky channel of the Lower Isisi caught something of the blue, though the thick green of elephant grass by the water's edge and the overhanging spread of gum trees took away from the clarity of reflection.

There was, too, a gentle breeze and a pleasing absence of flies, so that a man might get under the red and white striped awning of the Zaire and think or read or dream dreams, and find life a pleasant experience, and something to be thankful for.

Such a day does not often come upon the river, but if it does, the deep channel of the Isisi focuses all the joy of it. Here the river runs as straight as a canal for six miles, the current swifter and stronger between the guiding banks than elsewhere. There are rocks, charted and known, for the bed of the river undergoes no change, the swift waters carry no sands to choke the fairway, navigation is largely a matter of engine power and rule of thumb. Going slowly up stream a little more than two knots an hour, the Zaire was for once a pleasure steamer. Her long-barrelled Hotchkiss guns were hidden in their canvas jackets, the Maxims were lashed to the side of the bridge out of sight, and Lieutenant Augustus Tibbetts, who sprawled in a big wicker-work chair with an illustrated paper on his knees, a nasal-toned phonograph at his feet, and a long glass of lemon squash at his elbow, had little to do but pass the pleasant hours in the most pleasant occupation he could conceive, which was the posting of a diary, which he hoped on some future occasion to publish.

A shout, quick and sharp, brought him to his feet, a stiffly outstretched hand pointed to the waters.

"What the dooce–" demanded Bones indignantly, and looked over the side.... He saw the pitiful thing that rolled slowly in the swift current, and the homely face of Bones hardened.

"Damn," he said, and the wheel of the Zaire spun, and the little boat came broadside to the stream before the threshing wheel got purchase on the water.

It was Bones' sinewy hand that gripped the poor arm and brought the body to the side of the canoe into which he had jumped as the boat came round.

"Um," said Bones, seeing what he saw; "who knows this man?"

"Lord," said a wooding man, "this is B'chumbiri who was mad, and he lived in the village near by."

"There will we go," said Bones, very gravely.

Now all the people of M'fa knew that the father of B'chumbiri and his uncle had put away the tiresome youth with his headache and his silly talk, and when there came news that the Zaire was beating her way to the village there was a hasty likambo of the eldermen.

"Since this is neither Sandi nor M'ilitani who comes," said the chief, an old man, N'jela ("the Bringer"), "but Moon-in-the-Eye, who is a child, let us say that B'chumbiri fell into the water so that the crocodiles had him, and if he asks us who slew B'chumbiri—for it may be that he knows—let none speak, and afterwards we will tell M'ilitani that we did not understand him."

With this arrangement all agreed; for surely here was a palaver not to be feared.

Bones came with his escort of Houssas.

From the dark interiors of thatched huts men and women watched his thin figure going up the street, and laughed.

Nor did they laugh softly. Bones heard the chuckles of unseen people, divined that contempt, and his lips trembled. He felt an immense loneliness—all the weight of government was pressed down upon his head, it overwhelmed, it smothered him.

Yet he kept a tight hold upon himself, and by a supreme effort of will showed no sign of his perturbation.

The palaver was of little value to Bones; the village was blandly innocent of murder or knowledge of murder. More than this, all men stoutly swore that the thing that lay upon the foreshore for identification, surrounded by a crowd of frowning and frightened little boys lured by the very gruesomeness of the spectacle, was unknown, and laughed openly at the suggestion that it was B'chumbiri, who (said they) had gone a Journey into the forest.