The Keepers of the King's Peace

"I shall never be surprised to learn that a war has been going on in the N'gombi for two months without our hearing a word about it."

"If they fight amongst themselves—yes," said Captain Hamilton; "if they fight outsiders, there will be plenty of bleats. Why not send Bones to overlook his sugar experiments," he added.

"Let's talk about something pleasant," said Bones hastily.

It was exactly three months later when he actually made the trip.

"Take the Zaire up to the bend of the Isisi," said Sanders one morning, at breakfast, "and find out what Ali Kano is doing—the lazy beggar should have reported."

"Any news from the N'gombi?" asked Hamilton.

"Only roundabout stories of their industry. Apparently the sugar merchant is making big experiments. He has set half the people digging roots for him. Be ready to sail at dawn."

"Will it be a dangerous trip?" asked the girl.

"No. Why?" smiled Sanders.

"Because I'd like to go. Oh, please, don't look so glum! Bones is awfully good to me."

"Better than a jolly old brother," murmured Bones.

"H'm!" Sanders shook his head, and she appealed to her brother.

"Please!"

"I wouldn't mind your going," said Hamilton, "if only to look after Bones."

"S-sh!" said Bones reproachfully.

"If you're keen on it, I don't see why you shouldn't—if you had a chaperon."

"A chaperon!" sneered Bones. "Great Heavens! Do, old skipper, pull yourself together. Open the jolly old window and give him air. Feelin' better, sir?"

"A chaperon! How absurd!" cried the girl indignantly. "I'm old enough to be Bones's mother! I'm nearly twenty—well, I'm older than Bones, and I'm ever so much more capable of looking after myself."

The end of it was that she went, with her Kano maid and with the wife of Abiboo to cook for her. And in two days they came to the bend of the river, and Bones pursued his inquiries for the missing spy, but without success.

"But this I tell you, lord," said the little chief who acted as Sanders's agent, "that there are strange things happening in the N'gombi country, for all the people have gone mad, and are digging up their teeth (tusks) and bringing them to a white man."

"This shall go to Sandi," said Bones, realizing the importance of the news; and that same evening he turned the bow of the Zaire down stream.

Thus said Wafa, the half-breed, for he was neither foreign Arab nor native N'gombi, yet combined the cunning of both—

"Soon we shall see the puc-a-puc of Government turn from the crookedness of the river, and I will go out and speak to our lord Tibbetti, who is a very simple man, and like a child."

"O Wafa," said one of the group of armed men which stood shivering on the beach in the cold hours of dawn, "may this be a good palaver! As for me, my stomach is filled with fearfulness. Let us all drink this magic water, for it gives us men courage."

"That you shall do when you have carried out all our master's works," said Wafa, and added with confidence: "Have no fear, for soon you shall see great wonders."

They heard the deep boom of the Zaire's siren signalling a solitary and venturesome fisherman to quit the narrow fair-way, and presently she came round the bend of the river, a dazzling white craft, showering sparks from her two slender smoke-stacks and leaving behind her twin cornucopias of grey smoke.

Wafa stepped into a canoe, and, seeing that the others were preparing to follow him, he struck out swiftly, manœuvring his ironwood boat to the very waters from whence a scared fisherman was frantically paddling.

"Go not there, foreigner," wailed the Isisi Stabber-of-Waters, "for it is our lord Sandi, and his puc-a-puc has bellowed terribly."

"Die you!" roared Wafa. "On the river bottom your body, son of a fish and father of snakes!"

"O foreign frog!" came the shrill retort. "O poor man with two men's wives! O goatless–"

Wafa was too intent upon his business to heed the rest. He struck the water strongly with his broad paddles, and reached the centre of the channel.

Bones of the Houssas put up his hand and jerked the rope of the siren.

Whoo-o-o—woo-o-op!

"Bless his silly old head," said Bones fretfully, "the dashed fellow will be run down!"

The girl was dusting Bones's cabin, and looked round. "What is it?" she asked.

Bones made no reply. He gripped the telegraph handle and rung the engines astern as Yoka, the steersman, spun the wheel.

Bump! Bump! Bumpity bump!

The steamer slowed and stopped, and the girl came out to the bridge in alarm. The Zaire had struck a sandbank, and was stranded high, if not dry.

"Bring that man on board," said the wrathful Bones. And they hauled to his presence Wafa, who was neither Arab nor N'gombi, but combined the vices of both.

"O man," said Bones, glaring at the offender through his eyeglass, "what evil ju-ju sent you to stop my fine ship?" He spoke in the Isisi dialect, and was surprised to be answered in coast Arabic.

"Lord," said the man, unmoved by the wrath of his overlord, "I come to make a great palaver concerning spirits and devils. Lord, I have found a great magic."

Bones grinned, for he had that sense of humour which rises superior to all other emotions. "Then you shall try your magic, my man, and lift this ship to deep water."

Wafa was not at all embarrassed. "Lord, this is a greater magic, for it concerns men, and brings to life the dead. For, lord, in this forest is a wonderful tree. Behold!"

He took from his loose-rolled waistband a piece of wood. Bones took it in his hand. It was the size of a corn cob, and had been newly cut, so that the wood was moist with sap. Bones smelt it. There was a faint odour of resin and camphor. Patricia Hamilton smiled. It was so like Bones to be led astray by side issues.

"Where is the wonder, man, that you should drive my ship upon a sandbank! And who are these?" Bones pointed to six canoes, filled with men, approaching the Zaire. The man did not answer, but, taking the wood from Bones's hand, pulled a knife from his belt and whittled a shaving.

"Here, lord," he said, "is my fine magic. With this wood I can do many miracles, such as making sick men strong and the strong weak."

Bones heard the canoes bump against the side of the boat, but his mind was occupied with curiosity.

"Thus do I make my magic, Tibbetti," droned Wafa.

He held the knife by the haft in the right hand, and the chip of wood in his left. The point of the knife was towards the white man's heart.

"Bones!" screamed the girl.

Bones jumped aside and struck out as the man lunged. His nobbly fist caught Wafa under the jaw, and the man stumbled and fell. At the same instant there was a yell from the lower deck, the sound of scuffling, and a shot.

Bones jumped for the girl, thrust her into the cabin, sliding the steel door behind him. His two revolvers hung at the head of his bunk, and he slipped them out, gave a glance to see whether they were loaded, and pushed the door.

"Shut the door after me," he breathed.

The bridge deck was deserted, and Bones raced down the ladder to the iron deck. Two Houssas and half a dozen natives lay dead or dying. The remainder of the soldiers were fighting desperately with whatever weapons they found to their hands—for, with characteristic carefulness, they had laid their rifles away in oil, lest the river air rust them—and, save for the sentry, who used a rifle common to all, they were unarmed.

"O dogs!" roared Bones.

The invaders turned and faced the long-barrelled Webleys, and the fight was finished. Later, Wafa came to the bridge with bright steel manacles on his wrist. His companions in the mad adventure sat on the iron deck below, roped leg to leg, and listened with philosophic calm as the Houssa sentry drew lurid pictures of the fate which awaited them.

Bones sat in his deep chair, and the prisoner squatted before him. "You shall tell my lord Sandi why you did this wickedness," he said, "also, Wafa, what evil thought was in your mind."

"Lord," said Wafa cheerfully, "what good comes to me if I speak?" Something about the man's demeanour struck Bones as strange, and he rose and went close to him.

"I see," he said, with a tightened lip. "The palaver is finished."

They led the man away, and the girl, who had been a spectator, asked anxiously: "What is wrong, Bones?"

But the young man shook his head. "The breaking of all that Sanders has worked for," he said bitterly, and the very absence of levity in one whose heart was so young and gay struck a colder chill to the girl's heart than the yells of the warring N'gombi. For Sanders had a big place in Patricia Hamilton's life. In an hour the Zaire was refloated, and was going at full speed down stream.

Sanders held his court in the thatched palaver house between the Houssa guard-room and the little stockade prison at the river's edge—a prison hidden amidst the flowering shrubs and acacia trees.

Wafa was the first to be examined. "Lord," he said, without embarrassment, "I tell you this—that I will not speak of the great wonders which lay in my heart unless you give me a book6 that I shall go free."

Sanders smiled unpleasantly. "By the Prophet, I say what is true," he began confidentially; and Wafa winced at the oath, for he knew that truth was coming, and truth of a disturbing character. "In this land I govern millions of men," said Sanders, speaking deliberately, "I and two white lords. I govern by fear, Wafa, because there is no love in simple native men, save a love for their own and their bellies."

"Lord, you speak truth," said Wafa, the superior Arab of him responding to the confidence.

"Now, if you make to kill the lord Tibbetti," Sanders went on, "and do your wickedness for secret reasons, must I not discover what is that secret, lest it mean that I lose my hold upon the lands I govern?"

"Lord, that is also true," said Wafa.

"For what is one life more or less," asked Sanders, "a suffering smaller or greater by the side of my millions and their good?"

"Lord, you are Suliman," said Wafa eagerly. "Therefore, if you let me go, who shall be the worse for it?"

Again Sanders smiled, that grim parting of lip to show his white teeth. "Yet you may lie, and, if I let you go, I have neither the truth nor your body. No, Wafa, you shall speak." He rose up from his chair. "To-day you shall go to the Village of Irons," he said; "to-morrow I will come to you, and you shall answer my questions. And, if you will not speak, I shall light a little fire on your chest, and that fire shall not go out except when the breath goes from your body. This palaver is finished."

So they took Wafa away to the Village of Irons, where the evil men of the Territories worked with chains about their ankles for their many sins, and in the morning came Sanders.

"Speak, man," he said.

Wafa stared with an effort of defiance, but his face was twitching, for he saw the soldiers driving pegs into the ground, preparatory to staking him out. "I will speak the truth," he said.

So they took him into a hut, and there Sanders sat with him alone for half an hour; and when the Commissioner came out, his face was drawn and grey. He beckoned to Hamilton, who came forward and saluted. "We will get back to headquarters," he said shortly, and they arrived two hours later.

Sanders sat in the little telegraph office, and the Morse sounder rattled and clacked for half an hour. Other sounders were at work elsewhere, delicate needles vacillated in cable offices, and an Under-Secretary was brought from the House of Commons to the bureau of the Prime Minister to answer a question.

At four o'clock in the afternoon came the message Sanders expected: "London says permit for Corklan forged. Arrest. Take extremest steps. Deal drastically, ruthlessly. Holding in residence three companies African Rifles and mountain battery support you. Good luck. Administration."

Sanders came out of the office, and Bones met him.

"Men all aboard, sir," he reported.

"We'll go," said Sanders.

He met the girl half-way to the quay. "I know it is something very serious," she said quietly; "you have all my thoughts." She put both her hands in his, and he took them. Then, without a word, he left her.

Mr. P. T. Corklan sat before his new hut in the village of Fimini. In that hut—the greatest the N'gombi had ever seen—were stored hundreds of packages all well wrapped and sewn in native cloth.

He was not smoking a cigar, because his stock of cigars was running short, but he was chewing a toothpick, for these, at a pinch, could be improvised. He called to his headman. "Wafa?" he asked.

"Lord, he will come, for he is very cunning," said the headman.

Mr. Corklan grunted. He walked to the edge of the village, where the ground sloped down to a strip of vivid green rushes. "Tell me, how long will this river be full?" he asked.

"Lord, for a moon."

Corklan nodded. Whilst the secret river ran, there was escape for him, for its meandering course would bring him and his rich cargo to Spanish territory and deep water.

His headman waited as though he had something to say. "Lord," he said at last, "the chief of the N'coro village sends this night ten great teeth and a pot."

Corklan nodded. "If we're here, we'll get 'em. I hope we shall be gone."

And then the tragically unexpected happened. A man in white came through the trees towards him, and behind was another white man and a platoon of native soldiers.

"Trouble," said Corklan to himself, and thought the moment was one which called for a cigar.

"Good-morning, Mr. Sanders!" he said cheerfully.

Sanders eyed him in silence.

"This is an unexpected pleasure," said Corklan.

"Corklan, where is your still?" asked Sanders.

The plump man laughed. "You'll find it way back in the forest," he said, "and enough sweet potatoes to distil fifty gallons of spirit—all proof, sir, decimal 1986 specific gravity water extracted by Soemmering's method—in fact, as good as you could get it in England."

Sanders nodded. "I remember now—you're the man that ran the still in the Ashanti country, and got away with the concession."

"That's me," said the other complacently. "P. T. Corklan—I never assume an alias."

Sanders nodded again. "I came past villages," he said, "where every man and almost every woman was drunk. I have seen villages wiped out in drunken fights. I have seen a year's hard work ahead of me. You have corrupted a province in a very short space of time, and, as far as I can judge, you hoped to steal a Government ship and get into neutral territory with the prize you have won by your–"

"Enterprise," said Mr. Corklan obligingly. "You'll have to prove that—about the ship. I am willing to stand any trial you like. There's no law about prohibition—it's one you've made yourself. I brought up the still—that's true—brought it up in sections and fitted it. I've been distilling spirits—that's true–"

"I also saw a faithful servant of Government, one Ali Kano," said Sanders, in a low voice. "He was lying on the bank of this secret river of yours with two revolver bullets in him."

"The nigger was spying on me, and I shot him," explained Corklan.

"I understand," said Sanders. And then, after a little pause: "Will you be hung or shot?"

The cigar dropped from the man's mouth. "Hey?" he said hoarsely. "You—you can't—do that—for making a drop of liquor—for niggers!"

"For murdering a servant of the State," corrected Sanders. "But, if it is any consolation to you, I will tell you that I would have killed you, anyway."

It took Mr. Corklan an hour to make up his mind, and then he chose rifles.

To-day the N'gombi point to a mound near the village of Fimini, which they call by a name which means, "The Waters of Madness," and it is believed to be haunted by devils.

CHAPTER XI

EYE TO EYE

"Bones," said Captain Hamilton, in despair, "you will never be a Napoleon."

"Dear old sir and brother-officer," said Lieutenant Tibbetts, "you are a jolly old pessimist."

Bones was by way of being examined in subjects C and D, for promotion to captaincy, and Hamilton was the examining officer. By all the rules and laws and strict regulations which govern military examinations, Bones had not only failed, but he had seriously jeopardized his right to his lieutenancy, if every man had his due.

"Now, let me put this," said Hamilton. "Suppose you were in charge of a company of men, and you were attacked on three sides, and you had a river behind you on the fourth side, and you found things were going very hard against you. What would you do?"

"Dear old sir," said Bones thoughtfully, and screwing his face into all manner of contortions in his effort to secure the right answer, "I should go and wet my heated brow in the purling brook, then I'd take counsel with myself."

"You'd lose," said Hamilton, with a groan. "That's the last person in the world you should go to for advice, Bones. Suppose," he said, in a last desperate effort to awaken a gleam of military intelligence in his subordinate's mind, "suppose you were trekking through the forest with a hundred rifles, and you found your way barred by a thousand armed men. What would you do?"

"Go back," said Bones, "and jolly quick, dear old fellow."

"Go back? What would you go back for?" asked the other, in astonishment.

"To make my will," said Bones firmly, "and to write a few letters to dear old friends in the far homeland. I have friends, Ham," he said, with dignity, "jolly old people who listen for my footsteps, and to whom my voice is music, dear old fellow."

"What other illusions do they suffer from?" asked Hamilton offensively, closing his book with a bang. "Well, you will be sorry to learn that I shall not recommend you for promotion."

"You don't mean that," said Bones hoarsely.

"I mean that," said Hamilton.

"Well, I thought if I had a pal to examine me, I would go through with flying colours."

"Then I am not a pal. You don't suggest," said Hamilton, with ominous dignity, "that I would defraud the public by lying as to the qualities of a deficient character?"

"Yes, I do," said Bones, nodding vigorously, "for my sake and for the sake of the child." The child was that small native whom Bones had rescued and adopted.

"Not even for the sake of the child," said Hamilton, with an air of finality. "Bones, you're ploughed."

Bones did not speak, and Hamilton gathered together the papers, forms, and paraphernalia of examination.

He lifted his head suddenly, to discover that Bones was staring at him. It was no ordinary stare, but something that was a little uncanny. "What the dickens are you looking at?"

Bones did not speak. His round eyes were fixed on his superior in an unwinking glare.

"When I said you had failed," said Hamilton kindly, "I meant, of course–"

"That I'd passed," muttered Bones excitedly. "Say it, Ham—say it! 'Bones, congratulations, dear old lad'–"

"I meant," said Hamilton coldly, "that you have another chance next month."

The face of Lieutenant Tibbetts twisted into a painful contortion. "It didn't work!" he said bitterly, and stalked from the room.

"Rum beggar!" thought Hamilton, and smiled to himself.

"Have you noticed anything strange about Bones?" asked Patricia Hamilton the next day.

Her brother looked at her over his newspaper. "The strangest thing about Bones is Bones," he said, "and that I am compelled to notice every day of my life."

She looked up at Sanders, who was idly pacing the stoep of the Residency. "Have you, Mr. Sanders?"

Sanders paused. "Beyond the fact that he is rather preoccupied and stares at one–"

"That is it," said the girl. "I knew I was right—he stares horribly. He has been doing it for a week—just staring. Do you think he is ill?"

"He has been moping in his hut for the past week," said Hamilton thoughtfully, "but I was hoping that it meant that he was swotting for his exam. But staring—I seem to remember–"

The subject of the discussion made his appearance at the far end of the square at that moment, and they watched him. First he walked slowly towards the Houssa sentry, who shouldered his arms in salute. Bones halted before the soldier and stared at him. Somehow, the watchers on the stoep knew that he was staring—there was something so fixed, so tense in his attitude. Then, without warning, the sentry's hand passed across his body, and the rifle came down to the "present."

"What on earth is he doing?" demanded the outraged Hamilton, for sentries do not present arms to subaltern officers.

Bones passed on. He stopped before one of the huts in the married lines, and stared at the wife of Sergeant Abiboo. He stared long and earnestly, and the woman, giggling uncomfortably, stared back. Then she began to dance.

"For Heaven's sake–" gasped Sanders, as Bones passed on.

"Bones!" roared Hamilton.

Bones turned first his head, then his body towards the Residency, and made his slow way towards the group.

"What is happening?" asked Hamilton.

The face of Bones was flushed; there was triumph in his eye—triumph which his pose of nonchalance could not wholly conceal. "What is happening, dear old officer?" he asked innocently, and stared.

"What the dickens are you goggling at?" demanded Hamilton irritably. "And please explain why you told the sentry to present arms to you."

"I didn't tell him, dear old sir and superior captain," said Bones. His eyes never left Hamilton's; he stared with a fierceness and with an intensity that was little short of ferocious.

"Confound you, what are you staring at? Aren't you well?" demanded Hamilton wrathfully.

Bones blinked. "Quite well, sir and comrade," he said gravely. "Pardon the question—did you feel a curious and unaccountable inclination to raise your right hand and salute me?"

"Did I—what?" demanded his dumbfounded superior.

"A sort of itching of the right arm—an almost overpowerin' inclination to touch your hat to poor old Bones?"

Hamilton drew a long breath. "I felt an almost overpowering desire to lift my foot," he said significantly.

"Look at me again," said Bones calmly. "Fix your eyes on mine an' think of nothin'. Now shut your eyes. Now you can't open 'em."

"Of course I can open them," said Hamilton. "Have you been drinking, Bones?"

A burst of delighted laughter from the girl checked Bones's indignant denial. "I know!" she cried, clapping her hands. "Bones is trying to mesmerize you!"

"What?"

The scarlet face of Bones betrayed him.

"Power of the human eye, dear old sir," he said hurriedly. "Some people have it—it's a gift. I discovered it the other day after readin' an article in The Scientific Healer."

"Phew!" Hamilton whistled. "So," he said, with dangerous calm, "all this staring and gaping of yours means that, does it? I remember now. When I was examining you for promotion the other day, you stared. Trying to mesmerize me?"

"Let bygones be bygones, dear old friend," begged Bones.

"And when I asked you to produce the company pay-sheets, which you forgot to bring up to date, you stared at me!"

"It's a gift," said Bones feebly.

"Oh, Bones," said the girl slowly, "you stared at me, too, after I refused to go picnicking with you on the beach."

"All's fair in love an' war," said Bones vaguely. "It's a wonderful gift."

"Have you ever mesmerized anybody?" asked Hamilton curiously, and Bones brightened up.

"Rather, dear old sir," he said. "Jolly old Ali, my secretary—goes off in a regular trance on the slightest provocation. Fact, dear old Ham."

Hamilton clapped his hands, and his orderly, dozing in the shade of the verandah, rose up. "Go, bring Ali Abid," said Hamilton. And when the man had gone: "Are you under the illusion that you made the sentry present arms to you, and Abiboo's woman dance for you, by the magic of your eye?"

"You saw," said the complacent Bones. "It's a wonderful gift, dear old Ham. As soon as I read the article, I tried it on Ali. Got him, first pop!"

The girl was bubbling with suppressed laughter, and there was a twinkle in Sanders's eye. "I recall that you saw me in connection with shooting leave in the N'gombi."

"Yes, sir and Excellency," said the miserable Bones.