The Twelve African Novels (A Collection). Edgar Wallace

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СКАЧАТЬ him, the wild people of the Alebi,” said the leader without emotion, “and put out his eyes: that night, when they would have burnt him, I killed his guard and carried him to the bush.”

      Sanders stood before his bungalow, in the green moonlight, and looked from the speaker to the blind man, who stood uncomplainingly, patiently twiddling his fingers.

      “What news of the white men?” he asked at last, and the speaker, resting on his long spear, turned to the sightless one at his side.

      “What saw you, Messambi?” he asked in the vernacular.

      “Bones,” croaked the blind man, “bones I saw; bones and nearly bones. They crucified the white folk in a big square before the chief’s house, and there is no man left alive so men say.”

      “So I thought,” said Sanders gravely, and made his report to England.

      Months passed and the rains came and the green season that follows the rains, and Sanders was busy, as a West Central African Commissioner can be busy, in a land where sleeping sickness and tribal feuds contribute steadily to the death rate.

      He had been called into the bush to settle a witchdoctor palaver. He travelled sixty miles along the tangled road that leads to the Alebi country, and established his seat of justice at a small town called M’Saga. He had twenty Houssa9 with him, else he might not have gone so far with impunity. He sat in the thatched palaver house and listened to incredible stories of witchcraft, 01 spells cast, of wasting sickness that fell in consequence, of horrible rites between moonset and sunrise, and gave judgment.

      The witchdoctor was an old man, but Sanders had no respect for grey hairs.

      “It is evident to me that you are an evil man,” he said, “and—”

      “Master!”

      It was the complainant who interrupted him, a man wasted by disease and terror, who came into the circle of soldiery and stolid townspeople.

      “Master, he is a bad man—”

      “Be silent,” commanded Sanders.

      “He practises devil spells with white men’s blood,” screamed the man, as two soldiers seized him at a gesture from the Commissioner. “He keeps a white man chained in the forest—”

      “Eh?”

      Sanders was alert and interested. He knew natives better than any other man; he could detect a lie — more difficult an accomplishment, he could detect the truth. Now he beckoned the victim of the witchdoctor’s enmity towards him.

      “What is this talk of white men?” he asked.

      The old doctor said something in a low tone, fiercely, and the informer hesitated.

      “Go on,” said Sanders.

      “He says—”

      “Go on!”

      The man was shaking from head to foot.

      “There is a white man in the forest — he came from the River of Stars — the Old One found him and put him in a hut, needing his blood for charms….”

      The man led the way along a forest path, behind him came Sanders, and, surrounded by six soldiers, the old witchdoctor with his hands strapped together.

      Two miles from the village was a hut. The elephant grass grew so high about it that it was scarcely visible. Its roof was rotten and sagging, the interior was vile…

      Sanders found a man lying on the floor, chained by the leg to a heavy log; a man who laughed softly to himself, and spoke like a gentleman. The soldiers carried him into the open, and laid him carefully on the ground. His clothes were in tatters, his hair and his beard were long, there were many little scars on either forearm where the witchdoctor’s knife had drawn blood.

      “M — m,” said Sanders, and shook his head.

      “…The River of Stars,” said the wreck, with a chuckle, “pretty name — what? Kimberley? Why, Kimberley is nothing compared to it… I did not believe it until I saw it with my eyes… the bed of the river is packed with diamonds, and you’d never find it, Lambaire, even with the chart, and your infernal compass… I’ve left a cache of tools, and food for a couple of years….”

      He thrust his hand into his rag of a shirt and brought out a scrap of paper. Sanders bent down to take it, but the man pushed him back with his thin hand.

      “No, no, no,” he breathed. “You take the blood, that’s your job — I’m strong enough to stand it — one day I’ll get away…”

      Ten minutes later he fell into a sound sleep. Sanders found the soiled paper, and put it into his uniform pocket.

      He sent back to the boat and his men brought two tents which were pitched in a clearing near the hut. The man was in such a deplorable condition that Sanders dared not take the risk of moving him. That night, when the camp lay wrapped in sleep and the two native women whom the Commissioner had commanded to watch the sick man were snoring by their charge, the wreck woke. Stealthily he rose from bed and crept out into the starry night.

      Sanders woke to find an empty hut and a handful of rags that had once been a white man’s coat on the banks of the tiny forest stream, a hundred yards from the camp.

      *

      The witch doctor of M’Saga, summoned to an early morning palaver, came in irons and was in no doubt as to the punishment which awaited him, for nearby in the forest the houssas had dug up much evidence of sacrifice.

      “Master,” said the man, facing the stare of grey eyes, “I see death in your face.”

      “That is God’s truth,” said Sanders, and hanged him then and there.

I. Amber

       Table of Contents

      Amber sat in his cell at Wellboro’ gaol, softly whistling a little tune and beating time on the floor with his stockinged feet. He had pushed his stool near to the corrugated wall, and tilted it back so that he was poised on two of its three legs.

      His eyes wandered round the little room critically.

      Spoon and basin on the shelf; prison regulations varnished a dull yellow, above these; bed neatly folded… he nodded slowly, still whistling.

      Above the bed and a little to the left was a small window of toughened glass, admitting daylight but affording, by reason of its irregular texture, no view of the world without. On a shelf over the bed was a Bible, a Prayer Book, and a dingy library book.

      He made a grimace at the book; it was a singularly dull account of a singularly dull lady missionary who had spent twenty years in North Borneo without absorbing more of the atmosphere of that place than that it “was very hot” and further that native servants could be on occasion “very trying.”

      Amber was never fortunate with his library СКАЧАТЬ