The Twelve African Novels (A Collection). Edgar Wallace

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ give it up,” said Sanders in despair, and went back to his base to think matters out.

      He was sitting at dinner one night, when far away on the river the drum beat. It was not the regular lo-koli roll, but a series of staccato tappings, and, stepping softly to the door, the Commissioner listened.

      He had borrowed the Houssa signalling staff from headquarters, and stationed them at intervals along the river. On a still night the tapping of a drum carries far, but the rattle of ironwood sticks on a hollowed tree-trunk carries farthest of all.

      “Clok-clok, clockitty-clock.” It sounded like the faraway croaking of a bull-frog; but Sanders picked out the letters: “Devil Man sacrifices tomorrow night in the Forest of Dreams.” As he jotted down the message on the white sleeve of his jacket, Abiboo came running up the path.

      “I have heard,” said Sanders briefly. “There is steam in the pucapuc?”

      “We are ready, master,” said the man.

      Sanders waited only to take a hanging revolver from the wall and throw his overcoat over his arm, for his travelling kit was already deposited on the Zaire, and had been for three days.

      In the darkness the sharp nose of his little boat swung out to the stream, and ten minutes after the message came the boat was threshing a way against the swift river.

      All night long the steamer went on, tacking from bank to bank to avoid the shoals. Dawn found her at a wooding, where her men, working at fever speed, piled logs on her deck until she had the appearance of a timber-boat.

      Then off again, stopping only to secure news of the coming sacrifice from the spies who were scattered up and down the river.

      Sanders reached the edge of the Dream Forest at midnight and tied up. He had ten Houssa policemen with him, and at the head of these he stepped ashore into the blackness of the forest. One of the soldiers went ahead to find the path and keep it, and in single file the little force began its two-hour march. Once they came upon two leopards fighting; once they stumbled over a buffalo sleeping in their path. Twice they disturbed strange beasts that slunk into the shadows as they passed, and came snuffling after them, till Sanders flashed a white beam from his electric lamp in their direction. Eventually they came stealthily to the place of sacrifice.

      There were at least six hundred people squatting in a semicircle before a rough altar built of logs. Two huge fires blazed and crackled on either side of the altar; but Sanders’ eyes were for the Devil Man, who leant over the body of a young girl, apparently asleep, stretched upon the logs.

      Once the Devil Man had worn the garb of civilization; now he was clothed in rags. He stood in his grimy shirtsleeves, his white beard wild and uncombed, his pale face tense, and a curious light in his eyes. In his hand was a bright scalpel, and he was speaking — and, curiously enough, in English.

      “This, gentlemen,” said he, leaning easily against the rude altar, and speaking with the assurance of one who had delivered many such lectures, “is a bad case of trynosomiasis. You will observe the discoloration of skin, the opalescent pupils, and now that I have placed the patient under anaesthetics you will remark the misplacement of the cervical glands, which is an invariable symptom.” He paused and looked benignly around.

      “I may say that I have lived for a great time amongst native people. I occupied the honourable position of witchdoctor in Central Africa—” He stopped and passed his hand across his brow, striving to recall something; then he picked up the thread of his discourse.

      All the time he spoke the half-naked assembly sat silent and awestricken, comprehending nothing save that the witchdoctor with the white face, who had come from nowhere and had done many wonderful things — his magic box proved to be a galvanic battery — was about to perform strange rites.

      “Gentlemen,” the old man went on, tapping the breast of his victim with the handle of his scalpel, “I shall make an incision—” Sanders came from his place of concealment, and walked steadily towards the extemporized operating-table.

      “Professor,” he said gently, and the madman looked at him with a puzzled frown.

      “You are interrupting the clinic,” he said testily, “I am demonstrating—”

      “I know, sir.” Sanders took his arm, and Sir George Carsley, a great scientist, consulting surgeon to St Mark’s Hospital, London, and the author of many books on tropical diseases, went with him like a child.

XII. The Lonely One

       Table of Contents

      Mr Commissioner Sanders had lived so long with native people that he had absorbed not a little of their simplicity. More than this, he had acquired the uncanny power of knowing things which he would not and could not have known unless he were gifted with the prescience which is every aboriginal’s birthright.

      He had sent three spies into the Isisi country — which lies a long way from headquarters and is difficult of access — and after two months of waiting they came to him in a body, bearing good news.

      This irritated Sanders to an unjustifiable degree.

      “Master, I say to you that the Isisi are quiet,” protested one of the spies; “and there is no talk of war.”

      “H’m!” said Sanders, ungraciously. “And you?” He addressed the second spy.

      “Lord,” said the man, “I went into the forest, to the border of the land, and there is no talk of war. Chiefs and headmen told me this.”

      “Truly you are a great spy,” scoffed Sanders, “and how came you to the chiefs and headmen? And how did they greet you? ‘Hail! secret spy of Sandi’? Huh!” He dismissed the men with a wave of his hand, and putting on his helmet went down to the Houssa lines, where the bluecoated soldiers gambled in the shade of their neat white barracks.

      The Houssa captain was making palatable medicine with the aid of a book of cigarette papers and a six-ounce bottle of quinine sulphide.

      Sanders observed his shaking hand, and talked irritably.

      “There’s trouble in the Isisi,” he said, “I can smell it. I don’t know what it is — but there’s devilry of sorts.”

      “Secret societies?” suggested the Houssa.

      “Secret grandmothers,” snarled Sanders. “How many men have you got?”

      “Sixty, including the lame ‘uns,” said the Houssa officer, and swallowed a paperful of quinine with a grimace.

      Sanders tapped the toe of his boot with this thin ebony stick, and was thoughtful.

      “I may want ‘em” he said. “I’m going to find out what’s wrong with these Isisi people.”

      By the little river that turns abruptly from the River of Spirits, Imgani, the Lonely One, built a house. He built it in proper fashion, stealing the wood from a village five miles away. In this village there had been many deaths, owing to The Sickness; and it is the custom on the Upper River that whenever a person dies, the house wherein he died shall СКАЧАТЬ