The Twelve African Novels (A Collection). Edgar Wallace

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      Somebody fired a shot from one of the uninjured canoes. The wind of the bullet fanned his face, he heard the smack of it as it struck the woodwork behind.

      There came another shot, and the boy at the wheel turned his head with a little grin to Sanders.

      “Lord,” he mumbled in Arabic, “this was ordained from the beginning.”

      Sanders slipped his arm about his shoulder and lowered him gently to the deck. “All things are with God,” he said softly.

      “Blessed be His name,” whispered the dying boy.

      Sanders caught the wheel as it spun and beckoned another steersman forward.

      The nose of the steamer had turned to the offending canoe. This was an unhappy circumstance for the men therein, for both guns now covered it, and they rattled together, and through the blue haze you saw the canoe emptied.

      That was the end of the fight. A warrior in the fifth boat held his spear horizontally above his head in token of surrender, and ten minutes later the chief of the rebels was on board.

      “Master,” he said calmly, as they led him to Sanders’ presence, “this is a bad palaver. How will you deal with me?”

      Sanders looked at him steadily. “I will be merciful with you,” he said, “for as soon as we come to the village I shall hang you.”

      “So I thought,” said the chief without moving a muscle; “and I have heard it said that you hang men very quickly so that they feel little pain.”

      “That is my practice,” said Sanders of the River, and the chief nodded his head approvingly.

      “I would rather it were so,” he said.

      It was to a sorrowful village that he came, for there were many women to wail their dead.

      Sanders landed with his Houssas and held a high palaver under the trees.

      “Bring me the old man M’fabaka who sees visions,” he said, and they brought him a man so old that he had nothing but bones to shape him.

      They carried him to the place of justice and set him down before the Commissioner.

      “You are an evil man,” said Sanders, “and because your tongue has lied many men have died; today I hang your chief upon a tree, and with him certain others. If you stand before your people and say, ‘Such a story, and such a story was a lie and no other thing,’ you may live your days; but, if you persist in your lying, by my God, and your god, you shall die!” It was a long time before the old man spoke, for he was very old and very frightened, and the fear of death, which is the ghost of some old men, was on him.

      “I spoke the truth,” he quavered at last. “I spoke of what I saw and of what I knew — only that.” Sanders waited.

      “I saw the great king slay and burn; yesterday I saw him march his regiments to war, and there was a great shouting, and I saw smoke.” He shook his head helplessly. “I saw these things. How can I say I saw nothing?”

      “What manner of king?” asked Sanders.

      Again there was a long interval of silence whilst the old man collected himself.

      “A great king,” he said shakily, “as big as a bull about the middle, and he wore great, white feathers and the skin of a leopard.”

      “You are mad,” said Sanders, and ended the palaver.

      Six days later Sanders went back to headquarters, leaving behind him a chastened people.

      Ill-news travels faster than steam can push a boat, and the little Zaire, keeping to midstream with the blue flag flying, was an object of interest to many small villages, the people of which crowded down to their beaches and stood with folded arms, or with clenched knuckles at their lips to signify their perturbation, and shouted in monotonous chorus after the boat.

      “Oh, Sandi — father! How many evil ones have you slain today? Oh, killer of devils — oh, hanger of trees! — we are full of virtues and do not fear.”

      “Ei-fo, Kalaba? Ei ko Sandi! Eiva fo elegi,” etc.

      Sanders went with the stream swiftly, for he wished to establish communication with his chief. Somewhere in the country there was a revolt — that he knew. There was truth in all the old man had said before he died — for die he did of sheer panic and age.

      Who was this king in revolt? Not the king of the Isisi, or of the M’Gombi, nor of the people in the forelands beyond the Ochori.

      The Zaire went swinging in to the Government beach, and there was a captain of Houssas to meet him. “Land wire working?” said Sanders as he stepped ashore.

      The Houssa captain nodded. “What’s the palaver?” he asked.

      “War of a kind,” said Sanders; “some king or other is on the rampage.” And he told the story briefly.

      The Houssa officer whistled. “By Lord High Keeper of the Privy Purse!” he swore mildly, “that’s funny!”

      “You’ve a poisonous sense of humour!” Sanders snapped.

      “Hold hard,” said the Houssa, and caught his arm. “Don’t you know that La Benguela is in rebellion? The description fits him.”

      Sanders stopped. “Of course,” he said, and breathed a sigh of relief.

      “But,” said the perplexed Houssa officer, “Matabeleland is three thousand miles away. Rebellion started a week ago. How did these beggars know?” For answer Sanders beckoned a naked man of the Akasava people who was of his boat’s crew, being a good chopper of wood.

      “I’fasi,” he said, “tell me, what do they do in your country today?”

      The man grinned sheepishly, and stood on one leg in his embarrassment, for it was an honour to common men that Sanders should address them by name. “Lord, they go to hunt elephant,” he said.

      “How many?” said Sanders.

      “Two villages,” said the man, “for one village has sickness and cannot go.”

      “How do you know this?” said Sanders. “Is not your country four days by river and three days by land?”

      The man looked uncomfortable. “It is as you say, master — yet I know,” he said.

      Sanders turned to the Houssa with a smile.

      “There is quite a lot to be learnt in this country,” he said.

      A month later Sanders received a cutting from the Cape Times. The part which interested him ran; “…the rumour generally credited by the Matebele rebels that their adherents in the north had suffered a repulse lacks confirmation. The Commissioner of Barotseland denies the native story of a rebellious tribe, and states that as far as he knows the whole of his people have remained quiet. Other northern Commissioners state the same; there has been no sympathetic СКАЧАТЬ