The Twelve African Novels (A Collection). Edgar Wallace

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СКАЧАТЬ is my cousin, told me — for he goes to the Ochori country to lift the white woman, who gives us certain beastly waters to drink when we are sick.”

      The trees seemed of a sudden to spin and the ground to heave up under the Commissioner’s feet. He staggered a little, and Abiboo, suspecting fever, leapt to his side and put his strong arm on his shoulders. Only for a second he stood thus, white as death; then —

      “Into the boat!” he said.

      There was wood enough on board for six hours’ steaming — the mission station was twelve hours at the least.

      He swept down the little river swiftly and turned to breast the strong currents of the Isisi. Six hours, almost to the minute, the wood lasted. It brought him to a fishing village, where a store of government wood awaited him.

      But the “Arabi” had two days’ start.

      Mackiney had bribed and fought his way through the Mishadombi tribe (those “people-who-are-not-all-alike,” about which I must tell you), which serve as a buffer State between French and British territory; he had corrupted the Isisi, and now, with a guide — the cousin of that same M’Wafamba — was moving rapidly on the mission station.

      It had been built at the junction of two rivers, in the very spot where, a year before, Sanders had established himself as “the Silent One.”

      Mackiney had with him fifty men, mainly of the Kroo coast.

      His plan was to take to one of the smaller streams that feed the Isisi. It was navigable for eighty miles and would bring him to within a month’s march of the regular caravan route to Lago — by then he hoped the girl would be compliant.

      His party reached within striking distance of his objective late in the afternoon.

      The mission house was half a mile from the village, and he sent out spies who brought him word that beyond two native women and a couple of men there was no opposition to be feared.

      He sat apart from his men as they cooked their evening meal.

      In his long white burnous, his head enveloped in a filleted hood, he was an Arab to the life.

      When night came his headman approached him. “Master,” he asked, “what of this Kaffir?”

      He spoke of the guide.

      “Him you will kill,” said Mackiney in Arabic; “for I do not know how much he guesses.”

      “He guesses too much,” said the headman; “for he says that you are no Arab, but a white man.”

      “You must lose no time,” said Mackiney shortly.

      He sat waiting by the fire they had kindled for him. Soon he heard a little scuffle and turning his head saw a knot of swaying men and a muffled bellowing like that of a man with a cloth upon his face.

      The group went staggering into the forest, disappearing in the darkness of the night.

      By and by they came back laughing amongst themselves. The cousin of M’Wafamba, who went with them, did not come back.

      “It is time,” said his headman. “In two hours the moon will be here.”

      Very quickly the fires were extinguished and the cooking-pots stacked in the forepart of the big canoe, and in silence, with paddles striking evenly, they crossed the river.

      The canoe was beached two hundred yards from the mission house, near a clump of bush. From here to the path was a few steps.

      In single file, headed by the white-robed Arab, the party made its stealthy way along the twisting path. On either side the trees rose steeply, and save for the call of night birds there was no sound.

      The forest ended abruptly. Ahead of them was a little clearing and in the centre the dark bulk of the mission hut.

      “Now may Allah further our enterprise,” breathed Mackiney, and took a step forward.

      Out of the ground, almost at his feet, rose a dark figure.

      “Who walks in the night?” asked a voice.

      “Damn you!” grunted Mackiney in English.

      The figure moved ever so slightly.

      “Master,” he said, “that is a white man’s word, yet you have the dress of an Arabi.”

      Mackiney recovered himself.

      “Man, whoever you are, stand on one side, for I have business with the God-woman.”

      “I also,” was the calm reply, “for our Lord Sandi put me here; and I am as he; here have I stood every night save one.”

      Mackiney had a revolver in his hand, but he dare not fire for fear of alarming the occupants of the hut.

      “Let me go on,” he said. He knew, rather than saw, the long spear that was levelled at his breast in the darkness. “Let me be, and I will give you many bags of salt and rods more numerous than the trees of the forest.”

      He heard a little chuckle in the darkness.

      “You give too much for too little,” said the voice. “Oh, M’laka!”

      Mackiney heard the pattering of feet; he was trapped, for somewhere ahead of him armed men were holding the path.

      He raised his revolver and fired twice at the figure.

      A spear whizzed past him, and he leapt forward and grappled with the man in his path.

      He was strong as a young lion, but the man whose hand caught his throat was no weakling. For an instant they swayed, then fell, rolling over and over in the path.

      Mackiney reached his hand for another revolver. It closed round the butt, when he felt a shock — something hit him smoothly in the left side — something that sent a thrill of pain through every nerve in his body.

      “Oh, dear!” said Mackiney in English.

      He never spoke again.

      “Arabi, or white man, I do not know,” said Bosambo of Monrovia; “and there is none to tell us, because my people were quick to kill, and only one of his followers is left alive and he knows nothing.”

      “What have you done with this Arabi?” asked Sanders.

      They held their palaver in the mission house in the first hours of the dawn and the girl, pale and troubled, sat at the table looking from one man to the other, for she knew little of the language.

      “Lord,” said Bosambo, “him I buried according to my desire that no man should know of this raid, lest it put evil thoughts in their heads.”

      “You did wisely,” said Sanders.

      He went back to headquarters a little puzzled, for he knew none of the facts of the case.

      And СКАЧАТЬ