The Twelve African Novels (A Collection). Edgar Wallace

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      Sanders threw down his line and followed the Houssa back to the residency.

      He found the spy lying on a rough, stretcher in the shade of the stoep.

      The man looked round with a twisted grin as Sanders came up the steps that led to the verandah.

      “Ho, Bogora!” said Sanders quietly, “what bad talk they make of you?”

      “There is no talk worth the talking after tonight,” said the man painfully. “As for me, I will make my report and sleep; and, lord, if I did not love you I would have died three nights ago.”

      Sanders made a brief examination of the man’s injuries. He did not turn sick, for that was not his way — he covered the tortured limbs with the blanket again.

      “One Tambeli, a man of Isisi, now sits down with the people of Nushadombi!” gasped the spy, “and is regarded fearfully, being a chief; also it is said that he is a member of a great ju-ju, and has powerful friends among the chiefs. He knew me when other men would have passed me by, and by his orders they did what they did. Also, lord, they are for attacking different nations, such as the Isisi, the Ochori, and the N’Gombi.”

      “How soon?” asked Sanders.

      “When the second moon comes after the rains.”

      “That we shall see,” said Sanders. “As for Tambeli, I will settle with him, Bogoro, my brother, for I will carry your blood upon my hands and at my hands he shall die; all gods witness my words.”

      The wreck on the stretcher smiled.

      “Sandi,” he said slowly, “it is worth all to hear you call me brother.”

      And he closed his eyes as if to sleep, and died as Sanders watched him.

      Bosambo came from his hut one morning just before the dawn. The city of the Ochori was very silent. There had been a dance the night before and in the very centre of the city a dull glow showed where the great fire had been.

      Bosambo drew on his cloak of monkey skins, for the morning air was chill, and walked to the end of the village street, past the gardens and through the little jungle path that led to his own plantation. Here he paused, listening.

      There was no sound save the distant “hush, hush,” of the small river as it swept over the rocks on its way to the River Beyond.

      He squatted down in the shadow of a gum-tree and waited patiently. In an hour the sun would be up; before then he expected things to happen.

      He had not been sitting longer than five minutes when he saw a figure moving towards him, coming from an opposite direction. It moved cautiously, halting now and then as though not certain of its ground. Bosambo rose without sound. “Friend,” he said, “you move in silence.”

      “That is the royal way,” said the figure.

      “Life is full of silences,” said Bosambo.

      “None are so silent as the dead,” was the response. They said these things glibly, as men repeating a ritual, as, indeed, they were.

      “Sit with me, my brother,” said Bosambo, and the other came to his side and sank down on his haunches.

      “This I say to you, Bosambo,” said the stranger, “that oaths are oaths, and men who swear to blood brotherhood do live and die one for the other.”

      “That is true,” said Bosambo; “hence I have come; for when yesterday a strange forest man brought me a little water in a shell, and in that water a berry, I knew that the Silent Ones had need of me.” The stranger nodded his head.

      “Yes, it is many years since I swore the oath,” mused Bosambo; “and I was very young, and the Silent Ones do not walk in the Ochori country, but in Nigeria, which is a month of marches away.”

      The man by his side made a little clicking noise with his mouth.

      “I am here,” he said importantly. “I, Tambeli, a traveller, also, by some accounted king of the People-Who-Are-Not All-Alike. Also a high man in the Order of the Silent Ones, ruthless avengers of slights and controllers of ju-jus.”

      “Lord, I gathered so much,” said the humble Bosambo, “by your honour’s summons. Now tell me how I may serve my brother, who is alone in this country?”

      There was a note of careless interrogation in his voice, and the hand farthest from his visitor fingered the thin, long blade of a knife.

      “Not alone, brother,” said Tambeli, with decision, “for there are many brethren of our society who watch my coming and going.”

      “That is as well,” said Bosambo truthfully, and quietly slipped the knife back into its wooden sheath.

      “Now you can serve me thus,” said Tambeli. “I am the king of a vengeful people who hate Sandi, and, behold, he is coming with soldiers to punish them. And in his coming he must pass through the Ochori country, sitting down with you for a day.”

      “All this is true,” said Bosambo conventionally, and waited.

      Tambeli put his hand beneath his robe and brought forth a short stick of bamboo.

      “Bosambo,” he said, “there is a spirit in this which will do little good to Sandi. For if you cut away the gum which seals one end you will find a powder such as the witchdoctors of my people make, and this can be emptied on the ‘chop’ of Sandi, and he will know nothing, yet he will die.”

      Bosambo took the stick without a word, and placed it in a little bag which hung at his waist.

      “This you will do in fear of the Silent Ones, who are merciless.”

      “This I will do,” said Bosambo gravely.

      No more was said, the two men parting without further speech.

      Bosambo returned to his hut as the eastern sky went pearl-grey, as though a shutter of heaven had been suddenly opened. He was a silent man that morning, and not even Fatima, his wife, evoked the response of speech.

      In the afternoon he caught a dog straying in the forest, and, dragging it to a place where none could see, he gave it meat. It died very quickly, because Bosambo had sprinkled the food with the powder which Tambeli had brought.

      Bosambo watched the unpleasant experiment without emotion. When he had hidden all evidence of his crime he returned to the village.

      At night-time came Sanders, and Bosambo, warned of the urgency of his visit, alike by lokali message, and the evident fact that Sanders was travelling by night, had a great fire kindled on the beach to guide the Zaire to land.

      The little stern wheeler came slowly into the light; naked men splashed overboard and waded ashore with hawsers at their shoulders, and the boat was safely moored.

      Then Sanders came. “I sit with you for one day,” he said, “being on my way to do justice.”

      “Lord, my house is in the hollow of СКАЧАТЬ