The Twelve African Novels (A Collection). Edgar Wallace

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      VI. The Village of Irons

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      Sanders was used to the childlike buttering of his people, and accepted their praise without conviction. It was part of the game. He expected to be termed “Protector of Persecuted People,” “Lord of Wisdom,” and the like, and would have been suspicious if these terms were omitted, because that was all part of the game, and meant no more than the prefix “dear” in the epistles of the civilised.

      Just so long as flattery and sycophancy ran along conventional lines, just so long as politeness followed a normal course, Sanders was satisfied; if compliment fell short or slopped over, all his intellectual bristles stood on end, and he looked around with narrowed eyes and a growl in his throat for the danger which lay somewhere to hand.

      He was overlord of a million black people, subdivided by language, dialect, prejudice, custom, jealousy, and temperament into twentythree distinct nations. The Bangeli, who lived close to the headquarters and were a selfish, bastard people, made up by accidental unions between Krooman, Congolaise, Angola folk, and Coast peoples, he did not heed, for they were civilised up to a point, and were wise in the way of white men. Also they were fearful of punishment, and just as the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, so is the fear of the Law the beginning of civilisation.

      But beyond this people lay the fighting tribes, untouched by the trader, only slightly affected by the missionary. Warlike, unreasoning children, with a passion for litigation and a keen sense of justice. And it was Sanders’ business and his pleasure to know these as they were — to study them as you study your own children, perhaps more carefully, for you take your children and their peculiarities for granted — and to adjust his attitude as he adjusted theirs, which rearrangement was usually made once in every twentyfour hours.

      Sanders differed from ready-made Empire-builders in this respect, that, whilst his pompous superiors treated native people as an aggregate problem, Sanders dealt with them as individuals.

      A certain excellency once addressed him through a secretary’s secretary, asking him to explain the prevalence of crime among the people of the Lesser Isisi, and Sanders answered naively (as it seemed to the superior folk of his excellency’s entourage) that the increase in crime was due to the dreams of a certain man named M’dali.

      Sanders did not believe in clairvoyance, and when an agent brought him news that M’dali of Tembolini, in the Isisi country, had dreamt a dream in which he saw the river rising so that it flooded the middle island, which lay immediately opposite the village, he paid no heed.

      Because he knew that the rains had been very heavy and that all the lesser rivers were swollen, and would in course of time swell the big river, and because the village of Tembolini stood so far above the level of the river that there was no danger to the people.

      When a week later he learnt that all that M’dali dreamt had come to pass, he was neither impressed nor greatly interested. He thought M’dali was a shrewd guesser, and let it go at that.

      When later he was told that on such and such a night M’dali had dreamt that E’timgolo, his second wife, would die — as she did — Sanders was mildly puzzled till he remembered that he had seen the woman the last time he was in the village, and that then she was in an advanced state of sleeping sickness. He gathered that M’dali had sufficient data at hand to justify his imagining.

      News of other dreams came down the river — some first hand, and these were fairly commonplace; some, more wonderful, from mouth to mouth — and these were obviously exaggerated.

      Sanders was a busy man about this time, and had neither leisure nor inclination to bother himself about such matters.

      But one morning at break of day a canoe came swiftly, bearing Ahmed, chief of Sanders’ secret spies.

      “Lord,” he said, presenting himself at Sanders’ bedside and squatting on the floor, “there is a dreamer in the Isisi country.”

      “So I have heard,” said Sanders in Arabic, and wearily. “I, too, am a dreamer, and I should have dreamt for another hour if you had not disturbed me.”

      “God knows I would not destroy your gracious sleep,” said Ahmed. “And I pray God every morning and every night that you may slumber kindly; but this M’dali sells his dreams, and has a great following. For he says to such an one, ‘You shall give me a bag of salt or I will dream that you will die,’ and, being afraid, the people pamper him in his desires.”

      “I see,” said Sanders thoughtfully.

      He dismissed his spy and rose.

      In a little while he sent for his sergeant of police.

      “Go you with three men, Abiboo,” he said, “to the village of Tembolini, by the crocodile creek, and bring me M’dali, a dreamer of dreams.”

      “On my head and by my life,” said Abiboo, and departed joyfully in a canoe.

      He was ten days absent, and came back empty-handed.

      “For the people threatened to kill me,” he said, “M’dali having dreamt a dream that I was coming, and saying that if I took him every man of the village would be stricken blind. And, lord! knowing your disposition I did not desire a killing palaver, so came back without him, though, as you know, I am fearless of death.”

      “You did that which was right,” said Sanders.

      In an hour his steamboat was ready and had cast off, her sharp bows cleaving the black waters of the river, her little stern revolving rapidly.

      In two days and a night the Zaire reached the village, and was met in midstream by the chief, one Kambori, an intelligent man.

      “Lord,” he said. “I tell you that if you take the dreamer the people will rise — not only the people of my village, but of the country round about — for he is regarded by all as a very holy man.”

      “I’ll ‘holy man’ him,” said Sanders in English, and continued his way to shore.

      He entered the village with two Houssas at his elbow, and walked straight to the hut where M’dali sat in state.

      Now M’dali had been a very ordinary man as Sanders knew him in the days before he began to dream.

      He had been a spearer of fish, no more and no less well-to-do than hundreds of others.

      Now he sat upon the carved stool that Lalinobi of Kusau had presented to him for dreaming that his wife would bear a male child, and he wore about his shoulders a robe of monkeys’ tail which Tonda, chief of the Lulangu River, had presented when M’dali dreamt that he would outlive his brother.

      He had various other gifts displayed — the carved stick in his hand, the string of iron beads about his neck, the worked copper СКАЧАТЬ