The Twelve African Novels (A Collection). Edgar Wallace

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СКАЧАТЬ to the Isisi for a thousand rods and twenty bags of salt; Olambo of Akasava, who had hardly been installed before he bartered away his rights to Bosambo of the Ochori; M’nabo, the coast man; Tibini, the Lesser Isisi man; a whole string of little chiefs of Lombobo had come and gone.

      Sanders thought of these, sitting under the awning of the bridge, as the Zaire drove through the black-yellows waters of the Big River.

      He was very patient, and his was the patience of years. He was not discouraged, though the bitterness of a recent failure still rankled. For he had placed one Sakadamo in the seat of chieftainship, and he had known Sakadamo for years.

      Yet once Sanders was out of sight, the mild Sakadamo, stiff with pride, had gathered his fighting men, and had led them with fine impartiality against Ochori and Isisi, and in the end had sold the country to both.

      For which offence Sakadamo was at the moment working out a sentence of two years’ labour in the Village of Irons, and Lombobo was chiefless.

      Sanders smoked two cigars over the matter, then he sent for K’maka the Thinker.

      They brought him, a tall young man, inclined to thinness. Sanders took him in from the broad crown of his woolly head to the big feet which ended his thin legs. He had knobby knees, and the skin cloak which partially covered him revealed the same tendency to thinness.

      Sanders put his age at nineteen, which was probably an accurate estimate.

      “K’maka,” he said, after his survey, “such a man as you it is not usual to meet, nor have I met your like. Now I know you to be a man above ambition, above hates, and understanding large matters of life.”

      “Lord, I am one who thinks, and I myself do not know whether my thoughts be mad thoughts or whether they are high above the common thoughts of men.”

      “Take to yourself the pleasure of knowing that you are not mad,” said Sanders drily. “Surely I believe this, and to give you a sign of my faith I am for making you chief of Lombobo, standing in my place, giving and taking justice, and laying over the fiery spirit of your people the waters of your wisdom.”

      “Lord, I will do as you wish,” said K’maka.

      And so it came about that at a great palaver at which the headmen and lesser directors of the people were assembled, Sanders made the Thinker paramount chief and lord of the Lombobo tribe, hanging about his neck the steel chain and medal of his rank and office. To a separate palaver Bosambo and the Ring of the Isisi were summoned, and plain words were spoken.

      After the Isisi had departed Sanders took the young chief a journey to the very edge of his new domain, and with them went Bosambo.

      In a clearing on the very border, and by the side of the path which connected the two little countries, grew a great gum-tree, and here the party halted.

      “Bosambo and K’maka,” said Sanders, “this tree shall mark which is Ochori and which is Lombobo. For all that is on one side belongs to one and all that is on the other belongs to the other.”

      They looked at the tree, the two chiefs; they regarded it long and attentively.

      “Lord,” said Bosambo at length, “your meaning is clear, yet in whose country does this tree stand?”

      It was a question worthy of Bosambo.

      “That half which faces the Ochori is in the Ochori country; that half which faces Lombobo is in the Lombobo country,” said Sanders.

      One last warning he gave to K’maka.

      “To Ochori and to Isisi,” he said, “you will give communion and freedom of trade; you shall hinder none, nor help any at the expense of the other. You shall be wise and large.”

      “Lord, I will do this,” said K’maka, nodding his head, “for the things that grow and perish are nothing and only the spirits of men endure.”

      With which wise saying in his ears Sanders took his departure, happy in the belief that Providence had sent him at last the solution of the buffer state problem.

      It is placed on record that K’maka began his rule with wisdom. The Lombobo people, used by now to strange chiefs, did their best to help him to destruction. They brought forward litigation for his judgment — litigation which would have taxed the sagacity of a Supreme Court or the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. As for instance:

      “If a man buys a wife, paying for her with two bags of salt, and she be a vixen, and, moreover, undesirable from many points of view, how shall he recover the price he paid for her when the salt has been capsized out of his own canoe, rowed by two of his own paddlers and two of his fatherin-law’s paddlers?” Also:

      “A man has borrowed a neighbour’s spear to go hunting, and has invariably paid for the loan by a proportion of the kill. One day he went hunting with a defective spear, and became lamed by a leopard. Can he claim compensation because the spear was a bad one if the lender can prove that its defective condition is due to the carelessness of a mutual cousin?”

      These were two of the problems they propounded, sitting in a solemn circle at palaver, and the Thinker judged at length. He was four days delivering his judgment in the first case. His people sat spellbound, hypnotised by words. They did not understand his philosophy; they could not follow his reasoning; they were altogether fogged as to whether he decided upon the one side or the other; and at the end, when he raised his two hands according to custom and said, “The palaver is finished,” they went away pleasantly confounded.

      “We have a chief,” said the headman of the fishing village by the river, “who is wiser than all other men; so wise that we cannot understand him.”

      K’maka busied himself with mundane affairs. He even took a girl of the Isisi to wife. Also he allowed free passage to Isisi and Ochori alike. Both nations sent him presents, which he accepted. On the third day of his chieftainship his headman had come to tell him that the Ochori were fishing in Lombobo waters, and that the Isisi were hunting in the Lombobo forests.

      “Let this be,” said M’maka, “for the forests and the rivers are for all, and there are no boundaries to necessity. For this is not my land nor my river; nor is it yours; being rather for all men, who find therein certain requirements.”

      This was as Sanders required, and when the news came to the Commissioner, as it did, he was pleased.

      Then an evil gossip brought to K’maka stories of his girl-wife, who was attractive.

      “I am no man to set a fence about desire,” said K’maka; “nor shall man or woman in this, my land, be enslaved by custom.”

      Two months passed smoothly. K’maka grew in influence daily, his crowning achievement being a judgment which took nine days to deliver.

      Then a headman came with a plaint against the Ochori.

      “Lord, they cut wood in the Lombobo country and carry it to their city,” he said.

      “The wood is free to all,” said K’maka.

      He sat on the little carved stool in the centre of the half-moon of huts which constituted his administrative headquarters.

      “Yet,” СКАЧАТЬ