The Twelve African Novels (A Collection). Edgar Wallace

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СКАЧАТЬ fishing villages were met at rare intervals, for this is part of the Isisi, isolated from the main country for many reasons, not the least of which was M’shimba-M’shamba, the green devil who walks by night and is very terrible to the dwellers of cities.

      Sanders, who never wasted a journey if he could help it, stopped at each village for an hour, adjusted such differences as needed his help (there was a very bad murder palaver at one to which he had to return later) and on the morning of the second day he arrived at the Baptist Mission.

      He had different material to deal with here. A little man, immensely important as little men sometimes are, slightly aggressive in the name of the Lord and “not quite.”

      You meet people who are “not quite” in all branches of life, but curiously enough they are to be met with most frequently in a certain type of foreign mission. God forbid that I should speak disparagingly of the devoted men and women who sacrifice health and life in the execution of their duty and in the fulfilment of their faith.

      Mr. Haggins, of the Modern Baptist Mission, was “not quite,” however.

      He had been a London street preacher, hot for glory, and a radical constitutionally opposed to government, whatsoever and whichever party was for the moment in power. Sanders represented government, was popularly supposed to be antagonistic to the Word and its carriers. He whipped people, hanged a few with scanty trial, and had been accused by Mr. Haggins’ predecessor of having committed atrocities. It cost the proprietors of the Modern Baptist Mission, which printed the wild and whirling accusation, exactly a thousand pounds, and if Mr. Haggins ever wrote tremendous things about Sanders you may be sure that the editor of the magazine never published them.

      “I am glad to see you, Mr. Sanders,” said the missionary with ominous politeness, as Sanders stepped ashore; “there are one or two matters on which I wished to see you. Particularly in regard to your atrocious treatment of one of my native evangelists, Balibi—”

      “He can keep,” said Sanders shortly; “your evangelist amused himself in his spare time with certain women of the Akasava — ?”

      “That’s not true,” said Mr. Haggins rudely.

      Sanders looked at him queerly.

      “If you call me a liar,” he said, “I shall—”

      He checked himself.

      “It isn’t true,” said Mr. Haggins with vehemence. “I believe in our brother—”

      “That is neither here nor there!” interrupted Sanders. “What I have come to tell you is that you are to close up your station and bring all your belongings to headquarters.”

      Mr. Haggins was dumbfounded.

      “Close — my — station?” he repeated.

      “That is it,” said Sanders blandly; “I expect trouble with my people over the new taxation.”

      “But I will not go,” said Mr. Haggins, very wrathful and suspecting the worst; “it is an outrage; it is an attempt to ruin my station — I shall make representations to England, Mr. Sanders — we are not without friends in Parliament—”

      He said much more in the same strain, speaking with great heat.

      “If you like to send a telegram,” said Sanders, calling into play all his patience, “I shall be most happy to send it.”

      Sanders made other calls, including one upon that medical missionary lady, Miss Glandynne, and at each station he met with an unpleasant reception.

      Sir Harry Coleby, K.C.M.G., occupied a magnificent white palace at a coast town, with the name of which you are tolerably sure to be familiar. It was set on the side of a great mountain and looked down upon a town of broad streets, in the main populated and inhabited by coal-black negroes who spoke English and affixed “Mr,” to their name.

      Sir Harry was stout, white of hair, bristling of moustache, and pink of face. He referred to himself as the “man on the spot”; this was an idiosyncrasy of his.

      He worked as a motor engine worked, by a series of explosions. He exploded at his overworked secretary, he exploded at his officers; he exploded at anything and anybody that thwarted or annoyed him.

      He damned people’s eyes with a persistency and a fury which suggested that he had a near and dear relative in the optical line of business, and was trying to do him a turn.

      I add the indisputable fact that though he had only been six months on the coast he was cordially hated.

      Mr. Commissioner Sanders of the Isisi, Mr. Commissioner de la Court of the Kroo River, numerous deputy commissioners, inspectors and officers of state, living meanly along a hot slip of coast, daily thought of him and cherished next to their hearts the news — it was cut from an impudent Lagos journal — that His Excellency found the climate very trying.

      Sir Harry came into his office one day — it was the morning after the official dinner at Government House and he was lively — to find Sanders’ final letter on the subject of taxation.

      “By God, if I have any more of that fellow’s insolence I will pack him off to England!” he roared, and proceeded to invoke Divine interference with Sanders’ eyesight.

      “Tell him—” he shouted, banging his desk with his clenched knuckles.

      “I’m sorry to interrupt your Excellency,” said the secretary, “but ought we not to notify the Colonial Office about this change—”

      He was a permanent official who had spent his life on the coast, and he knew more about West Central Africa than most secretaries.

      “Notify nothing,” snapped his chief, “I administrate here, I am the man on the spot; I am going to increase revenue, sir.”

      “There will be trouble, your Excellency,” said the secretary quietly.

      Sir Harry drew a long breath, and in one long and comprehensive sentence consigned the secretary, Sanders, and the native peoples of his kingdom to the devil.

      A negro clerk brought in a cablegram and handed it to the Administrator.

      “Here’s a ‘confidential,’ Browne,” he snarled; “decode the damn thing and don’t bother about matters which do not concern you.”

      The secretary took the four closely written forms.

      It began:

      “Airlight, Transport, Divine, Sunlight, Meridan.”

      “Airlight” meant “confidential”; “transport” meant “act at once”; this he knew, and settled down to decode the wire.

      The further he got, consulting the two books with the double code, the higher rose the spirits of His Excellency’s secretary. When he had finished he laid the decoded message before his chief, and Sir Harry read:

      “Very urgent. Act at once. Representation made by missionary societies that their stations being closed in Isisi, Akasava, Ochori, N’Gombi countries by order Sanders. СКАЧАТЬ