The Twelve African Novels (A Collection). Edgar Wallace

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      It is said that Sir Harry Coleby went stark, staring mad when this communication was read. He was not used to being dictated to from Downing Street. He was of a regime which held the Colonial Office in goodnatured contempt. Whether he went mad or whether this is an exaggerated description of the secretary, I do not know. Certainly he sent a wire to His Majesty’s Secretary of State for Colonial Affairs which reminded that gentleman of communications which came to him in the stormy days of the first Home Rule Bill. It was not a mad wire, or a bad wire, it was penned in Sir Harry’s best style, and it hinted to the Colonial Office in London that Sir Harry was the man on the spot and would use his own discretion, and he would not submit to outside interference, and that if anybody interfered with him — my word!

      Sir Harry had once sent such a wire before and the Colonial Secretary of the day had surrendered. Unhappily for the Administrator, there was a man at the Colonial Office.

      At ten o’clock that night a cable was received by His Excellency. It was in plain English and the Administrator read it and sat looking at it for quite a long time before he understood it. It ran:

      “Your successor sails on ninth. Hand over your work to your attorney-general and return by first available steamer.”

      It was signed “Chamberlain.”

XI. The Rising of the Akasava

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      A native alone may plumb the depths of the native mind with any accuracy. Sanders was remarkable because he was possessed of a peculiar quality — the quality of comprehension.

      He made few mistakes because he applied no rules. He knew, for instance, that native memory is short, yet he was prepared to hear a greybeard of forty contest his finding in some particular suit with a precedent created twenty years before and entirely obliterated from Sanders’ memory.

      A scientific expedition once again went through the Ochori country — and I think it had to do with astronomical observation — and in the language of Kipling:

      “What they thought they might require, They went an’ took.”

      Bosambo, the chief, complained, for he knew the value of money to such an extent that he never accepted a Spanish douro without biting it, or confused a mark with a shilling.

      Sanders was secretly annoyed with the behaviour of the expedition, but felt it necessary to keep up the end of his fellow-countrymen.

      “They were of the Government,” he said at the time; “and, moreover, white men. And it is the white man’s way.”

      Bosambo said nothing, but remembered.

      Years later something happened in the Akasava, and by a distressing string of circumstances Sanders found himself confronted with a two-million-pound war, the undoing of all his work, and a most ignominious death.

      This happened in the autumn of the year. At the time of harvest the lands under Mr. Commissioner Sanders were quiet and peaceable. The crop had been a good one, the fish plentiful in the river, serious sickness of no account.

      “And no crime,” said Sanders to himself, and pulled a little face. “I would welcome a little earthquake just now.”

      The European reader might stand aghast at this callousness, but Sanders knew.

      The reports that came downriver were satisfactory — if one gained satisfaction from the recital of virtuous behaviour. Isisi, N’Gombi, Akasava, Bolegi, Bomongo — all these peoples were tranquil and prosperous.

      The only adverse report was from the Ochori. There a mysterious fire had destroyed one-half of the crops — a fire that had appeared simultaneously in twenty gardens. Also it was reported that Bosambo, the chief, was treating his people with unusual severity.

      Sanders grew very thoughtful when this news came, for Bosambo was a wise and cunning man, who knew native folk as well as Sanders himself. Sanders drew his own conclusions, and made preparations for a long cruise.

      He stepped on board his little stern-wheeler at dawn one day.

      For days previous men had been piling wood on the lower deck till the Zaire looked for all the world like a timber ship. On the steel deck below, in double banks, in the well before the tiny bridge deck, in the space at the stem which is usually occupied by drowsy Houssas, wood was piled to the height of a man’s head.

      In addition there were many stacks of a bright, black stone, which Yoka, the engineer, regarded with unusual pride; as well he might, for coal is not a customary sight on the big river.

      The Zaire had recently come newly furnished from the slips. White workmen, brought at great expense from Lagos or Sierra Leone, or one of those far-distant and marvellous cities, had replaced certain portions of the machinery and had introduced higher power, and, most wonderful of all, a new engine which worked from the main boiler and which by magic turned a strange, clumsy wheel at an incredible speed. From this coiled two fat ropes of wire, covered so that no wire could be seen.

      They disappeared through a hole in the deck and came to light again in the bridge, being attached to a big lamp working on a swivel.

      Nor was this the only innovation. The two Maxims which had stood on either corner of the bridge deck had been moved to amidships, and in their places were long steel-barrelled Hotchkiss guns with rubber-covered shoulder pieces. Beneath, by the bulwarks, were polished wooden chests, where fat brass cartridges lay stored like wine in bins.

      Sanders went aboard with a picked crew and half a company of Houssa rifles, and set forth with little idea as to where his journey would end.

      He had not left headquarters far behind when the steersman who stood by his side uttered an exclamation, and Sanders looked up.

      Overhead in the blue, two birds were wheeling and circling frantically.

      The smaller bird darted this way and that.

      Sanders sprang into his cabin and snatched up a shotgun.

      The bigger bird was a hawk, going about his proper business; but his quarry, as the Commissioner recognised at a glance, was a faithful servant of the Government — a carrier-pigeon.

      The birds had closed in one furious bunch of whirling feathers and talons when Sanders raised his gun and fired. The first barrel missed, but the second brought them down to the water.

      A dozen men sprang overboard and swam to the spot where the birds struggled convulsively in their death-grip.

      One of the men reached them, deftly wrung the neck of the hawk, and came back to the boat.

      The pigeon was dead — had probably died before the shots hit him. Round one red leg was a rubber band and a torn piece of paper.

      Sanders smoothed it out and read. It was in Arabic, and all that was left consisted of three words:

      “… Akasava… war… King.”

      “H’m!” said Sanders.

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