The Essential Edgar Wallace Collection. Edgar Wallace

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      "I don't say you were unconscious, sir. In fact, sir----" floundered Lieutenant Tibbetts as red as a peony.

      "And yet I was unconscious," insisted Hamilton firmly. "I am still unconscious, even to this day. I have no recollection of your heroic effort, Bones, I thank you."

      "Well, sir," said Bones, "to make a clean breast of the whole affair----"

      "And this dangerous expedition of yours, Bones, an expedition from which you might never return--that," said Hamilton in a hushed voice, "is the best story I have heard for years."

      "Sir," said Bones, speaking under the stress of considerable emotion, "I am clean bowled, sir. The light-hearted fairy stories which I wrote to cheer, so to speak, the sick-bed of an innocent child, sir, they have recoiled upon my own head. _Peccavi, mea culpi_, an' all those jolly old expressions that you'll find in the back pages of the dictionary."

      "Oh, Bones, Bones!" chuckled Hamilton.

      "You mustn't think I'm a perfect liar, sir," began Bones, earnestly.

      "I don't think you're a perfect liar," answered Hamilton, "I think you're the most inefficient liar I've ever met."

      "Not even a liar, I'm a romancist, sir," Bones stiffened with dignity and saluted, but whether he was saluting Hamilton, or the spirit of Romance, or in sheer admiration was saluting himself, Hamilton did not know.

      "The fact is, sir," said Bones confidentially, "I'm writing a book!"

      He stepped back as though to better observe the effect of his words.

      "What about?" asked Hamilton, curiously.

      "About things I've seen and things I know," said Bones, in his most impressive manner.

      "Oh, I see!" said Hamilton, "one of those waistcoat pocket books."

      Bones swallowed the insult with a gulp.

      "I've been asked to write a book," he said; "my adventures an' all that sort of thing. Of course they needn't have happened, really----"

      "In that case, Bones, I'm with you," said Hamilton; "if you're going to write a book about things that haven't happened to you, there's no limit to its size."

      "You're bein' a jolly cruel old officer, sir," said Bones, pained by the cold cynicism of his chief. "But I'm very serious, sir. This country is full of material. And everybody says I ought to write a book about it--why, dash it, sir, I've been here nearly two months!"

      "It seems years," said Hamilton.

      Bones was perfectly serious, as he had said. He did intend preparing a book for publication, had dreams of a great literary career, and an ultimate membership of the Athenum Club belike. It had come upon him like a revelation that such a career called him. The week after he had definitely made up his mind to utilize his gifts in this direction, his outgoing mail was heavier than ever. For to three and twenty English and American publishers, whose names he culled from a handy work of reference, he advanced a business-like offer to prepare for the press a volume "of 316 pages printed in type about the same size as enclosed," and to be entitled:

      MY WILD LIFE AMONGST CANNIBALS.

      BY

      AUGUSTUS TIBBETTS, Lieutenant of Houssas.

      Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society; Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society; Member of the Ethnological Society and Junior Army Service Club.

      Bones had none of these qualifications, save the latter, but as he told himself he'd jolly soon be made a member if his book was a howling success.

      No sooner had his letters been posted than he changed his mind, and he addressed three and twenty more letters to the publishers, altering the title to:

      THE TYRANNY OF THE WILDS.

      Being Some Observations on the Habits and Customs of Savage Peoples.

      BY

      AUGUSTUS TIBBETTS (LT.).

      With a Foreword by Captain Patrick Hamilton.

      "You wouldn't mind writing a foreword, dear old fellow?" he asked.

      "Charmed," said Hamilton. "Have you a particular preference for any form?"

      "Just please yourself, sir," said a delighted Bones, so Hamilton covered two sheets of foolscap with an appreciation which began:

      "The audacity of the author of this singularly uninformed work is to be admired without necessarily being imitated. Two months' residence in a land which offered many opportunities for acquiring inaccurate data, has resulted in a work which must stand for all time as a monument of murderous effort," etc.

      Bones read the appreciation very carefully.

      "Dear old sport," he said, a little troubled, as he reached the end; "this is almost uncomplimentary."

      You couldn't depress Bones or turn him from his set purpose. He scribed away, occupying his leisure moments with his great work. His normal correspondence suffered cruelly, but Bones was relentless. Hamilton sent him north to collect the hut tax, and at first Bones resented this order, believing that it was specially designed to hamper him.

      "Of course, sir," he said, "I'll obey you, if you order me in accordance with regulations an' all that sort of rot, but believe me, sir, you're doin' an injury to literature. Unborn generations, sir, will demand an explanation----"

      "Get out!" said Hamilton crossly.

      Bones found his trip a blessing that had been well disguised. There were many points of interest on which he required first-hand information. He carried with him to the _Zaire_ large exercise books on which he had pasted such pregnant labels as "Native Customs," "Dances," "Ju-jus," "Ancient Legends," "Folk-lore," etc. They were mostly blank, and represented projected chapters of his great work.

      All might have been well with Bones. More virgin pages might easily have been covered with his sprawling writing and the book itself, converted into honest print, have found its way, in the course of time, into the tuppenny boxes of the Farringdon book-mart, sharing its soiled magnificence with the work of the best of us, but on his way Bones had a brilliant inspiration. There was a chapter he had not thought of, a chapter heading which had not been born to his mind until that flashing moment of genius.

      Upon yet another exercise book, he pasted the label of a chapter which was to eclipse all others in interest. Behold then, this enticing announcement, boldly printed and ruled about with double lines:

      "THE SOUL OF THE NATIVE WOMAN."

      It was a fine chapter title. It was sonorous, it had dignity, it was full of possibilities. "The Soul of the Native Woman," repeated Bones, in an ecstasy of self-admiration, and having chosen his subject he proceeded to find out something about it.

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