Bones Of The River Part 16

He took Hamilton aside before he went to his hut, and made a request, and the indignant Captain of Houssas all but kicked him.

"Open your letters? Of course I shan't open your letters, you silly a.s.s!"

Bones wriggled in his embara.s.sment and confusion. "The fact of it is, dear old officer...a letter from a lady, dear old sir."

But Hamilton was really annoyed.

A day or two after Sanders and Bones had left, there arrived an intermediate mail-boat which brought little correspondence but a source of considerable trouble.

Hamilton had gone down to the beach to take the mail-bag from one of the ship's officers, when, to his surprise, the life-ship's cutter drove its nose into the soft sand and an elegantly dressed gentleman stepped delicately ash.o.r.e. One glance told Hamilton both the nationality and the character of the visitor.

"Mr Sanders, I presume?" said Senhor Pinto Fernandez, with an expansive smile on his somewhat unprepossessing face.

He had never worked this part of the coast, and it was his faith that he was unknown in the territory.

"You presume too much, my friend," said Hamilton, eyeing the visitor unfavourably.

"Then you must be Captain Hamilton," said the unabashed Pinto.

He was dressed in the height of European fashion, wearing a tail coat, striped trousers, white spats, and a grey top hat, which in itself was an offence.

"I am Dom Gonsalez from Funchal."

"Then you'd better hurry, for your boat's pulling away," said Hamilton, but, with a graceful wave of his hand, and a smile which was even more genial, Mr Pinto Fernandez conveyed his intention of remaining.

Though Sanders regarded unauthorised visitors as little less than criminals, there was really nothing to prevent any free citizen of almost any nation from landing on the residency beach. And n.o.body knew this better than Pinto Fernandez.

"The Commissioner is not here, and I am alone on the station," said Hamilton. "If there is any information I can give you, I shall be most happy, but I strongly advise you to keep the boat waiting."

"I am staying," said Pinto Fernandez decisively. "I am here on a very delicate mission, and one which concerns the honour, if I may use the term"

"You may," said Hamilton, as the other paused.

" the honour of one who is, perhaps, a dear friend of yours Lieutenant Tibbetts."

"The devil it does!" said Hamilton in surprise. "Well, you won't be able to see Mr Tibbetts either, because he's in the bush and is unlikely to return for a week."

"Then I will stay a week," said Pinto coolly. "Perhaps you will direct me to your hotel?"

Hamilton did not like coloured people. He loved natives, he tolerated white men, but of all the types of half-breed he had reason to dislike, there was none approaching in loathsomeness to the Portuguese.

"There's a hut in the residency garden you can have," he said shortly. "Or" as a thought struck him "I can lend you a canoe and paddlers to take you to the Isisi River, where you will probably find Mr Tibbetts."

To his surprise, the man readily agreed to this suggestion, and it was with mingled relief and apprehension that Hamilton saw him depart, watching the grey tall hat, fascinated, until it disappeared, with its owner, round the bend of the river.

The object of Pinto's visit can be briefly stated, though in his modesty he omitted such a confession. He had come to secure 500, and he was perfectly willing to accept half. That Bones would pay rather than face an exposure he had no doubt at all. Other men had paid: a young chief clerk at Lagos had paid 300; a middle-aged Commissioner at Nigeria had paid even more before he realised what a fool he had been, and circularised a description of Mr Fernandez, alias alias Gonsalez, up and down the coast. Of this disquieting action Pinto was blissfully unaware. Gonsalez, up and down the coast. Of this disquieting action Pinto was blissfully unaware.

The role role of the outraged husband, unexpectedly appearing to the victim in the bush, away from the counsel of interfering lawyers and the devastating advice of friends, usually, in Mr Pinto's experience, had the desired effect. In Lagos, where he was known, there might have been difficulties, but even these had not arisen. Men who live in the bush carry large sums of ready money. Their belt is their banker, and Pinto did not doubt that Bones could produce from the leathern ceinture about his thin middle, sufficient to keep Pinto Fernandez and his erratic wife in comfort through many a long and pleasing siesta. As he paddled gently up the river, he did not dream of failure, and the existence of D'lama was unknown to him. of the outraged husband, unexpectedly appearing to the victim in the bush, away from the counsel of interfering lawyers and the devastating advice of friends, usually, in Mr Pinto's experience, had the desired effect. In Lagos, where he was known, there might have been difficulties, but even these had not arisen. Men who live in the bush carry large sums of ready money. Their belt is their banker, and Pinto did not doubt that Bones could produce from the leathern ceinture about his thin middle, sufficient to keep Pinto Fernandez and his erratic wife in comfort through many a long and pleasing siesta. As he paddled gently up the river, he did not dream of failure, and the existence of D'lama was unknown to him.

D'lama-m'popo was of the forest, and owing little but the nebulous allegiance which is given by the forest folk to the nearest paramount chief. And where loyalty is largely determined by propinquity, treason is a word which it was absurd to employ. Thus, D'lama had committed many small misdeeds, and at least one of serious importance.

D'lama owed a fisherman half a bag of salt, and the fisherman, in despair of securing a just settlement, offered D'lama the equivalent of the other half bag, together with a fat dog, a mythical cache of ivory and the freedom of the village, on condition that D'lama, who was a bachelor, took to his hut the fisherman's daughter Kobali, by her father's account a virgin, indubitably unmarried, and old by the river standard, for she had seen eighteen rainy seasons.

Now, when a woman of the river reaches the advanced age of eighteen without finding for herself a husband, a hut, and a share of the cooking, there is usually something wrong, and what was wrong with Kobali was her ability to converse with birds, a most disconcerting accomplishment, for birds know the secrets of all, since they listen in unsuspected and hidden places, and are great gossips among themselves.

There was a man in the far-away Ituri Forest who understood their cheep-twit talk, and he became a king and died honoured, and some say that on the day of his pa.s.sing no bird was seen for a hundred miles.

There was another man whose career was less glorious, and there was the mad woman of Bolongo. And there was Kobali. Her father would have kept her secret, for people with supernatural powers are unpopular, and are sometimes furtively "chopped" on dark nights, but she was overseen by an elder of the village talking earnestly to three little birds that sat on a bough with their heads perked on one side, and these birds were in a state of such excitement that the elder knew that she was telling them about the wife he had left in the forest to die, because she was sick and old. And, sure enough, a week later, came Mr Commissioner Sanders with four soldiers, searching for the woman. They found all that the beasts had left, and the elder went down to the Village of Irons with a steel chain dragging from ankle to ankle.

D'lama-m'popo listened to the proposal without enthusiasm, squatting before his crazy hut and playing with the dust, from which he never raised his eyes.

"O man," he said at last, "it is true I owe you a bag-that-is-not-a-bag of salt, and when the little monkeys come back from their mysterious breeding place, I will kill many and sell them to the Government, and then I will bring you so much salt. But this woman Kobali is a witch, and who marries a witch loses his eyes. That is well known, for witches must have many eyes to see their way in the dark."

"That is foolish, D'lama," said her father he was a mild and skinny man and incapable of violence. "For has she taken mine? She is a very fine girl..."

He proceeded to enumerate her physical attractions with a frankness which is not common in the fathers of civilisation, employing the language of superlatives which adorns the pages of a bloodstock catalogue.

"She may be this, and she may be that," said D'lama, unimpressed at the end of a long recital, "but I am a lonely man and have no wish for women."

Thereupon the father of the paragon was inspired to lie.

"The birds have told my little woman that you will take her to your hut."

Whereupon the countenance of D'lama fell. "O ko!" he said. "That means that I shall go mad! For who but a madman would take as his wife a Bird Witch? Ko ko! This is terrible to me!"

The father went back to his house by the river, and there he found Kobali sitting under a tree where the weaver birds made their home, and she was gazing upward to the excited throng above her, so intent upon all that she was hearing that until her parent had called her twice she did not heed him.

"Woman," he said, "you go to the hut of D'lama of the woods. He is a capable hunter, and he owes me salt. Now, on the last night of the moon, I will have a great dance for you."

"You make no wedding dance for me, husband of my mother," she said, "for the birds have told me that I shall marry a white man."

The jaw of the fisherman dropped. "Woman," he gasped, "now I know that you are mad! This must come in palaver before Sandi, who is near by, so that I shall not be blamed for your foolish talk."

His daughter did not quail. "The birds speak, and it is," she said simply. "Now, I tell you this, that if, in two moons, I do not marry a white man, I will go to the hut of D'lama, though he is a man of no people and is a killer of the weak. For the birds told me that he chopped an old woman for the ring she wore about her neck."

The agitated father carried the news to D'lama, who was sufficiently uncultured to show his relief.

"Who knows," he said, "that such a wonder may not happen? For this woman of yours is very cunning and understands magic, and by her cleverness she may grow a white man out of the ground."

The old fisherman blinked. "That is true, D'lama," he said, "for Kobali speaks with the birds and learns strange mysteries. This day she told me that once upon a time you killed an old woman in the bush because of the bra.s.s ring she wore upon her neck."

Being a native, D'lama did not faint, but he was silent for a very long time.

"If such things come to the ears of Sandi," he said a little huskily, "there will be a hanging palaver. Get this woman married, and I will give you more than two bags of salt."

The old man went back to his daughter and wrangled and argued with her throughout the night, without shaking her from her determination. The next morning he took his canoe and paddled three hours in the slack sh.o.r.e water to the juncture of the Isisi River, where a white paddle-wheel gunboat was moored while Sanders held palaver.

He sat alone in judgment, for Bones had been sent up the Isisi River to arrest a certain petty chief who had sanctioned witchcraft in his territory. Under the striped awning on the after-deck of the Zaire Zaire Sanders listened to complaints, tried matrimonial suits, offered advice and admonition briefly and, at times, a little brutally. To him came the fisherman with his story of woe. Sanders listened without interruption until, in the way of litigants, the old man began his recital over again. Sanders listened to complaints, tried matrimonial suits, offered advice and admonition briefly and, at times, a little brutally. To him came the fisherman with his story of woe. Sanders listened without interruption until, in the way of litigants, the old man began his recital over again.

"Go back to your daughter, fisherman," said Sanders, "and tell her that white men do not marry black women in my territory. And if she be, as you say, a witch, then there is punishment for that, as all the lands and people know."

"Lord," said the fisherman, "she speaks with the birds, and they tell her she will come to no harm."

"She has not spoken with the right bird," said Sanders grimly, and dismissed him.

It was the end of the palaver, and he rose a little stiffly, and walked forward, leaning over the rail and watching incuriously the broad river flowing to the sea. As he looked, there came into his zone of vision a long canoe, which he recognised, by its shape and the rhythmical action of the paddlers, as from headquarters. He lifted a pair of binoculars and scanned the oncoming craft, expecting to find Hamilton in the little leaf-roofed cabin at the stern.

"Jumping Moses!" said Sanders, and, putting down the gla.s.ses, he waited until the canoe drew alongside and Mr Pinto Fernandez, complete in grey top hat and somewhat soiled white spats, stepped on board.

"Mr Tibbetts, I presume?" said Pinto sternly.

Sanders smiled. "No, I am not Mr Tibbetts," he said. "I am the Commissioner in these parts. What can I do for you, my man?"

"I wish to see Mr Tibbetts on a matter of delicacy and honour," said Pinto glibly, and Sanders' eyes narrowed.

"Take off your hat," he said curtly; "you needn't fear sunstroke. You are a coloured man, I see."

"I am a Portuguese subject," said Pinto with dignity, but obeyed.

Sanders looked at him for a very long time, "Now, will you please tell me the object of your visit?" he said softly.

"It is a matter for Mr Tibbetts' ears alone."

"It is nothing to do, by any chance, with a correspondence in which Mr Tibbetts has been engaged?" asked Sanders, and did not fail to observe the start of surprise. "Because there was a gentleman, if I remember rightly, in Nigeria, who had an indiscreet correspondence with a lady in Funchal, and was induced to part with a considerable sum of money," said Sanders. "That fact came to me through official correspondence. What is your name?"

"Gonsalez," said Pinto, Sanders rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "That isn't the name but I seem to remember your face," he said. "I have seen a photograph somewhere oh yes, your name is Pinto Fernandez, and you are wanted by the Nigerian police for embezzlement. Curiously enough" he was speaking as though to himself "I never connected you with the ingenious blackmailer, and I don't suppose anybody else has."

"I want to say, Mr Sanders," said Pinto loudly, and slightly fl.u.s.tered, "that your Tibbetts has been corresponding with my foolish wife"

Sanders stopped him with a gesture. "According to the police report I have had from Nigeria, that was the basis of your argument with another gentleman."

He beckoned the watchful Abiboo. "Put this man in irons," he said.

Pinto Fernandez had been in many tight corners, and he was a man of considerable initiative. Before the sergeant's hand fell on his arm, he jumped to the taffrail and leapt the four or five feet which separated the Zaire Zaire from the bank. Before the Houssa could raise his rifle, he had plunged into the bush, leaving behind, as a souvenir of his presence, a grey topper and the nearly gold-headed walking-stick, which he carried as part of the insignia of his respectability. from the bank. Before the Houssa could raise his rifle, he had plunged into the bush, leaving behind, as a souvenir of his presence, a grey topper and the nearly gold-headed walking-stick, which he carried as part of the insignia of his respectability.

He heard the sound of a shot and the whine and patter of a bullet as it flicked through the leaves of the trees, and sprinted along the narrow native track into the forest. He was no stranger to the wild lands, and had the bush instinct which led him unerringly to the broader native road that ran parallel with the river bank. In the early hours of the morning he came to a little clearing, and D'lama-m'popo, coming out of his hut, stood stock still at the startling apparition.

"Oh master, I see you," said D'lama respectfully.

Pinto, who knew most of the dialects of the rivers, answered readily.

"Give me food, man," he said. "I am going on a long journey for Sandi. Also I want sleep, for I have walked through the forest, battling with wild beasts, all this night. And if any ask you about me you shall be silent, for it is Sandi's desire that no man should know that I am hereabouts."

D'lama prepared a meal, brought water from the forest spring, and left his guest to sleep. That evening, Pinto was wakened by the entry of his host.

"Man, Sandi wants you," said D'lama, "for this is the talk amongst all the villagers, that a certain one was taken prisoner by Sandi and escaped, and the master has sent word that you must be taken."

"That is fool's talk," said Pinto. "You see I am a white man, wearing trousers."

D'lama surveyed him critically. "That is true, for you are not quite black," he said. "Now, if you are a white man, then I have a wonderful thought in my head. For hereabouts lives a witch who talks with birds, and the birds told her that she should marry a white man, and after that the land should prosper."

"I am already married," said Pinto hastily.

"Who is not?" asked the crude D'lama. "Yet you shall marry her, and I will be silent. And no people live in this forest who talk except the birds. If you say no; then I will take you to Sandi, and there is an end. But if you say you will marry, then I will bring this girl to you."

"Bring the woman," said Pinto after a moment's thought; but whatever plans he had formed were purposeless.

"First I will tie you by the hands and feet," said D'lama calmly, "lest when I am gone, an evil spirit comes into your heart and you run away."

And Pinto, protesting, allowed himself to be trussed, for D'lama-m'popo was a man of inches and terribly strong.

The woman who talked with birds was in her old place beneath the nests of the weaver birds when D'lama arrived.

"You are D'lama, the killer of old women," she said, not looking round, "and a bird has told me that you have found a white man."

"That is true, Kobali," said D'lama, in a sweat, "and as to the old woman, a tree fell upon her "

Kobali rose silently and led the way into the forest, D'lama following. After a while they came to the hut where Pinto lay, in some pain, and together they brought him out into the light of the moon, and the girl examined him critically whilst the bonds were being removed.

"He is a white that is not black, and a black that is not white," she said. "I think this man will do for me, for he seems very pretty."

Pinto's hand rose mechanically to twirl his spa.r.s.e moustache.

"I can't really understand what happened to that fellow," said Sanders. "He must have got in the track of a leopard."

"Or the leopard must have got on his," suggested Hamilton. "By the way, what did he want with Bones?"

But Sanders shook his head. He was a model of discretion, and Bones, in his many journeys up and down the river, never guessed that from behind the bush that fringed the river near the Isisi, dwelt one who, in happier circ.u.mstances, had described himself as Dom Gonsalez, and who possessed a very charming wife in the town of Funchal or did possess her until she got tired of waiting, and contracted a morganatic marriage with the second officer of a banana boat out of Cadiz.

THE LAKE OF THE DEVIL.

M'suru, an Akasava chief of some importance, was hunting one day on the wrong side of the Ochori frontier when there appeared, at a most unpropitious moment, a man called Mabidini, who was something that was neither ranger nor hunter, yet was a little of each, for he watched the frontiers for his lord Bosambo, and poached skins secretly in the Akasava country.

He was a young man, and, by the standards which are set by the women of the Upper River, handsome; and these qualities made his subsequent offence the more unforgivable, for M'suru was middle-aged and fat and past the attractive period of life, so that only the women he bought were his, and n.o.body did anything for love of him. Mabidini, on the contrary, crooked his finger, and where was the marriage bond?

Inauspicious the moment, for M'suru was skinning a great water buck, and his four huntsmen had the skin stretched for salting.

"O ko!" said Mabidini. "This is bad news for Boambo my chief! No man hunts in this wood but he."

M'sura wiped the sweat out of his eyes with the back of the hand that held the skinning knife.

"Who sees, knows," he said significantly. "You shall have the fore-part of this meat for your pot."