Sanders of the River Part 32

"Master, you sent for me," he said.

Sanders shifted his gaze.

"On second thoughts," he said, "I do not need you."

The chief went away with a whole thanksgiving service in his heart, for there had been certain secret doings on the river for which he expected reprimand.

"M'Fasa, you will go to my boat," said Sanders, and the woman, putting down her mortar, rose and went obediently to the steamer. Sanders followed slowly, having a great many matters to consider. If he denounced this woman to the elders of the village, she would be stoned to death; if he carried her to headquarters and tried her, there was no evidence on which a conviction might be secured. There was no place to which he could deport her, yet to leave her would be to open the way for further mischief.

She awaited him on the deck of the Zaire, a straight, shapely girl of eighteen, fearless, defiant.

"M'Fasa," said Sanders, "why did you kill your husband?"

"Lord, I did not kill him; he died of the sickness," she said, as doggedly as before.

Sanders paced the narrow deck, his head on his breast, for this was a profound problem. Then he looked up.

"You may go," he said; and the woman, a little puzzled, walked along the plank that connected the boat with the sh.o.r.e, and disappeared into the bush.

Three weeks later his spies brought word that men were dying unaccountably on the Upper River. None knew why they died, for a man would sit down strong and full of cheer to his evening meal, and lo! in the morning, when his people went to wake him, he would be beyond waking, being most unpleasantly dead.

This happened in many villages on the Little River.

"It's getting monotonous," said Sanders to the captain of the Houssas. "There is some wholesale poisoning going on, and I am going up to find the gentleman who dispenses the dope."

It so happened that the first case claiming investigation was at Isisi City. It was a woman who had died, and this time Sanders suspected the husband, a notorious evil-doer.

"Okali," he said, coming to the point, "why did you poison your wife?"

"Lord," said the man, "she died of the sickness. In the evening she was well, but at the dark hour before sun came she turned in her sleep saying 'Ah! oh!' and straightway she died."

Sanders drew a long breath.

"Get a rope," he said to one of his men, and when the rope arrived Abiboo scrambled up to the lower branch of a copal-gum and scientifically lashed a block and tackle.

"Okali," said Sanders, "I am going to hang you for the murder of your wife, for I am a busy man and have no time to make inquiries; and if you are not guilty of her murder, yet there are many other abominable deeds you have been guilty of, therefore I am justified in hanging you."

The man was grey with terror when they slipped the noose over his neck and strapped his hands behind him.

"Lord, she was a bad wife to me and had many lovers," he stammered. "I did not mean to kill her, but the Devil Man said that such medicine would make her forget her lovers--"

"Devil Man! What Devil Man?" asked Sanders quickly.

"Lord, there is a devil greatly respected in these parts, who wanders in the forest all the time and gives many curious medicines."

"Where is he to be found?"

"Lord, none know. He comes and goes, like a grey ghost, and he has a fetish more powerful than a thousand ordinary devils. Master, I gave the woman, my wife, that which he gave to me, and she died. How might I know that she would die?"

"Cheg'li," said Sanders shortly to the men at the rope-end, and cheg'li in the dialect of the River means "pull."

"Stop!"

Sanders was in a changeable mood, and a little irritable by reason of the fact that he knew himself to be fickle.

"How came this drug to you? In powder, in liquid, or--"

The man's lips were dry. He could do no more than shake his head helplessly.

"Release him," said Sanders; and Abiboo loosened the noose and unstrapped the man's hands.

"If you have lied to me," said Sanders, "you die at sunset. First let me hear more of this Devil Man, for I am anxious to make his acquaintance."

He gave the man ten minutes to recover from the effects of his fear, then sent for him.

"Lord," said he, "I know nothing of the Devil Man save that he is the greatest witch-doctor in the world, and on nights when the moon is up and certain stars are in their places he comes like a ghost, and we are all afraid. Then those of us who need him go forth into the forest, and he gives to us according to our desires."

"How carried he the drug?"

"Lord, it was in a crystal rod, such as white men carry their medicines in. I will bring it to you."

He went back to his hut and returned a few minutes later with a phial, the fellow to that which was already in Sanders' possession. The Commissioner took it and smelt at the opening. There was the faintest odour of almonds, and Sanders whistled, for he recognised the after-scent of cyanide of pota.s.sium, which is not such a drug as untutored witch-doctors know, much less employ.

"I can only suggest," wrote Sanders to headquarters, "that by some mischance the medicine chest of the late Sir George Carsley has come into the possession of a native 'doctor.' You will remember that the chest was with the professor when he was drowned. It has possibly been washed up and discovered.... In the meantime, I am making diligent inquiries as to the ident.i.ty of the Devil Man, who seems to have leapt into fame so suddenly."

There were sleepless nights ahead for Sanders, nights of swift marchings and doublings, of quick runs up the river, of unexpected arrivals in villages, of lonely vigils in the forest and by strange pools. But he had no word of the Devil Man, though he learnt many things of interest. Most potent of his magical possessions was a box, "so small," said one who had seen it, and indicated a six-inch square. In this box dwelt a small and malicious G.o.d who pinched and scratched (yet without leaving a mark), who could stick needles into the human body and never draw blood.

"I give it up," said Sanders in despair, and went back to his base to think matters out.

He was sitting at dinner one night, when far away on the river the drum beat. It was not the regular lo-koli roll, but a series of staccato tappings, and, stepping softly to the door, the Commissioner listened.

He had borrowed the Houssa signalling staff from headquarters, and stationed them at intervals along the river. On a still night the tapping of a drum carries far, but the rattle of iron-wood sticks on a hollowed tree-trunk carries farthest of all.

"Clok-clok, clockitty-clock."

It sounded like the far-away croaking of a bull-frog; but Sanders picked out the letters:

"Devil Man sacrifices to-morrow night in the Forest of Dreams."

As he jotted down the message on the white sleeve of his jacket, Abiboo came running up the path.

"I have heard," said Sanders briefly. "There is steam in the pucapuc?"

"We are ready, master," said the man.

Sanders waited only to take a hanging revolver from the wall and throw his overcoat over his arm, for his travelling kit was already deposited on the Zaire, and had been for three days.

In the darkness the sharp nose of his little boat swung out to the stream, and ten minutes after the message came the boat was threshing a way against the swift river.