The Keepers of the King's Peace Part 26

Hamilton stared after him.

"Surely," he asked irritably, "Bones isn't sickening for measles again?"

CHAPTER VIII

THE TAMER OF BEASTS

Native folk, at any rate, are but children of a larger growth. In the main, their delinquencies may be cla.s.sified under the heading of "naughtiness." They are mischievous and pa.s.sionate, and they have a weakness for destroying things to discover the secrets of volition. A too prosperous nation mystifies less fortunate people, who demand of their elders and rulers some solution of the mystery of their rivals'

progress. Such a ruler, unable to offer the necessary explanation, takes his spears to the discovery, and sometimes discovers too much for his happiness.

The village of Jumburu stands on the edge of the bush country, where the lawless men of all nations dwell. This territory is filled with fierce communities, banded together against a common enemy--the law. They call this land the B'wigini, which means "the Nationless," and Jumburu's importance lies in the fact that it is the outpost of order and discipline.

In Jumburu were two brothers, O'ka and B'suru, who had usurped the chieftainship of their uncle, the very famous K'sungasa, "very famous,"

since he had been in his time a man of remarkable gifts, which he still retained to some extent, and in consequence enjoyed what was left of life.

He was, by all accounts, as mad as a man could be, and in circ.u.mstances less favourable to himself his concerned relatives would have taken him a long journey into the forest he loved so well, and they would have put out his eyes and left him to the mercy of the beasts, such being the method of dealing with lunacy amongst people who, all unknown to themselves, were eugenists of a most inflexible kind.

But to leave K'sungasa to the beasts would have been equivalent to delivering him to the care of his dearest friends, for he had an affinity for the wild dwellers of the bush, and all his life he had lived amongst them and loved them.

It is said that he could arrest the parrot in the air by a "cl'k!" and could bring the bird screeching and fluttering to his hand. He could call the shy little monkeys from the high branches where they hid, and even the fiercest of buffaloes would at his word come snuffling and nosing his brown arm.

So that, when he grew weak-minded, his relatives, after a long palaver, decided that for once the time-honoured customs of the land should be overridden, and since there was no other method of treating the blind but that prescribed by precedent, he should be allowed to live in a great hut at the edge of the village with his birds and snakes and wild cats, and that the direction of village affairs should pa.s.s to his nephews.

Mr. Commissioner Sanders knew all this, but did nothing. His task was to govern the territory, which meant to so direct affairs that the territory governed itself. When the fate of K'sungasa was in the balance, he sent word to the chief's nephews that he was somewhere in the neighbourhood, and that the revival of the bad old custom of blinding would be followed by the introduction of the bad new custom of hanging; but this had less effect upon the council of relatives--to whom Sanders's message was not transmitted--than the strange friendship which K'sungasa had for the forest folk.

The nephews might have governed the village, exacted tribute, apportioned fishing rights, and administered justice for all time, but for the fact that there came a period of famine, when crops were bad and fish was scarce, and when, remarkably enough, the village of L'bini, distant no more than a few hours' paddling, had by a curious coincident raised record crops, and had, moreover, a glut of fish in their waters.

There was the inevitable palaver and the inevitable solution. O'ka and B'suru led ten canoes to the offending village, slaughtered a few men and burnt a few huts. For two hours the combatants pranced and yelled and thrust at one another amidst a pandemonium of screaming women, and then Lieutenant Tibbetts dropped from the clouds with a most substantial platoon of Houssas, and there was a general sorting out.

Sanders held a court on one of the middle islands near the Residency, and B'suru was sent to the Village of Irons for the term of his natural life. O'ka, who had fled to the bush, escaped, however, and with him a headman and a few followers.

Lieutenant Tibbetts, who had spent two profitable days in the village of Jumburu, came back to the Residency a very thoughtful young man.

"What is the matter with Bones?" asked Captain Hamilton.

His sister smiled over her book, but offered no other comment.

"Do you know, Pat?" demanded Hamilton sternly.

Sanders looked at the girl with a twinkle in his grey eyes, and lit a cheroot. The relationships between Patricia Hamilton and Bones were a source of constant joy to him. Taciturn and a thought dour as he was, Pat would never have suspected the bubbling laughter which arose behind that lean brown face, unmovable and, in his moments of most intense enjoyment, expressionless.

"Bones and I have a feud," said the girl.

Sanders smiled.

"Not as violent a feud as O'ka and I have, I hope?" he said.

She frowned a little and looked at him anxiously.

"But you don't worry about the threats of the people you have punished?"

she asked.

"I haven't punished O'ka," said Sanders, "and an expedition into the bush would be too expensive an affair. He has apparently settled with the B'wigini people. If they take up his feud, they might give trouble.

But what is your trouble with Bones?"

"You must ask him," she said.

Hamilton's opportunity came next day, when Bones applied for leave.

"Leave?" said Captain Hamilton incredulously. "Leave, Bones? What the d.i.c.kens do you want leave for?"

Bones, standing as stiff as a ramrod before the office table at which his superior sat, saluted.

"Urgent private affairs, sir," he said gruffly.

"But you haven't any private affairs," protested Hamilton. "Your life is an open book--you were bragging about that fact yesterday."

"Sir and brother-officer," said Bones firmly, "a crisis has arisen in my young life. My word, sir, has been called into doubt by your jolly old sister. I desire to vindicate my honour, my reputation, an' my veracity."

"Pat has been pulling your leg!" suggested Hamilton, but Bones shook his head.

"Nothin' so indelicate, sir. Your revered an' lovely relative--G.o.d bless her jolly old heart!--expressed her doubt in _re_ leopards an'

buffaloes. I'm goin' out, sir, into the wilds--amidst dangers, Ham, old feller, that only seasoned veterans like you an' me can imagine--to bring proof that I am not only a sportsman, but a gentleman."

The timely arrival of Miss Patricia Hamilton, very beautiful in dazzling white, with her solar helmet perched at an angle, smote Bones to silence.

"What have you been saying to Bones?" asked Hamilton severely.

"She said----"

"I said----"

They began and finished together.

"Bones, you're a tell-tale," accused the girl.

"Go on," said Bones recklessly. "Don't spare me. I'm a liar an' a thief an' a murderer--don't mind me!"

"I simply said that I didn't believe he shot the leopard--the one whose skin is in his hut."

"Oh, no," said Bones, with heavy sarcasm, "I didn't shoot it--oh, no! I froze it to death--I poisoned it!"

"But did you shoot it?" she asked.