The Keepers of the King's Peace by Edgar Wallace (most read book in the world .TXT) 📗

Anglomaniac—though why he should be so when his mother was an American woman I do not know. He shall be our commissioner, my dear Baptisa."

His dear Baptisa sat bolt upright, every hair in his bristling head erect.

"A royalist!" he gasped, "do you want to set Portugal ablaze?"

"There are moments when I could answer 'Yes' to that question," said the truthful Colhemos "but for the moment I am satisfied that there will be no fireworks. It will do no harm to send the boy. It will placate the Left and please the Clerics—it will also consolidate our reputation for liberality and largeness of mind. Also the young man will either be killed or fall a victim to the sinister influences of that corruption which, alas, has so entered into the vitals of our Colonial service."

So Manuel duc de Sagosta was summoned, and prepared for the subject of his visit by telephone, came racing up from Cintra in his big American juggernaut, leapt up the stairs of the Colonial Office two at a time, and came to Colhemos' presence in a state of mind which may be described as a big mental whoop.

"You will understand, Senhor," said Colhemos, "that I am doing that which may make me unpopular. [Pg 237]For that I care nothing! My country is my first thought, and the glory and honour of our flag! Some day you may hold my portfolio in the Cabinet, and it will be well if you bring to your high and noble office the experience...."

Then they all talked together, and the dark room flickered with gesticulating palms.

Colhemos came to see the boy off by the M.N.P. boat which carried him to the African Coast.

"I suppose, Senhor," said the duc, "there would be no objection on the part of the Government to my calling on my way at a certain British port. I have a friend in the English army—we were at Clifton together——"

"My friend," said Colhemos, pressing the young man's hand warmly, "you must look upon England as a potential ally, and lose no opportunity which offers to impress upon our dear colleagues this fact, that behind England, unmoved, unshaken, faithful, stands the armed might of Portugal. May the saints have you in their keeping!"

He embraced him, kissing him on both cheeks.

Bones was drilling recruits at headquarters when Hamilton hailed him from the edge of the square.

"There's a pal of yours come to see you, Bones," he roared.

Bones marched sedately to his superior and touched his helmet.

"Sir!"

[Pg 238]"A friend of yours—just landed from the Portuguese packet."

Bones was mystified, and went up to the Residency to find a young man in spotless white being entertained by Patricia Hamilton and a very thoughtful Sanders.

The duc de Sagosta leapt to his feet as Bones came up the verandah.

"Hullo, Conk!" he yelled hilariously.

Bones stared.

"God bless my life," he stammered, "it's Mug!"

There was a terrific hand-shaking accompanied by squawking inquiries which were never answered, uproarious laughter, back patting, brazen and baseless charges that each was growing fat, and Sanders watched it with great kindness.

"Here's old Ham," said Bones, "you ought to know Ham—Captain Hamilton, sir, my friend, the duke of something or other—but you can call him Mug—Miss Hamilton—this is Mug."

"We've already been introduced," she laughed. "But why do you let him call you Mug?"

The duc grinned.

"I like Mug," he said simply.

He was to stay to lunch, for the ship was not leaving until the afternoon, and Bones carried him off to his hut.

"A joyous pair," said Hamilton enviously. "Lord, if I was only a boy again!"

Sanders shook his head.

[Pg 239]"You don't echo that wish?" said Pat.

"I wasn't thinking about that—I was thinking of the boy. I dislike this M'fusi business, and I can't think why the Government sent him. They are a pretty bad lot—their territory is at the back of the Akasava, and the Chief of the M'fusi is a rascal."

"But he says that he has been sent to reform them," said the girl.

Sanders smiled.

"It is not a job I should care to undertake—and yet——"

He knitted his forehead.

"And yet——?"

"I could reform them—Bones could reform them. But if they were reformed it would break Bonaventura, for he holds his job subject to their infamy."

At lunch Sanders was unusually silent, a silence which was unnoticed, save by the girl. Bones and his friend, however, needed no stimulation. Lunch was an almost deafening meal, and when the time came for the duc to leave, the whole party went down to the beach to see him embark.

"Good-bye, old Mug!" roared Bones, as the boat pulled away. "Whoop! hi! how!"

"You're a noisy devil," said Hamilton, admiringly.

"Vox populi, vox Dei," said Bones.

He had an unexpected visitor that evening, for [Pg 240]whilst he was dressing for dinner, Sanders came into his hut—an unusual happening.

What Sanders had to say may not be related since it was quite unofficial, but Bones came to dinner that night and behaved with such decorum and preserved a mien so grave, that Hamilton thought he was ill.

The duc continued his journey down the African Coast and presently came to a port which was little more than a beach, a jetty, a big white house, and by far the most imposing end of the Moanda road. In due time, he arrived by the worst track in the world (he was six days on the journey) at Moanda itself, and came into the presence of the Governor.

Did the duc but know it, his Excellency had also been prepared for the young man's mission. The mail had arrived by carrier the day before the duc put in his appearance, and Pinto Bonaventura had his little piece all ready to say.

"I will give you all the assistance I possibly can," he said, as they sat at déjeuner, "but, naturally, I cannot guarantee you immunity."

"Immunity?" said the puzzled duc.

Senhor Bonaventura nodded gravely.

"Nothing is more repugnant to me than slavery," he said, "unless it be the terrible habit of drinking. If I could sweep these evils out of existence with a wave of my hand, believe me I would do so; but I cannot perform miracles, and the Government will not give me sufficient [Pg 241]troops to suppress these practices which every one of us hold in abhorrence."

"But," protested the duc, a little alarmed, "since I am going to reform the M'fusi...."

The Governor choked over his coffee and apologized. He did not laugh, because long residence in Central Africa had got him out of the habit, and had taught him a certain amount of self-control in all things except the consumption of marsala.

"Pray go on," he said, wearing an impassive face.

"It will be to the interests of Portugal, no less than to your Excellency's interest," said the young man, leaning across the table and speaking with great earnestness, "if I can secure a condition of peace, prosperity, sobriety, and if I can establish the Portuguese law in this disturbed area."

"Undoubtedly," acknowledged the older man with profound seriousness.

So far from the duc's statement representing anything near the truth, it may be said that a restoration of order would serve his Excellency very badly indeed. In point of fact he received something like eight shillings for every "head" of "recruited labour." He also received a commission from the same interested syndicates which exported able-bodied labourers, a commission amounting to six shillings upon every case of square-face, and a larger sum upon every keg of rum that came into the country.

[Pg 242]Sobriety and law would, in fact, spell much discomfort to the elegant lady who lived in the villa at Cintra, and would considerably diminish not only Senhor Bonaventura's handsome balance at the Bank of Brazil, but would impoverish certain ministers, permanent and temporary, who looked to their dear Pinto for periodical contributions to what was humorously described as "The Party Fund."

Yet the duc de Sagosta went into the wilds with a high heart and a complete faith, in his youthful and credulous soul, that he had behind him the full moral and physical support of a high-minded and patriotic Governor. The high-minded and patriotic Governor, watching the caravan of his new assistant disappearing through the woods which fringe Moanda, expressed in picturesque language his fervent hope that the mud, the swamp, the forest and the wilderness of the M'fusi country would swallow up this young man for evermore, amen. The unpopularity of the new Commissioner was sealed when the Governor learnt of his visit to Sanders, for "Sanders" was a name at which his Excellency made disapproving noises.

The predecessor of the duc de Sagosta was dead. His grave was in the duc's front garden, and was covered with rank grass. The new-comer found the office correspondence in order (as a glib native clerk demonstrated); he also found 103 empty bottles behind the house, and [Pg 243]understood the meaning of that coarse grave in the garden. He found that the last index number in the letter-book was 951.

It is remarkable that the man he succeeded should have found, in one year, 951 subjects for correspondence, but it is the fact. Possibly nine hundred of the letters had to do with the terrible state of the Residency at Uango-Bozeri. The roof leaked, the foundations had settled, and not a door closed as it should close. On the day of his arrival the duc found a mamba resting luxuriously in his one armchair, a discovery which suggested the existence of a whole colony of these deadly brutes—the mamba bite is fatal in exactly ninety seconds—under or near the house.

The other fifty dispatches probably had to do with the late Commissioner's arrears of pay, for Portugal at that time was in the throes of her annual crisis, and ministries were passing through the Government offices at Lisbon with such rapidity that before a cheque could be carried from the Foreign Office to the bank, it was out of date.

Uango Bozeri is 220 miles by road from the coast, and is the centre of the child-like people of the M'fusi. Here the duc dwelt and had his being, as Governor of 2,000 square miles, and overlord of some million people who were cannibals with a passion for a fiery liquid which was described by traders as "rum." It was as near rum [Pg 244]as the White City is to Heaven; that is to say, to the uncultivated taste it might have been rum, and anyway was as near to rum as the taster could expect to get.

This is all there is to be said about the duc de Sagosta, save that his headman swindled him, his soldiers were conscienceless natives committing acts of brigandage in his innocent name, whilst his chief at Moanda was a peculating and incompetent scoundrel.

At the time when the duc was finding life a bitter and humiliating experience, and had reached the stage when he sat on his predecessor's grave for company, a small and unauthorized party crossed the frontier from the British Territories in search of adventure.

Now it happened that the particular region through which the border-line passed was governed by the Chief of the Greater M'fusi, who was a cannibal, a drunkard, and a master of two regiments.

The duc had been advised not to interfere with the chief of his people, and he had (after one abortive and painful experience) obeyed his superiors, accepting the hut tax which was sent to him (and which was obviously and insolently inadequate) without demur.

No white man journeyed to the city of the M'fusi without invitation from the chief, and as Chief Karata never issued such invitation, the Greater M'fusi was a terra incognita even to his Excellency [Pg 245]the Governor-General of the Central and Western Provinces.

Karata was a drunkard approaching lunacy. It was his whim for weeks on end to wear on his head the mask of a goat. At other times, "as a mark of his confidence in devils," he would appear hidden beneath a plaited straw extinguisher which fitted him from head to foot. He was eccentric in other ways which need not be particularized, but he was never so eccentric that he welcomed strangers.

Unfortunately for those concerned, the high road from the Territories passed through the M'fusi drift. And one day there came a panting messenger from the keeper of the drift who flung himself down at the king's feet.

"Lord," said he, "there is a white man at the drift, and with him a certain chief and his men."

"You will take the men, bringing them to me tied with ropes," said the king, who looked at the messenger with glassy eyes and found some difficulty in speaking, for he was at the truculent stage of his second bottle.

The messenger returned and met the party on the road. What