"Bones": Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country by Wallace (ink ebook reader .txt) 📗

... I can't understand how these things get into the bally papers."

"If," said Hamilton, turning the cutting over in his hand, "if they called you 'The-Man-Who-Jaws-So-Much-That-Nobody-Can-Sleep,' I'd understand it, or if they called you 'The-Man-Sleeps-With-His-Mouth-Open-Emitting-Hideous-Noises,' I could understand it."

"The fact is, sir," said Bones, in a moment of inspiration, "I'm an awfully light sleeper—in fact, sir, I'm one of those chaps who can get along with a couple of hours' sleep—I can sleep anywhere at any time—dear old Wellin'ton was similarly gifted—in fact, sir, there are one or two points of resemblance between Wellington and I, which you might have noticed, sir."

"Speak no ill of the dead," reproved Hamilton; "beyond your eccentric noses I see no points of resemblance."

It was on a morning following the dispatch of the mail that Hamilton took a turn along the firm sands to settle in his mind the problem of a certain Middle Island.

Middle Islands, that is to say the innumerable patches of land which sprinkle the river in its broad places, were a never-ending problem to Sanders and his successor. Upon these Middle Islands the dead were laid to rest—from the river you saw the graves with fluttering ragged flags of white cloth planted about them—and the right of burial [Pg 244]was a matter of dispute when the mainland at one side of the river was Isisi land, and Akasava the other. Also some of the larger Middle Islands were colonized.

Hamilton had news of a coming palaver in relation to one of these.

Now, on the river, it is customary for all who desire inter-tribal palavers to announce their intention loudly and insistently. And if Sanders had no objection he made no move, if he did not think the palaver desirable he stopped it. It was a simple arrangement, and it worked.

Hamilton came back from his four-mile constitutional satisfied in his mind that the palaver should be held. Moreover, they had, on this occasion, asked permission. He could grant this with an easy mind, being due in the neighbourhood of the disputed territory in the course of a week.

It seemed that an Isisi fisherman had been spearing in Akasava waters, and had, moreover, settled, he and his family to the number of forty, on Akasava territory. Whereupon an Akasava fishing community, whose rights the intruder had violated, rose up in its wrath and beat Issmeri with sticks.

Then the king of the Isisi sent a messenger to the king of Akasava begging him to stay his hand "against my lawful people, for know this, Iberi, that I have a thousand spears and young men eager for fire."

[Pg 245]

And Iberi replied with marked unpleasantness that there were in the Akasava territory two thousand spears no less inclined to slaughter.

In a moment of admirable moderation, significant of the change which Mr. Commissioner Sanders had wrought in these warlike peoples, they accepted Hamilton's suggestion—sent by special envoy—and held a "small palaver," agreeing that the question of the disputed fishing ground should be settled by a third person.

And they chose Bosambo, paramount and magnificent chief of the Ochori, as arbitrator. Now, it was singularly unfortunate that the question was ever debatable. And yet it was, for the fishing ground in question was off one of the many Middle Islands. In this case the island was occupied by Akasava fishermen on the one shore and by the intruding Isisi on the other. If you can imagine a big "Y" and over it a little "o" and over that again an inverted "Y" thus "ʎ" and drawing this you prolong the four prongs of the Y's, you have a rough idea of the topography of the place. To the left of the lower "Y" mark the word "Isisi," to the right the word "Akasava" until you reach a place where the two right hand prongs meet, and here you draw a line and call all above it "Ochori." The "o" in the centre is the middle island—set in a shallow lake through which the river (the stalk, of the Y's) runs.

Bosambo came down in state with ten canoes filled with counsellors and bodyguard. He camped [Pg 246]on the disputed ground, and was met thereon by the chiefs affected.

"O, Iberi and T'lingi!" said he, as he stepped ashore, "I come in peace, bringing all my wonderful counsellors, that I may make you as brothers, for as you know I have a white man's way of knowing all their magic, and being a brother in blood to our Lord Tibbetti, Moon-in-the-Eye."

"This we know, Bosambo," said Iberi, looking askance at the size of Bosambo's retinue, "and my stomach is proud that you bring so vast an army of high men to us, for I see that you have brought rich food for them."

He saw nothing of the sort, but he wanted things made plain at the beginning.

"Lord Iberi," said Bosambo, loftily, "I bring no food, for that would have been shameful, and men would have said: 'Iberi is a mean man who starves the guests of his house.' But only one half of my wise people shall sit in your huts, Iberi, and the other half will rest with T'lingi of the Akasava, and feed according to law. And behold, chiefs and headmen, I am a very just man not to be turned this way or that by the giving of gifts or by kindness shown to my people. Yet my heart is so human and so filled with tenderness for my people, that I ask you not to feed them too richly or give them presents of beauty, lest my noble mind be influenced."

Whereupon his forces were divided, and each chief ransacked his land for delicacies to feed them.

[Pg 247]

It was a long palaver—too long for the chiefs.

Was the island Akasava or Isisi? Old men of either nation testified with oaths and swearings of death and other high matters that it was both.

From dawn to sunset Bosambo sat in the thatched palaver house, and on either side of him was a brass pot into which he tossed from time to time a grain of corn.

And every grain stood for a successful argument in favour of one or the other of the contestants—the pot to the right being for the Akasava, and that to the left for the Isisi.

And the night was given up to festivity, to the dancing of girls and the telling of stories and other noble exercises.

On the tenth day Iberi met T'lingi secretly.

"T'lingi," said Iberi, "it seems to me that this island is not worth the keeping if we have to feast this thief Bosambo and search our lands for his pleasure."

"Lord Iberi," agreed his rival, "that is also in my mind—let us go to this robber of our food and say the palaver shall finish to-morrow, for I do not care whether the island is yours or mine if we can send Bosambo back to his land."

"You speak my mind," said Iberi, and on the morrow they were blunt to the point of rudeness.

Whereupon Bosambo delivered judgment.

"Many stories have been told," said he, "also many lies, and in my wisdom I cannot tell which is lie and which is truth. Moreover, the grains of [Pg 248]corn are equal in each pot. Now, this I say, in the name of my uncle Sandi, and my brother Tibbetti (who is secretly married to my sister's cousin), that neither Akasava nor Isisi shall sit in this island for a hundred years."

"Lord, you are wise," said the Akasava chief, well satisfied, and Iberi was no less cheered, but asked: "Who shall keep this island free from Akasava or Isisi? For men may come and there will be other palavers and perhaps fighting?"

"That I have thought of," said Bosambo, "and so I will raise a village of my own people on this island, and put a guard of a hundred men—all this I will do because I love you both—the palaver is finished."

He rose in his stately way, and with his drums beating and the bright spearheads of his young men a-glitter in the evening sunlight, embarked in his ten canoes, having expanded his territory without loss to himself like the Imperialist he was.

For two days the chiefs of the Akasava and the Isisi were satisfied with the justice of an award which robbed them both without giving an advantage to either. Then an uneasy realization of their loss dawned upon them. Then followed a swift exchange of messages and Bosambo's colonization scheme was unpleasantly checked.

Hamilton was on the little lake which is at the end of the N'gini River when he heard of the trouble, and from the high hills at the far end of the lake [Pg 249]sent a helio message staring and blinking across the waste.

Bones, fishing in the river below Ikan, picked up the instructions, and went flying up the river as fast as the new naphtha launch could carry him.

He arrived in time to cover the shattered remnants of Bosambo's fleet as they were being swept northward from whence they came.

Bones went inshore to the island, the water jacket of a Maxim gun exposed over the bow, but there was no opposition.

"What the dooce is all this about—hey?" demanded Lieutenant Tibbetts fiercely, and Iberi, doubly uneasy at the sound of an unaccustomed language, stood on one leg in his embarrassment.

"Lord, the thief Bosambo——" he began, and told the story.

"Lord," he concluded humbly, "I say all this though Bosambo is your relation since you have secretly married his sister's cousin."

Whereupon Bones went very red and stammered and spluttered in such a way that the chief knew for sure that Bosambo had spoken the truth.

Bones, as I have said before, was no fool. He confirmed Bosambo's order for the evacuation of the island, but left a Houssa guard to hold it.

Then he hurried north to the Ochori.

Bosambo formed his royal procession, but there was no occasion for it, for Bones was in no processional mood.

"What the dooce do you mean, sir?" demanded [Pg 250]a glaring and threatening Bones, his helmet over his neck, his arms akimbo. "What do you mean, sir, by saying I'm married to your infernal aunt?"

"Sah," said Bosambo, virtuous and innocent, "I no savvy you—I no compreney, sah! You lib for my house—I give you fine t'ings. I make um moosic, sah——"

"You're a jolly old rotter, Bosambo!" said Bones, shaking his finger in the chief's face. "I could punish you awfully for telling wicked stories, Bosambo. I'm disgusted with you, I am indeed."

"Lord who never sleeps," began Bosambo, humbly.

"Hey?"

Bones stared at the other in amazement, suspicion, hope, and gratification in his face.

"O, Bosambo," said he mildly, and speaking in the native tongue, "why do you call me by that name?"

Now, Bosambo in his innocence had used a phrase (M'wani-m'wani) which signifies "the sleepless one," and also stands in the vernacular for "busy-body," or one who is eternally concerned with other people's business.

"Lord," said Bosambo, hastily, "by this name are you known from the mountains to the sea. Thus all men speak of you, saying: 'This is he who does not sleep but watches all the time.'"

Bones was impressed, he was flattered, and he ran his finger between the collar of his uniform jacket and his scraggy neck as one will do who is [Pg 251]embarrassed by praise and would appear unconcerned under the ordeal.

"So men call me, Bosambo," said he carelessly "though my lord M'ilitani does not know this—therefore in the day when M'ilitani comes, speak of me as M'wani-m'wani that he may know of whom men speak when they say 'the sleepless one.'"

Everybody knows that Cala cala great chiefs had stored against the hour of their need certain stocks of ivory.

Dead ivory it is called because it had been so long cut, but good cow ivory, closer in grain than the bull elephant brought to the hunter, more turnable, and of greater value.

There is no middle island on the river about which some legend or buried treasure does not float.

Hamilton, hurrying forward to the support of his second-in-command, stopped long enough to interview two sulky chiefs.

"What palaver is this?" he demanded of Iberi, "that you carry your spears to a killing? For is not the river big enough for all, and are there no burying-places for your old men that you should fight so fiercely?"

"Lord," confessed Iberi, "upon that island is a treasure which has been hidden from the beginning of time, and that is the truth—N'Yango!"

Now, no man swears by his mother unless he is speaking straightly, and Hamilton understood.

"Never have I spoken of this to the Chief of the Isisi," Iberi went on, "nor he to me, yet we know [Pg 252]because of certain wise sayings that the treasure