The Essential Edgar Wallace Collection. Edgar Wallace
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us about fetishes," said the girl's voice.
Sanders smiled. There rose to his eyes the spectacle of a hot and weary people bringing in a giant tree through the forest, inch by inch.
And he told the story of the fetish of the Akasava.
"And I said," he concluded, "that I would come from the end of the world----"
He stopped suddenly and stared straight ahead. In the faint light they saw him stiffen like a setter.
"What is wrong?"
Lord Castleberry was on his feet, and somebody clicked on the lights.
But Sanders did not notice.
He was looking towards the end of the room, and his face was set and hard.
"O, M'fosa," he snarled, "O, dog!"
They heard the strange staccato of the Bomongo tongue and wondered.
* * * * *
Lieutenant Tibbetts, helmetless, his coat torn, his lip bleeding, offered no resistance when they strapped him to the smooth high pole. Almost at his feet lay the dead Houssa orderly whom M'fosa had struck down from behind.
In a wide circle, their faces half revealed by the crackling fire which burnt in the centre, the people of the Akasava city looked on impressively.
N'gori, the chief, his brows all wrinkled in terror, his shaking hands at his mouth in a gesture of fear, was no more than a spectator, for his masterful son limped from side to side, consulting his counsellors.
Presently the men who had bound Bones stepped aside, their work completed, and M'fosa came limping across to his prisoners.
"Now," he mocked. "Is it hard for you this fetish stick which Sandi has placed?"
"You're a low cad," said Bones, dropping into English in his wrath. "You're a low, beastly bounder, an' I'm simply disgusted with you."
"What does he say?" they asked M'fosa.
"He speaks to his gods in his own tongue," answered the limper; "for he is greatly afraid."
Lieutenant Tibbetts went on:
"Hear," said he in fluent and vitriolic Bomongo--for he was using that fisher dialect which he knew so much better than the more sonorous tongue of the Upper River--"O hear, eater of fish, O lame dog, O nameless child of a monkey!"
M'fosa's lips went up one-sidedly.
"Lord," said he softly, "presently you shall say no more, for I will cut your tongue out that you shall be lame of speech ... afterwards I will burn you and the fetish stick, so that you all tumble together."
"Be sure you will tumble into hell," said Bones cheerfully, "and that quickly, for you have offended Sandi's Ju-ju, which is powerful and terrible."
If he could gain time--time for some miraculous news to come to Hamilton, who, blissfully unconscious of the treachery to his second-in-command, was sleeping twenty miles downstream--unconscious, too, of the Akasava fleet of canoes which was streaming towards his little steamer.
Perhaps M'fosa guessed his thoughts.
"You die alone, Tibbetti," he said, "though I planned a great death for you, with Bosambo at your side; and in the matter of ju-jus, behold! you shall call for Sandi--whilst you have a tongue."
He took from the raw-hide sheath that was strapped to the calf of his bare leg, a short N'gombi knife, and drew it along the palm of his hand.
"Call now, O Moon-in-the-Eye!" he scoffed.
Bones saw the horror and braced himself to meet it.
"O Sandi!" cried M'fosa, "O planter of ju-ju, come quickly!"
"Dog!"
M'fosa whipped round, the knife dropping from his hand.
He knew the voice, was paralysed by the concentrated malignity in the voice.
There stood Sandi--not half a dozen paces from him.
A Sandi in strange black clothing with a big white-breasted shirt ... but Sandi, hard-eyed and threatening.
"Lord, lord!" he stammered, and put up his hands to his eyes.
He looked again--the figure had vanished.
"Magic!" he mumbled, and lurched forward in terror and hate to finish his work.
Then through the crowd stalked a tall man.
A rope of monkeys' tails covers one broad shoulder; his left arm and hand were hidden by an oblong shield of hide.
In one hand he held a slim throwing spear and this he balanced delicately.
"I am Bosambo of the Ochori," he said magnificently and unnecessarily; "you sent for me and I have come--bringing a thousand spears."
M'fosa blinked, but said nothing.
"On the river," Bosambo went on, "I met many canoes that went to a killing--behold!"
It was the head of M'fosa's lieutenant, who had charge of the surprise party.
For a moment M'fosa looked, then turned to leap, and Bosambo's spear caught him in mid-air.
"Jolly old Bosambo!" muttered Bones, and fainted.
* * * * *
Four thousand miles away Sanders was offering his apologies to a startled company.
"I could have sworn I saw--something," he said, and he told no more stories that night.
CHAPTER V
A FRONTIER AND A CODE
To understand this story you must know that at one point of Ochori borderline, the German, French, and Belgian territories shoot three narrow tongues that form, roughly, the segments of a half-circle. Whether the German tongue is split in the middle by N'glili River, so that it forms a flattened broad arrow, with the central prong the river is a moot point. We, in Downing Street, claim that the lower angle of this arrow is wholly ours, and that all the flat basin of the Field of Blood (as they call it) is entitled to receive the shadow which a flapping Union Jack may cast.
If Downing Street were to send that frantic code-wire to "Polonius" to Hamilton in these days he could not obey the instructions, for reasons which I will give. As a matter of fact the code has now been changed, Lieutenant Tibbetts being mainly responsible for the alteration.
Hamilton, in his severest mood, wrote a letter to Bones, and it is worth reproducing.
That Bones was living a dozen yards from Captain Hamilton, and that they shared a common mess-table, adds rather than distracts from the seriousness of the correspondence. The letter ran:
"The Residency, "September 24th.
"From Officer commanding Houssas detachment Headquarters, to Officer commanding "B" company of Houssas.
"Sir,--
"I have the honour to direct your attention to that paragraph of King's regulations which directs that an officer's sole attention should be concentrated upon executing the lawful commands of his superior.
"I have had occasion recently to correct a certain tendency on your part to employing War Department property and the servants of the Crown for your own special use. I need hardly point out to you that such conduct on your part is subversive to discipline and directly contrary to the spirit and letter of regulations. More especially would I urge the impropriety of utilizing government