Then he heard a faint shot, and another, and another, and grinned.

His pursuers had stumbled upon a party of Houssas.

From sheer exhaustion the baby had fallen asleep. Babies were confoundedly heavy—Bones had never observed the fact before, but with the strap of his sword belt he fashioned a sling that relieved him of some of the weight.

He took it easier now, for he knew M'bisibi's men would be frightened off. He rested for half an hour on the ground, and then came a snuffling leopard walking silently through the forest, betraying his presence only by the two green danger-lamps of his eyes.

Bones sat up and flourished his lamp upon the startled beast, which growled in fright, and went scampering through the forest like the great cat that he was.

The growl woke Bones' charge, and he awoke hungry and disinclined to further sleep without that inducement and comfort which his nurse was in no position to offer, whereupon Bones snuggled the whimpering child.

"He's a wicked old leopard!" he said, "to come and wake a child at this time of the night."

The knuckle of Bones' little finger soothed the baby, though it was a poor substitute for the nutriment it had every right to expect, and it whimpered itself to sleep.

Lieutenant Tibbetts looked at his compass again. He had located the shots to eastward, but he did not care to make a bee-line in that direction for fear of falling upon some of the enemy, whom he knew would be, at this time, making their way to the river.

For two hours before dawn he snatched a little sleep, and was awakened by a fierce tugging at his nose. He got up, laid the baby on the soft ground, and stood with arms akimbo, and his monocle firmly fixed, surveying his noisy companion.

"What the dooce are you making all this row about?" he asked indignantly. "Have a little patience, young feller, exercise a little suaviter in modo, dear old baby!"

But still the fat little morsel on the ground continued his noisy monologue, protesting in a language which is of an age rather than of a race, against the cruelty and the thoughtlessness and the distressing lack of consideration which his elder and better was showing him.

"I suppose you want some grub," said Bones, in dismay; and looked round helplessly.

He searched the pocket of his haversack, and had the good fortune to find a biscuit; his vacuum flask had just half a cup of warm tea. He fed the baby with soaked biscuit and drank the tea himself.

"You ought to have a bath or something," said Bones, severely; but it was not until an hour later that he found a forest pool in which to perform the ablution.

At three o'clock in the afternoon, as near as he could judge, for his watch had stopped, he struck a path, and would have reached the village before sundown, but for the fact that he again missed the path, and learnt of this fact about the same time he discovered he had lost his compass.

Bones looked dismally at the wide-awake child.

"Dear old companion in arms," he said, gloomily, "we are lost."

The baby's face creased in a smile.

"It's nothing to laugh about, you silly ass," said Bones.

IV

"Master, of our Lord Tibbetti I do not know," said M'bisibi sullenly.

"Yet you shall know before the sun is black," said Hamilton, "and your young men shall find him, or there is a tree for you, old man, a quick death by Ewa!"

"I have sought, my lord," said M'bisibi, "all my hunters have searched the forest, yet we have not found him. A certain devil-pot is here."

He fumbled under a native cloth and drew forth Bones' compass.

"This only could we find on the forest path that leads to Inilaki."

"And the child is with him?"

"So men say," said M'bisibi, "though by my magic I know that the child will die, for how can a white man who knows nothing of little children give him life and comfort? Yet," he amended carefully, since it was necessary to preserve the character of the intended victim, "if this child is indeed a devil child, as I believe, he will lead my lord Tibbetti to terrible places and return himself unharmed."

"He will lead you to a place more terrible," said M'ilitani, significantly, and sent a nimble climber into the trees to fasten a block and tackle to a stout branch, and thread a rope through.

It was so effective that M'bisibi, an old man, became most energetically active. Lokali and swift messengers sent his villages to the search. Every half-hour the Hotchkiss gun of the Zaire banged noisily; and Hamilton, tramping through the woods, felt his heart sink as hour after hour passed without news of his comrade.

"I tell you this, lord," said the headman, who accompanied him, "that I think Tibbetti is dead and the child also. For this wood is filled with ghosts and savage beasts, also many strong and poisonous snakes. See, lord!" He pointed.

They had reached a clearing where the grass was rich and luxuriant, where overshadowing branches formed an idealic bower, where heavy white waxen flowers were looped from branch to branch holding the green boughs in their parasitical clutch. Hamilton followed the direction of his eyes. In the middle of the clearing a long, sinuous shape, dark brown, and violently coloured with patches of green and vermillion, that was swaying backward and forward, hissing angrily at some object before it.

"Good God!" said Hamilton, and dropped his hand on his revolver, but before it was clear of his holster, there came a sharp crack, and the snake leapt up and fell back as a bullet went snip-snapping through the undergrowth. Then Hamilton saw Bones. Bones in his shirtsleeves, bareheaded, his big pipe in his mouth, who came hurriedly through the trees pistol in hand.

"Naughty boy!" he said, reproachfully, and stooping, picked up a squalling brown object from the ground. "Didn't Daddy tell you not to go near those horrid snakes? Daddy spank you——"

Then he caught sight of the amazed Hamilton, clutched the baby in one hand, and saluted with the other.

"Baby present and correct, sir," he said, formally.

* * * * *

"What are you going to do with it?" asked Hamilton, after Bones had indulged in the luxury of a bath and had his dinner.

"Do with what, sir?" asked Bones.

"With this?"

Hamilton pointed to a crawling morsel who was at that moment looking up to Bones for approval.

"What do you expect me to do, sir?" asked Bones, stiffly; "the mother is dead and he has no father. I feel a certain amount of responsibility about Henry."

"And who the dickens is Henry?" asked Hamilton.

Bones indicated the child with a fine gesture.

"Henry Hamilton Bones, sir," he said grandly. "The child of the regiment," he went on; "adopted by me to be a prop for my declining years, sir."

"Heaven and earth!" said Hamilton, breathlessly.

He went aft to recover his nerve, and returned to become an unseen spectator to a purely domestic scene, for Bones had immersed the squalling infant in his own india-rubber bath, and was gingerly cleaning him with a mop.



CHAPTER XI

BONES AT M'FA

Hamilton of the Houssas coming down to headquarters met Bosambo by appointment at the junction of the rivers.

"O Bosambo," said Hamilton, "I have sent for you to make a likambo because of certain things which my other eyes have seen and my other ears have heard."

To some men this hint of report from the spies of Government might bring dismay and apprehension, but to Bosambo, whose conscience was clear, they awakened only curiosity.

"Lord, I am your eyes in the Ochori," he said with truth, "and God knows I report faithfully."

Hamilton nodded. He was yellow with fever, and the hand that filled the briar pipe shook with ague. All this Bosambo saw.

"It is not of you I speak, nor of your people, but of the Akasava and the N'gombi and the evil little men who live in the forest—now is it true that they speak mockingly of my lord Tibbetti?"

Bosambo hesitated.

"Lord," said he, "what dogs are they, that they should speak of the mighty? Yet I will not lie to you, M'ilitani: they mock Tibbetti, because he is young and his heart is pure."

Hamilton nodded again, and stuck out his jaw in troubled meditation.

"I am a sick man," he said, "and I must rest, sending Tibbetti to watch the river, because the crops are good and there is fish for all men, and because the people are prosperous, for, Bosambo, in such times there is much boastfulness, and the tribes are ripe for foolish deeds deserving to appear wonderful in the eyes of woman."

"All this I know, M'ilitani," said Bosambo, "and because you are sick, my heart and my stomach are sore. For though I do not love you as I love Sandi, who is more clever than you, yet I love you well enough to grieve. And Tibbetti also——"

He paused.

"He is young," said Hamilton, "and not yet grown to himself—now you, Bosambo, shall check men who are insolent to his face, and be to him as a strong right hand."

"On my head and my life," said Bosambo, "yet, lord M'ilitani, I think that his day will find him, for it is written in the Sura of the Djin that all men are born three times, and the day will come when Bonzi will be born again."

He was in his canoe before Hamilton realized what he had said.

"Tell me, Bosambo," said he, leaning over the side of the Zaire, "what name did you call my lord Tibbetti?"

"Bonzi," said Bosambo, innocently, "for such I have heard you call him."

"Oh, dog of a thief!" stormed Hamilton. "If you speak without respect of Tibbetti, I will break your head."

Bosambo looked up with a glint in his big, black eyes.

"Lord," he said, softly, "it is said on the river 'speak only the words which high ones speak, and you can say no wrong,' and if you, who are wiser than any, call my lord 'Bonzi'—what goat am I that I should not call him 'Bonzi' also?"

Hamilton saw the canoe drift round, saw the flashing paddles dip regularly, and the chant of the Ochori boat song came fainter and fainter as Bosambo's state canoe began its long journey northward.

Hamilton reached headquarters with a temperature of 105, and declined Bones' well-meant offers to look after him.

"What you want, dear old officer," said Bones, fussing around, "is careful nursin'. Trust old Bones and he'll pull you back to health, sir. Keep up your pecker, sir, an' I'll bring you back so to speak from the valley of the shadow—go to bed an' I'll have a mustard plaster on your chest in half a jiffy."

"If you come anywhere near me with a mustard plaster," said Hamilton, pardonably annoyed, "I'll brain you!"

"Don't you think!" asked Bones anxiously, "that you ought to put your feet in mustard and water, sir—awfully good tonic for a feller, sir. Bucks you up an' all that sort of thing, sir; uncle of mine who used to take too much to drink——"

"The only chance for me," said Hamilton, "is for you to clear out and leave me alone. Bones—quit fooling: I'm a sick man, and you've any amount of responsibility. Go up to the Isisi and watch things—it's pretty hard to say this to you, but I'm in your hands."

Bones said nothing.

He looked down at the fever-stricken man and thrust his hands in his pockets.

"You see, old Bones," said Hamilton, and now his friend heard the weariness and the weakness in his voice, "Sanders has a hold on these chaps that I haven't quite got ... and ... and ... well, you haven't got at all. I don't want to hurt your feelings, but you're young, Bones, and these devils know how amiable you are."

"I'm an ass, sir," muttered Bones, shakily, "an' somehow I understand that this is the time in my jolly old career when I oughtn't to be an ass.... I'm sorry, sir."

Hamilton smiled up at him.

"It isn't for Sanders' sake or mine or your own, Bones—but for—well, for the whole crowd of us—white folk. You'll have to do your best, old man."

Bones took the other's hand, snivelled a bit despite his fierce effort of restraint, and went aboard the Zaire.

* * * * *

"Tell all men," said B'chumbiri, addressing his impassive relatives, "that I go to a great day and to many strange lands."

He was tall and knobby-kneed, spoke with a squeak at the end of his deeper sentences, and about his tired eyes he had made a red circle with camwood. Round his head he had twisted a wire so tightly that it all but cut the flesh: this was necessary, for B'chumbiri had a headache which never left him day or night.

Now he stood, his lank body wrapped in a blanket, and he looked with dull eyes from face to face.

"I see you," he said at last, and repeated his motto which had something to do with monkeys.

They watched him go down the street towards the beech where the easiest canoe in the village was moored.

"It is better if we go after him and put out his eyes," said his elder brother; "else who knows what damage he will do for which we must pay?"

Only B'chumbiri's mother looked after him with a mouth that drooped at the side, for he was her only son, all the others being by other wives of Mochimo.

His father and his uncle stood apart and whispered, and presently when, with a great waving of arms, B'chumbiri had embarked, they went out of the village by the forest path and ran tirelessly till they struck the river at its bend.

"Here we will wait," panted the uncle, "and when B'chumbiri comes we will call him to land, for he has the sickness mongo."

"What of Sandi?" asked the father, who was no gossip.

"Sandi is gone," replied the other, "and there is no law."

Presently B'chumbiri came sweeping round the bend, singing in his poor, cracked voice about a land and a people and treasures ... he turned his canoe at his father's bidding, and came obediently to land....

Overhead the sky was a vivid blue, and the water which moved quickly between the rocky channel of the Lower Isisi caught something of the blue, though the thick green of elephant grass by the water's edge and the overhanging spread of gum trees took away from the clarity of reflection.

There was, too, a gentle breeze and a pleasing absence of flies, so that a man might get under the red and white striped awning of the Zaire and think or read or dream dreams, and find life a pleasant experience, and something to be thankful for.

Such a day does not often come upon the river, but if it does, the deep channel of the Isisi focuses all the joy of it. Here the river runs as straight as a canal for six miles, the current swifter and stronger between the guiding banks than elsewhere. There are rocks, charted and known, for the bed of the river undergoes no change, the swift waters carry no sands to choke the fairway, navigation is largely a matter of engine power and rule of thumb. Going slowly up stream a little more than two knots an hour, the Zaire was for once a pleasure steamer. Her long-barrelled Hotchkiss guns were hidden in their canvas jackets, the Maxims were lashed to the side of the bridge out of sight, and Lieutenant Augustus Tibbetts, who sprawled in a big wicker-work chair with an illustrated paper on his knees, a nasal-toned phonograph at his feet, and a long glass of lemon squash at his elbow, had little to do but pass the pleasant hours in the most pleasant occupation he could conceive, which was the posting of a diary, which he hoped on some future occasion to publish.

A shout, quick and sharp, brought him to his feet, a stiffly outstretched hand pointed to the waters.

"What the dooce——" demanded Bones indignantly, and looked over the side.... He saw the pitiful thing that rolled slowly in the swift current, and the homely face of Bones hardened.

"Damn," he said, and the wheel of the Zaire spun, and the little boat came broadside to the stream before the threshing wheel got purchase on the water.

It was Bones' sinewy hand that gripped the poor arm and brought the body to the side of the canoe into which he had jumped as the boat came round.

"Um," said Bones, seeing what he saw; "who knows this man?"

"Lord," said a wooding man, "this is B'chumbiri who was mad, and he lived in the village near by."

"There will we go," said Bones, very gravely.

Now all the people of M'fa knew that the father of B'chumbiri and his uncle had put away the tiresome youth with his headache and his silly talk, and when there came news that the Zaire was beating her way to the village there was a hasty likambo of the eldermen.

"Since this is neither Sandi nor M'ilitani who comes," said the chief, an old man, N'jela ("the Bringer"), "but Moon-in-the-Eye, who is a child, let us say that B'chumbiri fell into the water so that the crocodiles had him, and if he asks us who slew B'chumbiri—for it may be that he knows—let none speak, and afterwards we will tell M'ilitani that we did not understand him."

With this arrangement all agreed; for surely here was a palaver not to be feared.

Bones came with his escort of Houssas.

From the dark interiors of thatched huts men and women watched his thin figure going up the street, and laughed.

Nor did they laugh softly. Bones heard the chuckles of unseen people, divined that contempt, and his lips trembled. He felt an immense loneliness—all the weight of government was pressed down upon his head, it overwhelmed, it smothered him.

Yet he kept a tight hold upon himself, and by a supreme effort of will showed no sign of his perturbation.

The palaver was of little value to Bones; the village was blandly innocent of murder or knowledge of murder. More than this, all men stoutly swore that the thing that lay upon the foreshore for identification, surrounded by a crowd of frowning and frightened little boys lured by the very gruesomeness of the spectacle, was unknown, and laughed openly at the suggestion that it was B'chumbiri, who (said they) had gone a Journey into the forest.

There was little short of open mockery and defiance when they pointed out certain indications that went to prove that this man was not of the Akasava, but of the higher Isisi.

So Bones' visit was fruitless.

He dismissed the palaver and walked back to his ship, and worked the river, village by village, with no more satisfactory result. That night in the little town of M'fa there was a dance and a jubilation to celebrate the cunning of a people who had outwitted and overawed the lords of the land, but the next day came Bosambo, who had established a system of espionage more far-reaching, and possibly more effective, than the service which the Government had instituted.

Liberties they might take with Bones; but they sat discomforted in palaver before this alien chief, swathed in monkey tails, his shield in one hand, and his bunch of spears in the other.

"All things I know," said Bosambo, when they told him what they had to tell, "and it has come to me that you have spoken lightly of Tibbetti, who is my friend and my master, and is well beloved of Sandi. Also they tell me that you smiled at him. Now I tell you there will come a day when you will not smile, and that day is near at hand."

"Lord," said the chief, "he made with us a foolish palaver, believing that we had put away B'chumbiri."

"And he shall return to that foolish palaver," said Bosambo grimly, "and if he goes away unsatisfied, behold I will come, and I will take your old men, and I will hang them by hooks into a tree and roast their feet. For if there is no Sandi and no law, behold I am Sandi and I law, doing the will of a certain bearded king, Togi-tani."

He left the village of M'fa a little unhappy for the space of a day, when, native-like, they forgot all that he had said.

In the meantime, up and down the river went Bones, palavers which lasted from sunrise to sunset being his portion.

He had in his mind one vital fact, that for the honour of his race and for the credit of his administration he must bring to justice the man who slew the thing which he had found in the river. Chiefs and elders met him with scarcely concealed scorn, and waited expectantly to hear his strong, foreign language. But in this they were disappointed, for Bones spoke nothing but the language of the river, and little of it.

He went on board the Zaire on the ninth night after his discovery, dispirited and sick at heart.

"It seems to me, Ahmet," he said to the Houssa sergeant who stood waiting silently by the table where his meagre dinner was laid, "that no man speaks the truth in this cursed land, and that they do not fear me as they fear Sandi."

"Lord, it is so," said Ahmet; "for, as your lordship knows, Sandi was very terrible, and then, O Tibbetti, he is an older man, very wise in the ways of these people, and very cunning to see their heart. All great trees grow slowly, O my lord! and that which springs up in a night dies in a day."

Bones pondered this for a while, then:

"Wake me at dawn," he said. "I go back to M'fa for the last palaver, and if this palaver be a bad one, be sure you shall not see my face again upon the river."

Bones spoke truly, his resignation, written in his sprawling hand, lay enveloped and sealed in his cabin ready for dispatch. He stopped his steamer at a village six miles from M'fa, and sent a party of Houssas to the village with a message.

The chief was to summon all eldermen, and all men responsible to the Government, the wearers of medals and the holders of rights, all landmen and leaders of hunters, the captains of spears, and the first headmen. Even to the witch doctors he called together.

"O soldier!" said the chief, dubiously, "what happens to me if I do not obey his commands? For my men are weary, having hunted in the forest, and my chiefs do not like long palavers concerning law."

"That may be," said Ahmet, calmly. "But when my lord calls you to palaver you must obey, otherwise I take you, I and my strong men, to the Village of Irons, there to rest for a while to my lord's pleasure."

So the chief sent messengers and rattled his lokali to some purpose, bringing headmen and witch doctors, little and great chiefs, and spearmen of quality, to squat about the palaver house on the little hill to the east of the village.

Bones came with an escort of four men. He walked slowly up the cut steps in the hillside and sat upon the stool to the chief's right; and no sooner had he seated himself than, without preliminary, he began to speak. And he spoke of Sanders, of his splendour and his power; of his love for all people and his land, and also M'ilitani, who these men respected because of his devilish blue eyes.

At first he spoke slowly, because he found a difficulty in breathing, and then as he found himself, grew more and more lucid and took a larger grasp of the language.

"Now," said he, "I come to you, being young in the service of the Government, and unworthy to tread in my lord Sandi's way. Yet I hold the laws in my two hands even as Sandi held them, for laws do not change with men, neither does the sun change whatever be the land upon which it shines. Now, I say to you and to all men, deliver to me the slayer of B'chumbiri that I may deal with him according to the law."

There was a dead silence, and Bones waited.

Then the silence grew into a whisper, from a whisper into a babble of suppressed talk, and finally somebody laughed. Bones stood up, for this was his supreme moment.

"Come out to me, O killer!" he said softly, "for who am I that I can injure you? Did I not hear some voice say g'la, and is not g'la the name of a fool? O, wise and brave men of the Akasava who sit there quietly, daring not so much as to hit a finger before one who is a fool!"

Again the silence fell. Bones, his helmet on the back of his head, his hands thrust into his pockets, came a little way down the hill towards the semi-circle of waiting eldermen.

"O, brave men!" he went on, "O, wonderful seeker of danger! Behold! I, g'la, a fool, stand before you and yet the killer of B'chumbiri sits trembling and will not rise before me, fearing my vengeance. Am I so terrible?"

His wide open eyes were fixed upon the uncle of B'chumbiri, and the old man returned the gaze defiantly.

"Am I so terrible?" Bones went on, gently. "Do men fear me when I walk? Or run to their huts at the sound of my puc-a-puc? Do women wring their hands when I pass?"

Again there was a little titter, but M'gobo, the uncle of B'chumbiri, grimacing now in his rage, was not amongst the laughers.

"Yet the brave one who slew——"

M'gobo sprang to his feet.

"Lord," he said harshly, "why do you put all men to shame for your sport?"

"This is no sport, M'gobo," answered Bones quickly. "This is a palaver, a killing palaver. Was it a woman who slew B'chumbiri? so that she is not present at this palaver. Lo, then I go to hold council with women!"

M'gobo's face was all distorted like a man stricken with paralysis.

"Tibbetti!" he said, "I slew B'chumbiri—according to custom—and I will answer to Sandi, who is a man, and understands such palavers."

"Think well," said Bones, deathly white, "think well, O man, before you say this."

"I killed him, O fool," said M'gobo loudly, "though his father turned woman at the last—with these hands I cut him, using two knives——"

"Damn you!" said Bones, and shot him dead.

* * * * *

Hamilton, so far convalescent that he could smoke a cigarette, heard the account without interruption.

"So there you are, sir," said Bones at the side. "An' I felt like a jolly old murderer, but, dear old officer, what was I to do?"

Still Hamilton said nothing, and Bones shifted uncomfortably.

"For goodness gracious sake don't sit there like a bally old owl," he said, fretfully. "Was I wrong?"

Hamilton smiled.

"You're a jolly old commissioner, sir," he mimicked, "and for two pins I'd mention you in dispatches."

Bones examined the piping of his khaki jacket and extracted the pins.



CHAPTER XII

THE MAN WHO DID NOT SLEEP

No doubt whatever but that Lieutenant Tibbetts of the Houssas had a pretty taste for romance. It led him to exercise certain latent powers of imagination and to garnish his voluminous correspondence with details of happenings which had no very solid foundation in fact.

On one occasion he had called down the heavy sarcasm of his superior officer by a reference to lions—a reference which Hamilton's sister had seen and, in the innocence of her heart, had referred to in a letter to her brother.

Whereupon Bones swore to himself that he would carefully avoid corresponding with any person who might have the remotest acquaintance with the remotest of Hamilton's relatives.

Every mail night Captain Hamilton underwent a cross-examination which at once baffled and annoyed him.

Picture a great room, the walls of varnished match-boarding, the bare floor covered in patches by skins. There are twelve windows covered with fine mesh wire and looking out to the broad verandah which runs round the bungalow. The furniture is mainly wicker work, a table or two bearing framed photographs (one has been cleared for the huge gramophone which Bones has introduced to the peaceful life of headquarters). There are no pictures on the walls save the inevitable five—Queen Victoria, King Edward, Queen Alexandra, and in a place of honour above the door the King and his Consort.

A great oil lamp hangs from the centre of the boarded ceiling, and under this the big solid table at either side of which two officers write silently and industriously, for the morrow brings the mail boat.

Silent until Bones looked up thoughtfully.

"Do you know the Gripps, of Beckstead, dear old fellow?"

"No."

"None of your people know 'em?" hopefully.

"No—how the dickens do I know?"

"Don't get chuffy, dear old chap."

Then would follow another silence, until——

"Do you happen to be acquainted with the Lomands of Fife?"

"No."

"I suppose none of your people know 'em?"

Hamilton would put down his pen, resignation on his face.

"I have never heard of the Lomands—unless you refer to the Loch Lomonds; nor to the best of my knowledge and belief are any of my relations in blood or in law in any way acquainted with them."

"Cheer oh!" said Bones, gratefully.

Another ten minutes, and then:

"You don't know the Adamses of Oxford, do you, sir?"

Hamilton, in the midst of his weekly report, chucked down his pen.

"No; nor the Eves of Cambridge, nor the Serpents of Eton, nor the Angels of Harrow."

"I suppose——" began Bones.

"Nor are my relations on speaking terms with them. They don't know the Adamses, nor the Cains, nor the Abels, nor the Moseses, nor the Noahs."

"That's all I wanted to know, sir," said an injured Bones. "There's no need to peeve, sir."

Step by step Bones was compiling a directory of people to whom he might write without restraint, providing he avoided mythical lion hunts and confined himself to anecdotes which were suggestively complimentary to himself.

Thus he wrote to one pal of his at Biggestow to the effect that he was known to the natives as "The-Man-Who-Never-Sleeps," meaning thereby that he was a most vigilant and relentless officer, and the recipients of this information, fired with a sort of local patriotism, sent the remarkable statement to the Biggestow Herald and Observer and Hindhead Guardian, thereby upsetting all Bones' artful calculations.

"What the devil does 'Man-Who-Never-Sleeps' mean?" asked a puzzled Hamilton.

"Dear old fellow," said Bones, incoherently, "don't let's discuss it ... 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 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."

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 "+" 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 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.

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 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 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 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 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 because of certain wise sayings that the treasure stays and young men of our houses have searched very diligently though secretly. Also Bosambo knows, for he is a cunning man, and when we found he had put his warriors to the seeking we fought him, lord, for though the treasure may be Isisi or Akasava, of this I am sure it is not of the Ochori."

Hamilton came to the Ochori city to find a red-eyed Bones stalking majestically up and down the beach.

"What is the matter with you?" demanded Hamilton. "Fever?"

"Not at all," replied Bones, huskily; but with a fine carelessness.

"You look as if you hadn't had a sleep for months," said Hamilton.

Bones shrugged his shoulders.

"Dear old fellow," said he, "it isn't for nothing that I'm called 'the sleepless one'—don't make sceptical noises, dear old officer, but pursue your inquiries among the indigenous natives, especially Bosambo—an hour is all I want—just a bit of a snooze and a bath and I'm bright an' vigilant."

"Take your hour," said Hamilton briefly. "You'll need it."

His interview with Bosambo was short and, for Bosambo, painful. Nevertheless he unbent in the end to give the chief a job after his heart.

Launch and steamer turned their noses down the stream, and at sunset came to the island. In the morning, Hamilton conducted a search which extended from shore to shore and he came upon the cairn unexpectedly after a two hours' search. He uncovered two tons of ivory, wrapped in rotten native cloth.

"There will be trouble over this," he said, thoughtfully, surveying the yellow tusks. "I'll go downstream to the Isisi and collect information, unless these beggars can establish their claim we will bag this lot for government."

He left Bones and one orderly on the island.

"I shall be gone two days," he said. "I must send the launch to bring Iberi to me; keep your eyes peeled."

"Sir," said Bones, blinking and suppressing a yawn with difficulty, "you can trust the sleepless one."

He had his tent pitched before the cairn, and in the shade of a great gum he seated himself in his canvas chair.... He looked up and struggled to his feet. He was half dead with weariness, for the whole of the previous night, while Bosambo snored in his hut, Bones, pinching himself, had wandered up and down the street of the city qualifying for his title.

Now, as he rose unsteadily to his feet, it was to confront Bosambo—Bosambo with four canoes grounded on the sandy beach of the island.

"Hello, Bosambo!" yawned Bones.

"O Sleepless One," said Bosambo humbly, "though I came in silence yet you heard me, and your bright eyes saw me in the little-light."

"Little-light" it was, for the sun had gone down.

"Go now, Bosambo," said Bones, "for it is not lawful that you should be here."

He looked around for Ahmet, his orderly, but Ahmet was snoring like a pig.

"Lord, that I know," said Bosambo, "yet I came because my heart is sad and I have sorrow in my stomach. For did I not say that you had married my aunt?"

"Now listen whilst I tell you the full story of my wickedness, and of my aunt who married a white lord——"

Bones sat down in his chair and laid back his head, listening with closed eyes.

"My aunt, O Sleepless One," began Bosambo, and Bones heard the story in fragments. "... Coast woman ... great lord ... fine drier of cloth...."

Bosambo droned on in a monotonous tone, and Bones, open-mouthed, his head rolling from side to side, breathed regularly.

At a gesture from Bosambo, the man who sat in the canoe slipped lightly ashore. Bosambo pointed to the cairn, but he himself did not move, nor did he check his fluent narrative.

Working with feverish, fervent energy, the men of Bosambo's party loaded the great tusks in the canoes. At last all the work was finished and Bosambo rose.

* * * * *

"Wake up, Bones."

Lieutenant Tibbetts stumbled to his feet glaring and grimacing wildly.

"Parade all correct, sir," he said, "the mail boat has just come in, an' there's a jolly old salmon for supper."

"Wake up, you dreaming devil," said Hamilton.

Bones looked around. In the bright moonlight he saw the Zaire moored to the shelving beach, saw Hamilton, and turned his head to the empty cairn.

"Good Lord!" he gasped.

"O Sleepless One!" said Hamilton softly, "O bright eyes!"

Bones went blundering to the cairn, made a closer inspection, and came slowly back.

"There's only one thing for me to do, sir," he said, saluting. "As an officer an' a gentleman, I must blow my brains out."

"Brains!" said Hamilton scornfully.

* * * * *

"As a matter of fact I sent Bosambo to collect the ivory which I shall divide amongst the three chiefs—it's perished ivory, anyhow; and he had my written authority to take it, but being a born thief he preferred to steal it; you'll find it stacked in your cabin, Bones."

"In my cabin, sir!" said an indignant Bones; "there isn't room in my cabin, sir. How the dickens am I going to sleep?"

THE END



POPULAR NOVELS

BY

EDGAR WALLACE

PUBLISHED BY

WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED.

In Various Editions.

SANDERS OF THE RIVER BONES BOSAMBO OF THE RIVER BONES IN LONDON THE KEEPERS OF THE KING'S PEACE THE COUNCIL OF JUSTICE THE DUKE IN THE SUBURBS THE PEOPLE OF THE RIVER DOWN UNDER DONOVAN PRIVATE SELBY THE ADMIRABLE CARFEW THE MAN WHO BOUGHT LONDON THE JUST MEN OF CORDOVA THE SECRET HOUSE KATE, PLUS TEN LIEUTENANT BONES THE ADVENTURES OF HEINE JACK O' JUDGMENT THE DAFFODIL MYSTERY THE NINE BEARS THE BOOK OF ALL POWER MR. JUSTICE MAXELL THE BOOKS OF BART THE DARK EYES OF LONDON CHICK SANDI, THE KING-MAKER THE THREE OAK MYSTERY THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE FROG BLUE HAND GREY TIMOTHY A DEBT DISCHARGED THOSE FOLK OF BULBORO' THE MAN WHO WAS NOBODY THE GREEN RUST THE FOURTH PLAGUE THE RIVER OF STARS

Made and Printed in Great Britain by WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED, LONDON.

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES

Every effort has been made to remain true to the original text; minor changes have been made to regularize spelling and hyphenation within the book. The _ character has been used to indicate that the enclosed word(s) were originally typeset as italic font; on line 7136, where an inverted "Y" was present in the original text, this character has been replaced with a "+".

THE END