Bosambo of the River

He waved the messenger out of his thoughts. Into his hut, through this to his inner hut, he went.

His wife sat on the carpeted floor of Bosambo's harem, her brown baby on her knees.

"Heart of gold," said Bosambo, "I go to a war palaver, obeying Sandi. All gods be with you and my fine son.

"And with you, Bosambo, husband and lord," she said calmly; "for if this is Sandi's palaver it is good."

He left her, and sent for his fighting headman, the one-eyed Tembidini, strong in loyalty.

"I shall take one war canoe to the lower river," said Bosambo. "See to this: fifty fighting men follow me, and you shall raise the country and bring me an army to the place where the Isisi River turns twice like a dying snake."

"Lord, this is war," said his headman.

"That we shall see," said Bosambo.

"Lord, is it against the Isisi?"

"Against the king. As to the people, we shall know in good time."

* * * * *

Miss Millie Tavish, seated luxuriously upon soft cushions under the thatched roof of a deck-house, dreamt dreams of royalty and of an urbane negro who had raised his hat to her. She watched the sweating paddlers as they dug the water rhythmically singing a little song, and already she tasted the joys of dominion.

She had the haziest notion of the new position she was to occupy. If she had been told that she would share her husband with half-a-dozen other women – and those interchangeable from time to time – she would have been horrified.

Sanders had not explained that arrangement to her, partly because he was a man with a delicate mind, and partly because he thought he had solved the problem without such explanation.

She smiled a triumphant little smile every time she thought of him and her method of outwitting him. It had been easier than she had anticipated.

She had watched the Commissioner out of sight and had ordered the boat to return to shore, for standing an impassive witness to her embarkation had been the headman Tobolaka had sent. Moreover, in the letter of the king had been a few simple words of Isisi and the English equivalent.

She thought of many things – of the busy city she had left, of the dreary boarding-house, of the relations who had opposed her leaving, of the little legacy which had come to her just before she sailed, and which had caused her to hesitate, for with that she could have lived in fair comfort.

But the glamour of a throne – even a Central African throne – was upon her – she – Miss Tavish – Millie Tavish – a hired help —

And here was the actuality. A broad river, tree-fringed banks, high rushes at the water edge, the feather-headed palms of her dreams showing at intervals, and the royal paddlers with their plaintive song.

She came to earth as the paddlers ceased, not together as at a word of command but one by one as they saw the obstruction.

There were two canoes ahead, and the locked shields that were turned to the king's canoe were bright with red n'gola – and red n'gola means war.

The king's headman reached for his spear half-heartedly. The girl's heart beat faster.

"Ho, Soka!"

Bosambo, standing in the stern of the canoe, spoke:

"Let no man touch his spear, or he dies!" said Bosambo.

"Lord, this is the king's canoe," spluttered Soka, wiping his streaming brow, "and you do a shameful thing, for there is peace in the land."

"So men say," said Bosambo evasively.

He brought his craft round so that it lay alongside the other.

"Lady," he said in his best coast-English, "you lib for go with me one time; I be good feller; I be big chap – no hurt 'um – no fight 'um."

The girl was sick with terror. For all she knew, and for all she could gather, this man was a cruel and wicked monster. She shrank back and screamed.

"I no hurt 'um," said Bosambo. "I be dam good chap; I be Christian, Marki, Luki, Johni; you savee dem fellers? I be same like."

She fainted, sinking in a heap to the bottom of the canoe. In an instant Bosambo's arm was around her. He lifted her into his canoe as lightly as though she was a child.

Then from the rushes came a third canoe with a full force of paddlers and, remarkable of a savage man's delicacy, two women of the Ochori.

She was in this canoe when she recovered consciousness, a woman bathing her forehead from the river. Bosambo, from another boat, watched the operation with interest.

"Go now," he said to the chief of the paddlers, "taking this woman to Sandi, and if ill comes to her, behold, I will take your wives and your children and burn them alive – go swiftly."

Swiftly enough they went, for the river was high, and at the river head the floods were out.

"As for you," said Bosambo to the king's headman, "you may carry word to your master, saying thus have I done because it was my pleasure."

"Lord," said the head of the paddlers, "we men have spoken together and fear for our lives; yet we will go to our king and tell him, and if he illtreats us we will come back to you."

Which arrangement Bosambo confirmed.

King Tobolaka had made preparations worthy of Independence Day to greet his bride. He had improvised flags at the expense of his people's scanty wardrobe. Strings of tattered garments crossed the streets, but beneath those same strings people stood in little groups, their arms folded, their faces lowering, and they said things behind their hands which Tobolaka did not hear.

For he had outraged their most sacred tradition – outraged it in the face of all protest. A rent garment, fluttering in the wind – that was the sign of death and of graves. Wherever a little graveyard lies, there will be found the poor wisps of cloth flapping sadly to keep away devils.

This Tobolaka did not know or, if he did know, scorned.

On another such occasion he had told his councillors that he had no respect for the "superstitions of the indigenous native," and had quoted a wise saying of Cicero, which was to the effect that precedents and traditions were made only to be broken.

Now he stood, ultra-magnificent, for a lokalisounding in the night had brought him news of his bride's progress.

It is true that there was a fly in the ointment of his self-esteem. His invitation, couched in the choicest American, to the missionaries had been rejected. Neither Baptist nor Church of England nor Jesuit would be party to what they, usually divergent in their views, were unanimous in regarding as a crime.

But the fact did not weigh heavily on Tobolaka. He was a resplendent figure in speckless white. Across his dress he wore the broad blue ribbon of an Order to which he was in no sense entitled.

In places of vantage, look-out men had been stationed, and Tobolaka waited with growing impatience for news of the canoe.

He sprang up from his throne as one of the watchers came pelting up the street.

"Lord," said the man, gasping for breath, "two war canoes have passed."

"Fool!" said Tobolaka. "What do I care for war canoes?