The Keepers of the King's Peace

Ko-boru, the headman of Bingini, called his relations together for a solemn family conference.

The lower river folk play an inconsiderable rôle in the politics of the Territories, partly because they are so near to headquarters that there is no opportunity for any of those secret preparations which precede all native intrigues, great or small, and partly because the lower river people are so far removed from the turbulent elements of the upper river that they are not swayed by the cyclonic emotions of the Isisi, the cold and deliberate desire for slaughter which is characteristically Akasavian, or the electrical decisions of the Outer N'gombi.

But they had their crises.

To Bingini came all the notables of the district who claimed kinship with Ko-boru, and they sat in a great circle about the headman's hut, alternately eyeing the old headman and their stout relative, his daughter.

"All my relations shall know this," began Ko-boru, after Okmimi, the witch-doctor, had formally burnt away the devils and ghosts that fringe all large assemblies, "that a great shame has come to us, every one, because of Yoka-m'furi. For this Yoka is to Sandi as a brother, and guides his little ship up and down the river, and because of this splendid position I gave him my own daughter by the first of my wives."

"S'm-m!" murmured the council in agreement.

"Also I built him a hut and gave him a garden, where his wife might work, and he has sat at family palavers. Now, I tell you that Yoka-m'furi is an evil man, for he has left my daughter, and has found another wife in the upper river, and he comes no more to this village, and my daughter weeps all day.

"For three seasons he has not been to this village; when the moon comes again, it will be four." He said this with proper significance, and the flat face of the melancholy girl by his side puckered and creased miserably before she opened her large mouth to wail her woe.

For the man who deliberately separates himself from his wife for four seasons and does not spend twenty-four hours—"from sunrise to moonset" in her village is automatically divorced and freed from all responsibility. This is the custom of all people from the lands of the Great King to the sea.

"Now, I have had a dream," Ko-boru went on, "and in this dream it was told me that I should call you all together, and that I and the chief of my councillors and friends should go to Sandi and tell him what is true."

"Brother and uncle," said Bechimi of G'lara, "I will go with you, for once I spoke to Sandi and he spoke to me, and because of his cunning memory he will recall Bechimi, who picked up his little black stick, when it fell, and gave it to him."

Five were chosen to accompany Ko-boru, and they took canoe and travelled for less than five miles to the Residency.

Sanders was entertaining Patricia Hamilton with stories of native feuds, when the unexpected deputation squatted in the sun before the verandah.

"O Ko-boru," hailed Sanders, "why do you come?"

Ko-boru was all for a long and impressive palaver, but recognized a certain absence of encouragement in the Commissioner's tone. Therefore he came straight to the point.

"Now, you are our father and our mother, Sandi," he said, in conclusion, "and when you speak, all wonders happen. Also you have very beautiful friends, Militini, who speak a word and set his terrible soldiers moving like leopards towards a kill, and Tibbetti, the young one who is innocent and simple. So I say to you, Sandi, that if you speak one word to Yoka, he will come back to my daughter, his wife."

Sanders stood by the rail of the stoep and looked down upon the spokesman.

"I hear strange things, Ko-boru," he said quietly. "They tell me stories of a woman with many lovers and an evil tongue; and once there came to me Yoka with a wounded head, for this daughter of yours is very quick in her anger."

"Lord," said the flustered Ko-boru, "such things happen even in love."

"All things happen in love," said Sanders, with a little smile, "and, if it is to be, Yoka will return. Also, if it is to be, he will not go back to the woman, and she will be free. This palaver is finished."

"Lord," pleaded Ko-boru, "the woman will do no more angry things. Let him come back from sunrise to moonset–"

"This palaver is finished," repeated Sanders.

On their way back to Bingini the relatives of Ko-boru made a plot. It was the first plot that had been hatched in the shadow of headquarters for twenty years.

"Would it be indiscreet to ask what your visitors wanted?" asked the girl, as the crestfallen deputation was crossing the square to their canoe.

"It was a marriage palaver," replied Sanders, with a little grimace, "and I was being requested to restore a husband to a temperamental lady who has a passion for shying cook-pots at her husband when she is annoyed."

The girl's laughing eyes were fixed upon his.

"Poor Mr. Sanders!" she said, with mock seriousness.

"Don't be sorry for me," smiled Sanders. "I'm rather domestic, really, and I'm interested in this case because the man concerned is my steersman—the best on the river, and a capital all-round man. Besides that," he went on seriously, "I regard them all as children of mine. It is right that a man who shirks his individual responsibilities to the race should find a family to 'father.'"

"Why do you?" she asked, after a little pause.

"Why do I what?"

"Shirk your responsibilities," she said. "This is a healthy and a delightful spot: a woman might be very happy here."

There was an awkward silence.

"I'm afraid I've been awfully impertinent," said Patricia, hurriedly rising, "but to a woman there is a note of interrogation behind every bachelor—especially nice bachelors—and the more 'confirmed' he is, the bigger the question mark."

Sanders rose to her.

"One of these days I shall do something rash," he threatened, with that shy laugh of his. "Here is your little family coming."

Bones and Hamilton were discussing something heatedly, and justice was on the side of Lieutenant Tibbetts, if one could judge by the frequency with which he stopped and gesticulated.

"It really is too bad," said the annoyed Hamilton, as he mounted the steps to the stoep, followed by Bones, who, to do him justice, did not adopt the attitude of a delinquent, but was, on the contrary, injured virtue personified.

"What is too bad, dear?" asked the girl sympathetically.

"A fortnight ago," said Hamilton, "I told this silly ass–"

"Your jolly old brother is referrin' to me, dear lady," explained Bones.

"Who else could I be referring to?" demanded the other truculently. "I told him to have all the company accounts ready by to-morrow. You know, sir, that the paymaster is coming down from Administration to check 'em, and will you believe me, sir"—he glared at Bones, who immediately closed his eyes resignedly—"would you believe me that, when I went to examine those infernal accounts, they were all at sixes and sevens?"

"Threes an' nines, dear old officer," murmured Bones, waking up, "the matter in dispute being a trifle of thirty-nine dollars, which I've generously offered to make up out of my own pocket."

He beamed round as one who expected applause.

"And on the top of this," fumed Hamilton, "he talks of taking Pat for an early morning picnic to the village island!"

"Accompanied by the jolly old accounts," corrected Bones. "Do me justice, sir and brother-officer. I offered to take the books with me, an' render a lucid and convincin' account of my stewardship."

"Don't make me laugh," snarled Hamilton, stamping into the bungalow.

"Isn't he naughty?" said Bones admiringly.

"Now, Bones," warned the girl, "I shan't go unless you keep your word with Alec."

Bones drew himself up and saluted.

"Dear old friend," he said proudly, "put your faith in Bones."