Bones

This is certain, however, that N'gori himself was a good-enough man at heart, and if there was evil in his actions be sure that behind him prompting, whispering, subtly threatening him, was his malignant son, a sinister figure with one eye half closed, and a figure that went limping through the city with a twisted smile.

An envoy came to the Ochori country bearing green branches of the Isisi palm, which signifies peace, and at the head of the mission—for mission it was—came M'fosa.

"Lord Bosambo," said the man who limped, "N'gori the chief, my father, has sent me, for he desires your friendship and help; also your loving countenance at his great feast."

"Oh, oh!" said Bosambo, drily, "what king's feast is this?"

"Lord," rejoined the other, "it is no king's feast, but a great dance of rejoicing, for our crops are very plentiful, and our goats have multiplied more than a man can count; therefore my father said: Go you to Bosambo of the Ochori, he who was once my enemy and now indeed my friend. And say to him 'Come into my city, that I may honour you.'"

Bosambo thought.

"How can your lord and father feast so many as I would bring?" he asked thoughtfully, as he sat, chin on palm, pondering the invitation, "for I have a thousand spearmen, all young men and fond of food."

M'fosa's face fell.

"Yet, Lord Bosambo," said he, "if you come without your spearmen, but with your counsellors only–"

Bosambo looked at the limper, through half-closed eyes. "I carry spears to a Dance of Rejoicing," he said significantly, "else I would not Dance or Rejoice."

M'fosa showed his teeth, and his eyes were filled with hateful fires. He left the Ochori with bad grace, and was lucky to leave it at all, for certain men of the country, whom he had put to torture (having captured them fishing in unauthorized waters), would have rushed him but for Bosambo's presence.

His other invitation was more successful. Hamilton of the Houssas was at the Isisi city when the deputation called upon him.

"Here's a chance for you, Bones," he said.

Lieutenant Tibbetts had spent a vain day, fishing in the river with a rod and line, and was sprawling under a deck-chair under the awning of the bridge.

"Would you like to be the guest of honour at N'gori's little thanksgiving service?"

Bones sat up.

"Shall I have to make a speech?" he asked cautiously.

"You may have to respond for the ladies," said Hamilton. "No, my dear chap, all you will have to do will be to sit round and look clever."

Bones thought awhile.

"I'll bet you're putting me on to a rotten job," he accused, "but I'll go."

"I wish you would," said Hamilton, seriously. "I can't get the hang of M'fosa's mind, ever since you treated him with such leniency."

"If you're goin' to dig up the grisly past, dear old sir," said a reproachful Bones, "if you insist recalling events which I hoped, sir, were hidden in oblivion, I'm going to bed."

He got up, this lank youth, fixed his eyeglass firmly and glared at his superior.

"Sit down and shut up," said Hamilton, testily; "I'm not blaming you. And I'm not blaming N'gori. It's that son of his—listen to this."

He beckoned the three men who had come down from the Akasava as bearers of the invitation.

"Say again what your master desires," he said.

"Thus speaks N'gori, and I talk with his voice," said the spokesman, "that you shall cut down the devil-stick which Sandi planted in our midst, for it brings shame to us, and also to M'fosa the son of our master."

"How may I do this?" asked Hamilton, "I, who am but the servant of Sandi? For I remember well that he put the stick there to make a great magic."

"Now the magic is made," said the sullen headman; "for none of our people have died the death since Sandi set it up."

"And dashed lucky you've been," murmured Bones.

"Go back to your master and tell him this," said Hamilton. "Thus says M'ilitani, my lord Tibbetti will come on your feast day and you shall honour him; as for the stick, it stands till Sandi says it shall not stand. The palaver is finished."

He paced up and down the deck when the men had gone, his hands behind him, his brows knit in worry.

"Four times have I been asked to cut down Sanders' pole," he mused aloud. "I wonder what the idea is?"

"The idea?" said Bones, "the idea, my dear old silly old fellow, isn't it as plain as your dashed old nose? They don't want it!"

Hamilton looked down at him.

"What a brain you must have, Bones!" he said admiringly. "I often wonder you don't employ it."

II

By the Blue Pool in the forest there is a famous tree gifted with certain properties. It is known in the vernacular of the land, and I translate it literally, "The-tree-that-has-no-echo-and-eats-up-sound." Men believe that all that is uttered beneath its twisted branches may be remembered, but not repeated, and if one shouts in its deadening shade, even they who stand no farther than a stride from its furthermost stretch of branch or leaf, will hear nothing.

Therefore is the Silent Tree much in favour for secret palaver, such as N'gori and his limping son attended, and such as the Lesser Isisi came to fearfully.

N'gori, who might be expected to take a very leading part in the discussion which followed the meeting, was, in fact, the most timorous of those who squatted in the shadow of the huge cedar.

Full of reservations, cautions, doubts and counsels of discretion was N'gori till his son turned on him, grinning as his wont when in his least pleasant mood.

"O, my father," said he softly, "they say on the river that men who die swiftly say no more than 'wait' with their last breath; now I tell you that all my young men who plot secretly with me, are for chopping you—but because I am like a god to them, they spare you."

"My son," said N'gori uneasily, "this is a very high palaver, for many chiefs have risen and struck at the Government, and always Sandi has come with his soldiers, and there have been backs that have been sore for the space of a moon, and necks that have been sore for this time," he snapped finger, "and then have been sore no more."

"Sandi has gone," said M'fosa.

"Yet his fetish stands," insisted the old man; "all day and all night his dreadful spirit watches us; for this we have all seen that the very lightnings of M'shimba M'shamba run up that stick and do it no harm. Also M'ilitani and Moon-in-the-Eye–"

"They are fools," a counsellor broke in.

"Lord M'ilitani is no fool, this I know," interrupted a fourth.

"Tibbetti comes—and brings no soldiers. Now I tell you my mind that Sandi's fetish is dead—as Sandi has passed from us, and this is the sign I desire—I and my young men. We shall make a killing palaver in the face of the killing stick, and if Sandi lives and has not lied to us, he shall come from the end of the world as he said."

He rose up from the ground. There was no doubt now who ruled the Akasava.

"The palaver is finished," he said, and led the way back to the city, his father meekly following in the rear.