Bosambo of the River

He hesitated a moment, then he drew aside the curtains of the right-hand door and went in, his brother, his uncle, and his two cousins following.

A sleepy voice asked who was there.

"I come to see the lord Olandi," said the intruder.

He heard a rustle at the farthermost end of the room and the creaking of a skin bed.

"What seek you?" said a voice, and it was that of a man used to command.

"Is that my lord?" demanded the visitor.

He had a broad-bladed elephant sword gripped fast, so keen of edge that a man might shave the hair from the back of his hand therewith.

"I am Olandi," said the man in the darkness, and came forward.

There was absolute stillness. They who waited could hear the steady breathing of the sleepers; they heard, too, a "whish!" such as a civilised man hears when his womenfolk thrust a hatpin through a soft straw shape.

Another tense silence, then:

"It is as it should be," said the murderer calmly, and softly called a name. Somebody came blundering from the inner room sobbing with chokes and gulps.

"Come," said the man, then: "Is the foreign woman there also? Let her also go with us."

The girl called another in a low voice, and a woman joined them. Olandi was catholic in his tastes and raided indiscriminately.

The first girl shrank back as her husband laid his hand on her arm.

"Where is my lord?" she whimpered.

"I am your lord," said the secret man dryly; "as for the other, he has no need of women, unless there be women in hell, which is very likely."

None attempted to stop the party as it went through the street and back to the canoes, though there were wails and moanings in Olandi's hut and uneasy stirrings in the villages.

Men hailed them sharply as they passed, saying, "Oilo?" which means, "Who walks?" But they made no reply.

Then with the river and safety before them, there arose the village watchman who challenged the party.

He had heard the faint death-cry from Olandi's hut, and advanced his terrible cutting-spear to emphasise his challenge.

The leader leapt at him, but the watchman parried the blow skilfully and brought the blade of his spear down as a man of olden times might sweep his battle-axe.

The other's sword had been struck from his hold, and he put up his defenceless arm to ward off the blow.

Twice the sharp edge of the spear slashed his hand, for in the uncertain light of the moon the watchman misjudged his distance.

Then, as he recovered for a decisive stroke, one of the kinsmen drove at his throat, and the watchman went down, his limbs jerking feebly.

The injured man stopped long enough roughly to dress his bleeding palm, then led his wife, shivering and talking to herself like a thing demented, to the canoe, the second wife following.

In the early hours before the dawn four swift paddlers brought the news to Sanders, who was sleeping aboard the Zaire, made fast to the beach of Akasava city.

Sanders sat on the edge of his tiny bed, dangling his pyjama'd legs over the side, and listened thoroughly – which is a kind of listening which absorbs not only the story, but takes into account the inflexion of the teller's voice, the sympathy – or lack of it – the rage, the despair, or the resignation of the story-teller.

"So I see," said Sanders when the man had finished, for all four were hot with the news and eager to supply the deficiencies of the others, "this Olandi was killed by one whose wife he had stolen, also the watchman was killed, but none other was injured."

"None, lord," said one of the men, "for we were greatly afraid because of the man's brethren. Yet if he had sought to stop him, many others would have been killed."

"'If the sun were to set in the river, the waters would boil fish,'" quoted Sanders. "I will find this man, whoever he be, and he shall answer for his crime."

He reached the scene of the killing and made prompt inquiry. None had seen the face of the secret man save the watchman – and he was dead. As for the women – the villagers flapped their arms hopelessly. Who could say from what nation, from what tribes, Olandi stole his women?

One, so other inmates of Olandi's house said, was undoubtedly Ochori; as to the other, none knew her, and she had not spoken, for, so they said, she loved the dead man and was a willing captive.

This Olandi had hunted far afield, and was a hurricane lover and a tamer of women; how perfect a tamer Sanders discovered, for, as the Isisi saying goes, "The man who can bribe a woman's tongue could teach a snake to grind corn."

In a civilised country he would have found written evidence in the chief's hut, but barbarous man establishes no clues for the prying detective, and he must needs match primitive cunning with such powers of reason and instinct as his civilisation had given to him.

A diligent search of the river revealed nothing. The river had washed away the marks where the canoes had been beached. Sanders saw the bodies of both men who had fallen without being very much the wiser. It was just before he left the village that Abiboo the sergeant made a discovery.

There is a certain tree on the river with leaves which are credited with extraordinary curative powers. A few paces from where the watchman fell such a tree grew.

Abiboo found beneath its low branches a number of leaves that had been newly plucked. Some were stained with blood, and one bore the clear impression of a palm.

Sanders examined it carefully. The lines of the hand were clearly to be seen on the glossy surface of the leaf, and in the centre of the palm was an irregular cut, shaped like a roughly-drawn St. Andrew's Cross.

He carefully put the leaf away in his safe and went on to pursue his inquiries.

Now, of all crimes difficult to detect, none offers such obstacles as the blood feud which is based on a woman palaver.

Men will speak openly of other crimes, tell all there is to be told, be willing – nay, eager – to put their sometime comrade's head in the noose, if the murder be murder according to accepted native standards. But when murder is justice, a man does not speak; for, in the near future, might not he stand in similar case, dependent upon the silence of his friends for very life?

Sanders searched diligently for the murderers, but none had seen them pass. What direction they took none knew. Indeed, as soon as the motive for the crime became evident, all the people of the river became blind. Then it was that Sanders thought of Kambara and sent for him, but Kambara was on the border, importantly engaged.

Sanders pursued a course to the Ochori country.

"One of these women was of your people," he said to Bosambo the chief. "Now I desire that you shall find her husband."

Bosambo shifted his feet uneasily.

"Lord," he said, "it was no man of my people who did this. As to the woman, many women are stolen from far-away villages, and I know nothing. And in all these women palavers my people are as dumb beasts."

Bosambo had a wife who ruled him absolutely, and when Sanders had departed, he writhed helplessly under her keen tongue.

"Lord and chief," she said, "why did you speak falsely to Sandi, for you know the woman of the Ochori who was stolen was the girl Michimi of Tasali by the river? And, behold, you yourself were in search of her when the news of Olandi's killing came."

"These things are not for women," said Bosambo: "therefore, joy of my life, let us talk of other things."

"Father of my child," persisted the girl, "has Michimi no lover who did this killing, nor a husband? Will you summon the headman of Tasali by the river and question him?"