Bosambo of the River

"Go back to your city, Bosambo," said Sanders gently.

The chief squared his broad shoulders.

"I am your man," he said, and turned without another word.

Sanders stopped him before he had taken half a dozen paces.

"Give me twenty fighting men," he said, "and two canoes. You shall hold your men in check whilst I go about the King's business."

An hour later he was going down-stream as fast as a five-knot current and his swift paddlers could take him.

He came to the Akasava city at noon of the following day, and found it peaceable enough.

M'Kovo, the king's son, came to the beach to meet him.

"Lord Sandi," he said with an extravagant gesture of surprise, "I see that the summer comes twice in one season, for you – "

Sanders was in no mood for compliments.

"Where is the old chief, your father?" he asked.

"Master," said M'Kovo earnestly, "I will not lie to you. My father has taken his warriors into the forest, and I fear that he will do evil."

And he told a story which was long and circumstantial, of the sudden flaming up of an old man's rages and animosities.

Sanders listened patiently.

An unwavering instinct, which he had developed to a point where it rose superior to reason, told him that the man was lying. Nor was his faith in his own judgment shaken when M'Kovo produced his elder men and witnesses to his sire's sudden fit of depravity.

But Sanders was a cunning man and full of guile.

He dropped his hand of a sudden upon the other's shoulder.

"M'Kovo," he said mildly, "it seems that your chief and father is no longer worthy. Therefore you shall dwell in the chief's hut. Yet first you shall bring me the chief Hikilari, and you shall bring him unhurt and he shall have his eyes. Bring him quickly, M'Kovo."

"Lord," said M'Kovo sullenly, "he will not come, and how may I force him, for he has many warriors with him?"

Sanders thought the matter out.

"Go now," he said after a while, "and speak with him, telling him that I await him."

"Lord, that I will do," said M'Kovo, "but I cannot go till night because I fear your men will follow me, and my father, seeing them, will put me to death."

Sanders nodded.

That night M'Kovo came to him ready for his journey, and Sanders took from his pocket a round silver box.

"This you shall hang about your neck," he said, "that your father may know you come from me."

M'Kovo hung the round box by a piece of string and walked quickly toward the forest.

Two miles on the forest path he met his cousins and brothers, an apprehensive assembly.

"My stomach is sick with fear," said his elder cousin Tangiri; "for Sandi has an eye that sees through trees."

"You are a fool," snarled M'Kovo; "for Sandi is a bat who sees nothing. What of Hikilari, my father?"

His younger brother extended the point of his spear and M'Kovo saw that it was caked brown with blood.

"That was best," he said. "Now we will all go to sleep, and in the morning I will go back to Sandi and tell him a tale."

In the morning his relatives scratched his legs with thorns and threw dust over him, and an hour later, artificially exhausted, he staggered to the hut before which Mr. Commissioner Sanders sat at breakfast.

Sanders glanced keenly at the travel-worn figure.

"My friend," he said softly, "you have come a long way?"

"Lord," said M'Kovo, weak of voice, "since I left you I have not rested save before my father, who sent me away with evil words concerning your honour."

And the exact and unabridged text of those "evil words" he delivered with relish.

Sanders reached down and took the little silver box that lay upon the heaving chest.

"And this you showed to your father?" he asked.

"Lord, I showed him this," repeated the man.

"And you travelled through the night – many miles?"

"Master, I did as I have told," M'Kovo replied.

Sanders touched a spring, and the case of the box flew open. There was revealed a dial like that of a watch save that it contained many little hands.

M'Kovo watched curiously as Sanders examined the instrument.

"Look well at this, M'Kovo," said Sanders dryly; "for it is a small devil which talks truly – and it tells me that you have travelled no farther than a man may walk in the time that the full moon climbs a tree."

The Zaire had arrived during the night, and a Houssa guard stood waiting.

Sanders slipped the pedometer into his pocket, gave a characteristic jerk of his head, and Sergeant Abiboo seized his prisoner.

"Let him sit in irons," said Sanders in Arabic, "and take six men along the forest road and bring me any man you may find."

Abiboo returned in an hour with four prisoners, and they were very voluble – too voluble for the safety of M'Kovo and his younger brother, for by night Sanders had discovered a forest grave where Hikilari the wise chief lay.

It was under a tree with wide-spreading branches, and was eminently suitable for the sequel to that tragedy.

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