The Keepers of the King's Peace

"By force?" repeated the startled Hamilton.

Sanders nodded.

"I had the report in this morning. Two men of the Isisi from another village went to call on some relations. They were greeted with arrows, and returned hurriedly. The headman of M'gomo village met with the same reception. This came to the ears of my chief spy Ahmet, who attempted to paddle to the island in his canoe. At a distance of two hundred yards he was fired upon."

"Then they've got Bones?" gasped Hamilton.

"On the contrary, Bones nearly got Ahmet, for Bones was the marksman."

The two men paced the path in silence.

"Either Bones has gone mad," said Hamilton, "or–"

"Or–?"

Hamilton laughed helplessly.

"I can't fathom the mystery," he said. "McMasters will be down to-morrow, to look at some sick men. We'll take him up, and examine the boy."

It was a subdued little party that boarded the Zaire the following morning, and Patricia Hamilton, who came to see them off, watched their departure with a sense of impending trouble.

Dr. McMasters alone was cheerful, for this excursion represented a break in a somewhat monotonous routine.

"It may be the sun," he suggested. "I have known several fellows who have gone a little nutty from that cause. I remember a man at Grand Bassam who shot–"

"Oh, shut up, Mac, you grisly devil!" snapped Hamilton. "Talk about butterflies."

The Zaire swung round the bend of the river that hid Ranabini's village from view, but had scarcely come into sight when—

"Ping!"

Sanders saw the bullet strike the river ahead of the boat, and send a spiral column of water shooting into the air. He put up his glasses and focussed them on the village beach.

"Bones!" he said grimly. "Take her in, Abiboo."

As the steersman spun the wheel—

"Ping!"

This time the shot fell to the right.

The three white men looked at one another.

"Let every man take cover," said Sanders quietly. "We're going to that beach even if Bones has a battery of 75's!"

An exclamation from Hamilton arrested him.

"He's signalling," said the Houssa Captain, and Sanders put up his glasses again.

Bones's long arms were waving at ungainly angles as he semaphored his warning.

Hamilton opened his notebook and jotted down the message—

"Awfully sorry, dear old officer," he spelt, and grinned at the unnecessary exertion of this fine preliminary flourish, "but must keep you away. Bad outbreak of virulent smallpox–"

Sanders whistled, and pulled back the handle of the engine-room telegraph to "stop."

"My God!" said Hamilton through his teeth, for he had seen such an outbreak once, and knew something of its horrors. Whole districts had been devastated in a night. One tribe had been wiped out, and the rotting frames of their houses still showed amidst the tangle of elephant grass which had grown up through the ruins.

He wiped his forehead and read the message a little unsteadily, for his mind was on his sister—

"Had devil of fight, and lost twenty men, but got it under. Come and get me in three weeks. Had to stay here for fear careless devils spreading disease."

Sanders looked at Hamilton, and McMasters chuckled.

"This is where I get a swift vacation," he said, and called his servant.

Hamilton leapt on to the rail, and steadying himself against a stanchion, waved a reply—

"We are sending you a doctor."

Back came the reply in agitated sweeps of arm—

"Doctor be blowed! What am I?"

"What shall I say, sir?" asked Hamilton after he had delivered the message.

"Just say 'a hero,'" said Sanders huskily.

CHAPTER VII

BONES, KING-MAKER

Patricia Hamilton, an observant young lady, had not failed to notice that every day, at a certain hour, Bones disappeared from view. It was not for a long time that she sought an explanation.

"Where is Bones?" she asked one morning, when the absence of her cavalier was unusually protracted.

"With his baby," said her brother.

"Please don't be comic, dear. Where is Bones? I thought I saw him with the ship's doctor."

The mail had come in that morning, and the captain and surgeon of the s.s. Boma Queen had been their guests at breakfast.

Hamilton looked up from his book and removed his pipe.

"Do you mean to tell me that Bones has kept his guilty secret all this time?" he asked anxiously.

She sat down by his side.