Bosambo of the River

Like a flash of light his thin brown arm swung out, the spear held stiffly.

Sanders fired three times with his automatic Colt, and the messenger of the proud chief Sakola went down sideways like a drunken man.

Sergeant Abiboo, revolver in hand, leapt through a window of the bungalow to find his master moving a smouldering uniform jacket – you cannot fire through your pocket with impunity – and eyeing the huddled form of the fallen bushman with a thoughtful frown.

"Carry him to the hospital," said Sanders. "I do not think he is dead."

He picked up the spear and examined the point.

There was lock-jaw in the slightest scratch of it, for these men are skilled in the use of tetanus.

The compound was aroused. Men had come racing over from the Houssa lines, and a rough stretcher was formed to carry away the débris.

Thus occupied with his affairs Sanders had no time to observe the arrival of the mail-boat, and the landing of Mr. Hold.

The big American filled the only comfortable seat in the surf-boat, but called upon his familiar gods to witness the perilous character of his sitting.

He was dressed in white, white irregularly splashed with dull grey patches of sea-water, for the Kroomen who manipulated the sweeps had not the finesse, nor the feather stroke, of a Harvard eight, and they worked independently.

He was tall and broad and thick – the other way. His face was clean-shaven, and he wore a cigar two points south-west.

Yet, withal, he was a genial man, or the lines about his face lied cruelly.

Nearing the long yellow beach where the waters were engaged everlastingly in a futile attempt to create a permanent sea-wall, his references to home ceased, and he confined himself to apprehensive "huh's!"

"Huh!" he grunted, as the boat was kicked into the air on the heels of a playful roller. "Huh!" he said, as the big surfer dropped from the ninth floor to a watery basement. "Huh – oh!" he exclaimed – but there was no accident; the boat was gripped by wading landsmen and slid to safety.

Big Ben Hold rolled ashore and stood on the firm beach looking resentfully across the two miles of water which separated him from the ship.

"Orter build a dock," he grumbled.

He watched, with a jealous eye, the unloading of his kit, checking the packing cases with a piece of green chalk he dug up from his waistcoat pocket and found at least one package missing. The only important one, too. Is this it? No! Is that it? No! Is that – ah, yes, that was it.

He was sitting on it.

"Suh," said a polite Krooman, "you lib for dem k'miss'ner?"

"Hey?"

"Dem Sandi – you find um?"

"Say," said Mr. Hold, "I don't quite get you – I want the Commissioner – the Englishman – savee."

Later, he crossed the neat and spotless compound of the big, cool bungalow, where, on the shaded verandah, Mr. Commissioner Sanders watched the progress of the newcomer without enthusiasm.

For Sanders had a horror of white strangers; they upset things; had fads; desired escorts for passing through territories where the natural desire for war and an unnatural fear of Government reprisal were always delicately balanced.

"Glad to see you. Boy, push that chair along; sit down, won't you?"

Mr. Hold seated himself gingerly.

"When a man turns the scale at two hundred and thirty-eight pounds," grumbled Big Ben pleasantly, "he sits mit circumspection, as a Dutch friend of mine says." He breathed a long, deep sigh of relief as he settled himself in the chair and discovered that it accepted the strain without so much as a creak.

Sanders waited with an amused glint in his eyes.

"You'd like a drink?"

Mr. Hold held up a solemn hand. "Tempt me not," he adjured. "I'm on a diet – I don't look like a food crank, do I?"

He searched the inside pocket of his coat with some labour. Sanders had an insane desire to assist him. It seemed that the tailor had taken a grossly unfair advantage of Mr. Hold in building the pocket so far outside the radius of his short arm.

"Here it is!"

Big Ben handed a letter to the Commissioner, and Sanders opened it. He read the letter very carefully, then handed it back to its owner. And as he did so he smiled with a rare smile, for Sanders was not easily amused.

"You expect to find the ki-chu here?" he asked.

Mr. Hold nodded.

"I have never seen it," said Sanders; "I have heard of it; I have read about it, and I have listened to people who have passed through my territories and who have told me that they have seen it with, I am afraid, disrespect."

Big Ben leant forward, and laid his large and earnest hand on the other's knee.

"Say, Mr. Sanders," he said, "you've probably heard of me – I'm Big Ben Hold – everybody knows me, from the Pacific to the Atlantic. I am the biggest thing in circuses and wild beast expositions the world has ever seen. Mr. Sanders, I have made money, and I am out of the show business for a million years, but I want to see that monkey ki-chu – "

"But – "

"Hold hard." Big Ben's hand arrested the other. "Mr. Sanders, I have made money out of the ki-chu. Barnum made it out of the mermaid, but my fake has been the tailless ki-chu, the monkey that is so like a man that no alderman dare go near the cage for fear people think the ki-chu has escaped. I've run the ki-chu from Seattle to Portland, from Buffalo to Arizona City. I've had a company of militia to regulate the crowds to see the ki-chu. I have had a whole police squad to protect me from the in-fu-ri-ated populace when the ki-chu hasn't been up to sample. I have had ki-chus of every make and build. There are old ki-chus of mine that are now raising families an' mortgages in the Middlewest; there are ki-chus who are running East-side saloons with profit to themselves and their dude sons, there – "

"Yes, yes!" Sanders smiled again. "But why?"

"Let me tell you, sir," again Big Ben held up his beringed hand, "I am out of the business – good! But, Mr. Sanders, sir, I have a conscience." He laid his big hand over his heart and lowered his voice. "Lately I have been worrying over this old ki-chu. I have built myself a magnificent dwelling in Boston; I have surrounded myself with the evidences and services of luxury; but there is a still small voice which penetrates the sound-proof walls of my bedroom, that intrudes upon the silences of my Turkish bath – and the voice says, 'Big Ben Hold – there aren't any ki-chu; you're a fake; you're a swindler; you're a green goods man; you're rollin' in riches secured by fraud.' Mr. Sanders, I must see a ki-chu; I must have a real ki-chu if I spend the whole of my fortune in getting it"; he dropped his voice again, "if I lose my life in the attempt."

He stared with gloom, but earnestness, at Sanders, and the Commissioner looked at him thoughtfully. And from Mr. Hold his eyes wandered to the gravelled path outside, and the big American, following his eyes, saw a discoloured patch.

"Somebody been spillin' paint?" he suggested. "I had – "

Sanders shook his head.

"That's blood," he said simply, and Mr. Hold jerked.

"I've just shot a native," said Sanders, in a conversational tone. "He was rather keen on spearing me, and I was rather keen on not being speared. So I shot him."

"Dead?"

"Not very!" replied the Commissioner. "As a matter of fact I think I just missed putting him out – there's an Eurasian doctor looking him over just now, and if you're interested, I'll let you know how he gets along."

The showman drew a long breath.