Bosambo of the River

Sanders attended to his injuries and left him and his pitiful fellows in a dry hut. Then he went to look for Bosambo, and found him sitting patiently ten miles up the river. He sat before a steep hill of rock and undergrowth. At the top of the hill was the chief of the village of Mi-lanti, and with him were such of his fighting men as were not at the moment in a happier world.

"Lord, this is true," said Bosambo, "that this dog attacked my river villages and put my men to death and my women to service. So I came down against him, for it is written in the Sura of the Djinn that no man shall live to laugh at his own evil."

"There will be a palaver," said Sanders briefly, and bade the crestfallen chief, Ofesi, to come down and stack his spears. Since it is not in the nature of the native man to speak the truth when his skin is in peril, it goes without saying that both sides lied fearfully, and Sanders, sifting the truth, knew which side lied the least.

"Ofesi," he said, at the end of much weariness of listening, "what do you say that I shall not hang you?"

Ofesi, a short, thick man with a faint beard, looked up and down, left and right for inspiration. "Lord," he said after a while, "this you know, that all my life I have been a good man – and it is said that I have a high destiny, and shall not die by cruelty."

"'Man is eternal whilst he lives,'" quoted Sanders, "'yet man dies sooner or later.'"

Ofesi stared round at Bosambo, and Bosambo was guilty of an indiscretion – possibly the greatest indiscretion of his life. In the presence of his master, and filled with the exultation and virtuous righteousness which come to the palpably innocent in the face of trial, he said in English, shaking his head the while reprovingly:

"Oh, you dam' naughty devil!"

Sanders had condemned the man to death in his heart; had mentally chosen the tree on which the marauding chief should swing when Bosambo spoke.

Sanders had an immense idea as to the sanctity of life in one sense. He had killed many by rope with seeming indifference, and, indeed, he never allowed the question of a man's life or death to influence him one way or the other when an end was in view.

He would watch with unwavering eyes the breath choke out of a swaying body, yet there must be a certain ritual of decency, of fitness, of decorum in such matters, or his delicate sense of justice was outraged.

Bosambo's words, grotesque, uncalled for, wholly absurd, saved the life of Ofesi the chief.

For a moment Sanders's lips twitched irresponsibly, then he turned with a snarl upon the discomfited chief of the Ochori.

"Back to your land, you monkey man!" he snapped; "this man has offended against the land – yet he shall live, for he is a fool. I know a greater one!"

He sent Ofesi back to his village to build up what his folly had overthrown.

"Remember, Ofesi," he said, "I give you back your life, though you deserve death: and I do this because it comes to me suddenly that you are a child as Bosambo is a child. Now, I will come back to you with the early spring, and if you have deserved well of me you shall be rewarded with your liberty; and if you have done ill to me, you shall go to the Village of Irons or to a worse place."

Back at headquarters Sanders told a sympathetic captain of Houssas the story.

"It was horribly weak of course," he said; "but, somehow, when that ass Bosambo let rip his infernal English I couldn't hang a sparrow."

"Might have brought this Ofesi person down to the village," said the captain thoughtfully. "He's got an extraordinary reputation."

Sanders sat on the edge of the table, his hands thrust into his breeches pockets.

"I thought of that, too, and it affected me. You see, there was just a fear in my mind that I was being influenced on the wrong side by this fellow's talk of destiny – that I was being, in fact, a little malicious."

The Houssa skipper snapped his cigarette case and looked thoughtful.

"I'll get another company down from headquarters," he said.

"You might ask for a machine-gun section also," said Sanders. "I've got it in my bones that there's going to be trouble."

A week later the upper river saw many strange faces. Isolated fishermen came from nowhere in particular to pursue their mild calling in strange waters.

They built their huts in unfrequented patches of forest, and you might pass up and down a stretch of the beach without knowing that hut was modestly concealed in the thick bush at the back.

Also they went about their business at night with fishing spear and light canoe tacking across river and up river, moving without sound in the shadows of the bank, approaching villages and cities with remarkable circumspection.

They were strange fishermen indeed, for they fished with pigeons. In every canoe the birds drowsed in a wicker-work cage, little red labels about their legs on which even an untutored spy might make a rude but significant mark with the aid of an indelible pencil.

Sanders took no risks.

He summoned Ahmed Ali, the chief of his secret men.

"Go to the Akasava country, and there you will find Ofesi, a chief of the village Mi-lanti. Watch him, for he is an evil man. On the day that he moves against me and my people you shall judge whether I can come in time with my soldiers. If there is time send for me: but if he moves swiftly you shall shoot him dead and you shall not be blamed. Go with God."

"Master," said Ahmed, "Ofesi is already in hell."

If all reports worked out, and they certainly tallied, Ofesi, the predestined chief, gave no offence. He rebuilt his city, choosing higher ground and following a long and unexpected hunting trip, which took him to the edge of the Akasava country, and he projected a visit of love and harmony to Bosambo.

He even sent swift couriers to Sanders to ask permission for the ceremonial, though such permission was wholly unnecessary. Sanders granted the request, delaying the deputation until he had sent his own messengers to Bosambo.

So on a bright June morning Ofesi set forth on his mission, his two and twenty canoes painted red, and even the paddles newly burnt to fantastic and complimentary designs; and he came to the Ochori and was met by Bosambo, a profound sceptic but outwardly pleasant.

"I see you," said Ofesi, "I see you, lord Bosambo, also your brave and beautiful people; yet I come in peace and it grieves me that you should meet me with so many spears."

For in truth the beach bristled a steel welcome and three fighting regiments of the Ochori, gallantly arrayed, were ranked in hollow square, the fourth side of which was the river.

"Lord Ofesi," said Bosambo suavely, "this is the white man's way of doing honour and, as you know, I have much white blood in my veins, being related to the English Prime Minister."

He surveyed the two-and-twenty canoes with their twenty paddlers to each, and duly noted that each paddler carried his fighting spears as a matter of course.

That Ofesi had any sinister design upon the stronghold of the Ochori may be dismissed as unlikely. He was cast in no heroic mould, and abhorred unnecessary risk, for destiny requires some assistance.

He had brought his spears for display rather than for employment. Willy-nilly he must stack them now – an unpleasant operation, reminiscent of another stacking under the cold eye of Sanders.

So it may be said that the rapprochement between the Ochori and the Akasava chief began inauspiciously. Bosambo led the way to his guest-house – new-thatched as is the custom.

There was a great feast in Ofesi's honour, and a dance of girls – every village contributing its chief dancer for the event. Next day there was a palaver with sacrifices of fowl and beast, and blood friendships were sworn fluently. Bosambo and Ofesi embraced before all the people assembled, and ate salt from the same dish.

"Now I will tell you all my business, my brother," said Ofesi that night. "To-morrow I go back to my people with your good word, and I shall speak of you by day and night because of your noble heart."

"I also will have no rest," said Bosambo, "till I have journeyed all over this land, speaking about my wonderful brother Ofesi."

With a word Ofesi dismissed his counsellors, and Bosambo, accepting the invitation, sent away his headmen.

"Now I will tell you," said Ofesi.

And what he said, what flood of ego-oratory, what promises, what covert threats, provided Bosambo with reminiscences for long afterwards.

"Yet," he concluded, "though all things have moved to make me what I am, yet there is much I have to learn, and from none can I learn so well as from you, my brother."

"That is very true," said Bosambo, and meant it.