The Twelve African Novels (A Collection). Edgar WallaceЧитать онлайн книгу.
he spread the wisp of cloth and placed the cups thereon upside down.
From the interior of one he took a small red ball of copal and camwood kneaded together.
Fascinated, the marauding chiefs watched him.
“These Sandi gave me,” said Bosambo, “that I might pass the days of the rains pleasantly; with these I play with my headman.”
“Lord Bosambo,” said M’laka, “how do you play?”
Bosambo looked up to the warm sky and shook his head sadly.
“This is no game for you, M’laka,” he said, addressing the heavens; “but for one whose eyes are very quick to see; moreover, it is a game played by Christians.”
Now the Isisi folk pride themselves on their keenness of vision. Is it not a proverb of the River, “The N’Gombi to hear, the Bushman to smell, the Isisi to see, and the Ochori to run”?
“Let me see what I cannot see,” said M’laka; and, with a reluctant air, Bosambo put the little red ball on the improvised table behind the cup.
“Watch then, M’laka! I put this ball under this cup: I move the cup — ?”
Very leisurely he shifted the cups.
“I have seen no game like this,” said M’laka; and contempt was in his voice.
“Yet it is a game which pleased me and my men of bright eyes,” said Bosambo; “for we wager so much rods against so much salt that no man can follow the red ball.”
The chief of the Lesser Isisi knew where the red ball was, because there was a slight scratch on the cup which covered it.
“Lord Bosambo,” he said, quoting a saying, “only the rat comes to dinner and stays to ravage — yet if I did not sit in the shadow of your hut, I would take every rod from you.”
“The nukusa is a Small animal, but he has a big voice,” said Bosambo, giving saying for saying; “and I would wager you could not uncover the red ball.”
M’laka leant forward.
“I will stake the spears of my warriors against the spears of the Ochori,” he said.
Bosambo nodded.
“By my head,” he said.
M’laka stretched forward his hand and lifted the cup, but the red ball was not there. Rather it was under the next cup, as Bosambo demonstrated.
M’laka stared.
“I am no blind man,” he said roughly; “and your tongue is like the burning of dry sticks — clack, clack, clack!”
Bosambo accepted the insult without resentment.
“It is the eye,” he said meditatively; “we Ochori folk see quickly.”
M’laka swallowed an offensive saying.
“I have ten bags of salt in my house,” he said shortly, “and it shall be my salt against the spears you have won.”
“By my heart and life,” said Bosambo, and put the ball under the cup.
Very lazily he moved the cup to and fro, changing their positions.
“My salt against your spears,” said M’laka exultantly, for he saw now which was the cup. It had a little stain near the rim.
Bosambo nodded, and M’laka leant forward and lifted the cup. But the ball was not there.
M’laka drew a deep breath, and swore by Iwa — which is death — and by devils of kinds unknown; by sickness and by his father — who had been hanged, and was in consequence canonised.
“It is the eye,” said Bosambo sadly; “as they say by the River, ‘The Ochori to see — ?”
“That is a lie!” hissed M’laka; “the Ochori see nothing but the way they run. Make this game again — ?”
And again Bosambo covered the red ball; but this time he bungled, for he placed the cup which covered the ball on an uneven place on the stool. And between the rim of the cup and the cloth there was a little space where a small ball showed redly — and M’laka was not blind.
“Bosambo,” he said, holding himself, “I wager big things, for I am a chief of great possessions, and you are a little chief, yet this time I will wager my all.”
“M’laka of the Isisi,” responded Bosambo slowly, “I also am a great chief and a relative by marriage to Sandi. Also I am a God-man speaking white men’s talk and knowing of Santa Antonio, Marki, Luki, the blessed Timothi, and similar magics. Now this shall be the wager; if you find a red ball you shall find a slave whose name is Bosambo of the Ochori, but if you lose the red one you shall lose your country.”
“May the sickness mango come to me if I do not speak the truth,” swore M’laka, “but to all this I agree.”
He stretched out his hand and touched the cup.
“It is here!” he shouted and lifted the cover.
There was no red ball.
M’laka was on his feet breathing quickly through his nose.
He opened his mouth to speak, but there was no need, for an Ochori runner came panting through the street with news; before he could reach the hut where his overlord sat and tell it, the head of Sanders’ column emerged from the forest path.
It is said that “the smell of blood carries farther than a man can see.” It had been a tactical error to kill one of Sanders’ spies.
The Commissioner was stained and soiled and he was unshaven, for the call of war had brought him by forced marches through the worst forest path in the world.
Into the open strode the column, line after line of bluecoated Houssas, barelegged, sandal-footed, scarlet-headed, spreading out as smoke spreads when it comes from a narrow barrel. Forming in two straggling lines, it felt its way cautiously forward, for the Ochori city might hold an enemy.
Bosambo guessed the meaning of the demonstration and hurried forward to meet the Commissioner. At a word from Sanders the lines halted, and midway between the city and the wood they met — Bosambo and his master.
“Lord,” said Bosambo conventionally, “all that I have is yours.”
“It seems that you have your life, which is more than I expected,” said Sanders. “I know that M’laka, chief of the Lesser Isisi, is sheltering in your village. You shall deliver this man to me for judgment.”
“M’laka, I know,” said Bosambo, carefully, “and he shall be delivered; but when you speak of the chief of the Lesser Isisi you speak of me, for I won all his lands by a certain game.”
“We will talk of that later,” said Sanders.
He led his men to the city, posting them on its four sides, then he followed Bosambo to where M’laka and his headman awaited his coming — for the guest of a chief does not come out to welcome other guests.
“M’laka,” said Sanders, “there are two ways with chiefs who kill the servants of Government. One is a high and short way, as you know.”
M’laka’s eyes sought a possible tree, and he shivered.
“The other way,” said Sanders, “is long and tiresome, and that is the way for you. You shall sit down in the Village of Irons for my King’s pleasure.”
“Master, how long?” asked M’laka in a shaky voice.
“Whilst you live,” said Sanders.
M’laka accepted what was tantamount to penal servitude for life philosophically — for there are worse things.
“Lord,” he said,