The Twelve African Novels (A Collection). Edgar WallaceЧитать онлайн книгу.
all her might. He caught her arm and nearly broke it.
The stopper fell out and her dress was drenched with the vile perfume.
He wrenched the flask from her hand and threw it
Grasping her by the arm he led her on. She was nearly exhausted when he stopped, and she sank an inert heap to the ground.
She dare not faint, though she was on the verge of such a breakdown. How long they had been travelling she had no idea. The sun was setting; this she guessed rather than knew, for no sunlight penetrated the aisles.
Fembeni watched her; he sat with his back to a tree and regarded her thoughtfully.
After a while he rose.
“Come,” he said.
They moved on in silence. She made no appeal to him. She knew now the futility of speech. Her mind was still bewildered. “Why, why, why?” it asked incoherently.
Why had this man professed Christianity?
“Fembeni,” she faltered, “I have been kind to you.”
“Woman,” he said grimly, “you may be kinder,” she said no more.
The horror of the thing began to take shape. She half stopped, and he grasped her arm roughly.
“By my head you shall live,” he said, “if Sandi gives his word that none of us shall hang — for we are the Terrible Men, and Sandi has smelt me out.”
There was a gleam of hope in this speech. If it was only as a hostage that they held her —
Night had fallen when they came to water,
Here Fembeni halted. He searched about an undergrowth and dragged to view a section of hollow tree-trunk.
Inside were two sticks of iron wood, and squatting down before the lokali he rattled a metallic tattoo.
For ten minutes he played his tuneless rhythm. When he stopped there came a faint reply from somewhere across the lake.
They waited, the girl and her captor, for nearly half an hour. She strained her ears for the sound of oars, not knowing that the water did not extend for more than a hundred yards, and that beyond and around lay the great swamp wherein stood the island headquarters of the Nine.
The first intimation of the presence of others was a stealthy rustle, then through the gloom she saw the men coming toward her.
Fembeni grasped her arm and led her forward. He exchanged a few words with the newcomers in a dialect she could not understand. There was a brief exchange of questions, and then the party moved on.
The ground beneath her feet grew soft and sodden. Sometimes the water was up to her ankles. The leader of the men picked his way unerringly, now following a semicircular route, now turning off at right angles, now winding in and out, till she lost all sense of direction.
Her legs were like lead, her head was swimming and she felt she was on the point of collapse when suddenly the party reached dry land.
A few minutes later they reached the tumbledown village which the outlaws had built themselves.
A fire was burning, screened from view by the arrangement of the huts which had been built in a crescent.
The girl was shown a hut and thrust inside.
Soon afterwards a woman brought her a bowl of boiled fish and a gourd of water.
In her broken Isisi she begged the woman to stay with her, but she was evidently of the N’Gombi people and did not understand.
A few minutes later she was alone.
Outside the hut about the fire sat eight of the Nine Terrible Men. One of these was Oko of the Isisi, a man of some power.
“This woman I do not like,” he said, “and by my way of thinking Fembeni is a fool and a son of a tool to bring her unless she comes as other women have come — to serve us.”
“Lord Oko,” said Fembeni, “I am more skilled in the ways of white folk than you, and I tell you that if we keep this woman here it shall be well with us. For if Sandi shall catch you or me, or any of us, we shall say to him: ‘There is a woman with us whom you greatly prize, and if you hang me, behold you kill her also.’”
Still Oko was not satisfied.
“I also know white people and their ways,” he said. “Sandi would have left us, now he will not rest till we are scattered and dead, for Sandi has a memory like the river, which never ceases to flow.”
A man of the Akasava suggested an evil thing.
“That we shall consider,” said Oko.
He had already decided. He had none of the subtlety of mind which distinguished Fembeni. He saw an end, and was for crowding in the space of life left to him as much of life as his hand could grasp.
They sat in palaver till early in the morning, the firelight reflected on the polished skin of their bodies.
Then Oko left the circle and crept to the girl’s hut. They saw him stoop and enter, and heard a little scream.
“Oko has killed her,” said Fembeni.
“It is best,” said the other men.
Fembeni rose and went to the hut.
“Oko,” he called softly, then stooped and went in.
Facing him was a ragged square of dim light, where a great hole had been cut in the farther side of the hut.
“Oko,” he called sharply, then two hands of steel caught him by the throat and two others pulled his legs from under him.
He went to the ground, too terrified to resist.
“Fembeni,” said a soft voice in his ear, “I have been waiting for you.”
He was rolled on to his face and he made no resistance. His hands were pulled behind, and he felt the cold steel bands encircle his wrist and heard a “snick” as they fastened.
He was as expeditiously gagged.
“As for Oko,” said Sanders’ voice, “he is dead, and if you had heard him cry you also would have been dead.”
That ended the one-sided conversation, Sanders and his sergeant sitting patiently in their little lair waiting for the rest of the men to come.
With the morning arrived a detachment of Houssas under Sergeant Ahmed, following the trail Sanders had followed. There were four dead men to be buried — including him who had stood on guard at the edge of the swamp.
There was a white-faced girl to be guarded back across the swamp to the seclusion of the forest, and with her went the women of the outlaws’ village.
Fembeni and his four companions stood up for judgment.
“One only thing I would ask you, Fembeni,” said Sanders, “and that is this: you are by some account a Christian. Do you practise this magic, or are you for the ju-jus and gods of your fathers?”
“Lord,” said Fembeni eagerly, “I am a Christian in all ways. Remember this, master, I am of your faith.”
Sanders, with his lips parted, and his eyes narrowed, looked at the man.
“Then it is proper that I should give you time to say your prayers,” he said. “Abiboo, we hang this man last.”
“I see that you are a devil,” said Fembeni, “otherwise you would not follow us in the night with none to show you the way. Now I tell you, Sandi, that I am no Christian, for all God-folk are foolish save you, and I know that you are no God-man. Therefore, if I am to, hang, let me hang with the rest.”
Sanders nodded.
IX.