The Twelve African Novels (A Collection). Edgar WallaceЧитать онлайн книгу.
people have a keen sense of humour, but that humour does not take the form of practical joking.
Moreover, he had detected blood on the spike, and an organism which old blood generates.
Thus the bushmen poison their arrows by leaving them in the bodies of their dead enemies.
He sent a guard for the queen and brought her on board.
“I shall take you away,” he said, “because you have tried to kill me by placing poisoned thorns in my bed.”
“Medini, my woman, did this, because she loved me,” said the queen, “and if she says I told her to do the thing she lies.”
“You have said enough,” said Sanders. “Abiboo, let there be steam quickly, for I carry the queen with me to the Ochori country.”
Bosambo was not prepared for the Commissioner’s arrival. He was a man singularly free from illusions, and when they brought him word that Sanders was accompanied by the Queen of the N’Gombi he had no doubt in his mind that the times ahead were troublesome.
So they proved.
Sanders cut short the flower of his welcome. He nipped it as the frost nips young buds, and as coldly.
“You have put foolish ideas into this woman’s head,” he said, “and I have brought her here that you might do that which is honourable.”
“Lord, I am your man,” said Bosambo, with proper humility.
“And my uncle also,” said Sanders, “if all that you said to her was true.”
The girl stood by listening.
“Now you have told her that she should marry into my house,” said Sanders, “and, being a woman, her mind is set upon this matter.”
Bosambo saw what was coming, and hastened to avert the evil.
“Lord,” he said, in his agitation dropping into the English he had spoken on the coast, “she be number one women; dem wife she not be fit for nudder woman.”
“I do not speak that monkey talk,” said Sanders calmly. “You marry this woman to-day and she goes back to rule the N’Gombi — tonight.”
“Lord,” pleaded Bosambo, “I am of the Faith — the one Prophet of the one God.”
“But not the one wife, I think,” said Sanders. “You marry her or I whip you.”
“Lord, I will be whipped,” said Bosambo promptly.
“Also, I will place another chief over the Ochori.”
“That is too great a shame,” said Bosambo aghast. “For as you know, lord, my father and his father were chiefs of this tribe, and I have the blood of kings in my veins.”
“You have the blood of Monravian thieves, and your fathers you never knew,” said Sanders patiently. “You marry to-day!”
“It is as you will, oh, my uncle!” said Bosambo.
Sanders said nothing, though his hands clutched his stick the tighter.
After all, he had brought that insult upon himself.
X. The Man on the Spot
Once upon a time a man went up to the Calali River to buy rubber from the natives. He had a permit signed by the new Administrator and a licence to trade, and he had come into Sanders’ territory by a back way and did not trouble to have this permit visaed.
Now the permit bore the signature of His Excellency the Administrator, him and none other, and the name of His Excellency “goes,” and people have been known to bow their heads most respectfully at the mention of his name.
Sanders did not respect him, but called him “your Excellency,” because it was lawful.
Anyway, this trader to whom I have referred went up the Calali River and bought rubber. He bought it and sometimes paid for it. He did not give its exact value, and after three weeks of bartering his business came to an end, because native folk would not bring any further rubber to his big canoe. Whereupon Tinkerton — such was his name — had recourse to other methods. He sat down in a likely village and instructed the headman to produce for him so many kilos of rubber in so many days, promising remuneration which by every standard was absurd. The headman refused, whereupon Tinkerton tied him up to a tree and whipped him with a chicotte.
“Now you’ll change your point of view,” said Tinkerton, “and fetch me rubber — quick!”
The chief sent twenty young men into the forest to find rubber, and four men who were his best paddlers to find Mr. Commissioner Sanders, collecting hut tax with some labour in the Akasava country.
Rubber and Sanders arrived at the Calali River at the same time.
Tinkerton explained his position and the chief exhibited his back.
“My permit is quite in order, I think,” said Tinkerton.
“Up to a point,” admitted Sanders carefully, “it is. But, as you know, a licence to trade becomes invalid when the holder is convicted of any breach of the common law.”
Tinkerton smiled uneasily.
“That doesn’t affect me, I think,” he said.
He always added “I think” to everything he said, lest the hearer should labour under the impression that he spoke without thinking.
“It affects you considerably,” said Sanders; “for I am sentencing you to six months’ hard labour for your assault on this native, and I am sending you to the coast to serve that sentence.”
Tinkerton went crimson with rage.
“Do you know what I think of you?” he asked loudly.
“No,” said Sanders, “but I can guess it, and if you open your mouth uncivilly I shall take you by the scruff of the neck and kick you into the river.”
Tinkerton went down to the coast under escort, and he never forgave the Commissioner.
The major portion of his sentence was remitted by the Administrator, because it happened that the Administrator was a sort of cousin to Tinkerton’s father.
So that to the patent fury of Tinkerton was added the coldly polite disapproval of an Administrator who is remembered best on the coast by his mistakes.
Now, although it is amusing to recall the blunders of a high official after his departure, it is not so entertaining to furnish material for subsequent anecdote, and one must be possessed of a peculiarly poignant sense of humour to thoroughly appreciate the travail in which these jests were born.
The Administrator may or may not have deliberately set himself the task of annoying Sanders.
From a strictly service aspect, a service which has for its ideal the perfection of British administration, to the exclusion of all personal ambition, the idea is preposterous. From the standpoint of one who has some knowledge of human nature, it seems very likely that there was something in the suggestion that His Excellency had his administrative knife in the executive ribs of Mr. Commissioner Sanders.
One spring morning Sanders received a big blue letter. It came in his mail bag with other communications but bore, in addition to the notification that it was “On His Majesty’s Service,” the legend “Department of His Excellency the Administrator,” and was moreover subscribed “Strictly confidential.”
Now, when a high official of state writes in strictest confidence to his subordinate, he is not telling him his troubles or confessing his guilt, or even trying to borrow