The Twelve African Novels (A Collection). Edgar WallaceЧитать онлайн книгу.
King of the Akasava, has risen, and with him the countryside.”
“Lord, it is as you say,” said Bosambo.
“In time there will come many white men,” said Sandi, “and they will eat up this foolish king; but in the meantime there will be much suffering, and many innocent people will be slain. I have sent for you because I trust you.”
“Lord,” said Bosambo, “I am a thief and a low man, and my heart is full of pride that you should stoop toward me.”
Sandi detected the tremor in Bosambo’s voice, and he knew he was sincere.
“Therefore, O chief, I have placed you in my place, for you are skilled in war. And I give over to you the command of my ship and of my fighting men, and you shall do that which is best.”
Bosambo sprang noiselessly to his feet, and stood tense and erect by the bedside. There was a strange light in his eyes.
“Lord Sandi,” he said in a low voice, “do you speak true — that I” — he struck his broad chest with both his clenched fists— “I stand in your place?”
“That is so,” said Sandi.
Bosambo was silent for a minute, then he opened his mouth to speak, checked himself, and, turning without a word, left the room.
Which was unlike Bosambo.
They were prepared for his coming. Abiboo stood at the end of the gangway and raised his hand in salute.
“I am your man, chief,” he said.
“Abiboo,” he said, “I do not lie when I say that I am of your faith; and by Allah and his Prophet I am for doing that which is best for Sandi, our master.”
“So we both desire,” said Abiboo.
Bosambo’s preparations were quietly made.
He sent half of his fighting men to the mission house to guard Sandi, and with them twenty Houssas under a sergeant.
“Now we will call upon Toloni the king,” he said.
The King of the Akasava sat in palaver. His force was camped on the edge of the N’Gombi country, and a smoking village spoke of resistance offered and overcome — for the N’Gombi had at last declined to join the coalition, and the lover, who had undertaken to persuade the queen, and, failing persuasion, to take more effective action, had failed.
The queen notified his failure by sending his head to Toloni.
Not even the news that Sandi was sick to death served to shake them in their opposition. It may have been that the vital young queen cherished ambitions of her own.
The king’s palaver was a serious one.
“It seems that the N’Gombi people must be eaten up village by village,” he said, “for all this country is with me save them only. As to this queen, she shall be sorry.”
He was within striking distance of the N’Gombi queen. His legions were closing steadily in upon the doomed city. By nightfall he was within reach, and at dawn the following morning Toloni carried the city by assault and it was a beastly business.
They carried the queen back to the king’s headquarters, and there was a great dance.
By the light of a dozen fires the king sat in judgment.
The girl — she was little more — stood up before him, stripped of her robes, and met the king’s eyes without fear.
“Woman,” he said, “this night you die!”
She made no answer.
“By fire and by torment I will kill you,” said Toloni, and told her the means of her death.
He sat on his carved stool of state beneath a tree. He was naked, save for the leopard robe that covered one shoulder, and his cruel eyes glittered in anticipation of the spectacle she would afford.
She spoke calmly enough.
“If I die tonight and you die tomorrow, O king, what is a day? For Sandi will come with his soldiers.”
“Sandi is dead,” said the king thickly. He had drunk heavily of the maize beer that natives prepare. “And if he lived—”
There came to his hearing a faint wail that grew in shrillness until it became a shriek. Shrieking it passed over his head and died away.
He struggled to his feet unsteadily.
“It was a spirit,” he muttered, then —
The wailing sound came again — a shriek this time of men. Something struck the tree, splintering the bark.
The faint and ghastly light of dawn was in the sky; in a second the world went pearl-grey and, plain to be seen, hugging the shore on the opposite bank, was the Zaire.
As the king looked he saw a pencil of fire leap from the little ship, heard the whine of the coming shell, and realised the danger.
He gave a hurried order, and a regiment ran to the river-bank where the canoes were beached. They were not there. The guards left to watch them lay stretched like men asleep on the beach, but the canoes were in midstream five miles away, carried down by the river.
In the night Bosambo’s men had crossed the river.
The story of the fall of Toloni is a brief one. Trapped on the middle island, at the mercy of the long-range guns of the Zaire, Toloni surrendered.
He was conducted to the Zaire.
Bosambo met him on the bridge.
“Ho, Bosambo!” said Toloni, “I have come to see Sandi.”
“You see me who am as our lord,” said Bosambo.
Toloni spat on the deck.
“When a slave sits in the king’s place only slaves obey him,” he quoted a river saying.
“Kings have only one head, and the slave’s blood is also red,” said Bosambo readily. “And it seems to me, Toloni, that you are too full of life for our lord’s happiness. But first you shall tell me what has come to the Queen of the N’Gombi.”
“She died,” said Toloni carelessly; “very quickly she died.”
Bosambo peered at him. It was a trick of Sandi’s this peering, and the Chief of the Ochori was nothing if not imitative.
“You shall tell me how she died,” said Bosambo.
The king’s face twitched.
“I took her by the throat,” he said sullenly.
“Thus?” said Bosambo, and his big hand closed on the king’s strong neck.
“Thus!” gasped the king, “and I struck her with my knife — ah!”
“Thus?” said Bosambo.
Twice his long, broad-bladed knife rose and fell, and the king went quivering to the deck.
*
Sandi was strong enough to walk to the beach to meet the Zaire on its return — strong enough, though somewhat dazzled by his splendour, to greet Bosambo, wearing a sky-blue robe laced with tinsel, and a tall and napless hat.
Bosambo came mincing down the gangway plank swinging a brass-headed stick and singing a low song such as Kroomen sing on the coast when they receive their pay and are dismissed their ships.
He was beautiful to behold — feathers were in his hair, rope after rope of gay beads about his neck.
“I have slain Toloni,” he said, “even as your lord would have done — he turned his face from me and said, ‘It is honourable to die at your hands, Bosambo,’ and he made little moaning noises thus—”