The Twelve African Novels (A Collection). Edgar WallaceЧитать онлайн книгу.
took off his helmet and pointed to his closely cropped head.
“Do you see those?” he asked.
She looked curiously.
She saw nothing except a face burnt brick-red by the sun, two steady grey eyes in such odd contrasts to the tan that they seemed the lightest blue.
She saw the lean face, the straight thin nose, the firm jaw and the almost hairless head.
“What am I looking for?” she asked.
“Grey hairs,” said Sanders grimly.
She frowned in pretty perplexity.
“It is difficult to see any hair at all,” she confessed. “But will you turn your head a little? Yes, I see something which might be grey.”
“They’re grey enough,” said Sanders with a little smile. He was more at home with her than he had ever been with a white woman.
“And exactly what do they signify?” she asked.
“Worry — about you,” said Sanders. “Good Lord! Haven’t you had enough of these infernal people? I seem to spend half my life running up and down this river keeping people in order who are anxious to chop you. You cannot build on sand, and you are trying to lay a foundation on water.”
“You mean religious teaching must have a basis of civilisation?” she asked quietly.
“Something like that. Look here, Miss Glandynne; that man who is working in your garden, he’s one of your converts, isn’t he?”
She nodded.
“He is the most helpful man I have; he goes into the outlying villages and holds services.”
“What is his name?”
“Kombolo,” she said.
Sanders called the man to him. He was a stout, good-humoured native, the “outward and visible sign of whose inward and spiritual grace” was a pair of trousers and a waistcoat.
“Kombolo,” said Sanders in the Isisi dialect, “they tell me you are a fine God-man.”
“Lord, that is so,” said the man, beaming, “for I have the blessed Spirit in me which makes me talk wonderfully.”
“And you go to many villages?”
“Preaching the Word, master,” said the man, nodding.
“And do you go ever to the people of the Forest-of Happy-Thought?” asked Sanders quietly.
The man shuddered.
“Lord, I do not go there,” he said.
“Why?”
Kombolo shuffled his bare feet and stood on one leg in his embarrassment.
“Lord, there are devils and ghosts in the wood, as you know,” he said.
“Do you ever go to the people of the N’Gombi Forest?” asked Sanders innocently.
Again the man shivered.
“Never do I go there, Sandi,” he said, “because, as your lordship knows, M’shimba-M’shamba walks therein.”
The girl was following the conversation with knitted brows.
“Who is M’shimba-M’shamba?” she asked.
“He is the green devil who walks by night,” said Sanders blandly, “and he is very terrible.”
Kombolo nodded his head vigorously.
“That is true, mamma,” he said earnestly. “I myself have seen him.”
The girl’s face wore a look of shocked surprise.
“But, Kombolo,” she said in distress, “you know there are no such things as devils.”
Kombolo was frankly puzzled.
“Lady,” he said slowly, “it is certain that there are devils, for do we not read of him — the Devil, the old One — who fills us with bad thoughts?”
“But that is different,” she began helplessly.
“A devil is a devil,” said Kombolo philosophically, “and, though there be only one devil in your land, there are many here; for, lady, here, as you have told me, there are many flies and many beasts such as you do not see in your own country. So also there must be devils, though perhaps not so mighty as the lord Devil of the white people.”
Sanders dismissed him with a nod, and sat whistling cheerfully to himself whilst the girl laid reason under tribute to fact.
“Well?” he said at last.
“You don’t make things easy,” she said, and Sanders, to his horror, discovered that she was on the verge of tears. “I think it was unkind of you to sow doubt in Kombolo’s mind. It is hard enough to fight against their superstition—”
“But—” protested the agitated Commissioner.
“ — without having to combat superstition and ignorance fortified by authority.”
She checked a sob.
“But, Miss Glandynne—”
“I know what you are going to say — you want me to go home. I’m too much bother to you. I give you grey hairs and take up all your time. But I’m going to stay.”
She rose and stamped her foot vehemently.
“Don’t get angry—”
“I’m not angry—”
“Don’t be annoyed—”
“I’m not annoyed. I know I’m unfitted for the work; I never intended doing evangelical work. I came out for the medical side, and if I’d known I had to work alone I shouldn’t have come at all.”
“Then go back,” said Sanders eagerly; “go back to the life you ought to be living. I’ll get Father Wells to come up and take over your station.”
“A Catholic!” she said scornfully.
“Is he?” asked Sanders, who never worried about creeds. “Anyway—”
“And besides,” she said, and her voice shook, “I’ve nothing to hand over. I’ve been here nearly a year, and my only convert is a man who believes in green devils. Oh, Mr. Sanders!”
She broke down and tugged furiously for a handkerchief in her belt.
“Oh, Lord!” said Sanders, and beat a hasty retreat.
He saw her again in the evening. She was calmer and inclined to listen to reason.
“Give the station another three months,” he said. “The country has been a bit upset since you’ve been here. I can understand you not wishing to admit your failure.”
She caught her breath ominously.
“Not that you’ve been a failure,” Sanders went on with frantic haste; “far from it. But it would be different, wouldn’t it, if you could point to some work — ?”
“Of course it would,” she said shortly; then, realising that she was being a little ungracious, she smiled through the gathering tears. “I’m afraid I’m too worldly for this work. I’m not satisfied with the knowledge that I am doing my best. I want to see results.”
Sanders, in his intense astonishment, patted her hand. More to his astonishment, he told her the story of the two brothers, and she was greatly impressed.
“That is the best missionary moral I have ever heard,” she said.
“I am leaving tomorrow,” he said,