The Twelve African Novels (A Collection). Edgar WallaceЧитать онлайн книгу.
inspected the town, received two oral petitions, one for the restoration to liberty of a man who had stolen government property (to wit the aforesaid anvil) and one for a dissolution of marriage, which he granted. He stayed at the town, holding a palaver in the cool of the evening, in the course of which he addressed the people on the necessity for learning to swim.
“Twenty men have been drowned,” he said, “and yet none learn the lesson. I say that you either do not go upon the water at all, or else learn to walk-in-water as the Isisi and the Ochori and the Akasava walk.”
After dinner, that night, being in a frame of mind agreeable to the subject, he sent again for the headman.
“O chief,” he said, looking up from the book he was reading, “I have been thinking about this matter of spears. For it seems to me that Likilivi, for all his skill, cannot make so many spears that you are inconvenienced.”
“Master, I speak the truth,” said the man emphatically.
“Yet the people hereabout are hunters,” said Sanders, puzzled.
“Lord,” said the headman with considerable emphasis, “if all the world wanted spears Likilivi would supply them.”
That was an exaggeration, but Sanders passed it over. He dismissed the man and sat down in solitude to reason the matter out.
Likilivi was an old man, and if he were of our faith we should say that he would be well employed if he were engaging himself in the preparation for another and a better world. Certainly he should not be considering means of reprisal against his young wife. She had put him to shame before his people. She had called down upon him a public reproof from Sandi, moreover, had caused Sandi to threaten an end to the Marsh Mystery and that was the worst offence of all.
Likilivi calmly considered in what way be might bring about her death without Sandi knowing by whose instrumentality she perished. There were many ways suggested to his mind. He could easily bring about her disappearance… there would be no inquiries, but the matter might be readily explained.
He came back from his workplace and found her in the hut he had set aside for her, for she was no longer a Wife of the House — degradation for most women, but happiness for little M’ciba. She looked up apprehensively as he stooped to enter the hut.
“M’ciba, my wife,” he said with a twisted smile; “you sit here all day as I know, and I fear that you will have the sickness mongo, for it is not good for the young that they should shun the sunlight and the air.”
She did not speak but looked at him, waiting.
“It will be good,” he said, “if you go abroad, for though my heart is sore within me because of your ingratitude, yet I wish you well. You shall take my little canoe and find fish for me.”
“If I find no fish you will beat me,” she said, having no illusions as to his generosity.
“By my heart and my life,” he swore, “I will do none of these things; for I desire only your health, knowing that if you die of sickness Sandi will think evil things of me.”
Thus it came about that M’ciba became a fisher girl. From her babyhood she had been accustomed to the river and its crafts. She made good catches and pleased her husband.
“You shall find me a great fish,” he said to her one evening; “such as few fisherfolk find — that which is called Baba, the father of fish.”
“Master and husband,” said M’ciba sulkily, “I do not know where such fish are found.”
He licked his thin lips and stroked his little grizzled beard.
“I, Likilivi, know,” he said slowly. “These fish come in the dark of the night to the edge of the Mystery. And when the moon is newly risen you shall take your canoe to the place of elephant grass which hides my marsh and catch such a fish. And if you do not catch it, M’ciba, I shall not beat you, for such fish are very cunning.”
When night came she took food and drink and placed it in the tiny canoe, Likilivi helping her.
“Tell none that you go to find the fish,” he said, “lest the people of the village discover where the fish feeds and trap it for themselves.”
It was then moonlight when she pushed off from the shore. She paddled close to the shore, keeping to the slack water until she was out of sight of the village, then brought her canoe out into the river as it sweeps around the little headland which marks the beginning of the Mystery Marsh.
Again she sought for slack water and having found it paddled leisurely to the place which her husband had indicated.
She saw a hippo standing belly high in mud; once she crossed the path of a cow hippo swimming to shore with a little calf on its back.
She steadied the canoe and waited for it to pass, for a cow hippo with young is easily annoyed.
At last she found the spot. The water was calm and almost currentless and she threw over her lines and sat down to wait.
Such drift of the water as there was set toward the shore, very slowly, imperceptibly. Hereabouts there was no sign of solid earth. The green reeds grew thickly from the water. Once the canoe drifted till its blunt bow went rustling amongst the grass and she was forced to take her paddle and stroke away for a few yards.
Once she thought she heard a sound in the bushes, but there was a gentle night wind and she paid no heed to the noise.
She pulled in her lines, baited them again with the little silver fish such as is used for the purpose and threw them out again.
This made a little noise and drowned the click of a tiny steel grapnel thrown by somebody hiding in the grass.
She felt the boat drifting in again and paddled. But there were two strong arms pulling the canoe. Before she realised her danger, the boat was pulled into the rushes, a hand at her throat strangled her screams.
“Woman, if you make a noise I will kill you!” said a voice in her ear, and she recognised the elder son of her husband.
He stepped from the darkness into the canoe ahead of her — he must have abandoned his own — and with strong strokes sent the boat into the darkness of the marsh. She could not see water. The jungle surrounded them. Putting out her hand she could touch the rank grass on either side.
This way and that the canoe went deeper and deeper into the marsh, and as he paddled her stepson sketched with frankness the life which was ahead of her.
Strapped to her thigh, hidden by the dyed grass waist skirt, was a thin knife. She had kept it there for reasons of her own. She slipped it out of its case of snake skin, leant forward and with the other hand felt his bare back.
“Do not touch me, woman!” he snarled over his shoulder.
“I am afraid,” she said, and kept her hand where it was, a finger on each rib.
Between her fingers she pushed the thin knife home.
Without a word he slid over the side of the canoe, and she threw her weight on the other gunwale to prevent it filling.
His body fell into the water with a loud “plop” and she waited for him to come up again. He gave no sign, though she peered into the water, the knife in her hand.
Then she paddled back the way she came, driving the canoe stern first.
There was little mystery about the waterway save the mystery of the spot where creek and river met, and she had little difficulty in reaching open water. She had nearly come to safety when a sound reached her and she stopped paddling. Behind her she could hear the beat of another canoe, the very swishing of the grass as it forced its passage.
With quick silent strokes she sent her tiny craft the remainder of the journey, and came into the river just as the moon was sinking behind the N’Gombi Forest. Keeping to the shadow of the jungle