Bones Page 7

  But Bones!

  Hamilton writhed internally at the thought of Francis Augustus and his inefficiency.

  He had sent his second the most elaborate instructions, but if he knew his man, the languid Bones would do no more than pass those instructions on to a subordinate.

  It was ten o’clock on the morning of the inspection that the Zaire came paddling furiously to the tiny concrete quay, and Hamilton gave a sigh of relief. For there, awaiting him, stood Lieutenant Tibbetts in the glory of his raiment – helmet sparkling white, steel hilt of sword a-glitter, khaki uniform, spotless and well-fitting.

  “Mail-boat’s just in, sir,” Bones went on with unusual fierceness. “You’re in time to meet His Excellency. Stores all laid out, books in trim, parade ground and quarters whitewashed as per your jolly old orders, sir.”

  He saluted again, his eyes bulging, his face a veritable mask of ferocity, and, turning on his heel, he led the way to the beach.

  “Here, hold hard!” said Hamilton; “what the dickens is the matter with you?”

  “Seen the error of my ways, sir,” growled Bones, again saluting punctiliously. “I’ve been an ass, sir – too lenient – given you a lot of trouble – shan’t occur again.”

  There was not time to ask any further questions.

  The two men had to run to reach the landing place in time, for the surf-boats were at that moment rolling to the yellow beach.

  Sir Robert Sanleigh, in spotless white, was carried ashore, and his staff followed.

  “Ah, Hamilton,” said the great Bob, “everything all right?”

  “Yes, your Excellency,” said Hamilton, “there have been one or two serious killing palavers on which I will report.”

  Sir Robert nodded.

  “You were bound to have a little trouble as soon as Sanders went,” he said.

  He was a methodical man and had little time for the work at hand, for the mail-boat was waiting to carry him to another station. Books, quarters, and stores were in apple-pie order, and inwardly Hamilton raised his voice in praise of the young man who strode silently and fiercely by his side, his face still distorted with a new-found fierceness.

  “The Houssas are all right, I suppose?” asked Sir Robert “Discipline good – no crime?”

  “The discipline is excellent, sir,” replied Hamilton, heartily, “and we haven’t had any serious crime for years.”

  Sir Robert Sanleigh fixed his pince-nez upon his nose and looked round the parade ground. A dozen Houssas in two ranks stood at attention in the centre.

  “Where are the rest of your men?” asked the Administrator.

  “In gaol, sir.” It was Bones who answered the question.

  Hamilton gasped.

  “In gaol – I’m sorry – but I knew nothing of this. I’ve just arrived from the interior, your Excellency.”

  They walked across to the little party.

  “Where is Sergeant Abiboo?” asked Hamilton suddenly.

  “In gaol, sir,” said Bones, promptly, “sentenced to death – scratchin’ his leg on parade after bein’ warned repeatedly by me to give up the disgusting habit.”

  “Where is Corporal Ahmet, Bones?” asked the frantic Hamilton.

  “In gaol, sir,” said Bones. “I gave him twenty years for talkin’ in the ranks an’ cheekin’ me when I told him to shut up. There’s a whole lot of them, sir,” he went on casually. “I sentenced two chaps to death for fightin’ in the lines, an’ gave another feller ten years for–”

  “I think that will do,” said Sir Robert, tactfully. “A most excellent inspection, Captain Hamilton – now, I think, I’ll get back to my ship.”

  He took Hamilton aside on the beach.

  “What did you call that young man?” he asked.

  “Bones, your Excellency,” said Hamilton miserably.

  “I should call him Blood and Bones,” smiled His Excellency, as he shook hands.

  “What’s the good of bullyin’ me, dear old chap?” asked Bones indignantly. “If I let a chap off, I’m kicked, an’ if I punish him I’m kicked – it’s enough to make a feller give up bein’ judicial–”

  “Bones, you’re a goop,” said Hamilton, in despair.

  “A goop, sir? – if you’d be kind enough to explain–?”

  “There’s an ass,” said Hamilton, ticking off one finger; “and there’s a silly ass,” he ticked off the second; “and there’s a silly ass who is such a silly ass that he doesn’t know what a silly ass he is: we call him a goop.”

  “Thank you, sir,” said Bones, without resentment, “and which is the goop, you or–”

  Hamilton dropped his hand on his revolver butt, and for a moment there was murder in his eyes.

  THE LOST N’BOSINI

  “M’ilitani there is a bad palaver in the N’bosini country,” said the gossip-chief of the Lesser Isisi, and wagged his head impressively.

  Hamilton of the Houssas rose up from his camp chair and stretched himself to his full six feet. His laughing eyes – terribly blue they looked in the mahogany setting of his lean face – quizzed the chief, and his clean-shaven lips twitched ever so slightly.

  Chief Idigi looked at him curiously. Idigi was squat and fat, but wise. None the less he gossiped, for, as they say on the river, “Even the wise oochiri is a chatterer.”

  “O, laughing Lord,” said Idigi, almost humble in his awe – for blue eyes in a brown face are a great sign of devilry, “this is no smiling palaver, for they say–”

  “Idigi,” interrupted Hamilton, “I smile when you speak of the N’bosini, because there is no such land. Even Sandi, who has wisdom greater than ju-ju, he says that there is no N’bosini, but that it is the foolish talk of men who cannot see whence come their troubles and must find a land and a people and a king out of their mad heads. Go back to your village, Idigi, telling all men that I sit here for a spell in the place of my lord Sandi, and if there be, not one king of N’bosini, but a score, and if he lead, not one army, but three and three and three, I will meet him with my soldiers and he shall go the way of the bad king.”

  Idigi, unconvinced, shaking his head, said a doubtful “Wa!” and would continue upon his agreeable subject – for he was a lover of ghosts.

  “Now,” said he, impressively, “it is said that on the night before the moon came, there was seen, on the edge of the lake-forest, ten warriors of the N’bosini, with spears of fire and arrows tipped with stars, also–”

  “Go to the devil!” said Hamilton, cheerfully. “The palaver is finished.”

  Later, he watched Idigi – so humble a man that he never travelled with more than four paddlers – winding his slow way up stream – and Hamilton was not laughing.

  He went back to his canvas chair before the Residency, and sat for half an hour, alternately pinching and rubbing his bare arms – he was in his shirt sleeves – in a reverie which was not pleasant.

  Here Lieutenant Augustus Tibbetts, returning from an afternoon’s fishing, with a couple of weird-looking fish as his sole catch, found him and would have gone on with a little salute.

  “Bones!” called Hamilton, softly.

  Bones swung round. “Sir!” he said stiffly.

  “Come off your horse, Bones,” coaxed Hamilton.

  “Not me,” replied Bones; “I’ve finished with you, dear old fellow; as an officer an’ a gentleman you’ve treated me rottenly – you have, indeed. Give me an order – I’ll obey it. Tell me to lead a forlorn hope or go to bed at ten – I’ll carry out instructions accordin’ to military law, but outside of duty you’re a jolly old rotter. I’m hurt, Ham, doocidly hurt. I think–”

  “Oh shut up and sit down!” interrupted his chief, irritably. “You jaw and jaw till my head aches.”

  Reluctantly Lieutenant Tibbetts walked back, depositing his catch with the greatest care on the ground.

  “What on earth have you got there?” asked Hamilton, curiously.

  “I don’t know whether it’s cod or turbot,” said the cautious Bones, �
��but I’ll have ’em cooked and find out.”

  Hamilton grinned. “To be exact, they’re catfish, and poisonous,” he said, and whistled his orderly. “Oh, Ahmet,” he said in Arabic, “take these fish and throw them away.”

  Bones fixed his monocle, and his eyes followed his catch till they were out of sight.

  “Of course, sir,” he said with resignation, “if you like to commandeer my fish it’s not for me to question you.”

  “I’m a little worried, Bones,” began Hamilton.

  “A conscience sir,” said Bones, smugly, “is a pretty rotten thing for a feller to have. I remember years ago–”

  “There’s a little unrest up there” – Hamilton waved his hand towards the dark green forest, sombre in the shadows of the evening – “a palaver I don’t quite get the hang of. If I could only trust you, Bones!”

  Lieutenant Tibbetts rose. He readjusted his monocle and stiffened himself to attention – a heroic pose which invariably accompanied his protests. But Hamilton gave him no opportunity.

  “Anyway, I have to trust you, Bones,” he said, “whether I like it or not. You get ready to clear out. Take twenty men and patrol the river between the Isisi and the Akasava.”

  In as few words as possible he explained the legend of the N’bosini. “Of course, there is no such place,” he said; “it is a mythical land like the lost Atlantis – the home of the mysterious and marvellous tribes, populated by giants and filled with all the beautiful products of the world.”

  “I know, sir,” said Bones, nodding his head. “It is like one of those building estate advertisements you read in the American papers: Young-man-go-west-an’-buy Dudville Corner Blocks–”

  “You have a horrible mind,” said Hamilton. “However, get ready. I will have steam in the Zaire against your departure.”

  “There is one thing I should like to ask you about,” said Bones, standing hesitatingly first on one leg and then on the other. “I think I have told you before that I have tickets in a Continental sweepstake. I should be awfully obliged–”

  “Go away!” snarled Hamilton.

  Bones went cheerfully enough.

  He loved the life on the Zaire, the comfort of Sanders’ cabin, the electric reading-lamp and the fine sense of authority. He would stand upon the bridge for hours, with folded arms and impassive face, staring ahead as the oily waters moved slowly under the bow of the stern-wheeler. Now and again he would turn to give a fierce order to the steersman or to the patient Yoka, the squat black Krooman who knew every inch of the river, and who stood all the time, his hand upon the lever of the telegraph ready to “slow” at the first sign of a new sandbank.

  For, in parts, the river was less than two or three feet deep and the bed was constantly changing. The sounding boys, who stood on the bow of the steamer, whirling their long canes and singing the depth monotonously, would shout a warning cry, but long before their lips had framed a caution, Yoka would have pulled the telegraph over to “stop.” His eyes would have detected the tiny ripple on the waters ahead which denoted a new “bank.”

  To Bones, the river was a deep, clear stream. He had no idea as to the depth and never troubled to inquire. These short, stern orders of his that he barked to left and right from time to time, nobody took the slightest notice of, and Bones would have been considerably embarrassed if they had. Observing that the steamer was tacking from shore to shore, a proceeding which, to Bones’ orderly mind, seemed inconsistent with the dignity of the Government boat, he asked the reason.

  “Lord,” said the steersman, one Ebibi, “there are many banks hereabout, large sands, which silt up in a night, therefore we must make a passage for the puc-a-puc, by going from shore to shore.”

  “You’re a silly ass,” said Bones, “and let it go at that.”

  Yet, for all his irresponsibility, for all his wild and unknowledgeable conspectus of the land and its people, there was instilled in the heart of Lieutenant Tibbetts something of the spirit of dark romance and adventure-loving, which association with the Coast alone can bring.

  In the big house at Dorking where he had spent his childhood, the ten-acre estate, where his father had lorded (himself a one-time Commissioner), he had watered the seed of desire which heredity had irradicably sown in his bosom; a desire not to be shaped by words, or confirmed in phrase, but best described as the discovery-lust, which sends men into dark, unknown places of the world to joyously sacrifice life and health that their names might be associated with some scrap of sure fact for the better guidance of unborn generations.

  Bones was a dreamer of dreams.

  On the bridge of the Zaire he was a Nelson taking the Victory into action, a Stanley, a Columbus, a Sir Garnet Wolseley forcing the passages of the Nile.

  Small wonder that he turned from time to time to the steersman with a sharp “Put her to starboard,” or “Port your helm a little.”

  Less wonder that the wholly uncomprehending steersman went on with his work as though Bones had no separate or tangible existence.

  On the fourth evening after leaving headquarters, Bones summoned to his cabin Mahomet Ali, the sergeant in charge of his soldiers.

  “O, Mahomet,” said he, “tell me of this N’bosini of which men speak, and in which all native people believe, for my lord M’ilitani has said that there is no such place and that it is the dream of mad people.”

  “Master, that I also believe,” said Mahomet Ali; “these people of the river are barbarians, having no God and being foredoomed for all time to hell, and it is my belief that his idea of N’bosini is no more than the Paradise of the faithful, of which the barbarians have heard and converted in their wild way.”

  “Tell me, who talks of N’bosini,” said Bones, crossing his legs and leaning back in his chair, his hands behind his head; “for, remember that I am a stranger amongst you, Mahomet Ali, coming from a far land and having seen such marvels as–”

  He paused, seeking the Arabic for “gramophone” and “motor-bus,” then he went on wisely: “Such marvels as you cannot imagine.”

  “This I know of N’bosini,” said the sergeant, “that all men along this river believe in it; all save Bosambo of the Ochori, who, as is well known, believes in nothing, since he is a follower of the Prophet and the one God.”

  Mahomet Au salaamed devoutly.

  “And men say that this land lies at the back of the N’gombi country; and others that it lies near the territories of the old King; and some others who say that it is a far journey beyond the French’s territory, farther than man can walk, that its people have wings upon their shoulders and can fly, and that their eyes are so fierce that trees burn when they look upon them. This only we know, lord, we, of your soldiers, who have followed Sandi through all his high adventures, that when men talk of N’bosini, there is trouble, for they are seeking something to excuse their own wickedness.”

  All night long, as Bones turned from side to side in his hot cabin, listening to the ineffectual buzzings of the flies that sought, unsuccessfully, to reach the interior of the cabin through a fine-meshed screen, the problem of N’bosini revolved in his mind.

  Was it likely, thought Bones, cunningly, that men should invent a country, even erring men, seeking an excuse? Did not all previous experience go to the support of the theory that N’bosini had some existence? In other words that, planted in the secret heart of some forest in the territory, barred from communication with the world by swift rivers of the high tangle of forests, there was, in being, a secret tribe of which only rumours had been heard – a tribe of white men, perhaps!

  Bones had read of such things in books; he knew his Solomon’s Mines and was well acquainted with his Allan Quatermain. Who knows but that through the forest was a secret path held, perchance, by armoured warriors, which led to the mountains at the edge of the Old King’s territory, in the folds of the inaccessible hills, there might be a city of stone, peopled and governed by stern white-bearded men, and streets filled with beautiful maidens garbed
in the style of ancient Greece!

  “It is all dam’ nonsense of course,” said Bones to himself, though feebly; “but, after all there may be something in this. There’s no smoke without fire.”

  The idea took hold of him and gripped him most powerfully. He took Sanders’ priceless maps and carefully triangulated them, consulting every other written authority on the ship. He stopped at villages and held palavers on this question of N’bosini and acquired a whole mass of conflicting information.

  If you smile at Bones, you smile at the glorious spirit of enterprise which has created Empire. Out of such dreams as ran criss-cross through the mind of Lieutenant Tibbetts there have arisen nationalities undreamt of and Empires Caesar never knew.

  Now one thing is certain, that Bones, in pursuing his inquiries about N’bosini, was really doing a most useful piece of work.

  The palavers he called had a deeper significance to the men who attended them than purely geographical inquiries. Thus, the folk of the Isisi planning a little raid upon certain Akasava fishermen, who had established themselves unlawfully upon the Isisi river-line, put away their spears and folded their hands when N’bosini was mentioned, because Bones was unconsciously probing their excuse before they advanced it.

  Idigi, himself, who, in his caution, had prepared Hamilton for some slight difference of opinion between his own tribe and the N’gombi of the interior, read into the earnest inquiries of Lieutenant Tibbetts, something more than a patient spirit of research.

  All that Hamilton had set his subordinate to accomplish Bones was doing, though none was more in ignorance of the fact than himself, and, since all men owed a grudge to the Ochori, palavers, which had as their object an investigation into the origin of the N’bosini legend, invariably ended in the suggestion rather than the statement that the only authority upon this mysterious land, and the still more mysterious tribe who inhabited it, was Bosambo of the Ochori. Thus, subtly, was Bosambo saddled with all responsibility in the matter.