Wallace Edgar
Bosambo of the River

They moved quickly down the tiny stream, which broadened as it neared the river.

Then Abdul's headman suddenly gasped.

"Look!" he whispered.

The slaver turned his head.

Behind them, paddling leisurely, came four canoes, and each was filled with armed men.

"Quickly," said Abdul, and the paddlers stroked furiously, then stopped.

Ahead was the Zaire, a trim, white steamer, alive with Houssas.

"It is God's will," said Abdul. "These things are ordained."

He said no more until he stood before Sanders, and the Commissioner was not especially communicative.

"What will you do with me?" asked Abdul.

"I will tell you when I have seen your stores," said Sanders. "If I find rifles such as the foolish Lobolo people buy, I shall hang you according to law."

The Arab looked at the shaking Arachi. The borrower's knees wobbled fearfully.

"I see," said Abdul thoughtfully, "that this man whom I made rich has betrayed me."

If he had hurried or moved jerkily Sanders would have prevented the act; but the Arab searched calmly in the fold of his bournous as though seeking a cigarette.

His hand came out, and with it a curved knife.

Then he struck quickly, and Arachi went blubbering to the deck, a dying man.

"Borrower," said the Arab, and he spoke from the centre of six Houssas who were chaining him, so that he was hidden from the sobbing figure on the floor, "I think you have borrowed that which you can at last repay. For it is written in the Sura of the Djinn that from him who takes a life, let his life be taken, that he may make full repayment."

CHAPTER II
THE TAX RESISTERS

Sanders took nothing for granted when he accounted for native peoples. These tribes of his possessed an infinite capacity for unexpectedness – therein lay at once their danger and their charm. For one could neither despair at their sin nor grow too confidently elated at their virtue, knowing that the sun which went down on the naughtiness of the one and the dovelike placidity of the other, might rise on the smouldering sacrificial fires in the streets of the blessed village, and reveal the folk of the incorrigible sitting at the doors of their huts, dust on head, hands outspread in an agony of penitence.

Yet it seemed that the people of Kiko were models of deportment, thrift, and intelligence, and that the gods had given them beautiful natures. Kiko, a district of the Lower Isisi, is separated from all other tribes and people by the Kiko on the one side, the Isisi River on the other, and on the third by clumps of forest land set at irregular intervals in the Great Marsh.

Kiko proper stretches from the marsh to the tongue of land at the confluence of the Kiko and Isisi, in the shape of an irregular triangle.

To the eastward, across the Kiko River, are the unruly N'gombi tribes; to the westward, on the farther bank of the big river, are the Akasava; and the Kiko people enjoy an immunity from sudden attack, which is due in part to its geographical position, and in part to the remorseless activities of Mr. Commissioner Sanders.

Once upon a time a king of the N'gombi called his headmen and chiefs together to a great palaver.

"It seems to me," he said, "that we are children. For our crops have failed because of the floods, and the thieving Ochori have driven the game into their own country. Now, across the river are the Kiko people, and they have reaped an oat harvest; also, there is game in plenty. Must we sit and starve whilst the Kiko swell with food?"

A fair question, though the facts were not exactly stated, for the N'gombi were lazy, and had sown late; also the game was in their forest for the searching, but, as the saying is, "The N'gombi hunts from his bed and seeks only cooked meats."

One night the N'gombi stole across the river and fell upon Kiko city, establishing themselves masters of the country.

There was a great palaver, which was attended by the chief and headman of the Kiko.

"Henceforward," said the N'gombi king – Tigilini was his name – "you are as slaves to my people, and if you are gentle and good and work in the fields you shall have one-half of all you produce, for I am a just man, and very merciful. But if you rebel, I will take you for my sport."

Lest any misunderstanding should exist, he took the first malcontent, who was a petty chief of a border village, and performed his programme.

This man had refused tribute, and was led, with roped hands, before the king, all headmen having been summoned to witness the happening.

The rebel was bound with his hands behind him, and was ordered to kneel. A young sapling was bent over, and one end of a native rope was fixed to its topmost branches, and the other about his neck. The tree was slowly released till the head of the offender was held taut.

"Now!" said the king, and his executioner struck off the head, which was flung fifty yards by the released sapling.

It fell at the feet of Mr. Commissioner Sanders, who, with twenty-five Houssas and a machine gun, had just landed from the Zaire.

Sanders was annoyed; he had travelled three days and four nights with little sleep, and he had a touch of fever, which made him irritable.

He walked into the village and interrupted an eloquent address on the obligations of the conquered, which the N'gombi thief thought it opportune to deliver.

He stopped half-way through his speech, and lost a great deal of interest in the proceedings as the crowd divided to allow of Sanders's approach.

"Lord," said Tigilini, that quick and subtle man, "you have come at a proper time, for these people were in rebellion against your lordship, and I have subdued them. Therefore, master, give me rewards as you gave to Bosambo of the Ochori."

Sanders gave nothing save a brief order, and his Houssas formed a half circle about the hut of the king – Tigilini watching the manoeuvre with some apprehension.

"If," he said graciously. "I have done anything which your lordship thinks I should not have done, or taken that which I should not have taken, I will undo and restore."

Sanders, hands on hips, regarded him dispassionately.

"There is a body." He pointed to the stained and huddled thing on the ground. "There, by the path, is a head. Now, you shall put the head to that body and restore life."

"That I cannot do," said the king nervously, "for I am no ju-ju."

Sanders spoke two words in Arabic, and Tigilini was seized.

They carried the king away, and no man ever saw his face again, and it is a legend that Tigilini, the king, is everlastingly chained to the hind leg of M'shimba M'shamba, the green devil of the Akasava. If the truth be told, Tigilini went no nearer to perdition than the convict prison at Sierra Leone, but the legend is not without its value as a deterrent to ambitious chiefs.

Sanders superintended the evacuation of the Kiko, watched the crestfallen N'gombi retire to their own lands, and set up a new king without fuss or ceremony. And the smooth life of the Kiko people ran pleasantly as before.

They tilled the ground and bred goats and caught fish. From the marsh forest, which was their backland, they gathered rubber and copal, and this they carried by canoe to the mouth of the river and sold.

So they came to be rich, and even the common people could afford three wives.

Sanders was very wise in the psychology of native wealth. He knew that people who grew rich in corn were dangerous, because corn is an irresponsible form of property, and had no ramifications to hold in check the warlike spirit of its possessors.

He knew, too, that wealth in goats, in cloth, in brass rods, and in land was a factor for peace, because possessions which cannot be eaten are ever a steadying influence in communal life.

Sanders was a wise man. He was governed by certain hard and fast rules, and though he was well aware that failure in any respect to grapple with a situation would bring him a reprimand, either because he had not acted according to the strict letter of the law, or because he "had not used his discretion" in going outside that same inflexible code, he took responsibility without fear.

It was left to his discretion as to what part of the burden of taxation individual tribes should bear, and on behalf of his government he took his full share of the Kiko surplus, adjusting his demands according to the measure of the tribe's prosperity.

Three years after the enterprising incursion of the N'gombi, he came to the Kiko country on his half-yearly visit.

In the palaver house of the city he listened to complaints, as was his custom.

He sat from dawn till eight o'clock in the morning, and after the tenth complaint he turned to the chief of the Kiko, who sat at his side.

"Chief," he said, with that air of bland innocence which would have made men used to his ways shake in their tracks, "I observe that all men say one thing to me – that they are poor. Now this is not the truth."

"I am in your hands," said the chief diplomatically; "also my people, and they will pay taxation though they starve."

Sanders saw things in a new light.

"It seems," he said, addressing the serried ranks of people who squatted about, "that there is discontent in your stomachs because I ask you for your taxes. We will have a palaver on this."

He sat down, and a grey old headman, a notorious litigant and a league-long speaker, rose up.

"Lord," he said dramatically, "justice!"

"Kwai!" cried the people in chorus.

The murmur, deep-chested and unanimous, made a low, rumbling sound like the roll of a drum.

"Justice!" said the headman. "For you, Sandi, are very cruel and harsh. You take and take and give us nothing, and the people cry out in pain."

He paused, and Sanders nodded.

"Go on," he said.

"Corn and fish, gum and rubber, we give you," said the spokesman; "and when we ask whither goes this money, you point to the puc-a-puc³ and your soldiers, and behold we are mocked. For your puc-a-puc comes only to take our taxes, and your soldiers to force us to pay."

Again the applauding murmur rolled.

"So we have had a palaver," said the headman, "and this we have said among ourselves: 'Let Sandi remit one-half our taxes; these we will bring in our canoes to the Village-by-the-Big-Water, for we are honest men, and let Sandi keep his soldiers and his puc-a-puc for the folk of the Isisi and the Akasava and the N'gombi, for these are turbulent and wicked people.'"

"Kwai!"

It was evidently a popular movement, and Sanders smiled behind his hand.

"As for us," said the headman, "we are peaceable folk, and live comfortably with all nations, and if any demand of us that we shall pay tribute, behold it will be better to give freely than to pay these taxes."

Sanders listened in silence, then he turned to the chief.

"It shall be as you wish," he said, "and I will remit one half of your taxation – the palaver is finished."

He went on board the Zaire that night and lay awake listening to the castanets of the dancing women – the Kiko made merry to celebrate the triumph of their diplomacy.

Sanders left next day for the Isisi, having no doubt in his mind that the news of his concession had preceded him. So it proved, for at Lukalili no sooner had he taken his place in the speech-house than the chief opened the proceedings.

"Lord Sandi," he began, "we are poor men, and our people cry out against taxation. Now, lord, we have thought largely on this matter, and this say the people: 'If your lordship would remit one-half our taxes we should be happy, for this puc-a-puc' – "

Sanders waved him down.

"Chiefs and people," he said, "I am patient, because I love you. But talk to me more about taxation and about puc-a-pucs, and I will find a new chief for me, and you will wish that you had never been born."

After that Sanders had no further trouble.

He came to the Ochori, and found Bosambo, wholly engrossed with his new baby, but ripe for action.

"Bosambo," said the Commissioner, after he had gingerly held the new-comer and bestowed his natal present, "I have a story to tell you."

He told his story, and Bosambo found it vastly entertaining.

Five days later, when Sanders was on his way home, Bosambo with ten picked men for paddlers, came sweeping up the river, and beached at Kiko city.

He was greeted effusively; a feast was prepared for him, the chief's best hut was swept clean.

"Lord Bosambo," said the Kiko chief, when the meal was finished, "I shall have a sore heart this night when you are gone."

"I am a kind man," said Bosambo, "so I will not go to-night, for the thought of your sorrow would keep sleep from my eyes."

"Lord," said the chief hastily, "I am not used to sorrow, and, moreover, I shall sleep heavily, and it would be shameful if I kept you from your people, who sigh like hungry men for your return."

"That is true," said Bosambo, "yet I will stay this night, because my heart is full of pleasant thoughts for you."

"If you left to-night," said the embarrassed chief, "I would give you a present of two goats."

"Goats," said Bosambo, "I do not eat, being of a certain religious faith – "

"Salt I will give you also," said the chief.

"I stay to-night," said Bosambo emphatically; "to-morrow I will consider the matter."

The next morning Bosambo went to bathe in the river, and returned to see the chief of the Kiko squatting before the door of his hut, vastly glum.

"Ho, Cetomati!" greeted Bosambo, "I have news which will gladden your heart."

A gleam of hope shone in the chief's eye.

"Does my brother go so soon?" he asked pointedly.

"Chief," said Bosambo acidly, "if that be good news to you, I go. And woe to you and your people, for I am a proud man, and my people are also proud. Likewise, they are notoriously vengeful."

The Kiko king rose in agitation.

"Lord," he said humbly, "my words are twisted, for, behold, all this night I have spent mourning in fear of losing your lordship. Now, tell me your good news that I may rejoice with you."

But Bosambo was frowning terribly, and was not appeased for some time.

"This is my news, O king!" he said. "Whilst I bathed I beheld, far away, certain Ochori canoes, and I think they bring my councillors. If this be so, I may stay with you for a long time – rejoice!"

The Kiko chief groaned.

He groaned more when the canoes arrived bringing reinforcements to Bosambo – ten lusty fighting men, terribly tall and muscular.

He groaned undisguisedly when the morrow brought another ten, and the evening some twenty more.

There are sayings on the river which are uncomplimentary to the appetites of the Ochori.

Thus: "Men eat to live fat, but the Ochori live to eat." And: "One field of corn will feed a village for a year, ten goats for a month, and an Ochori for a day."

Certainly Bosambo's followers were excellent trenchermen. They ate and they ate and they ate; from dawn till star time they alternated between the preparation of meals and their disposal. The simple folk of the Kiko stood in a wondering circle about them and watched in amazement as their good food vanished.

"I see we shall starve when the rains come," said the chief in despair.

He sent an urgent canoe to Sanders, but Sanders was without sympathy.

"Go to your master," he said to the envoy, "telling him that all these things are his palaver. If he does not desire the guests of his house, let him turn them away, for the land is his, and he is chief."

Cold comfort for Cetomati this, for the Ochori sat in the best huts, eating the best foods, finding the best places at the dance-fires.

The king called a secret palaver of his headmen.

"These miserable Ochori thieves ruin us," he said. "Are we men or dogs? Now, I tell you, my people and councillors, that to-morrow I send Bosambo and his robbers away, though I die for it!"

"Kwai!" said the councillors in unison.

"Lord," said one, "in the times of cala-calathe Kiko folk were very fierce and bloody; perchance if we rouse the people with our eloquence they are still fierce and bloody."

The king looked dubious.

"I do not think," he said, "that the Kiko people are as fierce and bloody as at one time, for we have had many fat years. What I know, O friend, is that the Ochori are very fierce indeed, and Bosambo has killed many men."

He screwed up his courage through the night, and in the morning put it to the test.

Bosambo, in his most lordly way, had ordered a big hunting, and he and his men were assembling in the village street when the king and his councillors approached.

"Lord," said the king mildly, "I have that within me which I must tell."

"Say on," said Bosambo.

"Now, I love you, Bosambo," said the chief, "and the thought that I must speed you on your way – with presents – is very sad to me."

"More sad to me," said Bosambo ominously.

"Yet lord," said the desperate chief, "I must, for my people are very fierce with me that I keep you so long within our borders. Likewise, there is much sickness, and I fear lest you and your beautiful men also become sick, and die."

"Only one man in all the world, chief," said Bosambo, speaking with deliberation, "has ever put such shame upon me – and, king, that man – where is he?"

The king of the Kiko did not say, because he did not know. He could guess – oh, very well he could guess! – and Bosambo's next words justified his guesswork.

"He is dead," said Bosambo solemnly. "I will not say how he died, lest you think I am a boastful one, or whose hand struck him down, for fear you think vainly – nor as to the manner of his dying, for that would give you sorrow!"

"Bosambo," said the agitated chief of the Kiko, "these are evil words – "

"I say no evil words," said Bosambo, "for I am, as you know, the brother-in-law of Sandi, and it would give him great grief. I say nothing, O little king!"

With a lofty wave of his hand he strode away, and, gathering his men together, he marched them to the beach.

It was in vain that the chief of the Kiko had stored food in enormous quantities and presents in each canoe, that bags of salt were evenly distributed amongst the paddlers.

Bosambo, it is true, did not throw them back upon the shore, but he openly and visibly scorned them. The king, standing first on one foot and then on the other, in his anxiety and embarrassment, strove to give the parting something of a genial character, but Bosambo was silent, forbidding, and immensely gloomy.

"Lord," said the chief, "when shall my heart again be gladdened at the sight of your pretty face?"

"Who knows?" said Bosambo mysteriously. "Who can tell when I come, or my friends! For many men love me – Isisi, N'gombi, Akasava, Bongindi, and the Bush people."

He stepped daintily into his canoe.

"I tell you," he said, wagging a solemn forefinger, "that whatever comes to you, it is no palaver of mine; whoever steals quietly upon you in the night, it will not be Bosambo – I call all men to witness this saying."

And with this he went.

There was a palaver that night, where all men spoke at once, and the Kiko king did not more than bite his nails nervously. It was certain that attack would come.

"Let us meet them boldly," said the one who had beforetime rendered such advice. "For in times of cala-cala the Kiko folk were fierce and bloody people."

Whatever they might have been once, there was no spirit of adventure abroad then, and many voices united to call the genius who had suggested defiance a fool and worse.

All night long the Kiko stood a nation in arms.

Once the hooting of a bird sent them scampering to their huts with howls of fear; once a wandering buffalo came upon a quaking picket and scattered it. Night after night the fearful Kiko kept guard, sleeping as they could by day.

They saw no enemy; the suspense was worse than the vision of armed warriors. A messenger went to Sanders about the fears and apprehensions of the people, but Sanders was callous.

"If any people attack you, I will come with my soldiers, and for every man of you who dies, I will kill one of your enemies."

"Lord," said the messenger, none other than the king's son, "if we are dead, we care little who lives or dies. Now, I ask you, master, to send your soldiers with me, for our people are tired and timid."

"Be content," said Sanders, "that I have remitted your taxation – the palaver is finished."

The messenger returned to his dismal nation – Sanders at the time was never more than a day's journey from the Kiko – and a sick and weary people sat down in despair to await the realisation of their fears.

They might have waited throughout all eternity, for Bosambo was back in his own city, and had almost forgotten them, and Isisi and the Akasava, regarding them for some reason as Sanders' urglebes, would have no more thought of attacking them than they would have considered the possibility of attacking Sanders; and as for the N'gombi, they had had their lesson.

Thus matters stood when the Lulungo people, who live three days beyond the Akasava, came down the river looking for loot and trouble.

The Lulungo people are an unlovable race; "a crabbed, bitter, and a beastly people," Sanders once described them in his wrath.

For two years the Lulungo folk had lain quiet, then, like foraging and hungry dogs, they took the river trail – six canoes daubed with mud and rushes.

They found hospitality of a kind in the fishing villages, for the peaceable souls who lived therein fled at the first news of the visitation.

They came past the Ochori warily keeping to midstream. Time was when the Ochori would have supplied them with all their requirements, but nowadays these men of Bosambo's snapped viciously.

"None the less," said Gomora, titular chief of the Lulungo, to his headmen, "since we be so strong the Ochori will not oppose us – let two canoes paddle to land."

The long boats were detached from the fleet and headed for the beach. A shower of arrows fell short of them, and they turned back.

The Isisi country they passed, the Akasava they gave the widest of berths to, for the Lulungo folk are rather cruel than brave, better assassins than fighting men, more willing to kill coldly than in hot blood. They went lurching down the river, seizing such loot as the unprotected villages gave them.

It was a profitless expedition.

"Now we will go to Kiko," said Gomora; "for these people are very rich, and, moreover, they are fearful. Speak to my people, and say that there shall be no killing, for that devil Sandi hates us, and he will incite the tribes against us, as he did in the days of my father."

They waited till night had fallen, and then, under the shadow of the river bank, they moved silently upon their prey.

"We will frighten them," confided Gomora; "and they will give us what we ask; then we will make them swear by Iwa that they will not speak to Sandi – it will be simple."

The Lulungo knew the Kiko folk too well, and they landed at a convenient place, making their way through the strip of forest without the display of caution which such a manoeuvre would have necessitated had it been employed against a more warlike nation.

* * * * *

Sanders, hurrying down stream, his guns swung out and shotted for action, his armed Houssas sitting in the bow of the steamer, met two canoes, unmistakably Lulungo.

He circled and captured them. In one was Gomora, a little weak from loss of blood, but more bewildered.

"Lord," he said bitterly, "all this world is changed since you have come; once the Ochori were meat for me and my people, being very timorous. Then by certain magic they became fierce fighters. And now, lord, the Kiko folk, who, up and down the river, are known for their gentleness, have become like devils."

Sanders waited, and the chief went on:

"Last night we came to the Kiko, desiring to rest with them, and in the dark of the forest they fell upon us, with great screaming; and, behold! of ten canoes these men are all I have left, for the Kiko were waiting for our coming."

He looked earnestly at Sanders.

"Tell me, lord," he said, "what magic do white men use to make warriors from cowards?"

"That is not for your knowing," said Sanders diplomatically; "yet you should put this amongst the sayings of your people, 'Every rat fights in his hole, and fear is more fierce than hate.'"

He went on to Kiko city, arriving in time to check an expedition, for the Kiko, filled with arrogance at their own powers, were assembling an army to attack the Ochori.

"Often have I told," said the chief, trembling with pride, "that the Kiko were terrible and bloody – now, lord, behold! In the night we slew our oppressors, for the spirit of our fathers returned to us, and our enemies could not check us."

"Excellent!" said Sanders in the vernacular. "Now I see an end to all taxation palaver, for, truly, you do not desire my soldiers nor the puc-a-puc. Yet, lest the Lulungo folk return – for they are as many as the sands of the river – I will send fighting men to help you."

"Lord you are as our father and mother," said the gratified chief.

"Therefore I will prevail upon Bosambo, whose heart is now sore against you, to come with his fighting tribes to sit awhile at your city."

The chief's face worked convulsively: he was as one swallowing a noxious draught.

"Lord," he said, speaking under stress of emotion, "we are a poor people, yet we may pay your lordship full taxes, for in the end I think it would be cheaper than Bosambo and his hungry devils."

"So I think!" said Sanders.