Wallace Edgar
Bosambo of the River

In his eagerness Siskolo stepped out of the canoe before it was grounded, and waded ashore to greet his brother.

"You are indeed my brother – my own brother Bosambo," he said, and embraced him tenderly. "This is a glorious day to me."

"To me," said Bosambo, "the sun shines twice as bright and the little birds sing very loudly, and I feel so glad, that I could dance. Now tell me, Siskolo," he went on, striking a more practical note, "why did you come all this way to see me? For I am a poor man, and have nothing to give you."

"Bosambo," said Siskolo reproachfully, "I bring you presents of great value. I do not desire so much as a dollar. All I wish is to see your beautiful face and to hear your wise words which men speak about from one end of the country to the other."

Siskolo took Bosambo's hands again.

There was a brief halt whilst Siskolo removed the soaked trousers – "for," he explained, "these cost me three dollars."

Thus they went into the city of the Ochori – arm in arm, in the white man's fashion – and all the city gazed spellbound at the spectacle of a tall, slim man in a frock coat and top hat with a wisp of white shirt fluttering about his legs walking in an attitude of such affectionate regard with Bosambo their chief.

Bosambo placed at the disposal of his brother his finest hut. For his amusement he brought along girls of six different tribes to dance before this interested member of the Ethiopian Church. Nothing that he could devise, nothing that the unrewarded labours of his people could perform, was left undone to make the stay of his brother a happy and a memorable time.

Yet Siskolo was not happy. Despite the enjoyment he had in all the happy days which Bosambo provided of evidence of his power, of his popularity, there still remained a very important proof which Siskolo required of Bosambo's wealth.

He broached the subject one night at a feast given in his honour by the chief, and furnished, it may be remarked in parenthesis, by those who sat about and watched the disposal of their most precious goods with some resentment.

"Bosambo, my brother," said Siskolo, "though I love you, I envy you. You are a rich man, and I am a very poor man and I know that you have many beautiful treasures hidden away from view."

"Do not envy me, Siskolo," said Bosambo sadly, "for though I am a chief and beloved by Sandi, I have no wealth. Yet you, my brother, and my friend, have more dollars than the grains of the sand. Now you know I love you," Bosambo went on breathlessly, for the protest was breaking from the other's lips, "and I do these things without desire of reward. I should feel great pain in my heart if I thought you should offer me little pieces of silver. Yet, if you do so desire, knowing how humble I am before your face, I would take what you gave me not because I wish for riches at your hands, but because I am a poor man."

Siskolo's face was lengthening.

"Bosambo," he said, and there was less geniality in his tone, "I am also a poor man, having a large family and many relations who are also your relations, and I think it would be a good thing if you would offer me some fine present that I might take back to the Coast, and, calling all the people together, say 'Behold, this was given to me in a far country by Bosambo, my brother, who is a great chief and very rich.'"

Bosambo's face showed no signs of enthusiasm.

"That is true," he said softly, "it would be a beautiful thing to do, and I am sick in my heart that I cannot do this because I am so poor."

This was a type of the conversation which occupied the attention of the two brothers whenever the round of entertainments allowed talking space.

Bosambo was a weary man at the end of ten days, and cast forth hints which any but Bosambo's brother would have taken.

It was:

"Brother," he said, "I had a dream last night that your family were sick and that your business was ruined. Now I think that if you go swiftly to your home – "

Or:

"Brother, I am filled with sorrow, for the season approaches in our land when all strangers suffer from boils."

But Siskolo countered with neatness and resolution, for was he not Bosambo's brother?

The chief was filled with gloom and foreboding. As the weeks passed and his brother showed no signs of departing, Bosambo took his swiftest canoe and ten paddlers and made his way to the I'kan where Sanders was collecting taxes.

"Master," said Bosambo, squatting on the deck before the weary Commissioner, "I have a tale to tell you."

"Let it be such a tale," said Sanders, "as may be told between the settling of a mosquito and the sting of her."

"Lord, this is a short tale," said Bosambo sadly, "but it is a very bad tale – for me."

And he told the story of the unwelcome brother.

"Lord," he went on, "I have done all that a man can do, for I have given him food that was not quite good; and one night my young men played a game, pretending, in their love of me, that they were certain fierce men of the Isisi, though your lordship knows that they are not fierce, but – "

"Get on! Get on!" snarled Sanders, for the day had been hot, and the tax-payers more than a little trying.

"Now I come to you, my master and lord," said Bosambo, "knowing that you are very wise and cunning, and also that you have the powers of gods. Send my brother away from me, for I love him so much that I fear I will do him an injury."

Sanders was a man who counted nothing too small for his consideration – always excepting the quarrels of women. For he had seen the beginnings of wars in pin-point differences, and had watched an expedition of eight thousand men march into the bush to settle a palaver concerning a cooking-pot.

He thought deeply for a while, then:

"Two moons ago," he said, "there came to me a hunting man of the Akasava, who told me that in the forest of the Ochori, on the very border of the Isisi, was a place where five trees grew in the form of a crescent – "

"Praise be to God and to His prophet Mohammed," said the pious Bosambo, and crossed himself with some inconsequence.

"In the form of a crescent," Sanders went on, "and beneath the centre tree, so said this young man of the Akasava, is a great store of dead ivory" (i. e., old ivory which has been buried or stored).

He stopped and Bosambo looked at him.

"Such stories are often told," he said.

"Let it be told again," said Sanders significantly.

Intelligence dawned on Bosambo's eyes.

Two days later he was again in his own city, and at night he called his brother to a secret palaver.

"Brother," he said, "for many days have I thought about you and how I might serve you best. As you know, I am a poor man."

"'A king is a poor man and a beggar is poorer,'" quoted Siskolo, insolently incredulous.

Bosambo drew a long breath.

"Now I will tell you something," he said, lowering his voice. "Against my old age and the treachery of a disloyal people I have stored great stores of ivory. I have taken this ivory from my people. I have won it in bloody battles. I have hunted many elephants. Siskolo, my brother," he went on, speaking under stress of emotion, "all this I give you because I love you and my beautiful relations. Go now in peace, but do not return, for when my people learn that you are seeking the treasures of the nation they will not forgive you and, though I am their chief, I cannot hold them."

All through the night they sat, Bosambo mournful but informative, Siskolo a-quiver with excitement.

At dawn the brother left by water for the border-line of the Isisi, where five trees grew in the form of a crescent.

* * * * *

"Lord," said Bosambo, a bitter and an injured man, "I have been a Christian, a worshipper of devils, a fetish man, and now I am of the true faith – though as to whether it is true I have reason to doubt." He stood before Sanders at headquarters.

Away down by the little quay on the river his sweating paddlers were lying exhausted, for Bosambo had come by the river day and night.

Sanders did not speak. There was a twinkle in his eye, and a smile hovered at the corners of his mouth.

"And it seems to me," said Bosambo tragically, "that none of the gods loves me."

"That is your palaver," said Sanders, "and remember your brother loves you more than ever."

"Master," said Bosambo, throwing out his arms in despair, "did I know that beneath the middle tree of five was buried ten tusks of ivory? Lord, am I mad that I should give this dog such blessed treasure? I thought – "

"I also thought it was an old man's story," said Sanders gently.

"Lord, may I look?"

Sanders nodded, and Bosambo walked to the end of the verandah and looked across the sea.

There was a smudge of smoke on the horizon. It was the smoke of the departing mail-boat which carried Siskolo and his wonderful ivory back to Monrovia.

Bosambo raised a solemn fist and cursed the disappearing vessel.

"O brother!" he wailed. "O devil! O snake! Nigger! Nigger! Dam' nigger!"

Bosambo wept.

CHAPTER VIII
THE CHAIR OF THE N'GOMBI

The N'gombi people prized a certain chair beyond all other treasures.

For it was made of ivory and native silver, in which the N'gombi are clever workers.

Upon this chair sat kings, great warriors, and chiefs of people; also favoured guests of the land.

Bosambo of the Ochori went to a friendly palaver with the king of the N'gombi, and sat upon the chair and admired it.

After he had gone away, four men came to the village by night and carried off the treasure, and though the King of N'gombi and his councillors searched the land from one end to the other the chair was never found.

It might never have been found but for a Mr. Wooling, a trader and man of parts.

He was known from one end of the coast to the other as a wonderful seller of things, and was by all accounts rich.

One day he decided to conquer new worlds and came into Sanders's territory with complete faith in his mission, a cargo of junk, and an intense curiosity.

Hitherto, his trading had been confined to the most civilized stretches of the country – to places where the educated aboriginal studied the rates of exchange and sold their crops forward.

He had long desired to tread a country where heathenism reigned and where white men were regarded as gods and were allowed to swindle on magnificent scale.

Wooling had many shocks, not the least of which was the discovery that gin, even when it was German gin in square bottles, gaudily labelled and enclosed in straw packets, was not regarded as a marketable commodity by Sanders.

"You can take anything you like," said Sanders, waving his fly-whisk lazily, "but the bar is up against alcohol and firearms, both of which, in the hands of an enthusiastic and experimental people, are peculiarly deadly."

"But, Mr. Sanders!" protested the woolgatherer, with the confident little smile which represented seventy-five per cent. of his stock-in-trade. "I am not one of these new chums straight out from home! Damn it! I know the people, I speak all their lingo, from Coast talk to Swaheli."

"You don't speak gin to them, anyway," said Sanders; "and the palaver may be regarded as finished."

And all the persuasive eloquence of Mr. Wooling did not shift the adamantine Commissioner; and the trader left with a polite reference to the weather, and an unspoken condemnation of an officious swine of a British jack-in-office which Sanders would have given money to have heard.

Wooling went up-country and traded to the best of his ability without the alluring stock, which had been the long suit in his campaign, and if the truth be told – and there is no pressing reason why it should not – he did very well till he tied up one morning at Ochori city and interviewed a chief whose name was Bosambo.

Wooling landed at midday, and in an hour he had arrayed his beautiful stores on the beach.

They included Manchester cotton goods from Belgium, genuine Indian junk from Birmingham, salt which contained a sensible proportion of good river sand, and similar attractive bargains.

His visit to the chief was something of an event. He found Bosambo sitting before his tent in a robe of leopard skins.

"Chief," he said in the flowery manner of his kind, "I have come many weary days through the forest and against the current of the river, that I may see the greatness of all kings, and I bring you a present from the King of England, who is my personal friend and is distantly related to me."

And with some ceremony he handed to his host a small ikon representing a yellow St. Sebastian perforated with purple arrows – such as may be purchased from any manufacturer on the Baltic for three cents wholesale.

Bosambo received the gift gravely.

"Lord," he said, "I will put this with other presents which the King has sent me, some of which are of great value, such as a fine bedstead of gold, a clock of silver, and a crown so full of diamonds that no man has ever counted them."

He said this easily; and the staggered Mr. Wooling caught his breath.

"As to this beautiful present," said Bosambo, handling the ikon carelessly, and apparently repenting of his decision to add it to his collection, "behold, to show how much I love you – as I love all white lords – I give it to you, but since it is a bad palaver that a present should be returned, you shall give me ten silver dollars: in this way none of us shall meet with misfortune."

"Chief," said Mr. Wooling, recovering himself with a great effort, "that is a very beautiful present, and the King will be angry when he hears that you have returned it, for there is a saying, 'Give nothing which has been given,' and that is the picture of a very holy man."

Bosambo looked at the ikon.

"It is a very holy man," he agreed, "for I see that it is a picture of the blessed Judas – therefore you shall have this by my head and by my soul."

In the end Mr. Wooling compromised reluctantly on a five-dollar basis, throwing in the ikon as a sort of ecclesiastical makeweight.

More than this, Bosambo bought exactly ten dollars' worth of merchandise, including a length of chiffon, and paid for them with money. Mr. Wooling went away comforted.

It was many days before he discovered amongst his cash ten separate and distinct dollar pieces that were unmistakably bad and of the type which unscrupulous Coast houses sell at a dollar a dozen to the traders who deal with the unsophisticated heathen.

Wooling got back to the Coast with a profit which was fairly elusive unless it was possible to include experience on the credit side of the ledger. Six months later, he made another trip into the interior, carrying a special line of talking-machines, which were chiefly remarkable for the fact that the sample machine which he exhibited was a more effective instrument than the one he sold. Here again he found himself in Ochori city. He had, in his big trading canoe, one phonograph and twenty-four things that looked like phonographs, and were in point of fact phonographs with this difference, that they had no workable interiors, and phonographs without mechanism are a drug upon the African market.

Nevertheless, Bosambo purchased one at the ridiculously low price offered, and the chief viewed with a pained and reproachful mien the exhaustive tests which Mr. Wooling applied to the purchase money.

"Lord," said Bosambo, gently, "this money is good money, for it was sent to me by my half-brother Sandi."

"Blow your half-brother Sandi," said Wooling, in energetic English, and to his amazement the chief replied in the same language:

"You make um swear – you lib for hell one time – you say damn words you not fit for make angel."

Wooling, arriving at the next city – which was N'gombi – was certainly no angel, for he had discovered that in some mysterious fashion he had sold Bosambo the genuine phonograph, and had none wherewith to beguile his new client.

He made a forced journey back to Ochori city and discovered Bosambo entertaining a large audience with a throaty presentment of the "Holy City."

As the enraged trader stamped his way through the long, straggling street, there floated to him on the evening breeze the voice of the far-away tenor:

 
Jer-u-salem! Jer-u-salem!
Sing for the night is o'er!
 

"Chief!" said Mr. Wooling hotly, "this is a bad palaver, for you have taken my best devil box, which I did not sell you."

 
Last night I lay a sleeping,
There came a dream so fair.
 

sang the phonograph soulfully.

"Lord," said Bosambo, "this devil box I bought – paying you with dollars which your lordship ate fearing they were evil dollars."

"By your head, you thief!" swore Wooling. "I sold you this." And he produced from under his arm the excellent substitute.

"Lord," said Bosambo, humbly enough, "I am sorry."

He switched off the phonograph. He dismounted the tin horn with reluctant fingers; with his own hands he wrapped it in a piece of the native matting and handed it to the trader, and Wooling, who had expected trouble, "dashed" his courteous host a whole dollar.

"Thus I reward those who are honest," he said magnificently.

"Master," said Bosambo, "that we may remember one another kindly, you shall keep one half of this and I the other."

And with no effort he broke the coin in half, for it was made of metal considerably inferior to silver.

Wooling was a man not easily abashed, yet it is on record that in his agitation he handed over a genuine dollar and was half way back to Akasava city before he realised his folly. Then he laughed to himself, for the phonograph was worth all the trouble, and the money.

That night he assembled the Akasava to hear the "Holy City" – only to discover that he had again brought away from Ochori city the unsatisfactory instrument he had taken.

In the city of the Ochori all the night a wheezy voice acclaimed Jerusalem to the admiration and awe of the Ochori people.

"It is partly your own fault," said Sanders, when the trader complained. "Bosambo was educated in a civilised community, and naturally has a way with his fingers which less gifted people do not possess."

"Mr. Sanders," said the woolgatherer earnestly, "I've traded this coast, man and boy, for sixteen years, and there never was and there never will be," he spoke with painful emphasis, "an eternally condemned native nigger in this inevitably-doomed-by-Providence world who can get the better of Bill Wooling."

All this he said, employing in his pardonable exasperation, certain lurid similes which need not be reproduced.

"I don't like your language," said Sanders, "but I admire your determination."

Such was the determination of Mr. Wooling, in fact, that a month later he returned with a third cargo, this time a particularly fascinating one, for it consisted in the main of golden chains of surprising thickness which were studded at intervals with very rare and precious pieces of coloured glass.

"And this time," he said to the unmoved Commissioner, who for want of something better to do, had come down to the landing-stage to see the trader depart, "this time this Bosambo is going to get it abaft the collar."

"Keep away from the N'gombi people," said Sanders, "they are fidgety – that territory is barred to you."

Mr. Wooling made a resentful noise, for he had laid down an itinerary through the N'gombi country, which is very rich in gum and rubber.

He made a pleasant way through the territories, for he was a glib man and had a ready explanation for those who complained bitterly about the failing properties of their previous purchases.

He went straight to the Ochori district. There lay the challenge to his astuteness and especial gifts. He so far forgot the decencies of his calling as to come straight to the point.

"Bosambo," he said, "I have brought you very rare and wonderful things. Now I swear to you by," he produced a bunch of variegated deities and holy things with characteristic glibness, "that these chains," he spread one of particular beauty for the other's admiration, "are more to me than my very life. Yet for one tusk of ivory this chain shall be yours."

"Lord," said Bosambo, handling the jewel reverently, "what virtue has this chain?"

"It is a great killer of enemies," said Wooling enthusiastically; "it protects from danger and gives courage to the wearer; it is worth two teeth, but because I love you and because Sandi loves you I will give you this for one."

Bosambo pondered.

"I cannot give you teeth," he said, "yet I will give you a stool of ivory which is very wonderful."

And he produced the marvel from a secret place in his hut.

It was indeed a lovely thing and worth many chains.

"This," said Bosambo, with much friendliness, "you will sell to the N'gombi, who are lovers of such things, and they will pay you well."

Wooling came to the N'gombi territory with the happy sense of having purchased fifty pounds for fourpence, and entered it, for he regarded official warnings as the expression of a poor form of humour.

He found the N'gombi (as he expected) in a mild and benevolent mood. They purchased by public subscription one of his beautiful chains to adorn the neck of their chief, and they fêted him, and brought dancing women from the villages about, to do him honour.

They expressed their love and admiration for Sandi volubly, until, discovering that their enthusiasm awoke no responsive thrill in the heart or the voice of their hearer, they tactfully volunteered the opinion that Sandi was a cruel and oppressive master.

Whereupon Wooling cursed them fluently, calling them eaters of fish and friends of dogs; for it is against the severe and inborn creed of the Coast to allow a nigger to speak disrespectfully of a white man – even though he is a Government officer.

"Now listen all people," said Wooling; "I have a great and beautiful object to sell you – "

* * * * *

Over the tree-tops there rolled a thick yellow cloud which twisted and twirled into fantastic shapes.

Sanders walked to the bow of the Zaire to examine the steel hawser. His light-hearted crew had a trick of "tying-up" to the first dead and rotten stump which presented itself to their eyes.

For once they had found a firm anchorage. The hawser was clamped about the trunk of a strong young copal which grew near the water's edge. An inspection of the stern hawser was as satisfactory.

"Let her rip," said Sanders, and the elements answered instanter.

A jagged blue streak of flame leapt from the yellow skies, a deafening crack-crash of thunder broke overhead, and suddenly a great wind smote the little steamer at her shelter, and set the tops of the trees bowing with grave unanimity.

Sanders reached his cabin, slid back the door, and pulled it back to its place after him.

In the stuffy calm of his cabin he surveyed the storm through his window, for his cabin was on the top deck and he could command as extensive a view of the scene as it was possible to see from the little bay.

He saw the placid waters of the big river lashed to waves; saw tree after tree sway and snap as M'shimba M'shamba stalked terribly through the forest; heard the high piercing howl of the tempest punctuated by the ripping crack of the thunder, and was glad in the manner of the Philistine that he was not where other men were.

Night came with alarming swiftness.

Half an hour before, at the first sign of the cyclone, he had steered for the first likely mooring. In the last rays of a blood-red sun he had brought his boat to land.

Now it was pitch dark – almost as he stood watching the mad passion of the storm it faded first into grey, then into inky blue – then night obliterated the view.

He groped for the switch and turned it, and the cabin was filled with soft light. There was a small telephone connecting the cabin with the Houssa guard, and he pressed the button and called the attention of Sergeant Abiboo to his need.

"Get men to watch the hawsers," he instructed, and a guttural response answered him.

Sanders was on the upper reaches of the Tesai, in terra incognita. The tribes around were frankly hostile, but they would not venture about on a night like this.

Outside, the thunder cracked and rolled and the lightning flashed incessantly.

Sanders found a cheroot in a drawer and lighted it, and soon the cabin was blue with smoke, for it had been necessary to close the ventilator. Dinner was impossible under the conditions. The galley fire would be out. The rain which was now beating fiercely on the cabin windows would have long since extinguished the range.

Sanders walked to the window and peered out. He switched off the light, the better to observe the condition outside. The wind still howled, the lightning flickered over the tree-tops, and above the sound of wind and rushing water came the sulky grumble of thunder.

But the clouds had broken, and fitful beams of moonlight showed on the white-crested waves. Suddenly Sanders stepped to the door and slid it open.

He sprang out upon the deck.

The waning forces of the hurricane caught him and flung him back against the cabin, but he grasped a convenient rail and pulled himself to the side of the boat.

Out in mid-stream he had seen a canoe and had caught a glimpse of a white face.

"Noka! Abiboo!" he roared. But the wind drowned his voice. His hand went to his hip – a revolver cracked, men came along the deck, hand over hand, grasping the rails.

In dumb show he indicated the boat.

A line was flung, and out of the swift control current of the stream they drew all that was left of Mr. Wooling.

He gained enough breath to whisper a word – it was a word that set the Zaire humming with life. There was steam in the boiler – Sanders would not draw fires in a storm which might snap the moorings and leave the boat at the mercy of the elements.

"… they chased me down river … I shot a few … but they came on … then the storm struck us … they're not far away."

Wrapped in a big overcoat and shivering in spite of the closeness of the night, he sat by Sanders, as he steered away into the seething waters of the river.

"What's the trouble?"

The wind blew his words to shreds, but the huddled figure crouching at his side heard him and answered.

"What's that?" asked Sanders, bending his head.

Wooling shouted again.

Sanders shook his head.

The two words he caught were "chair" and "Bosambo."

They explained nothing to Sanders at the moment.