the caravan was being got ready, in smoking long cigars and cursing the climate.
A few days before the expedition marched he took the leader aside.
“Now, Sutton,” he said, “this affair has cost me a lot of money, and I don’t want to lose it through any folly of yours — I am a straight-speaking man, so don’t lose your temper. If you locate this mine, you’re to bring back samples, but most of all are you to take the exact bearings of the place. Exactly where the River is, I don’t know. You’ve got the pencil plan that the Portuguese gave us—”
The other man interrupted him with a nervous little laugh.
“It is not in Portuguese territory, of course,” he said.
“For Heaven sake, Sutton,” implored the big man in a tone of exasperation, “get that Portuguese maggot out o’ your brain — I’ve told you twenty times there is no question of Portuguese territory. The River runs through British soil—”
“Only, you know, that the Colonial Office—”
“I know all about the Colonial Office,” interrupted the man roughly, “it’s forbidden, I know, and it’s a bad place to get to, anyhow — here “ — he drew from his pocket a flat round case, and opened it—” use this compass the moment you strike the first range of hills — have you got any other compasses?”
“I have got two,” said the other wonderingly.
“Let me have ‘em.”
“But—”
“Get ‘em, my dear chap,” said the stout man testily; and the leader, with a good-humoured shrug of his shoulders, left him, to return in a few minutes with the two instruments. He took in exchange the one the man held and opened it.
It was a beautiful instrument. There was no needle, the whole dial revolving as he turned it about. Something he saw surprised him, for he frowned.
“That’s curious,” he said wonderingly; “are you sure this compass is true? The north should lie exactly over that flagstaff on the Commissioner’s house — I tested it yesterday from this very—”
“Stuff!” interrupted the other loudly. “Rubbish; this compass has been verified; do you think I want to lead you astray — after the money I’ve sunk—”
On the morning before the expedition left, when the carriers were shouldering their loads, there came a brownfaced little man with a big white helmet over the back of his head and a fly whisk in his hand.
“Sanders, Commissioner,” he introduced himself laconically,” I’ve just come down from the interior; sorry I did not arrive before: you are going into the bush?”
“Yes.”
“Diamonds, I understand?”
Sutton nodded.
“You’ll find a devil of a lot of primitive opposition to your march. The Alebi people will fight you, and the Otaki folk will chop you, sure.” He stood thinking, and swishing his whisk from side to side.
“Avoid trouble,” he said, “I do not want war in my territories — and keep away from the Portuguese border.”
Sutton smiled.
“We shall give that precious border a wide berth — the Colonial Office has seen the route, and approves.”
The Commissioner nodded again and eyed Sutton gravely. “Good luck,” he said.
The next day the expedition marched with the dawn, and disappeared into the wood beyond the Isisi River.
A week later the stout man sailed for England.
Months passed and none returned, nor did any news come of the expedition either by messenger, or by Lokali. A year went by, and another, and still no sign came.
Beyond the seas, people stirred uneasily, cablegram and letter, and official dispatch came to the Commissioner, urging him to seek for the lost expedition of the white men who had gone to find the River of Stars. Sanders of Bofabi shook his head.
What search could be made? Elsewhere, a swift little steamer following the courses of a dozen rivers, might penetrate — the fat water-jacket of a maxim gun persuasively displayed over the bow — into regions untouched by European influence, but the Alebi country was bush. Investigation meant an armed force; an armed force meant money — the Commissioner shook his head.
Nevertheless he sent two spies secretly into the bush, cunning men, skilled in woodcraft. They were absent about three months, and returned one leading the other.
“They caught him, the wild people of the Alebi,” said the leader without emotion, “and put out his eyes: that night, when they would have burnt him, I killed his guard and carried him to the bush.”
Sanders stood before his bungalow, in the green moonlight, and looked from the speaker to the blind man, who stood uncomplainingly, patiently twiddling his fingers.
“What news of the white men?” he asked at last, and the speaker, resting on his long spear, turned to the sightless one at his side.
“What saw you, Messambi?” he asked in the vernacular.
“Bones,” croaked the blind man, “bones I saw; bones and nearly bones. They crucified the white folk in a big square before the chief’s house, and there is no man left alive so men say.”
“So I thought,” said Sanders gravely, and made his report to England.
Months passed and the rains came and the green season that follows the rains, and Sanders was busy, as a West Central African Commissioner can be busy, in a land where sleeping sickness and tribal feuds contribute steadily to the death rate.
He had been called into the bush to settle a witchdoctor palaver. He travelled sixty miles along the tangled road that leads to the Alebi country, and established his seat of justice at a small town called M’Saga. He had twenty Houssa9 with him, else he might not have gone so far with impunity. He sat in the thatched palaver house and listened to incredible stories of witchcraft, 01 spells cast, of wasting sickness that fell in consequence, of horrible rites between moonset and sunrise, and gave judgment.
The witchdoctor was an old man, but Sanders had no respect for grey hairs.
“It is evident to me that you are an evil man,” he said, “and—”
“Master!”
It was the complainant who interrupted him, a man wasted by disease and terror, who came into the circle of soldiery and stolid townspeople.
“Master, he is a bad man—”
“Be silent,” commanded Sanders.
“He practises devil spells with white men’s blood,” screamed the man, as two soldiers seized him at a gesture from the Commissioner. “He keeps a white man chained in the forest—”
“Eh?”
Sanders was alert and interested. He knew natives better than any other man; he could detect a lie — more difficult an accomplishment, he could detect the truth. Now he beckoned the victim of the witchdoctor’s enmity towards him.
“What is this talk of white men?” he asked.
The old doctor said something in a low tone, fiercely, and the informer hesitated.
“Go on,” said Sanders.
“He says—”
“Go on!”
The man was shaking from head to foot.
“There is a white man in the forest — he came from the River of Stars — the Old One found him and put him in a hut, needing his blood for charms….”
The man