as to Cuthbert’s whereabouts, nor at the mission station, nor amongst the carriers detained on suspicion. One man might have thrown light upon the situation, but Torrington was at home fulfilling the post of assistant examiner in mechanics at South Kensington (more in his element there) and filling in his spare time with lecturing on “The Migration of the Bantu Races.” So that the end of Sanders’ fourth quest was no more successful than the third, or the second, or the first, and he retraced his steps to headquarters, feeling somewhat depressed.
He took the path he had previously traversed, and came upon the Death Camp late in the afternoon. The fire still burnt, but the food he had placed had disappeared. He hailed the hut in the native tongue, but no one answered him. He waited for a little while, and then gave orders for more food to be placed on the ground.
“Poor devil!” said Sanders, and gave the order to march. He himself had taken half a dozen steps, when he stopped. At his feet something glittered in the fading light. He stooped and picked it up. It was an exploded cartridge. He examined it carefully, smelt it — it had been recently fired. Then he found another. They were Lee-Metford, and bore the mark “07,” which meant that they were less than a year old.
He was still standing with the little brass cylinders in his band, when Abiboo came to him.
“Master,” said the Houssa, “who ties monkeys to trees with ropes?”
“Is that a riddle?” asked Sanders testily, for his mind was busy on this matter of cartridges.
Abiboo for answer beckoned him.
Fifty yards from the hut was a tree, at the foot of which, whimpering and chattering and in a condition of abject terror, were two small black monkeys tethered by ropes.
They spat and grinned ferociously as Sanders approached them. He looked from the cartridges to the monkeys and back to the cartridges again, then he began searching the grass. He found two more empty shells and a rusting lancet, such as may be found in the pocket-case of any explorer.
Then he walked back to the hut before which the fire burnt, and called softly— “Mr Cuthbert!” There was no answer, and Sanders called again— “Mr Cuthbert!”
From the interior of the hut came a groan.
“Leave me alone. I have come here to die!” said a muffled voice.
“Come out and be civil,” said Sanders coolly; “you can die afterwards.” After a few moments’ delay there issued from the door of the hut the wreck of a man, with long hair and a month-old beard, who stood sulkily before the Commissioner.
“Might I ask,” said Sanders, “what your little game is?”
The other shook his head wearily. He was a pitiable sight. His clothes were in tatters; he was unwashed and grimy.
“Sleeping sickness,” he said wearily. “Felt it coming on — seen what horrible thing it was — didn’t want to be a burden. Oh, my God! What a fool I’ve been to come to this filthy country!”
“That’s very likely,” said Sanders. “But who told you that you had sleeping sickness?”
“Know it — know it,” said the listless man.
“Sit down,” said Sanders. The other obeyed, and Sanders applied the superficial tests.
“If you’ve got sleeping sickness,” said Sanders, after the examination, “I’m suffering from religious mania — man, you’re crazy!”
Yet there was something in Cuthbert’s expression that was puzzling. He was dull, heavy, and stupid. His movements were slow and lethargic. Sanders watched him as he pulled a black wooden pipe from his ragged pocket, and with painful slowness charged it from a skin pouch.”
“It’s got me, I tell you,” muttered Cuthbert, and lit the pipe with a blazing twig from the fire. “I knew it (puff) as soon as that fellow Torrington (puff) described the symptoms (puff); — felt dull and sleepy — got a couple of monkeys and injected my blood (puff) — they went drowsy, too — sure sign—”
“Where did you get that tobacco from?” demanded Sanders quickly.
Cuthbert took time to consider his answer.
“Fellow gave it me — chief fellow, Bosambo. Native tobacco, but not bad — he gave me a devil of a lot.”
“So I should say,” said Sanders, and reaching over took the pouch and put it in his pocket.
When Sanders had seen Mr Cuthbert safe on board a homeward-bound steamer, he took his twenty Houssas to the Ochori country to arrest Bosambo, and expected Bosambo would fly; but the imperturbable chief awaited his coming, and offered him the customary honours.
“I admit I gave the white man the hemp,” he said. “I myself smoke it, suffering no ill. How was I to know that it would make him sleep?”
“Why did you give it him?” demanded Sanders.
Bosambo looked the Commissioner full in the face.
“Last moon you came, lord, asking why I gave him the Isisi country and the rights of the little river, because these were not mine to give. Now you come to me saying why did I give the white man native tobacco — Lord, that was the only thing I gave him that was mine.”
V. The Special Commissioner
The Hon. George Tackle had the good fortune to be the son of his father; otherwise I am free to confess he had no claim to distinction. But his father, being the proprietor of the Courier and Echo (with which are incorporated I don’t know how many dead and gone stars of the Fleet Street firmament), George had a “pull” which no amount of competitive merit could hope to contend with, and when the stories of atrocities in the district of Lukati began to leak out and questions were asked in Parliament, George opened his expensively-bound Gazetteer, discovered that the district of Lukati was in British territory, and instantly demanded that he should be sent out to investigate these crimes, which were a blot upon our boasted civilization.
His father agreed, having altogether a false appreciation of his son’s genius, and suggested that George should go to the office and ‘get all the facts’ regarding the atrocities. George, with a goodnatured smile of amusement at the bare thought of anybody instructing him in a subject on which he was so thoroughly conversant, promised; but the Courier and Echo office did not see him, and the librarian of the newspaper, who had prepared a really valuable dossier of newspaper cuttings, pamphlets, maps, and health hints for the young man’s guidance, was dismayed to learn that the confident youth had sailed without any further instruction in the question than a man might secure from the hurried perusal of the scraps which from day to day appeared in the morning press.
As a special correspondent, I adduce, with ill-suppressed triumph, the case of the Hon. George Tackle as an awful warning to all newspaper proprietors who allow their parental affections to overcome their good judgment.
All that the Hon. George knew was that at Lukati there had been four well authenticated cases of barbarous acts of cruelty against natives, and that the Commissioner of the district was responsible for the whippings and the torture. He thought, did the Hon. George, that this was all that it was necessary to know. But this is where he made his big mistake.
Up at Lukati ail sorts of things happened, as Commissioner Sanders knows, to his cost. Once he visited the district and left it tranquil, and for Carter, his deputy, whom he left behind, the natives built a most beautiful hut, planting gardens about, all off their own bat.
One day, when Carter had just finished writing an enthusiastic report on the industry of his people, and the wholehearted way they were taking up and supporting the new regime, the chief of the village, whom Carter had facetiously named O’Leary (his born name was indeed Olari), came to