see her.” He looked round and lowered his voice. “It is said,” he whispered, “that the Great One himself has spoken of her. Perhaps he will send for her, offering this and that. In such a case,” said the chief hopefully, “I will barter and bargain, keeping him in suspense, and every day the price will rise—”
“If the Great One need her, let her go,” said Sanders, “lest instead of money presents he sends an army. I will have no war, or women palaver, which is worse than war, in my country — mark that, chief.”
“Lord, your word is my desire,” said the chief conventionally.
Sanders went back to his own people by easy stages. At Isisi he was detained for over a week over a question of witchcraft; at Belembi (in the Isisi country) he stopped three days to settle a case of murder by fetish. He was delivering judgement, and Abiboo, the Sergeant of Police, was selecting and testing his stoutest cane for the whipping which was to follow, when the chief of the Icheli came flying down the river with three canoes, and Sanders, who, from where he sat, commanded an uninterrupted view of the river, knew there was trouble — and guessed what that trouble was.
“Justice!” demanded the chief, his voice trembling with the rage and fear he had nursed, “justice against the Old One, the stealer of girls, the destroyer of cities — may death go to him. Iwa!—” The very day Sanders had left, the messenger of the great king had come, and with him a hundred warriors, demanding the dancing girl. True to his prearranged scheme, the chief began the inevitable bargaining over terms. The presents offered were too small. The girl was worth a hundred thousand rods — nay, a thousand bags of salt.
“You were mad,” said Sanders calmly; “no woman is worth a thousand bags of salt.”
“Well, that might be,” admitted the outraged father; “yet it would be folly to begin by naming a price too low. The bargaining went on through the night and all the next day, and in the end the envoy of the great king grew impatient.
“Let the woman be sent for,” he said, and obedient to the summons came Daihili, demure enough, yet with covert glances of encouragement to the unemotional ambassador, and with subtle exhibitions of her charms.
“Woman,” said the messenger, “the greatest of kings desires you, will you come?”
“Lord,” said the girl, “I wish for nothing better.” With that, the hundred armed warriors in attendance at the palaver closed round the girl.
“And so,” said Sanders, “you got nothing?”
“Lord, it is as you say,” moaned the old chief.
“It is evident,” said Sanders, “that an injustice has been done; for no man may take a woman unless he pay. I think,” he added, with a flash of that mordant humour which occasionally illuminated his judgments, “that the man pays twice, once to the father, and all his life to his wife — but that is as may be.”
Six weeks later, after consultation, Sanders sent a messenger to the great king, demanding the price of the woman.
What happened to the messenger I would rather not describe. That he was killed, is saying the least. Just before he died, when the glaze of death must have been on his eyes, and his poor wrecked body settling to the rest of oblivion, he was carried to a place before the king’s hut, and Daihili danced the Dance of the Spirits. This much is now known.
Sanders did nothing; nor did the British Government, but hurried notes were exchanged between ambassadors and ministers in Paris, and that was the end of the incident.
Two Icheli spies went up into the great king’s country. One came back saying that the dancing girl was the favourite wife of the old king, and that her whims swayed the destinies of the nation. Also he reported that because of this slim girl who danced, many men, councillors, and captains of war had died the death.
The other spy did not come back.
It may have been his discovery that induced the girl to send an army against the Icheli, thinking perchance that her people were spying upon her.
One day the city of Icheli was surrounded by the soldiers of the great king, and neither man, women nor child escaped.
The news of the massacre did not come to Sanders for a long time. The reason was simple; there was none to carry the message, for the Icheli are isolated folk.
One day, however, an Isisi hunting party, searching for elephants, came upon a place where there was a smell of burning and many skeletons — and thus Sanders knew— “We cannot,” wrote Monsieur Leon Marchassa, Minister for Colonial Affairs, “accept responsibility for the misdoings of the king of the Yitingi, and my Government would regard with sympathetic interest any attempt that was made by His Majesty’s Government to pacify this country.” But the British Government did nothing, because war is an expensive matter, and Sanders grinned and cursed his employers genially.
Taking his life in his hands, he went up to the border of Yitingi, with twenty policemen, and sent a messenger — a Yitingi messenger — to the king. With the audacity which was not the least of his assets, he demanded that the king should come to him for a palaver.
This adventure nearly proved abortive at the beginning, for just as the Zaire was steaming to the borders Sanders unexpectedly came upon traces of a raiding expedition. There were unmistakable signs as to the author.
“I have a mind to turn back and punish that cursed Bosambo, Chief of the Ochori,” he said to Sergeant Abiboo, “for having sworn by a variety of gods and devils that he would keep the peace; behold he has been raiding in foreign territory.”
“He will keep, master,” said Abiboo, “besides which, he is in the neighbourhood, for his fires are still warm.” So Sanders went on, and sent his message to the king.
He kept steam in his little boat — he had chosen the only place where the river touches the Yitingi border — and waited, quite prepared to make an ignominious, if judicious, bolt.
To his astonishment, his spies brought word that the king was coming. He owed this condescension to the influence of the little dancing girl, for she, womanlike, had a memory for rebuffs, and had a score to settle with Mr Commissioner Sanders.
The great king arrived, and across the meadow-like lands that fringe the river on both sides Sanders watched the winding procession with mingled feelings. The king halted a hundred yards from the river, and his big scarlet umbrella was the centre of a black line of soldiers spreading out on either hand for three hundred yards.
Then a party detached itself and came towards the dead tree by the water side, whereon hung limply in the still air the ensign of England.
“This,” said Sanders to himself, “is where I go dead one time.” It is evidence of the seriousness of the situation, as it appealed to him, that he permitted himself to descend to Coast English.
“The king, the Great One, awaits you, white man, offering you safety in his shadow,” said the king’s messenger; and Sanders nodded. He walked leisurely toward the massed troops, and presently appeared before the old man squatting on a heap of skins and blinking like an ape in the sunlight.
“Lord king, live for ever,” said Sanders glibly, and as he raised his hand in salute he saw the girl regarding him from under knit brows.
“What is your wish, white man?” said the old king; “what rich presents do you bring, that you call me many days’ journey?”
“Lord, I bring no presents,” said Sanders boldly; “but a message from a king who is greater than you, whose soldiers outnumber the sands of the river, and whose lands extend from the east to the west, from the north to the south.”
“There is no such king,” snarled the old man. “You lie, white man, and I will cut your tongue into little strips.”
“Let him give his message, master,” said the girl.
“This is the message,” said Sanders.