No further time was wasted. That night the men of twenty villages danced the dance of killing, and the great fire of the Akasava burnt redly on the sandy beach to the embarrassment of a hippo family that lived in the high grasses near by.
In the grey of the morning the Akasava chief mustered six hundred spears and three score of canoes, and he delivered his oration; “First, we will destroy the mission men, for they are white, and it is not right that they should live and Sandi be dead; then we will go against Bosambo, the chief of the Ochori. When rains came in the time of kidding, he who is a foreigner and of no human origin brought many evil persons with him and destroyed our fishing villages, and Sandi said there should be no killing. Now Sandi is dead, and, I do not doubt, in hell, and there is none to hold our pride.”
Round the bend of the river, ever so slowly, for she was breasting a strong and treacherous current, came the nose of the Zaire. It is worthy of note that the little blue flag at her stern was not at half-mast. The exact significance of this was lost on the Akasava. Gingerly the little craft felt its way to the sandy strip of beach, a plank was thrust forth, and along it came, very dapper and white, his little ebony stick with the silver knob swinging between his fingers, Mr Commissioner Sanders, very much alive, and there were two bright Maxim-guns on either side of the gangway that covered the beach.
A nation, paralysed by fear and apprehension, watched the debarquement, the chief of the Akasava being a little in advance of his painted warriors. On Sanders’ face was a look of innocent surprise. “Chief,” said he, “you do me great honour that you gather your young men to welcome me; nevertheless, I would rather see them working in their gardens.” He walked along one row of fighting men, plentifully besmeared with camwood, and his was the leisurely step of some great personage inspecting a guard of honour.
“I perceive,” he went on, talking over his shoulder to the chief who, fascinated by the unexpected vision, followed him, “I perceive that each man has a killing spear, also a fighting shield of wicker work, and many have N’Gombi swords.”
“Lord, it is true,” said the chief, recovering his wits, “for we go hunting elephant in the Great Forest.”
“Also that some have the little bones of men fastened about their necks — that is not for the elephant,” he said this meditatively, musingly, as he continued his inspection, and the chief was frankly embarrassed.
“There is a rumour,” he stammered, “it is said — there came a spy who told us — that the Ochori were gathering for war, and we were afraid—”
“Strange,” said Sanders, half to himself, but speaking in the vernacular, “strange indeed is this story, for I have come straight from the Ochori city, and there I saw nothing but men who ground corn and hunted peacefully; also their chief is ill, suffering from a fever.” He shook his head in well-simulated bewilderment.
“Lord,” said the poor chief of the Akasava, “perhaps men have told us lies — such things have happened—”
“That is true,” said Sanders gravely. “This is a country of lies: some say that I am dead; and, lo! the news has gone around that there is no law in the land, and men may kill and war at their good pleasure.”
“Though I die at this minute,” said the chief virtuously, “though the river turn to fire and consume my inmost stomach, though every tree become a tiger to devour me, I have not dreamt of war.”
Sanders grinned internally.
“Spare your breath,” he said gently, “you who go hunting elephants, for it is a long journey to the Great Forest, and there are many swamps to be crossed, many rivers to be swum. My heart is glad that I have come in time to bid you farewell.” There was a most impressive silence, for this killing of elephants was a stray excuse of the chief’s. The Great Forest is a journey of two months, one to get there and one to return, and is moreover through the most cursed country, and the Akasava are not a people that love long journeys save with the current of the river.
The silence was broken by the chief.
“Lord, we desire to put off our journey in your honour, for if we go, how shall we gather in palaver?”
Sanders shook his head. “Let no man stop the hunter,” quoth he. “Go in peace, chief, and you shall secure many teeth.” [Tusks — EW] He saw a sudden light come to the chief’s eyes, but continued, “I will send with you a sergeant of Houssas, that he may carry back to me the story of your prowess” — the light died away again— “for there will be many liars who will say that you never reached the Great Forest, and I shall have evidence to confound them.” Still the chief hesitated, and the waiting ranks listened, eagerly shuffling forward, till they ceased to bear any semblance to an ordered army, and were as a mob.
“Lord,” said the chief, “we will go tomorrow—”
The smile was still on Sanders’ lips, but his face was set, and his eyes held a steely glitter that the chief of the Akasava knew. “You go today, my man,” said Sanders, lowering his voice till he spoke in little more than a whisper, “else your warriors march under a new chief, and you swing on a tree.”
“Lord, we go,” said the man huskily, “though we are bad marchers and our feet are very tender.”
Sanders, remembering the weariness of the Akasava, found his face twitching. “With sore feet you may rest,” he said significantly, “with sore backs you can neither march nor rest — go!” At dawn the next morning the N’Gombi people came in twentyfive war canoes to join their Akasava friends, and found the village tenanted by women and old men, and Tigili, the king, in the shock of the discovery, surrendered quietly to the little party of Houssas on the beach.
“What comes to me, lord?” asked Tigili, the king. Sanders whistled thoughtfully.
“I have some instructions about you somewhere,” he said.
IX. The Wood of Devils
Four days out of M’Sakidanga, if native report be true, there is a trickling stream that meanders down from N’Gombi country. Native report says that this is navigable even in the dry season.
The missionaries at Bonginda ridicule this report; and Arburt, the young chief of the station, with a gentle laugh in his blue eyes, listened one day to the report of Elebi about a fabulous land at the end of this river, and was kindly incredulous.
“If it be that ivory is stored in this place,” he said in the vernacular, “or great wealth lies for the lifting, go to Sandi, for this ivory belongs to the Government. But do you, Elebi, fix your heart more upon God’s treasures in heaven, and your thoughts upon your unworthiness to merit a place in His kingdom, and let the ivory go.” Elebi was known to Sanders as a native evangelist of the tornado type, a thunderous, voluble sub-minister of the service; he had, in his ecstatic moments, made many converts. But there were days of reaction, when Elebi sulked in his mud hut, and reviewed Christianity calmly.
It was a service, this new religion. You could not work yourself to a frenzy in it, and then have done with the thing for a week. You must needs go on, on, never tiring, never departing from the straight path, exercising irksome self-restraint, leaving undone that which you would rather do.
“Religion is prison,” grumbled Elebi, after his interview, and shrugged his broad, black shoulders.
In his hut he was in the habit of discarding his European coat for the loin cloth and the blanket, for Elebi was a savage — an imitative savage — but still barbarian.
Once, preaching on the River of Devils, he had worked himself up to such a pitch of enthusiastic fervour that he had smitten a scoffer, breaking his arm, and an outraged Sanders had him arrested, whipped, and fined a thousand rods. Hereafter Elebi had figured in certain English missionary circles as a Christian martyr,