syringe and filled the little tube with a solution of strychnine. This he jabbed unceremoniously into the patient’s back. In a minute the corpse sat up, jerkily.
“Ha!” said Sanders, cheerfully, “I am evidently a great magician!” He rose to his feet, dusted his knees, and beckoned the sergeant.
“Take four men and return to the place where you left Tembeli. If the leopards have not taken him, you will meet him on the road, because by this time he will have waked up.” He saw the party march off, then turned his attention to M’Lino.
“My woman,” he said, “it is evident to me that you are a witch, although I have met your like before” — it was observed that the face of Sanders was very white. “I cannot flog you, because you are a woman, but I can kill you.”
She laughed. Their eyes met in a struggle for mastery, and so they stared at one another for a space of time which seemed to Sanders a thousand years, but which was in all probability less than a minute.
“It would be better if you killed yourself,” she said.
“I think so,” said Sanders dully, and fumbled for his revolver.
It was half drawn, his thumb on the hammer, when a rifle banged in the bushes and the woman fell forward without a word. Ahmid, the Houssa, was ever a bad shot.
“I believe,” said Sanders, later, “that you took your rifle to kill me, being under the influence of M’Lino, so I will make no bad report against you.”
“Master,” said the Houssa simply, “I know nothing of the matter.”
“That I can well believe,” ‘said Sanders, and gave the order to march.
XI. The Witchdoctor
Nothing surprised Sanders except the ignorance of the average stay-at-home Briton on all matters pertaining to the savage peoples of Africa. Queer things happened in the “black patch” — so the coast officials called. Sanders’ territory — miraculous, mysterious things, but Sanders was never surprised. He had dealings with folks who believed in ghosts and personal devils, and he sympathized with them, realizing that it is very difficult to ascribe all the evils of life to human agencies.
Sanders was an unquiet man; or so his constituents thought him, and a little mad; this also was the native view. Worst of all, there was no method in his madness.
Other commissioners might be depended upon to arrive after the rains, sending word ahead of their coming. This was a good way — the Isisi, the Ochori, and the N’Gombi people, everlastingly at issue, were agreed upon this — because, with timely warning of the Commissioner’s approach, it was possible to thrust out of sight the ugly evidence of fault, to clean up and make tidy the muddle of folly.
It was bad to step sheepishly forth from your hut into the clear light of the rising sun, with all the debris of an overnight feast mutely testifying to your discredit, and face the cold, unwavering eyes of a little brownfaced man in immaculate white. The switch he carried in his hand would be smacking his leg suggestively, and there were always four Houssa soldiers in blue and scarlet in the background, immobile, but alert, quick to obey.
Once Sanders came to a N’Gombi village at dawn, when by every known convention he should have been resting in his comfortable bungalow some three hundred miles down river.
Sanders came strolling through the village street just as the sun topped the trees and long shadows ran along the ground before the flood of lemon-coloured light.
The village was silent and deserted, which was a bad sign, and spoke of overnight orgies. Sanders walked on until he came to the big square near the palaver house, and there the black ruin of a dead fire smoked sullenly.
Sanders saw something that made him go raking amongst the embers.
“Pah!” said Sanders, with a wry face.
He sent back to the steamer for the full force of his Houssa guard, then he walked into the chief’s hut and kicked him till he woke.
He came out blinking and shivering, though the morning was warm.
“Telemi, son of O’ari,” said Sanders, “tell me why I should not hang you — maneater and beast.”
“Lord,” said the chief, “we chopped this man because he was an enemy, stealing into the village at night, and carrying away our goats and our dogs. Besides which, we did not know that you were near by.”
“I can believe that,” said Sanders.
A lo-koli beat the villages to wakefulness, and before a silent assembly the headman of the N’Gombi village was scientifically flogged.
Then Sanders called the elders together and said a few words of cheer and comfort.
“Only hyenas and crocodiles eat their kind,” he said, “also certain fishes.” (There was a general shudder, for amongst the N’Gombi to be likened to a fish is a deadly insult.) “Cannibals I do not like, and they are hated by the King’s Government. Therefore when it comes to my ears — and I have many spies — that you chop man, whether he be enemy or friend, I will come quickly and I will flog sorely; and if it should again happen I will bring with me a rope, and I will find me a tree, and there will be broken huts in this land.” Again they shuddered at the threat of the broken hut, for it is the custom of the N’Gombi to break down the walls of a dead man’s house to give his spirit free egress.
Sanders carried away with him the chief of the village, with legirons at his ankles, and in course of time the prisoner arrived at a little labour colony on the coast, where he worked for five years in company with other indiscreet headmen who were suffering servitude for divers offences.
They called Sanders in the Upper River districts by a long and sonorous name, which may be euphemistically translated as “The man who has a faithless wife,” the little joke of Bosambo, chief of the Ochori, and mightily subtle because Sanders was wedded to his people.
North and south, east and west, he prowled. He travelled by night and by day.
Sometimes his steamer would go threshing away up river, and be watched out of sight by the evildoing little fishing-villages.
“Go you,” said Sarala, who was a little headman of the Akasava, “go you three hours’ journey in your canoe and watch the river for Sandi’s return. And at first sign of his steamer — which you may see if you climb the hill at the river’s bend — come back and warn me, for I desire to follow certain customs of my father in which Sandi has no pleasure.” He spoke to two of his young men and they departed. That night by the light of a fire, to the accompaniment of dancing and drum-beating, the son of the headman brought his firstborn, ten hours old, squealing noisily, as if with knowledge of the doom ahead, and laid it at his father’s feet.
“People,” said the little chief, “it is a wise saying of all, and has been a wise saying since time began, that the firstborn has a special virtue; so that if we sacrifice him to sundry gods and devils, good luck will follow us in all our doings,” he said a word to the son, who took a broad-bladed spear and began turning the earth until he had dug a little grave. Into this, alive, the child was laid, his little feet kicking feebly against the loose mould.
“Oh, gods and devils,” invoked the old man, “we shed no blood, that this child may come to you unblemished.” The son stirred a heap of loose earth with his foot, so that it fell over the baby’s legs; then into the light of the fire stepped Sanders, and the chief’s son fell back.
Sanders was smoking a thin cigar, and he smoked for fully a minute without saying a word, and a minute was a very long time. Then he stepped to the grave, stooped, and lifted the baby up awkwardly, for he was more used to handling men than babes, gave it a little shake to clear it of earth, and handed it to a woman.