without a moment’s warning, into the thick of a war fleet.
There was no mistaking the character of the hundred canoes that came slowly upstream four abreast, paddling with machine-like regularity. That line on the right were Akasava men; you could tell that by the blunt noses of the dugouts. On the left were the Ochori; their canoes were streaked with red corn wood. In the centre, in lighter canoes of better make, he saw the white-barred faces of the Isisi people.
“In the name of heaven!” said Sanders, with raised eyebrows.
There was consternation enough in the fleet, and its irregular lines wavered and broke, but the Zaire went steaming into the midst of them. Then Sanders stopped his engines, and summoned the chiefs on board.
“What shame is this?” said Sanders.
Otako, of the Isisi, king and elder chief, looked uncomfortably to Ebeni of Akasava, but it was Bosambo, self-appointed ruler of the Ochori, who spoke.
“Lord,” he said, “who shall escape the never-sleeping eye of Sandi? Lo! we thought you many miles away, but like the owl—”
“Where do you go?” asked Sanders.
“Lord, we will not deceive you,” said Bosambo. “These great chiefs are my brothers, because certain Lulungo have come down upon our villages and done much harm, stealing and killing. Therefore, because we have suffered equally, and are one in misfortune, we go up against the Lulungo people, for we are human, and our hearts are sore.” A grin, a wicked, mirthless grin, parted Sanders’ lips.
“And you would burn and slay?” he asked.
“Master, such was the pleasure we had before us.”
“Burning the city and slaying the chief, and scattering the people who hide in the forest?”
“Lord, though they hide in hell we will find them,” said Bosambo; “yet, if you, who are as a father to us all, say ‘nay,’ we will assemble our warriors and tell them it is forbidden.” Sanders thought of the three new graves on a little island.
“Go!” he said, pointing up the river.
He stood on the deck of the Zaire and watched the last canoe as it rounded the bend, and listened to the drone of many voices, growing fainter and fainter, singing the Song of the Slayer, such as the Isisi sing before action.
The People of the River (1911)
III. The Affair of the Lady Missionary
VII. The Thinker and the Gum-Tree
I. A Certain Game
Sanders had been away on a holiday.
The Commissioner, whose work lay for the main part in wandering through a malarial country in some discomfort and danger, spent his holiday in travelling through another malarial country in as great discomfort and at no less risk. The only perceptible difference, so far as could be seen, between his work and his holiday was that instead of considering his own worries he had to listen to the troubles of somebody else.
Mr. Commissioner Sanders derived no small amount of satisfaction from such a vacation, which is a sure sign that he was most human.
His holiday was a long one, for he went by way of St. Paul de Loanda overland to the Congo, shot an elephant or two in the French Congo, went by mission steamer to the Sangar River and made his way back to Stanley Pool.
At Matadi he found letters from his relief, a mild youth who had come from headquarters to take his place as a temporary measure, and was quite satisfied in his inside mind that he was eminently qualified to occupy the seat of the Commissioner.
The letter was a little discursive, but Sanders read it as eagerly as a girl reads her first love letter. For he was reading about a land which was very dear to him.
“Umfebi, the headman of Kulanga, has given me a little trouble. He wants sitting on badly, and if I had control… “ Sanders grinned unpleasantly and said something about “impertinent swine,” but did he not refer to the erring Umfeb? “I find M’laka, the chief of the Little River, a very pleasant man to deal with: he was most attentive to me when I visited his village and trotted out all his dancing girls for my amusement.” Sanders made a little grimace. He knew M’laka for a rascal and wondered. “A chief who has been most civil and courteous is Bosambo of the Ochori. I know this will interest you because Bosambo tells me that he is a special protege of yours. He tells me how you had paid for his education as a child and had gone to a lot of trouble to teach him the English language. I did not know of this.”
Sanders did not know of it either, and swore an oath to the brazen sky to take this same Bosambo, thief by nature, convict by the wise provision of the Liberian Government, and chief of the Ochori by sheer effrontery, and kick him from one end of the city to the other.
“He is certainly the most civilised of your men,” the letter went on. “He has been most attentive to the astronomical mission which came out in your absence to observe the eclipse of the moon. They speak very highly of his attention and he has been most active in his attempt to recover some of their property which was either lost or stolen on their way down the river.”
Sanders smiled, for he himself had lost property in Bosambo’s territory.
“I think I will go home,” said Sanders.
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