had had in his time many gods. Some of these he retained for emergencies or because their possession added to his prestige. He neither loved nor feared them. Bosambo loved or feared no man, save Sanders.
The White Goats might have the chief of the Ochori in a cleft stick; they might seduce from their allegiance half and more than half of his people, as they had done, but Bosambo, who knew that weak men who acquire strength of a sudden, invariably signalise their independence by acquiring new masters, accepted the little troubles which accompany the chieftainship of such a tribe as his with pleasing philosophy.
It was a trying time for him, and it was a period not without some excitement for those who tried him.
A dish of fish came to him from his chief cook one morning. Bosambo ate a little, and sent for the same cook, who was one of his titular wives.
“Woman,” said Bosambo, “if you try to poison me, I will burn you alive, by Ewa!”
She was speechless with terror and fell on her knees before him.
“As matters are,” said Bosambo, “I shall not speak of your sin to Sandi, who is my sister’s own child by a white father, for if Sandi knew of this, he would place you in boiling water till your eyes bulged like a fish. Go now, woman, and cook me clean food.”
Other attempts were made on his life. Once a spear whizzed past his head as he walked alone in the forest. Bosambo uttered a shriek and fell to the ground and the thrower, somewhat incautiously, came to see what mischief he had wrought, and if need be to finish the good work… Bosambo returned from his walk alone. He stopped by the river to wash his hands and scour his spears with wet sand, and that was the end of the adventure so far as his assailant was concerned.
But the power of the society was growing. His chief councillor was slain at meat, another was drowned, and his people began to display a marked insolence.
The air became electric. The Akasava had thrown off all disguise, the influence of the White Goat predominated. Chiefs and headmen obeyed the least of their hunters, or themselves joined in the lewd ritual celebrated nightly in the forest. The chief who had brought about the arrest of Ofalikari was pulled down and murdered in the open street by the very men who had lodged complaints, and the first to strike was his own son.
All these things were happening whilst Sanders waited at the junction of the Isisi and Calali Rivers, his Houssas sleeping by the guns.
Bosambo saw the end clearly. He had no illusions as to his ultimate fate. “Tomorrow, light of my eyes,” he said to his first wife, “I send you in a canoe to find Sandi, for men of the White Goat come openly — one man from every tribe, calling upon me to dance and make sacrifice.”
His wife was a Kano woman; tall and straight and comely. “Lord,” she said simply, “at the end you will take your spear and kill me, for here I sit till the end. When you die, life is death to me.”
Bosambo put his strong arm about her and patted her head.
The following day he sat at palaver, but few were the applicants for justice. There was a stronger force abroad in the land; a higher dispenser of favour.
At the moment he had raised his hand to signify the palaver was finished a man came running from the forest. He ran unsteadily, like one who was drunken, throwing out his arms before him as though he was feeling his way.
He gained the village street, and came stumbling along, his sobbing breath being audible above the hum of the Ochoris’ wondering talk.
Then suddenly a shrill voice cried a word in fear, and the people went bolting to their huts — and there was excuse, for this wanderer with the glazed eyes was sick to death, and his disease was that dreaded bush plague which decimates territories. It is an epidemic disease which makes its appearance once in twenty years; it has no known origin and no remedy.
Other diseases: sleeping sickness, beri-beri, malaria, are called by courtesy the sickness mongo— “The Sickness Itself” — but this mysterious malady alone is entitled to the description.
The man fell flat on the ground at the foot of the little hill where Bosambo sat in solitude — his headmen and councillors fleeing in panic at the sick man’s approach.
Bosambo looked at him thoughtfully.
“What may I do for you, my brother?” he asked.
“Save me,” moaned the man.
Bosambo was silent. He was a native, and a native mind is difficult to follow. I cannot explain its psychology. The coils were tightening on him, death faced him as assuredly as it stared hollow-eyed on the Thing that writhed at his feet.
“I can cure you,” he said softly, “by certain magic. Go you to the far end of the village, there you will find four new huts and in each hut three beds. Now you shall lie down on each bed and after you shall go into the forest as fast as you can walk and wait for my magic to work.”
Thus spake Bosambo, and the man at his feet, with death’s hand already upon his shoulder, listened eagerly.
“Lord, is there any other thing I must do?” he asked in the thin whistling tone which is characteristic of the disease.
“This you must also do,” said Bosambo, “you must go to these huts secretly so that none see you; and on each bed you shall lie so long as it will take a fish to die.”
Watched from a hundred doorways, the sick man made his way back to the forest; and the men of the village spat on the ground as he passed.
Bosambo sent his messengers to Sanders then and there, and patiently awaited the coming of the emissaries of the Goat.
At ten o’clock that night, before the moon was up, they arrived dramatically. Simultaneously twelve lights appeared, at twelve points about the village, then each light advanced at slow pace and revealed a man bearing a torch.
They advanced at solemn pace until they arrived together at a meeting place, and that place the open roadway before Bosambo’s hut. In a blazing semicircle they stood before the chief — and the chief was not impressed.
For these delegates were a curious mixture. They included a petty chief of the Ochori — Bosambo marked him down for an ignominious end — a fisherman of the Isisi, a witch doctor of the N’Gombi, a hunter of the Calali, and, chiefest of all, a tall, broad-shouldered negro in the garb of white men.
This was Ofalikari, sometime preacher of the Word, and supreme head of the terrible order which was devastating the territories.
As they stood the voice of a man broke the silence with a song. He led it in a nasal falsetto, and the others acted as chorus.
“The White Goat is very strong and his horns are of gold.”
“Oai!” chorused the others.
“His blood is red and he teaches mysteries.”
“Oai!”
“When his life goes out his spirit becomes a god.”
“Oai!”
“Woe to those who stand between the White Goat and his freedom.”
“Oai!”
“For his sharp feet will cut them to the bone and his horns will bleed them.”
“Oai!”
They sang, one drum tapping rhythmically, the bangled feet of the chorus jingling as they pranced with deliberation at each “O ai!”
When they had finished, Ofalikari spoke.
“Bosambo, we know you to be a wise man, and acquainted with white people and their gods, even as I am, for I was a teacher of the blessed Word. Now the White Goat loves you, Bosambo, and will do you no injury. Therefore have we come to summon you to a big palaver tomorrow, and to that palaver we will summon Sandi to answer for his wickedness. Him we will burn slowly, for he is