The Keepers of the King's Peace Part 41

Senhor Bonaventura nodded gravely.

"Nothing is more repugnant to me than slavery," he said, "unless it be the terrible habit of drinking. If I could sweep these evils out of existence with a wave of my hand, believe me I would do so; but I cannot perform miracles, and the Government will not give me sufficient troops to suppress these practices which every one of us hold in abhorrence."

"But," protested the duc, a little alarmed, "since I am going to reform the M'fusi...."

The Governor choked over his coffee and apologized. He did not laugh, because long residence in Central Africa had got him out of the habit, and had taught him a certain amount of self-control in all things except the consumption of marsala.

"Pray go on," he said, wearing an impa.s.sive face.

"It will be to the interests of Portugal, no less than to your Excellency's interest," said the young man, leaning across the table and speaking with great earnestness, "if I can secure a condition of peace, prosperity, sobriety, and if I can establish the Portuguese law in this disturbed area."

"Undoubtedly," acknowledged the older man with profound seriousness.

So far from the duc's statement representing anything near the truth, it may be said that a restoration of order would serve his Excellency very badly indeed. In point of fact he received something like eight s.h.i.+llings for every "head" of "recruited labour." He also received a commission from the same interested syndicates which exported able-bodied labourers, a commission amounting to six s.h.i.+llings upon every case of square-face, and a larger sum upon every keg of rum that came into the country.

Sobriety and law would, in fact, spell much discomfort to the elegant lady who lived in the villa at Cintra, and would considerably diminish not only Senhor Bonaventura's handsome balance at the Bank of Brazil, but would impoverish certain ministers, permanent and temporary, who looked to their dear Pinto for periodical contributions to what was humorously described as "The Party Fund."

Yet the duc de Sagosta went into the wilds with a high heart and a complete faith, in his youthful and credulous soul, that he had behind him the full moral and physical support of a high-minded and patriotic Governor. The high-minded and patriotic Governor, watching the caravan of his new a.s.sistant disappearing through the woods which fringe Moanda, expressed in picturesque language his fervent hope that the mud, the swamp, the forest and the wilderness of the M'fusi country would swallow up this young man for evermore, amen. The unpopularity of the new Commissioner was sealed when the Governor learnt of his visit to Sanders, for "Sanders" was a name at which his Excellency made disapproving noises.

The predecessor of the duc de Sagosta was dead. His grave was in the duc's front garden, and was covered with rank gra.s.s. The new-comer found the office correspondence in order (as a glib native clerk demonstrated); he also found 103 empty bottles behind the house, and understood the meaning of that coa.r.s.e grave in the garden. He found that the last index number in the letter-book was 951.

It is remarkable that the man he succeeded should have found, in one year, 951 subjects for correspondence, but it is the fact. Possibly nine hundred of the letters had to do with the terrible state of the Residency at Uango-Bozeri. The roof leaked, the foundations had settled, and not a door closed as it should close. On the day of his arrival the duc found a _mamba_ resting luxuriously in his one armchair, a discovery which suggested the existence of a whole colony of these deadly brutes--the _mamba_ bite is fatal in exactly ninety seconds--under or near the house.

The other fifty dispatches probably had to do with the late Commissioner's arrears of pay, for Portugal at that time was in the throes of her annual crisis, and ministries were pa.s.sing through the Government offices at Lisbon with such rapidity that before a cheque could be carried from the Foreign Office to the bank, it was out of date.

Uango Bozeri is 220 miles by road from the coast, and is the centre of the child-like people of the M'fusi. Here the duc dwelt and had his being, as Governor of 2,000 square miles, and overlord of some million people who were cannibals with a pa.s.sion for a fiery liquid which was described by traders as "rum." It was as near rum as the White City is to Heaven; that is to say, to the uncultivated taste it might have been rum, and anyway was as near to rum as the taster could expect to get.

This is all there is to be said about the duc de Sagosta, save that his headman swindled him, his soldiers were conscienceless natives committing acts of brigandage in his innocent name, whilst his chief at Moanda was a peculating and incompetent scoundrel.

At the time when the duc was finding life a bitter and humiliating experience, and had reached the stage when he sat on his predecessor's grave for company, a small and unauthorized party crossed the frontier from the British Territories in search of adventure.

Now it happened that the particular region through which the border-line pa.s.sed was governed by the Chief of the Greater M'fusi, who was a cannibal, a drunkard, and a master of two regiments.

The duc had been advised not to interfere with the chief of his people, and he had (after one abortive and painful experience) obeyed his superiors, accepting the hut tax which was sent to him (and which was obviously and insolently inadequate) without demur.

No white man journeyed to the city of the M'fusi without invitation from the chief, and as Chief Karata never issued such invitation, the Greater M'fusi was a _terra incognita_ even to his Excellency the Governor-General of the Central and Western Provinces.

Karata was a drunkard approaching lunacy. It was his whim for weeks on end to wear on his head the mask of a goat. At other times, "as a mark of his confidence in devils," he would appear hidden beneath a plaited straw extinguisher which fitted him from head to foot. He was eccentric in other ways which need not be particularized, but he was never so eccentric that he welcomed strangers.

Unfortunately for those concerned, the high road from the Territories pa.s.sed through the M'fusi drift. And one day there came a panting messenger from the keeper of the drift who flung himself down at the king's feet.

"Lord," said he, "there is a white man at the drift, and with him a certain chief and his men."

"You will take the men, bringing them to me tied with ropes," said the king, who looked at the messenger with gla.s.sy eyes and found some difficulty in speaking, for he was at the truculent stage of his second bottle.

The messenger returned and met the party on the road. What was his att.i.tude towards the intruders it is impossible to say. He may have been insolent, secure in the feeling that he was representing his master's att.i.tude towards white men; he may have offered fight in the illusion that the six warriors he took with him were sufficient to enforce the king's law. It is certain that he never returned.

Instead there came to the king's kraal a small but formidable party under a white man, and they arrived at a propitious moment, for the ground before the king's great hut was covered with square bottles, and the s.p.a.ce in front of the palace was crowded with wretched men chained neck to neck and waiting to march to the coast and slavery.

The white man pushed back his helmet.

"Goodness gracious Heavens!" he exclaimed, "how perfectly horrid!

Bosambo, this is immensely illegal an' terrificly disgustin'."

The Chief of the Ochori looked round.

"Dis feller be dam' bad," was his effort.

Bones walked leisurely to the shady canopy under which the king sat, and King Karata stared stupidly at the unexpected vision.

"O King," said Bones in the Akasavian vernacular which runs from Dacca to the Congo, "this is an evil thing that you do--against all law."

Open-mouthed Karata continued to stare.

To the crowded kraal, on prisoner and warrior, councillor and dancing woman alike, came a silence deep and unbroken.

They heard the words spoken in a familiar tongue, and marvelled that a white man should speak it. Bones was carrying a stick and taking deliberate aim, and after two trial strokes he brought the n.o.bbly end round with a "swis.h.!.+"

A bottle of square-face smashed into a thousand pieces, and there arose on the hot air the sickly scent of crude spirits. Fascinated, silent, motionless, King Karata, named not without reason "The Terrible,"

watched the destruction as bottle followed bottle.

Then as a dim realization of the infamy filtered through his thick brain, he rose with a growl like a savage animal, and Bones turned quickly. But Bosambo was quicker. One stride brought him to the king's side.

"Down, dog!" he said. "O Karata, you are very near the painted hut where dead kings lie."

The king sank back and glared to and fro.

All that was animal in him told of his danger; he smelt death in the mirthless grin of the white man; he smelt it as strongly under the hand of the tall native wearing the monkey-tails of chieftains.h.i.+p. If they would only stand away from him they would die quickly enough. Let them get out of reach, and a shout, an order, would send them bloodily to the ground with little kicks and twitches as the life ran out of them.

But they stood too close, and that order of his meant his death.

"O white man," he began.

"Listen, black man," said Bosambo, and lapsed into his English; "hark um, you dam' black n.i.g.g.e.r--what for you speak um so?"

"You shall say 'master' to me, Karata," said Bones easily, "for in my land 'white man' is evil talk."[8]

[Footnote 8: In most native countries "white man" is seldom employed save as a piece of insolence. It is equivalent to the practice of referring to the natives as n.i.g.g.e.rs.]

"Master," said the king sullenly, "this is a strange thing--for I see that you are English and we be servants of another king. Also it is forbidden that any white--that any master should stand in my kraal without my word, and I have driven even Igselensi from my face."

"That is all foolish talk, Karata," said Bones. "This is good talk: shall Karata live or shall he die? This you shall say. If you send away this palaver and say to your people that we are folk whom you desire shall live in the shadow of the king's hut, then you live. Let him say less than this, Bosambo, and you strike quickly."

The king looked from face to face. Bones had his hand in the uniform jacket pocket. Bosambo balanced his killing-spear on the palm of his hand, the chief saw with the eye of an expert that the edge was razor sharp.

Then he turned to the group whom Bones had motioned away when he started to speak to the king.

"This palaver is finished," he said, "and the white lord stays in my hut for a night."