Bones of the River - Edgar Wallace [52]
She made a sound of impatience. “He knows what he knows,” she said cryptically, but to him understandably. “If I tell him this, I will take his killing spear into my hands, so that it will be sooner over. If you were to come into the hut tonight and spear him as he sleeps, or wait for him when he goes into the wood tomorrow, that would be best.”
“For you, woman, but not for me,” said the other. “All men in this village know that I am your lover, and Sandi will come with his guns and his soldiers, and my hut will be burnt. Also, Tibbetti is already here. He is sitting in the village of Busuri, where there is a Leopard palaver. It is said that there will be hangings. I know this, because the cunning ones have hidden their pads in the ground.”
She drew a quick breath. “Bring me the pads,” she whispered. “To-morrow, when it is dark, bring me the leopard pads.”
He was horrified at the suggestion, but she insisted; and in trepidation and fear he left her. She went back and lay down by her man.
When the next night came, she found Tebeli, for whom she had dared so much, and he was shaking like a leaf, and in his hands were two ugly skin-shapes, with little knives in place of claws, and the hair had earth upon it, as though they had recently been dug from the ground. He dropped them into the hands she held out as though they were red hot, and, turning without a word, would have fled back towards his village, but she stopped him.
“Now, my own man, go towards Busuri, where Tibbetti is, and tell him that a Leopard walks toward the village, and that, if they wait by the path, they may take him.”
He was in no mood for such an adventure, but she was stronger than he, and he went. And M’Libi returned to her hut, the pads, glove-like, on her hands. Obaga was too busy with his spears to notice, but when his eyes turned, he saw in the flickering light of the fire the hideous things she wore, and dropped his spear and leapt up with a roar.
“Woman who art shameless, what have you there?”
“These I found in my little box of wood, Obaga,” she said innocently.
She held her hands up to be admired, and the rusted steel claws glittered evilly.
“Oh ko!” said Obaga, agitated, “whose things are these?”
“They belong to a man in the village of Busuri,” she said. “Lobala, the fisher. These he gave to me when I was a little girl.”
“Give them,” said her husband, snatching them from her hand.
A second later, he was striding through the village to the forest path that led to Busuri. But the lover of his wife was quicker than he, and on the edge of the village three soldiers seized Obaga and brought him into the presence of Bones.
Now, of all things certain, this is most sure; any man who carries on his person, or hides in his hut, the insignia of the Leopard, is already dead. From one end of Africa to the other there is no mercy for the sons of the Leopard. Obaga knew that his fate was sealed.
“Man,” said Bones quietly, as he surveyed the damning evidence, “what horrible things are these?”
“Lord, they were given to me to bring to the village,” said Obaga.
“Who gave?” asked Bones, but the man was silent, because it was his wife who had given them.
“Lord, if I hang, I must hang,” said Obaga. “But I tell you this, that the Leopards are my enemies, for my father was a Fire Ghost, and we of the village of Labala have fought Leopards for a thousand years.”
Bones knew this was true, and was puzzled how a man from Labala came to be in possession of these things; and the order that should have been given for instant execution was delayed. In the morning the spies brought news from Busuri and the truth was out. Obaga, returning home, found his wife had fled.
That was the story of Obaga. There it would have ended, but for the village gossip. This matter of the Leopards cleared up to the satisfaction of everybody, save a still form that hung on a tree three miles from the village, Bones turned his thoughts to the customs and habits of native people. The artist in him had prayed that