• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Day after day the Healer watched and waited, but no new counsellor was taken with a strange sickness. One night the king spoke secretly to his man.

“Take this message to Sandi at his fine house by the river,” he said, and spent the night in giving minute instructions.

Before the dawn, the king’s man was on his way with a little bag of white powder hidden in his loincloth…

“I’ve had a message from Lujaga,” said Sanders one morning at breakfast. “This infernal Bobolara is raising the dead! Lujaga is never an alarmist, but he takes a serious view. A number of men and women are disappearing, and he is scared that the Healer is chopping them for medicine.”

“I’ll give him chop, dear old excellency,” said Bones. “I think you can trust me to deal with jolly old birds of that kind. I’ll have him back by Wednesday.”

“And bring back an okapi,” suggested Hamilton, “and be careful he doesn’t sting you!”

Bones left headquarters full of energy. With him went Ligi, the king’s man, and Ligi served him with food. The day was gloriously fine, the sky an unclouded blue. The vivid green of the spring foliage, the diamond sparkle of the river, the cooling winds that swept down from the mountains a thousand miles away, added to the zest of life.

The next morning Bones did not feel so bright or energetic, although the day was as beautiful and the scene was fair. On the third day there was a curious buzzing in his ears, his eyes were heavy, and two leaden weights seemed pressing on his head. He took ten grains of quinine, and braced himself and cursed all fever-bearing mosquitoes.

He stumbled ashore on the beach of the N’gombi territory, his head throbbing, hearing the far-away voice of the little chief who greeted him, but understanding nothing.

“Lord,” said Abiboo, his agitated sergeant, “let us go back to the beautiful ship, and I will take you to Sandi, for you are a sick man.”

Bones grinned foolishly. In the twelve-hour march through the forest there was evidence enough that all was not well in the N’gombi country. Every three miles they found a dead man with a curious marking on his chest.

“These Bobolara killed,” said Ligi, his guide, “so that he might attain certain power over the people.”

Bones nodded stupidly. “This is a hanging palaver,” he said thickly, and stumbled on.

One night, in a village ten miles from the secret city, when the fires had been stirred to flame, and men wandered from family group to group, listening here to the stories told a hundred times of old men’s valour and young men’s gallantry, and the women were chatting pleasantly about sickness, a stranger strode down the twisting path that leads from the forest, and came into the village street, well observed and wondered at. He was tall, broad-shouldered and beautiful to see, for his hair was plastered with clay, and over his shoulder he wore the new skin of a young leopard. A five-feet fighting shield was buckled to his left arm, and in the cunning socket of the shield he carried three light throwing spears, the polished heads of which glittered in the firelight. Also, to his back was strapped a long bow, the wood half covered with monkey-skin. A big hide belt was buckled about his waist, and left and right hung two short, broad-bladed swords. On his face he wore neither the marks of the Isisi, the Akasava, or the N’gombi. Ochori they knew he was not, and he carried himself too finely for a man of the Lower River tribe, who are humble people.

Though a stranger, he seemed to know his way, for he walked unerringly to the hut of the chief of the village, and him he called by name.

“Kofo,” he said, “let us talk a little while.”

Kofo came blinking from the darkness of his hut and peered across the dancing flames of the fire.

“O man,” he said, “who comes to this grand village and speaks to Kofo, who is chief by all rights, and also a man of Lujaga?”

“I am from the city,” said the stranger. “Men call me the Healer,” and Kofo’s jaw dropped, and he stared.

“O ko,” he said at last, “that is a bad word for