Bones of the River - Edgar Wallace [68]
Hamilton returned with a mackintosh and a sun helmet, pleading that that was all he could raise. The mackintosh was one which was slightly too short for Sanders. On the lank figure of Bones it had the appearance of a covert coat.
* * *
It was three months later before the illustrated newspaper came into the residency; and, opening it idly, Hamilton saw a picture and yelled. It was a black-and-white sketch, which bore in the corner the scrawled signature “MW”. It showed Bones in all the glory of singlet and grass kilt, with a sun helmet on his head and an eyeglass in his eye; and beneath was the superscription: “British officer wearing the native costume of the Wazoos.”
THE ALL-AFRICANS
The mind of Mr Commissioner Sanders was as two books, the one open for inspection, and, by its very accessibility, defying the suspicion that any other could exist; the second a small tome, bound in steel and fastened with many locks.
Once upon a time Hamilton, skimming his newspapers newly arrived from home, read something and laughed.
“I wish, dear old officer, you wouldn’t,” said Bones irritably, glaring up from the torture of simple addition. “Just as I was totting up the jolly old pay sheet. I’ll have to do it all over again.”
“And you’ll do it wrong,” said Hamilton. “Can’t you take that infernal sheet somewhere else, or learn to count to yourself?”
Bones shrugged. “There’s only one way, dear old Ham, and that’s the right way,” he said, and began his labours anew. “Eight and four’s fourteen,” he muttered fiercely, “and nine’s twenty-two and three’s twenty-five and nine’s thirty-two an’ seven’s thirty, one, two, three, four…”
“What were you laughing at?” asked Sanders, smoking a meditative cheroot, his eyes on the parade ground.
“Something in one of the papers about an All-Africa Empire, with an army of its own, organised by American negroes and having their Inspector-General – where do they get such rot from?”
“And nine’s a hundred and five, and six is a hundred and ten and three’s ninety-nine…” struggled Bones.
“It’s true.”
Hamilton sat up. “What…? But not here…in the territory?”
Sanders nodded. “I’ve known about it for three years,” he said with surprising calm, “and of course it is inevitable. Clever and rich American negroes were certain to exploit Africa sooner or later.”
Bones had dropped his accountancy, and was listening open-mouthed.
“You don’t mean to tell me, sir an’ excellency, that the jolly old indigenous native is organisin’ a – a…?”
“I mean even to tell you,” said Sanders with a smile. “There’s a French boat calling next week with a man named Garfield on board and a lady etymologist from England. She wants to go up country to hunt butterflies, and I’m rather worried about the lady.”
It seemed that Sanders was changing the subject, but that impression was to be corrected.
“Bones and I will leave tonight,” he said, surprisingly, “and you will send me on the letter she brings – open and decode it, and fly me a pigeon with the gist of it. By the way, she is rather pretty, which makes me just a little scared. Yes, the African Empire movement is a reality – I wish it wasn’t. Look at Mr Garfield’s hands, by the way, particularly his fingernails. He has the permission of Downing Street to explore the country – hoof him along and tell him I’m tax-collecting.”
He got up and walked out of the room, and the two men stared at one another.
“It may be sun or it may be fever, dear old Ham,” said Bones solemnly. “And yet he must be right in his head – he’s taking me along with him.”
“It is incredible,” said Hamilton, too perturbed to be offensive. “And yet, when Sanders talks and looks like that… You lucky young devil!”
The Zaire left at sunset, which was unusual, for the river is full of shoals and navigation a danger. By night (the third night) Sanders brought his steamer to a creek near the village of Kafu…
And then a whisper ran through the village, a whisper that had a gasp at the end, and at that whisper even old men slapped their lean thighs as at the prospect of tribulation,