Bones of the River - Edgar Wallace [85]
Hamilton sniffed. “And he’ll find more in ten minutes than Darwin would have discovered in twenty years. After all, a little imagination is a great help.”
Bones reached out and gripped the unwilling hand of his senior.
“Thank you, dear old Ham,” he said gratefully. “That’s just what I’ve got. You’ve been a jolly long time finding out my good points, but better late than never, dear old sir and officer, better late than never!”
A month later, when Sanders went up river on his taxation palaver, he dropped Lieutenant Tibbetts at the point where the river comes nearest to the lake.
“And, Bones!”
Hamilton leant over the side of the Zaire as the canoe was pulling away.
“No funny stories, Bones! No discovery of prehistoric animals frisking in the depths of the lake. Science, Bones – pure science!”
Bones smiled pityingly. He found it easier to smile pityingly than to think of an appropriate retort.
The day he reached the edge of the lake there came a man and woman overland.
“Here we will stay, Kimi, until M’suru returns, for he will not follow us here owing to ghosts.”
Bones knew nothing of this.
* * *
There came a letter to headquarters by messenger.
“Dear sir dear sir and Exerlency” (wrote Bones) “I have the hounour to report that I reached I reached Lake Boorar-Ladi at eleven at eleven oclock this morning morning. I have made a Camp on the North side. Dear sir the most extreordinry thing has happened the most extery extro extronary thing has happend. There has been a vulcanic eruption! At nine oclock tonight there was a tarrific noise in the lake the lake! It came from the derection of the lake the lake. On preceding to the spot I found the waters in a state of great upheval upheeval and by the light of the moon I saw that an ireland had appeared in the middle of the lake. The ireland was smoking steamishly. It was nearly a hundread yards in lenth length. Owing to absence of nessessary transport (canoe raft etc.) I was unable to make close investeragation. This morning another tarrific explosion occured and the ireland disappeared.”
“I hope he means ‘island,’” said Sanders, “but we have no volcanic patches in this territory. Now, if we were near Kilamansaro–”
“I imagine Bones is preparing his report for his unfortunate college,” said Hamilton drily.
But in the night Sanders was wakened by the sergeant of the guard.
“Lord, the beater of the lokali says that there is bad trouble by the hot lake, and that Tibbetti has fought M’suru and has been taken prisoner.”
A few minutes later Sanders knocked at the door of Hamilton’s bedroom.
“The Zaire leaves at daybreak,” he said.
* * *
A spy came to M’suru with news of the fugitives.
“They have made a hut near the Lake of Devils,” he said. “Also, M’suru, there have been terrible happenings, for land came up from the water and then went down again.”
M’suru had some difficulty in persuading his followers to continue with him, but at last the terror he could inspire overcame their fear of the unknown and they went on, and as the sun was setting their fearful eyes rested on the sombre scene.
In a vast desert of yellow earth the lake lay blood-red in the dying light of the sun. lt was shaped like an egg, and on the narrower end a misty blue haze rested.
“O ko, this is bad!” said M’suru in dismay, and pointed.
On the farther shore his sharp eyes had seen the moored canoe, and on the slope above the tiny green tent that marked the tent of Lieutenant Tibbetts.
“Sandi!” said one of M’suru’s men, and the chief snarled round at him.
“You are a fool,” he said, “for Sandi is on his big ship. Therefore this must be a trader. Show me where Kimi and the man live.”
The spy pointed to a far green belt, and M’suru grunted his satisfaction.
In the hour before the dawn he reached the hut, and not all the magic of the Ghost Spear availed Mabidini. Him they crucified to a tree. Kimi died earlier and more mercifully. Bones, in the frenzy of exploration, heard the