The Keepers of the King's Peace by Edgar Wallace (novels for students TXT) 📖

was his attitude towards the intruders it is impossible to say. He may have been insolent, secure in the feeling that he was representing his master's attitude towards white men; he may have offered fight in the illusion that the six warriors he took with him were [Pg 246]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 space 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 nobbly end round with a "swish!"

[Pg 247]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 chieftainship. 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 nigger—what for you speak um so?"

"You shall say 'master' to me, Karata," said [Pg 248]Bones easily, "for in my land 'white man' is evil talk."[8]

"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."

"Good egg," said Bones as the crowd streamed from the kraal.

Senhor Bonaventura heard of the arrival of a [Pg 249]white man at the chief's great kraal and was not perturbed, because there were certain favourite traders who came to the king from time to time. He was more concerned by the fact that a labour draft of eight hundred men who had been promised by Karata had not yet reached Moanda, but frantic panic came from the remarkable information of Karata's eccentricities which had reached him from his lieutenant.

The duc's letter may be reproduced.