Bones of the River by Edgar Wallace Read Free Book Online

bright lancet.
    “O people,” said Bones in his glib Bomongo – and he spoke the language like a native – “Sandi has sent me because I am greater than ju-jus and more wonderful than devils. And I will put into your bodies a great magic, that shall make the old men young and the young men like leopards, and shall make your women beautiful and your little children stronger than elephants!”
    He held up a tube of lymph, and it glittered in the strong sunlight.
    “This magic I found through my wonderful mind. It was brought to me by three birds from M’shimba M’shamba because he loves me. Come you M’kema.”
    He beckoned the chief, and the old man came forward fearfully.
    “All ghosts hear me!” said Bones oracularly, and his singsong voice had the quality of a parrot’s screech. “M’shimba M’shamba, hear me! Bugulu, eater of moons and swallower of rivers, hear me!”
    The old man winced as the lancet scraped his arm.
    “Abracadabra!” said Bones, and dropped the virus to the wound.
    “Lord, that hurts,” said M’kema. “It is like the fire of Hell!”
    “So shall your heart be like fire, and your bones young, and you shall skip over high trees, and have many new wives,” promised Bones extravagantly.
    One by one they filed past him, men, women and children, fear and hope puckered in their brows, and Bones recited his mystic formula.
    They were finished at last, and Bones, weary but satisfied, went to the hut which had been prepared for him, and, furiously rejecting the conventional offer of the chief’s youngest daughter for his wife – Sanders had a polite and suave formula for this rejection, but Bones invariably blushed and spluttered – went to sleep with a sense of having conferred a great blessing upon civilisation; for by this time Bones had forgotten that such a person as Dr Jenner had ever existed, and took to himself the credit for all his discoveries.
    He spent an exhilarating three days in the village, indulging in an orgy of condemnation which would have reduced the little township to about three huts, had his instructions been taken literally. Then, one morning, came the chief, M’kema.
    “Lord,” he said, “there is a devil in my arm, and your magic is burning terribly. Now, I have thought that I will not have your magic, for I was more comfortable as a plain man. Also my wives are crying with pain, and the little children are making sad noises.”
    Walking down the village street, Bones was greeted with scowling faces, and from every hut, it seemed, issued moans of distress. In his wisdom Bones called a palaver, and his four soldiers stood behind him, their magazines charged, their rifles lying handily in the crooks of their unvaccinated arms.
    As a palaver, it was not a success. He had hardly begun to speak before there arose a wail from his miserable audience, and the malcontents found a spokesman in one Busubu, a petty chief.
    “Lord, before you came we were happy, and now you have put fiery snakes in our arms, so that they are swollen. Now by your magic make us well again.”
    And the clamour that followed the words drowned anything that Bones had to say. That night he decided to make his way back to the river.
    He came from his hut and found Ahmet waiting for him.
    “Lord, there is trouble here,” said the Kano boy in a low voice, “and the young men have taken their spears to the forest path.”
    This was serious news, and a glance showed Bones that the village was very much awake. To force his way through the forest path was suicidal; to remain was asking for a six-line obituary notice in the Guildford Herald . Bones brought his party to the little river, and half the ground had not been covered before he was fighting a rear-guard action. With some difficulty they found a canoe, and paddled into midstream, followed by a shower of spears, which wounded one of his escort. In a quarter of an hour Bones stepped ashore at the Frenchi village, which turned out even at that