Bones of the River by Edgar Wallace Read Free Book Online Page B

when M’kema, summoned to headquarters, appeared under escort and in irons, to answer for his sins.
    “Lord, Tibbetti did a great evil, for he took our people, who were well, and made them sick. Because their arms hurt them terribly they tried to chop him.”
    Sanders listened, sitting in his low chair, his chin on his fist.
    “You are an old man and a fool,” he said. “For did not the sickness come to the Isisi? And did not the villagers have their mourning – all except yours, M’kema, because of the magic which Tibbetti had put into their arms? Now, you are well, and the other villagers have their dead. How do you account for that, M’kema?”
    M’kema shook his head. “Lord,” he said, “it was not by the magic of Tibbetti, for he made us ill. We are well people, and the sickness passed us because we followed the practice of our fathers, and took into the forest a woman who was very old and silly, and, putting out her eyes, left her to the beasts. There is no other magic like this.”
    “What’s the use?” asked the despairing Sanders, and M’kema, hearing these words in English, shivered, suspecting a new incantation.
     

THE BLACK EGG
    There is a new legend on the river, and it is the legend of a devil who came from a black egg and hated its new master so powerfully that it slew him.
    Once upon a time in the Isisi land, the birds ceased suddenly from gossiping at the very height of day, and goats and dogs stood up on their feet and looked uneasily from left to right, and there was in the world a sudden and an inexplicable hush, so that men came out of their huts to discover what was the matter.
    And whilst they were so standing, gaping at a silence which was almost visible, the world trembled, and down the long street of the Isisi city came a wave and a billowing of earth, so that houses shook and men fell on to their knees in their fear. Then came another tremble and yet another billowing of solid ground, and the waters of the big river flowed up in sudden volume and flooded the lower beaches and washed even into the forest, which had never seen the river before.
    Between the first and the second shocks of the earthquake, N’shimba was born, and was named at a respectful distance after that ghost of ghosts – more nearly after one who had been as terrible. M’shimba M’shamba notoriously dwelt in the bowels of the earth, and was prone to turn in his sleep.
    Down the river went three canoes laden with wise men and chiefs, and they came solemnly into the presence of Mr Commissioner Sanders, who, in addition to being responsible for the morals and welfare of a few millions of murderous children predisposed to cannibalism, was regarded as a controller of ghosts, ju-jus, the incidence of rainfall and the fertility of crops.
    “O Sandi, I see you,” said M’kema, chief of the deputation. “We are poor men who have come a long journey to tell you of terrible happenings. For you are our father and our mother and you are very wise.”
    It was a conventional opening, and Sanders, who had felt the earthquake, an infrequent occurrence in these parts, waited, knowing what would come.
    “…and then, lord, the river rose fearfully, washing through the huts of Bosubo, the fisherman, and eating up his salt. And the roof of Kusu, the hunter, fell down whilst he was in bed, and also two canoes were washed away and found by the thieving Akasava, who will not give them to us. Now tell us, Sandi, what made the world rock? Some of my councillors think one thing, some another. One says that it was M’shimba putting up his knees as he slept. Men do this in their sleep, as I know. Another, that it was a fight between two mighty ghosts. Speak for us, Sandi.”
    Sanders was not prepared to give a lecture on seismology, but supplied a plausible, fairly accurate, not wholly fanciful explanation.
    “M’kema,” said he, “in this world what do you see? The earth and the trees upon it, and the rivers that run on the