Bones of the River

by Edgar Wallace

  M’gula went back to the Ochori country an enlightened man.

  A month after his return, his brother, the chief, was seized with a passionate desire to stand up before the people of his village and recite the poem called “M’sa.” It is a poem by all standards, native or white, for it deals with death in a picturesque and imaginative way. There was not a man or a man-child from one end of the territory to the other who could not recite “M’sa” had he been so terribly defiant of devils and ju-jus. But it is the law that “M’sa” must be taught in whispers and in secret places from whence all birds have been frightened, for birds are notoriously members of the spirit world that carry news and chatter in their strange ways about the souls of men.

  In a whisper must the poem be taught; in a whisper recited, and then the last word, which is “M’sa,” must never be uttered. No man has ever explained what “M’sa” means. It is enough that it is so fearful a word that it sets men shivering even to think of it.

  It is recorded that for a hundred years no man, sane or mad, had spoken “M’sa,” so that when Busubu, the little chief of the Ochori, stood up by the village fire and, with some dramatic ability, recited the great poem in a tremendous voice, his people first sat frozen with horror at the sacrilege and its terrible significance, then broke and fled to their huts, hands to ears. In the night, when Busubu was sleeping, his two sons and his brother came to his hut and wakened him softly.

  He rose and went with them into the forest, and they walked all night until they came to a big swamp where crocodiles laid their eggs. The waters of the pool rippled and swirled continuously in the grey light of dawn.

  They rested by the side of a small lake, and the brother spoke.

  “Busubu, you have brought upon the people the terrible Ghost who shall make us all slaves. This we know because our father told us. This ghost is chained by the leg at the bottom of this swamp, waiting for the words of ‘M’sa’ to reach him, when he shall be free. Now, I think, Busubu, you must speak to this spirit.”

  “O man and brother,” whimpered Busubu the chief, “I would not have said the terrible words if you had not told me that it was the order of Sandi that I should do this. For did you not come secretly to my hut and say that Sandi had killed the ghost and that all men might say ‘M’sa’ without fear?”

  “You are mad and a liar,” said M’gula calmly. “Let us finish.”

  And because they would not have his blood on their hands, they roped him to a tree near by where the ripples ran most frequently, and they put out his eyes and left him. They rested awhile within earshot of the place, and when, in the afternoon, they heard certain sounds of pain, they knew that their work was consummated and went back to the village.

  “Now, sons of Busubu,” said the uncle of the young men, “if this matter goes to the ear of Sandi, he will come with his soldiers and we shall hang. Tomorrow let us call a full palaver of the people in this village, and all those countrymen who live in the forest, and tell them that Busubu was mad and fell into the river, and was drowned.”

  “His leg being caught by the terrible ones,” suggested his nephew helpfully. “And, M’gula, I will sit in my father’s place and give justice. When Sandi comes, and hearing me speak cleverly, he shall say: ‘This son of Busubu is my chief.’”

  His proposal aroused no enthusiasm.

  “It is I who will sit in the place of my brother, for I am an old man, and old men are wise. And when Sandi comes I will speak for you both,” he added cunningly.

  And so it was arranged. M’gula sat on the stool of office on the thatched palaver house, and gave judgment and made speeches. One day he invited his two nephews to a great feast of fish and manioc. After the feast the young men were taken ill. They were buried in a middle island the next morning, and M’gula took their wives into his house. Bosambo, Paramount Chief of the Ochori, heard rumours, and sent a pigeon to Sanders a month or so later.

  “M’gula? Who the devil is M’gula?” demanded Hamilton.

  They were at breakfast in the big, airy dining-room of the residency. Sanders had read aloud a message that had come by pigeon post that morning.

  “My dear old Ham!” said Bones, who sat opposite to him, “my dear Captain and Honourable! Do you mean to tell me that you don’t know M’gula?”

  Lieutenant Tibbets sat with coffee cup poised, an expression of incredulity and wonder on his pink face. He spoke a little thickly.

  “I wish to heavens, Bones, you wouldn’t speak with your mouth full. Weren’t you taught manners as a boy?”

  Bones swallowed something rapidly and painfully. “You’ve made me swallow a plum-stone, cruel old prefect,” he said reproachfully. “But don’t get off M’gula. I don’t profess to know every jolly old indigenous native by sight, but I know M’gula – he’s the fisherman johnny: quite a lad… Isisi river. Am I right, excellency?”

  Sanders, lighting a black cheroot, shook his head. “You’re wrong. He’s a man of the Northern Ochori.”

  “When I said Isisi,” said Bones shamelessly, “I naturally meant the Ochori. I know his father. Jolly nice, amiable old rascal…”

  “I hanged his father ten years ago,” said the patient Sanders, “and I think that hanging runs in the family.”

  “lt does,” murmured Bones, unabashed. “Now that you come to mention him, sir, I remember him. M’gula, of course. Dear old Ham, I’m really surprised at your forgetting a fellow like M’gula!”

  “What has he been doing, sir?” asked Hamilton.

  “Poison – that is certain; probably a more picturesque murder, though I think that is going to be difficult to prove. Busubu, the little chief in that part of the country, has disappeared. I think he was a little mad. The last time I was through the country he was developing sleep sickness – the neck glands were typical, but I thought he’d last longer before the mad stage was reached.”

  He tapped his white teeth with the tip of his fingers – evidence of his uneasiness.

  “I’ve half a mind to send you up to the country, Bones – you could take the Wiggle and call in on Bosambo en route.”

  “Surely it is rather a simple matter to bring M’gula to trial?” asked Hamilton. “It isn’t unusual. A chief mysteriously disappears, a relative jumps into the vacant place…?”

  Sanders shook his head. “There is a curious feature about this crime – if it is a crime. Nobody can be found who can or will give evidence. Usually, even in a small village, you can collect a dozen stories that fit together. Bosambo says that two months ago M’gula made a journey to headquarters – I don’t remember his coming.”

  Something in Bones’ face attracted his superior’s attention.

  “Bones! You saw him?”

  “Did I, dear old Ham? I’m blessed if I remember. What with sitting up all night with your jolly old hens–”

  “You saw him, and I’ll bet your infernal passion for educating the unfortunate native is responsible. What branch of study did you take?”

  Bones rose from the table and folded his serviette deliberately.

  “If every time a naughty old chief disappears you’re going to lay it at my door, sir,” he said bitterly, “and if every – ” Suddenly he stopped and his tone changed. “What about sending me up to nose around, excellency? I don’t want to praise myself, but I’ve got a gift for that sort of work. Things you wouldn’t notice, dear old bat-eyed superior, I should spot in a minute. You know me, excellency – when you lost your cigarette holder, who found it?”

  “I did,” said Hamilton.

  “But who put you on the track, dear old Ham? Who was it said, ‘Did you look in your pocket?’ Me! I bet I’d unearth this mystery in two twinks! It’s observation that does it. A little bit of cigar ash, a torn-up letter. Things an ordinary johnny wouldn’t think of looking for…”

  “I don’t think you’ll find either cigar ash or letters in the Ochori forest,” said Sanders drily, “but I do feel that this matter should be inquired into. Take the Wiggl
e, Bones, and go to the village. You might pick up Bosambo on your way. Leave the appointment of a new chief to him. And be careful! These folk of the north are queer and clannish. Even Bosambo has never quite mastered them. You may be successful.”

  Bones smiled indulgently at the word “may.”

  Bosambo, Paramount Chief of the Ochori, held a palaver of all his fifty chiefs, for there was trouble in the land. The crops had unexpectedly failed, goat sickness had made a mysterious and devastating appearance, and three considerable tribes had refused tribute, and had sent defiant messages to their lord. There was talk of a confederation between these, and that could only mean war. Moreover, a collector of taxes had been beaten to death, and another, Bosambo suspected, had been drowned. Bosambo, wearing his cloak of monkey tails and in his hand his three short killing spears, listened hour after hour as speaker after speaker arose and addressed him. Then at last spoke M’febi, a chief and suspected witch-doctor. All the day he had been waiting for this man, the most powerful of his subjects and the most antagonistic.

  “Lord Bosambo, you have heard,” said M’febi, in a deathly silence, “from one end of the land to the other there is sickness, and none who lie down at night know what the sun will show. Now I know, being a wise man and acquainted with mysteries, that there is a reason, and this I tell you. The Fearful Word has been spoken, and the Swamp Ghost is abroad.”

  A murmur of horror ran through the assembly. Men rubbed their hands in the dust and smeared their arms hurriedly.

  “Because of this,” M’febi went on, gratified by the sensation he had caused, “our crops are rotting and our goats lie down and die, making noises in their throats. Now you, Bosambo, who are so clever and are loved by Sandi, you shall show us a magic that will make the corn rise up and the goats become lively.”

  Bosambo raised his hand to check further eloquence.

  “M’febi,” he said, “am I a magician? Can I make the dead live? Say this.”

  M’febi hesitated, sensing danger. “Lord, you are not,” he admitted.

  “It was good you said that,” said Bosambo ominously, “for if I were such a magician I should have speared you where you stand, knowing that I could bring you to life again. As for the Fearful Word, that is your story. And, I tell you, M’febi, that I have a quick way with men and chiefs who bring me ghosts when I ask for rubber. They also make noises in their throats and sleep on their faces. I will have tribute, for that is my due and the due of Sandi and his king. As for these northern men who conspire against me, I will take fire and spears to them, and they shall give blood for tribute. The palaver is finished.”

  That day he summoned his fighting regiments, young men who sneered at spirits and laughed in the face of M’shimba M’shamba Himself, and they came to the call of his lokali, in tens and tens from every village within sound of his drum, and made spear play on the plain beyond the city.

  Bones arrived to find the capital an armed camp, and Bosambo, meeting him on the beach, thought it prudent to say nothing of the unrest in his land. It was when Bones put forward the suggestion that the chief should accompany him to the northern territory that his face fell, and he found some difficulty in explaining his unwillingness.

  “Lord Tibbetti, I would go to the end of the world for Sandi, but for you I would go up into hell. But now is a bad time, for I have many palavers to hold, and it is the month of taxing. Therefore, Tibbetti, go alone, and I will come after you before the full moon.”

  A plan which suited the amateur detective, who wanted the full credit for the discoveries he was confident of making.

  “This Busubu was mad,” said Bosambo at parting. “As to M’gula, I know nothing of him because he is a common man. I think if you would burn his feet a little he would tell you, Tibbetti, for the soles of old men are very tender.”

  Bones knew a better way.

  On the morning of the day that Bones arrived in the village, M’gula held a secret conference with the chiefs of the three revolting tribes, whose territories adjoined his own.

  “My spies have brought me word that Tibbetti is coming with soldiers in his little ship to hear the manner of Busubu’s death. Now, Tibbetti is my friend, for he has shown me the way to power. And because he is my friend, I will send him to you to make a palaver.”

  “But if he comes, he will bring his soldiers,” demurred one of the rebel chiefs, “and that would be a bad palaver. How do we know, M’gula, that you will not speak evilly of us to Tibbetti, who is the son of Sandi? For it is clear that you have now become a man too great for your village, and they say that you desire to rule the three northern tribes in the manner of Gubala.”

  He named an ancient chief who had been dead 800 years, but to the native 800 years is yesterday, and yesterday is centuries past.

  M’gula was nonplussed by the crude expression of his own secret thoughts and ambitions.

  “After Tibbetti has gone, we will speak again,” he said. “You shall come to my fine house and we will have a feast.”

  “Better you came to my fine house and had a feast,” said the spokesman of the northern tribes, significantly, “for I do not wish to have a pain in my belly, and lie in the middle island, M’gula.”

  It seemed that the death of M’gula’s nephews had not passed unnoticed. However, he appeased his guests, sent them back to their territories satisfied with his bona fides, and prepared for the coming of Bones.

  Lieutenant Tibbetts had not arrived in the village more than half an hour before; with a large pipe in his mouth and a ferocious frown on his face, he began his investigations. Willing but untruthful men and women showed him the exact spot on the beach where Busubu had been standing when the crocodile seized him. In corroboration they pointed to the identical silurian, basking at that moment on a low sandbank in the middle of the river, open-mouthed. Bones had a momentary impulse to shoot the crocodile and make a thorough investigation of his interior, but thought perhaps that too long a time had passed for such clues to be of any value. With the assistance of a tape-measure and a piece of pencil he made an exact plan of the village, showing the distance from Busubu’s house to the river. Then he interviewed Busubu’s late wives, sullen, stupid women, wholly absorbed in their domestic occupations. They could tell him nothing except that Busubu had gone out of the hut and had not come back. They conveniently forgot the circumstances of his leaving. They only knew he did not return, and that they had gone into the house of M’gula.

  “Very baffling,” said Bones, shaking his head seriously.

  He slept at night on the little steamer, which was moored close to the bank. His days were occupied in his search, his evenings in the acquirement of knowledge. If he could inspire M’gula, M’gula would tell him much that would fascinate him. Bones had a passion for native folklore, and learnt three new stories about snakes, a brand new legend concerning M’shimba M’shamba, and a mystery poem.

  “Lord, this is the great secret of our people,” said M’gula in a hushed voice; “for any man who knows this poem has power over all the world. And if it were known that I had taught you, I think my people would kill me. lf a white lord speaks this wonder, all men will worship him, and he shall be as great as M’shimba. Because I love you, Tibbetti, and because you have told me so many beautiful things, I have taught you this. Now say with me again the words: ‘Talaka m’sidi lulanga…’”

  So Bones became word perfect. He had been a week conducting his investigations, without discovering anything more than he knew when he arrived; on the seventh day came an invitation from Lusingi.

  “Lord, these people are in revolt against Bosambo, who has treated them cruelly. I think it would please Sandi if you spoke to them in your loving way, for they are very simple. Also, lord, if you spoke to them the poem which I have told you, they would be very worshipful, giving you the tribute which they deny to Bosambo.”

  It was an opportunity at which Bones jumped. To go back and confess his failure as a detective was one thing; to carry in hi
s hands the pacification of a revolting tribe was another. Sanders would value the latter achievement even more than the unravelling of the mystery of Busubu’s death.

  The city of Lusingi lay five miles from the river, and Bones went gaily, unattended. M’gula walked with him to the end of the village street, and then returned with his counsellors.

  “I think the people of Lusingi will kill Tibbetti,” he said cheerfully, “and then I will send word to Sandi, and he will know I am his true friend, and give me the four tribes. In this way do men become great, Osuru, even as the lord Tibbetti said.”

  The innocent Bones reached the town and was met by the chief and escorted to the palaver house. Looking down on the mass of unfriendly faces that were turned up to him, Bones smirked inwardly.

  Their grievances he knew. The uneasy chief, not knowing what military forces might be behind Tibbetti, had stated them concisely. There was a devil in the land, and goats were dying; and on the top of this, Bosambo had sent for his tribute – a familiar plaint.

  “O people,” said Bones, “I see you.”

  He spoke fluently in the soft and silky tongue of the Northern Ochori, which differs slightly from the Bomongo tongue used from one end of the river to the other.

  “Sandi has sent me here to look into your hearts…”

  His address mainly dealt with native economics. Here Bones was speaking as an expert, because he was well grounded in the problems which confronted these peasant farmers. Presently he came to his peroration.

  “O people, hear me! I speak for Sandi, and for the Government. When the crops are good and your goats are many, and the little trees in the forest give you rubber in plenty, do you not make a store of corn and rubber, so that when the bad days come, you shall neither starve nor come empty-handed to your Paramount Chief? Now, these days have come, and your stores must be opened, and that which is buried must be dug up. This is the way of all the world, that bad days and good days follow one another.”