To his astonishment, his spies brought word that the king was coming. He owed this condescension to the influence of the little dancing girl, for she, woman-like, had a memory for rebuffs, and had a score to settle with Mr. Commissioner Sanders.
The great king arrived, and across the meadow-like lands that fringe the river on both sides Sanders watched the winding procession with mingled feelings. The king halted a hundred yards from the river, and his big scarlet umbrella was the centre of a black line of soldiers spreading out on either hand for three hundred yards.
Then a party detached itself and came towards the dead tree by the water side, whereon hung limply in the still air the ensign of England.
"This," said Sanders to himself, "is where I go dead one time."
It is evidence of the seriousness of the situation, as it appealed to him, that he permitted himself to descend to Coast English.
"The king, the Great One, awaits you, white man, offering you safety in his shadow," said the king"s messenger; and Sanders nodded. He walked leisurely toward the ma.s.sed troops, and presently appeared before the old man squatting on a heap of skins and blinking like an ape in the sunlight.
"Lord king, live for ever," said Sanders glibly, and as he raised his hand in salute he saw the girl regarding him from under knit brows.
"What is your wish, white man?" said the old king; "what rich presents do you bring, that you call me many days" journey?"
"Lord, I bring no presents," said Sanders boldly; "but a message from a king who is greater than you, whose soldiers outnumber the sands of the river, and whose lands extend from the east to the west, from the north to the south."
"There is no such king," snarled the old man. "You lie, white man, and I will cut your tongue into little strips."
"Let him give his message, master," said the girl.
"This is the message," said Sanders. He stood easily, with his hands in the pockets of his white uniform jacket, and the king was nearer death than he knew. "My master says: "Because the Great King of Yitingi has eaten up the Icheli folk: because he has crossed the borderland and brought suffering to my people, my heart is sore. Yet, if the Great King will pay a fine of one thousand head of cattle and will allow free access to his country for my soldiers and my commissioners, I will live in peace with him.""
The old man laughed, a wicked, cackling laugh.
"Oh, ko!" he chuckled; "a great king!"
Then the girl stepped forward.
"Sandi," she said, "once you put me to shame, for when I would have danced for you, you slept."
"To you, Daihili," said Sanders steadily, "I say nothing; I make no palaver with women, for that is not the custom or the law. Still less do I talk with dancing girls. My business is with Limbili the king."
The king was talking rapidly behind his hand to a man who bent over him, and Sanders, his hands still in his jacket pockets, snapped down the safety catches of his automatic Colts.
All the time the girl spoke he was watching from the corners of his eyes the man who talked with the king. He saw him disappear in the crowd of soldiers who stood behind the squatting figures, and prepared for the worst.
"Since I may not dance for you," the girl was saying, "my lord the king would have you dance for me."
"That is folly," said Sanders: then he saw the line on either side wheel forward, and out came his pistols.
"Crack! Crack!"
The shot intended for the king missed him, and broke the leg of a soldier behind.
It had been hopeless from the first; this Sanders realised with some philosophy, as he lay stretched on the baked earth, trussed like a fowl, and exceedingly uncomfortable. At the first shot Abiboo, obeying his instructions, would turn the bows of the steamer down stream; this was the only poor satisfaction he could derive from the situation.
Throughout that long day, with a pitiless sun beating down upon him, he lay in the midst of an armed guard, waiting for the death which must come in some dreadful form or other.
He was undismayed, for this was the logical end of the business. Toward the evening they gave him water, which was most acceptable. From the gossip of his guards he gathered that the evening had been chosen for his exit, but the manner of it he must guess.
From where he lay he could see, by turning his head a little, the king"s tent, and all the afternoon men were busily engaged in heaping flat stones upon the earth before the pavilion. They were of singular uniformity, and would appear to be specially hewn and dressed for some purpose. He asked his guard a question.
"They are the dancing stones, white man," said the soldier, "they come from the mountain near the city."
When darkness fell a huge fire was lit; it was whilst he was watching this that he heard of the Zaire"s escape, and was thankful.
He must have been dozing, exhausted in body and mind, when he was dragged to his feet, his bonds were slipped, and he was led before the king. Then he saw what form his torture was to take.
The flat stones were being taken from the fire with wooden pincers and laid to form a rough pavement before the tent.
"White man," said the king, as rude hands pulled off the Commissioner"s boots, "the woman Daihili would see you dance."
"Be a.s.sured, king," said Sanders, between his teeth, "that some day you shall dance in h.e.l.l in more pleasant company, having first danced at the end of a rope."
"If you live through the dancing," said the king, "you will be sorry."
A ring of soldiers with their spears pointing inward surrounded the pavement, those on the side of the tent crouching so that their bodies might not interrupt the Great One"s view.
"Dance," said the king; and Sanders was thrown forward. The first stone he touched was only just warm, and on this he stood still till a spear-thrust sent him to the next. It was smoking hot, and he leapt up with a stifled cry. Down he came to another, hotter still, and leapt again-
"Throw water over him," said the amused king, when they dragged the fainting man off the stones, his clothes smouldering where he lay in an inert heap.
"Now dance," said the king again-when out of the darkness about the group leapt a quivering pencil of yellow light.
Ha-ha-ha-ha-a-a-a!
Abiboo"s Maxim-gun was in action at a range of fifty yards, and with him five hundred Ochori men under that chief of chiefs, Bosambo.
For a moment the Yitingi stood, and then, as with a wild yell which was three-parts fear, the Ochori charged, the king"s soldiers broke and fled.
They carried Sanders to the steamer quickly, for the Yitingi would re-form, being famous night fighters. Sanders, sitting on the deck of the steamer nursing his burnt feet and swearing gently, heard the scramble of the Ochori as they got into their canoes, heard the grunting of his Houssas hoisting the Maxim on board, and fainted again.
"Master," said Bosambo in the morning, "many moons ago you made charge against the Ochori, saying they would not fight. That was true, but in those far-off days there was no chief Bosambo. Now, because of my teaching, and because I have put fire into their stomachs, they have defeated the soldiers of the Great King."
He posed magnificently, for on his shoulders was a mantle of gold thread woven with blue, which was not his the night before.
"Bosambo," said Sanders, "though I have a score to settle with you for breaking the law by raiding, I am grateful that the desire for the properties of others brought you to this neighbourhood. Where did you get that cloak?" he demanded.
"I stole it," said Bosambo frankly, "from the tent of the Great King; also I brought with me one of the stones upon which my lord would not stand. I brought this, thinking that it would be evidence."
Sanders nodded, and bit his cigar with a little grimace. "On which my lord would not stand," was very prettily put.
"Let me see it," he said; and Bosambo himself carried it to him.
It had borne the heat well enough, but rough handling had chipped a corner; and Sanders looked at this cracked corner long and earnestly.
"Here," he said, "is an argument that no properly const.i.tuted British Government can overlook-I see Limbili"s finish."