Puslapio vaizdai
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He went without a word, and so did I.

And the Colonel went on snoring.

The next morning Long-andNarrow announced that he was going back to his home in Spain. He had stayed too long already, he said, and I did not contradict him. We parted civilly, and I have never seen him again. I told no one of the incident with the air-gun. He had not behaved like a hardened criminal, and I thought he was too much of a coward ever to become one. My own idea is that the unexpected temptation had been too much for his unprincipled mind, and that probably after

wards he was quite pleased that it had come to nothing.

That afternoon the Colonel had his telegram, and went joyfully off down the valley to get rid of his responsibilities. I stayed behind to make some studies for my picture; and as I copied the flowing lines and various tints of those noble distances, or tried to render the vitality of some animal or the vigour and the abruptness of trees and rocks, I felt curiously happy. I had got back my sense of proportion, and I was by so much the nearer to the truth of things and to the peace of nature. For, as the Colonel said, it is life that counts.

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TRAVELLING up to the Northern Emirates of Nigeria these days in the luxurious grey boat express, the new-comer first glimpses the broad waters of the Niger after a sixteen-hour journey from the coast. As the dining-car glides smoothly across the huge steel bridge which newly spans the river, he sees the shimmering waters far below, divided into two channels by a long ridge-shaped island. Rising abruptly on his left, he cannot fail to notice a dark forest-backed peak silhouetted against the sky, for all the world like a grim sentinel guarding this riverway entrance to the Northern States. The island not so very many years ago was one of the busiest slave-marts of the Western Sudan, whilst the gloomy cone-shaped peak has even a greater call upon the imagination of the traveller, for many and varied are the after-dinner yarns told on the West African ocean boats about the famous “Juju Rock" of Kebba. Native tradition has invested it with a sinister interest: ask the immaculately-clad and very efficient train steward who silently dispenses the tea and iced drinks if he has ever climbed to the top, and he

will intimate with appropriate gesture that nothing would persuade him to essay such a feat.

Press him further, he will scratch the floor with his toe-nail and, mission training notwithstanding, will vouchsafe the information that evil spirits live in the caves and woods, and that all men are in fear of them. Europeans who have resided in that district long enough to acquire a working knowledge of the vernacular and the people, can seldom extract anything more definite. And as far as I know, the true origin of the mysterious " juju of Kebba has never before been explained, although the bare facts of the drama enacted here over a century ago are known to a few men who have been long in the Service. I must here confess that the narrative is essentially mundane-African juju, in common with all superstition, is but the influence of imagination over the untutored mind. It might indeed be considered commonplace, were it not linked up with bygone days and the African slave-traffic of infamous memory. But of this let the reader judge.

The personal part of my story takes us back some nine

teen years, when Northern Nigeria was a mere name, unknown almost save to the sporting or impecunious military officer and the younger son, hesitant on an administrative career. To the average man in Piccadilly, it had a vague existence any odd thousand miles between Egypt and the Cape, and it conveyed a hazy impression of malaria and dimly recollected lines of school-taught Longfellow. It was a full decade before the hustling European trader and the tin-miner had drawn public attention to the potential wealth of its forests and highlands, and wellmeaning but ill-advised female writers had declared to a credulous world that it was the last stronghold of misogynists and peccant husbands. In short, it was at the transient period when, at a bare dozen outposts, scattered over a vast and recently-acquired territory, a mere handful of 'varsity men and soldiers were laying the foundations of Britain's most valuable tropical possession. Removed from the conventionalities of European civilisation, spending months in gipsy fashion locating and assessing remote and hitherto unknown native cities, surveying endless streams and forests, establishing law and order with a few locally-raised and hastily-trained constabulary, these men, circumscribed only by the traditions of their caste and race, were vouchsafed the privilege of being perhaps the very last in the

vanguard of the pioneers of the Dark Continent.

Few now remain in the Service. Many, alas, fell by the roadside; some eventually attained high official positions elsewhere; others have since retired "to Bath or Bournemouth." Amongst the soldiers I cannot recall one who did not rejoin his old unit during that memorable August, when" steel and fire and stone" called them to even closer grips with Life. And how well they helped to hold the line in France, in the Cameroons, and in East Africa, only their few remaining comrades know.

Of such was John Crichton, erstwhile captain of a regular line regiment, and at the opening of my story a district commandant of constabulary. The only son of a country parson, he had at considerable sacrifice been sent to a public school. From thence, by the traditional route of the county militia, he passed into the regulars, saw service on the North-West Frontier and afterwards in the Boer War, where his linguistic abilities obtained for him a staff appointment. Still in the early thirties and chafing at the unholy prospect of a decade of garrison life, he volunteered for service in a land where big-game shooting and polo were not restricted by reason of a narrow purse. He had a curious secretive strain in his nature, which, contrary to type, had not been eliminated by his

public-school and army training. He would sometimes disappear into the solitude of the bush for weeks together, and turn up, usually about nightfall, looking hardier and thinner than ever, a few pages added to the vernacular dictionary he

was compiling, or perhaps some new and interesting sidelights on native custom or character. For the rest, he was a genial fellow enough, a keen sportsman, and a man who had seen a good deal of the world as it is to be seen from a Service angle.

The bane of John Crichton's existence at the time that this story opens was the Staff Officer at Constabulary Headquarters, a newly-arrived and enthusiastic major of militia, whose pointed curiosity on the subject of delayed reports and returns, unchecked errors in pay accounts, shortages of stores, and such arid official details, seemed never to be satisfied. It decidedly lacked charm. One day on patrol John received an unusually sharp reminder of the unsupervised shortcomings of the native clerk whom he had left in charge of his mud-and-wattle "office" at District Headquarters, and he decided to return thither without delay. He started off that afternoon, and was caught in a terrific tornado. He had some fifteen miles to go to the next restcamp, and he urged his horse to a canter ahead of the carriers. In the blinding rain he must have taken a sidetrack, for he realised after an hour that he had lost his way. He turned back, but although the rain had then ceased, dark

II.

ness was setting in, and it was apparent that unless the escort could trace his horse's hoof-marks, obliterated most likely in the heavy rain, he would be "bushed" for the night. By no means a cheerful prospect, soaked to the skin, dog-tired and hungry— all the elements of a dose of fever, not to mention the possibility of an encounter with a leopard, a common enough experience after dark in those regions.

Night had fallen before he decided to dismount and cut some branches to form a rough shelter. He then discovered that he had left his jack-knife, as well as pipe and matches, in his haversack, which the orderly had been carrying. This was the last straw. So he decided to walk along the viscous track, which fortunately he had not lost, on the remote chance of striking the main road. He wandered about for two hours leading his horse, stumbling in the darkness over ant-heaps, and plunging into muddy rain-pools. Suddenly his heart leapt, for he saw a

bright light just over the crest of a dim ridge some few hundred yards distant. He soon found himself in a tiny village miles away from the main road, a backwater uncharted on the maps of those daysthe only official record of whose existence might possibly have been a terse entry in the provincial tribute register.

the

Crichton approached nearest hut, and after establishing confidence with the fluttering inhabitants, told them in the vernacular that he wished to speak to the sariki,1 and to secure what accommodation was available for the night. A comely young native woman came forward and explained that the sariki, whose name was Suli, was very aged, and, moreover, had been ill for a long time, but that perhaps she could deputise. Blessing his knowledge of the language, John intimated that the first essential was a large calabash of hot water and as much privacy as possible, with a fire to dry his garments. During which time, he suggested, some boiled eggs and roasted Indian corn would be distinctly acceptable as the most likely available forms of nourishment.

The hospitality of these simple villagers exceeded his expectations, and he counted himself exceedingly lucky as he fell asleep thoroughly tired out. Early next morning he was awakened by a commo

tion in the village, and, clad only in shorts and singlet, he arose from his improvised couch of bamboo and grass matting, to find the police escort who had been searching for him all night.

In the

Mindful of his obligations, both as a guest and as a representative of the Government, he paid a formal visit to the sariki. He found him lying on a carved wooden bedstead of crude design inside a darkened mud-house. prime of life he must have been a man of magnificent physique; but his withered frame, tremulous hands, and feeble voice now testified only too plainly that he had long outlived the allotted span. He was mentally alert, however, and he raised himself on his elbow, but Crichton motioned him to lie down, and accorded him the usual salutations. He ascertained from him the name of the village and a few other details, and, finding him exceptionally intelligent, chatted for quite a long time. No European, it appeared, had ever been to this little hamlet before, lying as it did miles off the beaten track. Sida, the capital of the Emirate, was some five days' march away, and the people of the village went there periodically to sell their produce. But Suli himself, crippled with rheumatism and an old wound, had not ventured beyond the precincts of

1 Headman.

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