The Twelve African Novels (A Collection). Edgar Wallace

      “Well, learn the language.” She nodded. “Go home and learn it.” She frowned. “It will take you about twentyfive years.”

      “Mr Sanders,” she said, not without dignity, “you are pulling — you are making fun of me.”

      “Heaven forbid!” said Sanders piously, “that I should do anything so wicked.” The end of the story, so far as Miss Clinton Calbraith was concerned, was that she went to Isisi, stayed three days, and came back incoherent.

      “He is not a child!” she said wildly; “he is — a — a little devil!”

      “So I should say,” said Sanders philosophically.

      “A king? It is disgraceful! He lives in a mud hut and wears no clothes. If I’d known!”

      “A child of nature,” said Sanders blandly. “You didn’t expect a sort of Louis Quinze, did you?”

      “I don’t know what I expected,” she said desperately; “but it was impossible to stay — quite impossible.”

      “Obviously,” murmured Sanders.

      “Of course, I knew he would be black,” she went on; “and I knew that — oh, it was too horrid!”

      “The fact of it is, my dear young lady,” said Sanders, “Peter wasn’t as picturesque as you imagined him; he wasn’t the gentle child with pleading eyes; and he lives messy — is that it?” This was not the only attempt ever made to educate Peter. Months afterwards, when Miss Calbraith had gone home and was busily writing her famous book, “Alone in Africa: by an English Gentlewoman,” Sanders heard of another educative raid.

      Two members of an Ethiopian mission came into Isisi by the back way. The Ethiopian mission is made up of Christian black men, who, very properly, basing their creed upon Holy Writ, preach the gospel of Equality. A black man is as good as a white man any day of the week, and infinitely better on Sundays if he happens to be a member of the Reformed Ethiopian Church.

      They came to Isisi and achieved instant popularity, for the kind of talk they provided was very much to the liking of Sato-Koto and the king’s councillors.

      Sanders sent for the missioners. The first summons they refused to obey, but they came on the second occasion, because the message Sanders sent was at once peremptory and ominous.

      They came to headquarters, two cultured American negroes of good address and refined conversation. They spoke English faultlessly, and were in every sense perfect gentlemen.

      “We cannot understand the character of your command,” said one, “which savours somewhat of interference with the liberty of the subject.”

      “You’ll understand me better,” said Sanders, who knew his men, “when I tell you that I cannot allow you to preach sedition to my people.”

      “Sedition, Mr Sanders!” said the negro in shocked tones. “That is a grave charge.”

      Sanders took a paper from a pigeonhole in his desk; the interview took place in his office.

      “On such a date,” he said, “you said this, and this, and that.” In other words he accused them of overstepping the creed of Equality and encroaching upon the borderland of political agitation.

      “Lies!” said the elder of the two, without hesitation.

      “Truth or lies,” he said, “you go no more to Isisi.”

      “Would you have the heathen remain in darkness?” asked the man, in reproach. “Is the light we kindle too bright, master?”

      “No,” said Sanders, “but a bit too warm.” So he committed the outrage of removing the Ethiopians from the scene of their earnest labours, in consequence of which questions were asked in Parliament.

      Then the chief of the Akasava people — an old friend — took a hand in the education of King Peter. Akasava adjoins that king’s territory, and the chief came to give hints in military affairs.

      He came with drums a-beating, with presents of fish and bananas and salt.

      “You are a great king!” he said to the sleepy-eyed boy who sat on a stool of state, regarding him with openmouthed interest. “When you walk the world shakes at your tread; the mighty river that goes flowing down to the big water parts asunder at your word, the trees of the forest shiver, and the beasts go slinking to cover when your mightiness goes abroad.”

      “Oh, ko, ko!” giggled the king, pleasantly tickled.

      “The white men fear you,” continued the chief of the Akasava; “they tremble and hide at your roar.”

      Sato-Koto, standing at the king’s elbow, was a practical man. “What seek ye, chief?” he asked, cutting short the compliments.

      So the chief told him of a land peopled by cowards, rich with the treasures of the earth, goats, and women.

      “Why do you not take them yourself?” demanded the regent.

      “Because I am a slave,” said the chief; “the slave of Sandi, who would beat me. But you, lord, are of the great; being king’s headman, Sandi would not beat you because of your greatness.” There followed a palaver, which lasted two days.

      “I shall have to do something with Peter,” wrote Sanders despairingly to the Administrator; “the little beggar has gone on the warpath against those unfortunate Ochori. I should be glad if you would send me a hundred men, a Maxim, and a bundle of rattan canes; I’m afraid I must attend to Peter’s education myself.”

      *

      “Lord, did I not speak the truth?” said the Akasava chief in triumph. “Sandi has done nothing! Behold, we have wasted the city of the Ochori, and taken their treasure, and the white man is dumb because of your greatness! Let us wait till the moon comes again, and I will show you another city.”

      “You are a great man,” bleated the king, “and some day you shall build your hut in the shadow of my palace.”

      “On that day,” said the chief, with splendid resignation, “I shall die of joy.” When the moon had waxed and waned and come again, a pencilled silver hoop of light in the eastern sky, the Isisi warriors gathered with spear and broad-bladed sword, with ingola on their bodies, and clay in their hair.

      They danced a great dance by the light of a huge fire, and all the women stood round, clapping their hands rhythmically.

      In the midst of this there arrived a messenger in a canoe, who prostrated himself before the king, saying: “Master, one day’s march from here is Sandi; he has with him five score of soldiers and the brass gun which says: ‘Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!’”

      A silence reigned in court circles, which was broken by the voice of the Akasava chief. “I think I will go home,” he said. “I have a feeling of sickness; also, it is the season when my goats have their young.”

      “Do not be afraid,” said Sato-Koto brutally. “The king’s shadow is over you, and he is so mighty that the earth shakes at his tread, and the waters of the big river part at his footfall; also, the white men fear him.”

      “Nevertheless,” said the chief, with some agitation, “I must go, for my youngest son is sickening with fever, and calls all the time for me.”

      “Stay!” said the regent, and there was no mistaking his tone.

      Sanders did not come the next day, nor the next. He was moving leisurely, traversing a country where many misunderstandings existed that wanted clearing up. When he arrived, having sent a messenger ahead to carry the news of his arrival, he found the city peaceably engaged.

      The women were crushing corn, the men smoking, the little children playing and sprawling about the streets.

      He halted at the outskirts of the city, on a hillock that