The People of the River | Page 9

a far country amongst strangers."
He took her on board his steamer, and the Zaire cast off.
In twenty-four hours he came to the "city of the forest," which is the Ochori city, and at the blast of his steamer's siren the population came running to the beach.
Bosambo, chief of the Ochori, was the last to arrive, for he came in procession under a scarlet umbrella, wearing a robe of tinselled cloth and having before him ten elder men bearing tinselled sticks.
Sanders watched the coming of the chief from the bridge of the steamer and his face betrayed no emotion. When Bosambo was come on board the Commissioner asked him:
"What childish folly is this, Bosambo?"
"Lord," said Bosambo, "thus do great kings come to greater kings, for I have seen certain pictures in a book which the god-woman gave me and by these I know the practice."
"Thus also do people dress themselves when they go out to make the foolish laugh," said Sanders unpleasantly. "Now I have brought you a woman who talks too much, and who has been put away by one man and has murdered another by my reckoning, and I desire that she shall live in your village."
"Lord, as you say," said the obedient Bosambo, and regarded the girl critically.
"Let her marry as she wishes," said Sanders; "but she shall be of your house, and you shall be responsible for her safe keeping until then."
"Lord, she shall be married this night," said Bosambo earnestly.
When Sanders had left and the smoke of the departing steamer had disappeared behind the trees, Bosambo summoned his headman and his captains to palaver.
"People," he said, "the Lord Sandi, who loves me dearly, has come bringing presents--behold this woman." He waved his hand to the sulky girl who stood by his side on the little knoll where the palaver house stood.
"She is the most beautiful of all the women of the N'Gombi," said Bosambo, "and her name is N'lami-n'safo, which means the Pearl, and Sandi paid a great price for her, for she dances like a leopard at play, and has many loving qualities."
The girl knew enough of the unfamiliar Ochori dialect to realise that her merits were being extolled, and she shifted her feet awkwardly.
"She is a wife of wives," said Bosambo impressively, "gentle and kind and tender, a great cooker of manioc, and a teller of stories--yet I may not marry her, for I have many wives and I am wax in their hands. So you shall take her, you who pay readily and fearlessly, for you buy that which is more precious than goats or salt."
For ten goats and a thousand rods this "gift" of Sandi's passed into the possession of his headman.
Talking to his chief wife of these matters, Bosambo said: "Thus is Sandi obeyed; thus also am I satisfied; all things are according to God's will."
"If you had taken her Mahomet," said the wife, who was a Kano woman and a true believer, "you would have been sorry."
"Pearl of bright light," said Bosambo humbly, "you are the first in my life, as God knows; for you I have deserted all other gods, believing in the one beneficent and merciful; for you also I have taken an umbrella of state after the manner of the Kano kings."
The next day Bosambo went hunting in the forest and did not return till a week was past.
It is the practice of the Ochori people, as it is of other tribes, to go forth to meet their chief on his return from hunting, and it was strange that none came to greet him with the Song of the Elephant.
With his twenty men he came almost unnoticed to his own hut.
Half-way along the village street he came upon an elder man, who ran to him.
"Lord," he said, "go not near the hut of Fabadimo, your chief headman."
"Has he sickness?" asked Bosambo.
"Worse, lord," said the old cynic. "He has a wife, and for six days and the greater part of six nights all the city has sat at her feet listening."
"What talk does she make?" asked Bosambo.
"Lord, she talks so that all things are clear," said the old man; "and all her words have meanings; and she throws a light like the very sun upon dark brains, and they see with her."
Bosambo had twenty men with him, men he could trust. The darkness was coming on, and at the far end of the city he could see the big fire where the "Eloquent Woman" talked and talked and talked.
He went first to his hut. He found his Kano wife alone, for the other women of his house had fled.
"Lord, I did not expect to see you alive," she said, "so I waited for death when the time came."
"That shall be many years away," said Bosambo.
He sent her with