The People of the River | Page 9

spot.
"I see no sign of a fire," said Sanders suddenly.
"A fire, lord?" she faltered.
"Where people sit at food they build a fire," said Sanders shortly, "and
here no fire has been since the beginning of the world."
He took her on board again and went steaming upstream to the village
of Namani.
"Go you," he said to the Houssa sergeant privately, "and if the chief
does not come to meet me, arrest him, and if he does come you shall
take charge of his huts and his women."
Namani was waiting to greet him and Sanders ordered him on board.
"Namani," said Sanders, "I know you as an honest man, and no word
has been spoken against you. Now this woman, your wife, sayest you
are a murderer, having killed Otapo."
"She is a liar!" said Namani calmly. "I know nothing of Otapo."
A diligent inquiry which lasted two days failed to incriminate the chief.

It served rather to inflict some damage upon the character of
M'fashimbi; but in a land where women have lovers in great numbers
she suffered little.
At the end of the two days Sanders delivered judgment.
"I am satisfied Otapo is dead," he said; "for many reasons I am not
satisfied that Namani killed him. I am in no doubt that M'fashimbi is a
woman of evil acts and a great talker, so I shall banish her to 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