Read Online Bones of the River by Edgar Wallace - Free Book Online Page B

listened to the recital of the young man’s virtues, and then asked:
    “Bring me his shield and his spear, that I may see them.”
    The woman looked at the king and at Bones, then turned her eyes away.
    “Lord, he has taken his shield and his spear with him, for there is game in the deep forest, and leopards that are terribly fierce,” she said.
    Apparently, every other young man who had departed out from the Isisi city had also gone in the expectation of meeting terrible leopards.
    “These young men say fearful things, Tibbetti,” said the old man, troubled. “My own son, who desires to be chief in my place, brought word that you spoke his mind, and that in your heart you were against all chiefs and kings, and the young men believe him. Also that all that is mine is all men’s. And that my goats belong to the village and my gardens to every mean man.”
    “Good gracious heavens alive!” said Bones, aghast, and for the first time there loomed before his eyes a vision of that vast barrier which stands between Utopia and the everyday world.
    “Also, lord, they say that men are all as one, as N’shimba the Great also said cala cala . And that the young shall rule the world.”
    “We’ll see about that,” said Bones, but as he spoke in English the chief thought he was swearing.
    Bones went back to the Wiggle , and his first act was to cast into the swift black waters of the river a learned treatise on equality by a Russian philosopher who had never met cannibals who believed in ghosts. The book was instantly pouched by a waiting and hungry crocodile, who, perhaps, was best competent to digest it.
    Then Bones strapped a Browning to each hip and called Sergeant Ali Ahmed to him.
    “Ahmed, I go to make a palaver with the young men of the Isisi.”
    “Lord comrade – ” began the misguided Ahmed, and Bones showed all his teeth.
    “If you call me comrade, I will beat the soles of your feet until they are sore,” he said. “I want four men who can shoot, and four to carry the little gun that says ‘ha-ha.’”
    Ahmed saluted and went to parade the men.
    An hour’s walking along the narrow forest path brought Bones to a clearing where the ground dipped to form an amphitheatre. N’shimba was waiting for him, for news had been brought of his coming. Tail and lank, his body covered with a close-fitting garment of leopard-skin – the wearing of which was a prerogative of chiefs – N’shimba the inspired leant upon his long spear and watched the khaki figure moving slowly toward him.
    “I see you, Tibbetti,” he called, but did not raise his hand in salute.
    “I see you, N’shimba,” returned Bones, “and I have come to talk to you, because of certain things which have come to the ears of my lord Sandi. For they say you have a society of Young Hearts.”
    “They speak true,” said N’shimba insolently. “And I, N’shimba N’shamba, am their chief and greater than all chiefs. For I have been called by ghosts and devils to make the Isisi a free people. And I shall be the highest in the land, as the great N’shimba was before me, for his spirit is in my belly.”
    To his amazement, Bones was neither excited nor showed any visible signs of annoyance.
    “That is good talk,” said Bones. “Yet those wise men I meet say that the soul of the great N’shimba comes from a black egg. Tell me, man, have you found that egg?”
    N’shimba shuffled uneasily. “That will come, Tibbetti, when I have proved my greatness.”
    “Take me to your Young Hearts,” said Bones.
    Reluctantly, and with an apprehensive glance at the soldiers, N’shimba led him to the amphitheatre, which now Bones saw for the first time. The slopes of the hollow were black with men, black dappled yellow where the oval shields showed, black which glittered at a thousand points where the sunlight caught the polished heads of the spears. And Bones, without preamble, spoke, and by his side the red-tarboshed soldiers fixed the tripod of the