Chapter X: The Waters of Madness

Unexpected things happen in the Territories which Mr. Commissioner Sanders rules. As for example: Bones had gone down to the beach to “take the mail.” This usually meant no more than receiving a mail-bag wildly flung from a dancing surf-boat. On this occasion Bones was surprised to discover that the boat had beached and had landed, not only the mail, but a stranger with his baggage.

He was a clean-shaven, plump man, in spotless white, and he greeted Bones with a friendly nod. “Morning!” he said. “I’ve got your mail.”

Bones extended his hand and took the bag without evidence of any particular enthusiasm.

“Sanders about?” asked the stranger.

“Mr. Sanders is in residence, sir,” said Bones, ponderously polite.

The other laughed. “Show the way,” he said briskly.

Bones looked at the new-comer from the ventilator of his pith helmet to the soles of his pipe-clayed shoes. “Excuse me, dear old sir,” he said, “have I the honour of addressin’ the Secretary of State for War?”

“No,” answered the other in surprise. “What made you think that?”

“Because,” said Bones, with rising wrath, “he’s the only fellow that needn’t say ‘please’ to me.”

The man roared with laughter. “Sorry,” he said. “Please show me the way.”

“Follow me, sir,” said Bones.

Sanders was not “in residence,” being, in fact, inspecting some recent--and native--repairs to the boilers of the Zaire.

The stranger drew up a chair on the stoep without invitation and seated himself. He looked around. Patricia Hamilton was at the far end of the stoep, reading a book. She had glanced up just long enough to note and wonder at the new arrival. “Deuced pretty girl that,” said the stranger, lighting a cigar.

“I beg your pardon?” said Bones.

“I say that is a deuced pretty girl,” said the stranger.

“And you’re a deuced brute, dear sir,” said Bones, “but hitherto I have not commented on the fact.”

The man looked up quickly. “What are you here,” he asked--”a clerk or something?”

Bones did not so much as flush. “Oh, no,” he said sweetly. “I am an officer of Houssas--rank, lieutenant. My task is to tame the uncivilized beast an’ entertain the civilized pig with a selection of music. Would you like to hear our gramophone?”

The new-comer frowned. What brilliant effort of persiflage was to follow will never be known, for at that moment came Sanders.

The stranger rose and produced a pocket-book, from which he extracted a card and a letter. “Good morning, Commissioner!” he said. “My name’s Corklan--P. T. Corklan, of Corklan, Besset and Lyons.”

“Indeed,” said Sanders.

“I’ve got a letter for you,” said the man.

Sanders took the note, opened it, and read. It bore the neat signature of an Under-Secretary of State and the embossed heading of the Extra-Territorial Office, and it commended Mr. P. T. Corklan to Mr. Commissioner Sanders, and requested him to let Mr. Corklan pass without let or hindrance through the Territories, and to render him every assistance “compatible with exigencies of the Service” in his “inquiries into sugar production from the sweet potato.”

“You should have taken this to the Administrator,” said Sanders, “and it should bear his signature.”

“There’s the letter,” said the man shortly. “If that’s not enough, and the signature of the Secretary of State isn’t sufficient, I’m going straight back to England and tell him so.”

“You may go to the devil and tell him so,” said Sanders calmly; “but you do not pass into these Territories until I have received telegraphic authority from my chief. Bones, take this man to your hut, and let your people do what they can for him.” And he turned and walked into the house.

“You shall hear about this,” said Mr. Corklan, picking up his baggage.

“This way, dear old pilgrim,” said Bones.

“Who’s going to carry my bag?”

“Your name escapes me,” said Bones, “but, if you’ll glance at your visitin’ card, you will find the name of the porter legibly inscribed.”

Sanders compressed the circumstances into a hundred-word telegram worded in his own economical style.

It happened that the Administrator was away on a shooting trip, and it was his cautious secretary who replied--

“Administration to Sanders.--Duplicate authority here. Let Corklan proceed at own risk. Warn him dangers.”

“You had better go along and tell him,” said Sanders. “He can leave at once, and the sooner the better.”

Bones delivered the message. The man was sitting on his host’s bed, and the floor was covered with cigar ash. Worst abomination of all, was a large bottle of whisky, which he had produced from one of his bags, and a reeking glass, which he had produced from Bones’s sideboard.

“So I can go to-night, can I?” said Mr. Corklan. “That’s all right. Now, what about conveyance, hey?”

Bones had now reached the stage where he had ceased to be annoyed, and when he found some interest in the situation. “What sort of conveyance would you like, sir?” he asked curiously.

(If you can imagine him pausing half a bar before every “sir,” you may value its emphasis.)

“Isn’t there a steamer I can have?” demanded the man. “Hasn’t Sanders got a Government steamer?”

“Pardon my swooning,” said Bones, sinking into a chair.

“Well, how am I going to get up?” asked the man.

“Are you a good swimmer?” demanded Bones innocently.

“Look here,” said Mr. Corklan, “you aren’t a bad fellow. I rather like you.”

“I’m sorry,” said Bones simply.

“I rather like you,” repeated Mr. Corklan. “You might give me a little help.”

“It is very unlikely that I shall,” said Bones. “But produce your proposition, dear old adventurer.”

“That is just what I am,” said the other. He bit off the end of another cigar and lit it with the glowing butt of the old one. “I have knocked about all over the world, and I have done everything. I’ve now a chance of making a fortune. There is a tribe here called the N’gombi. They live in a wonderful rubber country, and I am told that they have got all the ivory in the world, and stacks of rubber hidden away.”

Now, it is a fact--and Bones was surprised to hear it related by the stranger--that the N’gombi are great misers and hoarders of elephant tusks. For hundreds of years they have traded ivory and rubber, and every village has its secret storehouse. The Government had tried for years to wheedle the N’gombi into depositing their wealth in some State store, for riches mean war sooner or later. They lived in great forests--the word N’gombi means “interior”--in lands full of elephants and rich in rubber trees.

“You are a regular information bureau,” said Bones admiringly. “But what has this to do with your inquiry into the origin of the candy tree?”

The man smoked in silence for awhile, then he pulled from his pocket a big map. Again Bones was surprised, because the map he produced was the official map of the Territories. He traced the river with his fat forefinger.

“Here is the N’gombi country from the east bank of the Isisi, and this is all forest, and a rubber tree to every ten square yards.”

“I haven’t counted them,” said Bones, “but I’ll take your word.”

“Now, what does this mean?” Mr. Corklan indicated a twisting line of dots and dashes which began at the junction of the Isisi River and the Great River, and wound tortuously over five hundred miles of country until it struck the Sigi River, which runs through Spanish territory. “What is that?” he asked.

“That, or those,” said Bones, “are the footprints of the mighty swoozlum bird that barks with its eyes an’ lives on buttered toast an’ hardware.”

“I will tell you what I know it is,” said the man, looking up and looking Bones straight in the eye--”it is one of those secret rivers you are always finding in these ‘wet’ countries. The natives tell you about ‘em, but you never find ‘em. They are rivers that only exist about once in a blue moon, when the river is very high and the rains are very heavy. Now, down in the Spanish territory”--he touched Bones’s knee with great emphasis--”they tell me that their end of the secret river is in flood.”

“They will tell you anything in the Spanish territory,” said Bones pleasantly. “They’d tell you your jolly old fortune if you’d cross their palms with silver.”

“What about your end?” asked the man, ignoring the scepticism of his host.

“Our end?” said Bones. “Well, you will find out for yourself. I’d hate to disappoint you.”

“Now, how am I going up?” asked the man after a pause.

“You can hire a canoe, and live on the land, unless you have brought stores.”

The man chuckled. “I’ve brought no stores. Here, I will show you something,” he said. “You are a very good fellow.” He opened his bag and took out a tight packet which looked like thin skins. There must have been two or three hundred of them. “That’s my speciality,” he said. He nipped the string that tied them together, stripped one off, and, putting his lips to one end, blew. The skin swelled up like a toy balloon. “Do you know what that is?”

“No, I cannot say I do,” said Bones.

“You have heard of Soemmering’s process?”

Bones shook his head.

“Do you know what decimal 1986 signifies?”

“You’ve got me guessing, my lad,” said Bones admiringly.

The other chuckled, threw the skins into his bag, and closed it with a snap. “That’s my little joke,” he said. “All my friends tell me it will be the death of me one of these days. I like to puzzle people”--he smiled amiably and triumphantly in Bones’s face--”I like to tell them the truth in such a way they don’t understand it. If they understood it--Heavens, there’d be the devil to pay!”

“You are an ingenious fellow,” said Bones, “but I don’t like your face. You will forgive my frankness, dear old friend.”

“Faces aren’t fortunes,” said the other complacently, “and I am going out of this country with money sticking to me.”

“I’m sorry for you,” said Bones, shaking his head; “I hate to see fellows with illusions.”

He reported all that occurred to the Commissioner, and Sanders was a little worried.

“I wish I knew what his game is,” he said; “I’d stop him like a shot, but I can’t very well in the face of the Administrator’s wire. Anyway, he will get nothing out of the N’gombi. I’ve tried every method to make the beggars bank their surpluses, and I have failed.”

“He has got to come back this way, at any rate,” said Hamilton, “and I cannot see that he will do much harm.”

“What is the rest of his baggage like?”

“He has a case of things that look like concave copper plates, sir,” said Bones, “very thin copper, but copper. Then he has two or three copper pipes, and that is about his outfit.”

Mr. Corklan was evidently no stranger to the coast, and Bones, who watched the man’s canoe being loaded that afternoon, and heard his fluent observations on the slackness of his paddlers, realized that his acquaintance with Central Africa was an extensive one. He cursed in Swahili and Portuguese, and his language was forcible and impolite. “Well,” he said at last, “I’ll be getting along. I’ll make a fishing village for the night, and I ought to reach my destination in a week. I shan’t be seeing you again, so I’ll say good-bye.”

“How do you suppose you’re going to get out of the country?” asked Bones curiously.

Mr. Corklan laughed. “So long!” he said.

“One moment, my dashin’ old explorer,” said Bones. “A little formality--I want to see your trunks opened.”

A look of suspicion dawned on the man’s face. “What for?”

“A little formality, my jolly old hero,” said Bones.

“Why didn’t you say so before?” growled the man, and had his two trunks landed. “I suppose you know you’re exceeding your duty?”

“I didn’t know--thanks for tellin’ me,” said Bones. “The fact is, sir an’ fellow-man, I’m the Custom House officer.”

The man opened his bags, and Bones explored. He found three bottles of whisky, and these he extracted.

“What’s the idea?” asked Mr. Corklan.

Bones answered him by breaking the bottles on a near-by stone.

“Here, what the dickens----”

“Wine is a mocker,” said Bones, “strong drink is ragin’. This is what is termed in the land of Hope an’ Glory a prohibition State, an’ I’m entitled to fine you five hundred of the brightest an’ best for attemptin’ to smuggle intoxicants into our innocent country.”

Bones expected an outburst; instead, his speech evoked no more than a snigger.

“You’re funny,” said the man.

“My friends tell me so,” admitted Bones. “But there’s nothin’ funny about drink. Acquainted as you are with the peculiar workin’s of the native psychology, dear sir, you will understand the primitive cravin’ of the untutored mind for the enemy that we put in our mouths to steal away our silly old brains. I wish you ‘bon voyage.’”

“So long,” said Mr. Corklan.

Bones went back to the Residency and made his report, and there, for the time being, the matter ended. It was not unusual for wandering scientists, manufacturers, and representatives of shipping companies to arrive armed with letters of introduction or command, and to be dispatched into the interior. The visits, happily, were few and far between. On this occasion Sanders, being uneasy, sent one of his spies to follow the adventurer, with orders to report any extraordinary happening--a necessary step to take, for the N’gombi, and especially the Inner N’gombi, are a secretive people, and news from local sources is hard to come by.

“I shall never be surprised to learn that a war has been going on in the N’gombi for two months without our hearing a word about it.”

“If they fight amongst themselves--yes,” said Captain Hamilton; “if they fight outsiders, there will be plenty of bleats. Why not send Bones to overlook his sugar experiments,” he added.

“Let’s talk about something pleasant,” said Bones hastily.

It was exactly three months later when he actually made the trip.

“Take the Zaire up to the bend of the Isisi,” said Sanders one morning, at breakfast, “and find out what Ali Kano is doing--the lazy beggar should have reported.”

“Any news from the N’gombi?” asked Hamilton.

“Only roundabout stories of their industry. Apparently the sugar merchant is making big experiments. He has set half the people digging roots for him. Be ready to sail at dawn.”

“Will it be a dangerous trip?” asked the girl.

“No. Why?” smiled Sanders.

“Because I’d like to go. Oh, please, don’t look so glum! Bones is awfully good to me.”

“Better than a jolly old brother,” murmured Bones.

“H’m!” Sanders shook his head, and she appealed to her brother.

“Please!”

“I wouldn’t mind your going,” said Hamilton, “if only to look after Bones.”

“S-sh!” said Bones reproachfully.