Chapter VII: The Stranger Who Walked by Night

Since the day when Lieutenant Francis Augustus Tibbetts rescued from the sacrificial trees the small brown baby whom he afterwards christened Henry Hamilton Bones, the interests of that young officer were to a very large extent extremely concentrated upon that absorbing problem which a famous journal once popularized, “What shall we do with our boys?”

As to the exact nature of the communications which Bones made to England upon the subject, what hairbreadth escapes and desperate adventure he detailed with that facile pen of his, who shall say?

It is unfortunate that Hamilton’s sister--that innocent purveyor of home news--had no glimpse of the correspondence, and that other recipients of his confidence are not in touch with the writer of these chronicles. Whatever he wrote, with what fervour he described his wanderings in the forest no one knows, but certainly he wrote to some purpose.

“What the dickens are all these parcels that have come for you for?” demanded his superior officer, eyeing with disfavour a mountain of brown paper packages be-sealed, be-stringed, and be-stamped.

Bones, smoking his pipe, turned them over.

“I don’t know for certain,” he said, carefully; “but I shouldn’t be surprised if they aren’t clothes, dear old officer.”

“Clothes?”

“For Henry,” explained Bones, and cutting the string of one and tearing away its covering revealed a little mountain of snowy garments. Bones turned them over one by one.

“For Henry,” he repeated; “could you tell me, sir, what these things are for?”

He held up a garment white and small and frilly.

“No, sir, I can’t,” said Hamilton stiffly, “unless like the ass that you are you have forgotten to mention to your friends that Henry is a gentleman child.”

Bones looked up at the blue sky and scratched his chin.

“I may have called him ‘her,’” he confessed.

There were, to be exact, sixteen parcels and each contained at least one such garment, and in addition a very warm shawl, “which,” said Hamilton, “will be immensely useful when it snows.”

With the aid of his orderly, Bones sorted out the wardrobe and the playthings (including many volumes of the Oh-look-at-the-rat-on-the-mat-where-is-the-cat? variety), and these he carried to his hut with such dignity as he could summon.

That evening, Hamilton paid his subordinate a visit. Henry, pleasingly arrayed in a pair of the misdirected garments with a large bonnet on his head, and seated on the floor of the quarters contentedly chewing Bones’ watch, whilst Bones, accompanying himself with his banjo, was singing a song which was chiefly remarkable for the fact that he was ignorant of the tune and somewhat hazy concerning the words.

“Did you ever take a tum-ty up the Nile,

Did you ever dumpty dupty in a camp,

Or dumpty dumpty on m--m----

Or play it in a dumpty dumpty swamp.”

He rose, and saluted his senior, as Hamilton came in.

“Exactly what is going to happen when Sanders comes back?” asked Hamilton, and the face of Bones fell.

“Happen, sir? I don’t take you, sir--what could happen--to whom, sir?”

“To Henry,” said Hamilton.

Henry looked up at that moment with a seraphic smile.

“Isn’t he wonderful, sir?” asked Bones in hushed ecstasy; “you won’t believe what I’m going to tell you, sir--you’re such a jolly old sceptic, sir--but Henry knows me--positively recognizes me! And when you remember that he’s only four months old--why, it’s unbelievable.”

“But what will you do when Sanders comes--really, Bones, I don’t know whether I ought to allow this as it is.”

“If exception is taken to Henry, sir,” said Bones firmly, “I resign my commission; if a gentleman is allowed to keep a dog, sir, he is surely allowed to keep a baby. Between Henry and me, sir, there is a bond stronger than steel. I may be an ass, sir, I may even be a goop, but come between me an’ my child an’ all my motherly instincts--if you’ll pardon the paradox--all my paternal--that’s the word--instincts are aroused, and I will fight like a tiger, sir----”

“What a devil you are for jaw,” said Hamilton; “anyway, I’ve warned you. Sanders is due in a month.”

“Henry will be five,” murmured Bones.

“Oh, blow Henry!” said Hamilton.

Bones rose and pointed to the door.

“May I ask you, sir,” he said, “not to use that language before the child? I hate to speak to you like this, sir, but I have a responsible----”

He dodged out of the open door and the loaf of bread which Hamilton had thrown struck the lintel and rolled back to Henry’s eager hands.

The two men walked up and down the parade ground whilst Fa’ma, the wife of Ahmet, carried the child to her quarters where he slept.

“I’m afraid I’ve got to separate you from your child,” said Hamilton; “there is some curious business going on in the Lombobo, and a stranger who walks by night, of which Ahmet the Spy writes somewhat confusingly.”

Bones glanced round in some apprehension.

“Oblige me, old friend,” he entreated, “by never speakin’ of such things before Henry--I wouldn’t have him scared for the world.”

II

Bosambo of the Ochori was a light sleeper, the lighter because of certain stories which had reached him of a stranger who walks by night, and in the middle of the night he suddenly became wide awake, conscious that there was a man in his hut of whose coming the sentry without was ignorant.

Bosambo’s hand went out stealthily for his short spear, but before he could reach it, his wrist was caught in a grip of steel, strong fingers gripped his throat, and the intruder whispered fiercely, using certain words which left the chief helpless with wonder.

“I am M’gani of the Night,” said the voice with authoritative hauteur, “of me you have heard, for I am known only to chiefs; and am so high that chiefs obey and even devils go quickly from my path.”

“O, M’gani, I hear you,” whispered Bosambo, “how may I serve you?”

“Get me food,” said the imperious stranger, “after, you shall make a bed for me in your inner room, and sit before this house that none may disturb me, for it is to my high purpose that no word shall go to M’ilitani that I stay in your territory.”

“M’gani, I am your dog,” said Bosambo, and stole forth from the hut like a thief to obey.

All that day he sat before his hut and even sent away the wife of his heart and the child M’sambo, that the rest of M’gani of the N’gombi should not be disturbed.

That night when darkness had come and the glowing red of hut fires grew dimmer, M’gani came from the hut.

Bosambo had sent away the guard and accompanied his guest to the end of the village.

M’gani, with only a cloak of leopard skin about him, twirling two long spears as he walked, was silent till he came to the edge of the city where he was to take farewell of his host.

“Tell me this, Bosambo, where are Sandi’s spies that I may avoid them?”

And Bosambo, without hesitation, told him.

“M’gani,” said he, at parting, “where do you go now? tell me that I may send cunning men to guard you, for there is a bad spirit in this land, especially amongst the people of Lombobo, because I have offended B’limi Saka, the chief.”

“No soldiers do I need, O Bosambo,” said the other. “Yet I tell you this that I go to quiet places to learn that which will be best for my people.”

He turned to go.

“M’gani,” said Bosambo, “in the day when you shall see our lord Sandi, speak to him for me saying that I am faithful, for it seems to me, so high a man are you that he will listen to your word when he will listen to none other.”

“I hear,” said M’gani gravely, and slipped into the shadows of the forest.

Bosambo stood for a long time staring in the direction which M’gani had taken, then walked slowly back to his hut.

In the morning came the chief of his councillors for a hut palaver.

“Bosambo,” said he, in a tone of mystery, “the Walker-of-the-Night has been with us.”

“Who says this?” asked Bosambo.

“Fibini, the fisherman,” said the councillor, “for this he says, that having toothache, he sat in the shadow of his hut near the warm fire and saw the Walker pass through the village and with him, lord, one who was like a devil, being big and very ugly.”

“Go to Fibini,” said a justly annoyed Bosambo, “and beat him on the feet till he cries--for he is a liar and a spreader of alarm.”

Yet Fibini had done his worst before the bastinado (an innovation of Bosambo’s) had performed its silencing mission, and Ochori mothers shepherded their little flocks with greater care when the sun went down that night, for this new terror which had come to the land, this black ghost with the wildfire fame was reputed especially devilish. In a week he had become famous--so swift does news carry in the territories.

Men had seen him passing through forest paths, or speeding with incredible swiftness along the silent river. Some said that he had no boat and walked the waters, others that he flew like a bat with millions of bats behind him. One had met him face to face and had sunk to the ground before eyes “that were very hot and red and thrusting out little lightnings.”

He had been seen in many places in the Ochori, in the N’gombi city, in the villages of the Akasava, but mainly his hunting ground was the narrow strip of territory which is called Lombobo.

B’limi Saka, the chief of the land, himself a believer in devils, was especially perturbed lest the Silent Walker should be a spy of Government, for he had been guilty of practices which were particularly obnoxious to the white men who were so swift to punish.

“Yet,” said he to his daughter and (to the disgust of his people, who despised women) his chief councillor, “none know my heart save you, Lamalana.”

Lamalana, with her man shoulders and her flat face, peered at her grizzled father sideways.

“Devils hear hearts,” she said huskily, “and when they talk of killings and sacrifices are not all devils pleased? Now I tell you this, my father, that I wait for sacrifices which you swore by death you would show me.”