CHAPTER XVI

THE KING'S BOUNTY

A further brilliant idea came to Carter next morning that after all he and White-Man's-Trouble had been raising difficulties about the river's navigation that were quite unnecessary. There was a village of natives close at their door who were river-farers. What was more likely than that there were many men there who could pilot a canoe through a chain of creeks till at last they heard the great Atlantic surf roaring on a river bar?

White-Man's-Trouble shook his head when he heard the suggestion. "Dem bushmen savvy nothing," said he contemptuously.

Upon experiment it proved that he was right. The villagers had acquired the habit of fishing on the reaches which ran two miles up stream and two miles down; they had adopted the customs of their forefathers; no one of them had ever paddled beyond these limits. They were an incurious people.

Their canoes were small, and narrow, and unwieldy. They were dug out from cotton-wood trees with fire, and dubbed into vague shape with native adzes, and through sheer idleness and incapacity the builders had rarely selected straight timber. Even expert polers and paddlers could not propel those miserable craft in a straight course. One thing only were these fishers good at, and that was baling. But in this they had abundant practice, for all the canoes were sun-cracked, and leaked like baskets.

"I wish," said Carter, "for a great raft that will carry twelve tons of the shiny stones which fall from the mountain."

They did not know what a raft was, neither did they appreciate the size of a ton, but Carter demonstrated to them, and White-Man's-Trouble kept them from forgetting. The Krooboy had found a chiquot, and, from having felt chiquots across all parts of his own person many a time, was well qualified to wield such a baton of authority. Carter picked out suitable cotton woods, and the Krooboy apportioned out the cutters, and stayed beside them till their work was done.

They handspiked the logs down to the water, again having to be instructed in this most elementary piece of mechanics, laid cross-pieces at right angles, and lashed all tightly together with lianes. Then when they had built up the interstices between the logs with large pieces of tin-stone, they carried down the smaller ore in baskets till the logs were sunk to three-quarters draught.

Next they built a house on the raft and covered it with thatch, and in part of the house they piled a great store of dried fish as provision for the voyage. And all the while the ju-ju organ behind them boomed out at intervals its dismal boo-paa-bumm, bumm-paa-boo.

Now although Carter had been a trader long enough to get very African notions of the negro and his ways, still he had an Englishman's natural bias against forced labor. White-Man's-Trouble, who did not see the desirability of working if others would do it for him, openly suggested pressing what hands were required for navigation. But Carter said no. He had no money to pay them with on arrival, and the lower castes of Africans do not understand the delights of having outstanding accounts with the white man for labor performed. The Krooboy and he must struggle down the creeks and find the channel themselves.

White-Man's-Trouble sniffed and scratched himself, and said they would see. And presently when the time came for departure the usual African surprise descended upon them surely enough. Seven naked savages from the fishers' village squatted on the raft and refused to budge. Their arguments were simple. Carter was a great ju-ju man. They knew he was great, because since he came the _boo-baa-bumm_ noises had been incessant. Moreover, these were beneficent noises, since whilst they filled the air no one had died in the village from leopard, crocodile, or alien spear. They therefore adopted him as their master.

"Oh, but look here," said Carter, "I can't do this. It means I should be a slave-holder, neither more nor less. Besides, with you seven great lumps sitting there, the raft's awash. If I take you I shall have to jettison some of my tin-stone."

But they had no further arguments. They sat placid. They had lived in cousinship with fear all their squalid lives, and here at last had arrived the strong man who could certainly protect them if he would. And they intended he should.

Carter thought for a minute, and then, "I won't have it," said he. "Trouble, drive them ashore."

White-Man's-Trouble spoke, and nothing happened. He laced into their bare backs with his chiquot, but still they did not budge. One of them, who seemed to be spokesman, merely talked to him quietly.

The Krooboy explained. "Dem bushmen very uneducate. Dey say if you no take 'em dey lib for die. Dem big black fellow there wid one ear, he say if you no take him, he walk into dem ribber an' be crocodile chop."

"They'll do it, too, confound them," Carter assured himself vexedly.

And so it came to pass, as he could not very well condemn the enterprising seven to death--for that is what leaving them amounted to--he was forced to take them with him, and very idle, inefficient boatmen they proved. They knew nothing of the river, once the two miles of their fishing had been passed; they had no idea of the obvious set of currents, no eyes for the plainest shoal. If they were left to themselves for a dozen minutes they would run the raft into the bush, and as likely as not get on board a cargo of red ants that seemed to have white-hot teeth when they started to bite. They gorged upon the scanty store of dried fish if they were not watched, and never caught more unless they were incessantly goaded. When the reeking yellow river was more than usually full of crocodiles they would dangle their legs over the side; and when the raft was drifting past a village which was most probably hostile, they would break into song. They always felt that the great white ju-ju man, under whose protection they had elected to place themselves, was competent to shelter them if he so desired. And if he willed otherwise, and they died, well, that did not greatly concern them. They were very exasperating animals, and Carter about three times a day much wished that the handling of them could be transferred to some of those kind-hearted people at home who always insist that the negro of the West Africa hinterland is a man and a brother.

They had a small dugout canoe in tow, and greatly they needed it. After twice running the big raft down streams that ended in impassable morass, and having tediously to tow and punt her back against the current, they always hereafter sent the lighter craft ahead on voyages of discovery. Or to be more accurate, Carter had to go in her with one of the fishers as assistant. The excellent White-Man's-Trouble had limits to his intelligence, and there was no driving into him that water which would carry a canoe that drew three inches of water was too shallow for a heavy raft that drew three feet.

The Winchester rifle and the remains of the Gladstone bag seemed the only two things that linked them now with civilization. They lived in the African manner upon African food; the intricate branching of the creeks was charted in matchet-scratches upon the smoothed surface of a log of wood; even English speech was discarded in favor of the native tongue.

Carter had shaved till the steamy atmosphere of the bush had turned his razors into mere sticks of rust; and with the growth of his red stubble of beard, all respect for his outward man had vanished. He caught sight of himself one evening in a pool of black water. "Well," he commented, "I always thought that Swizzle-Stick Smith was a filthy old ruffian, but at his worst he looks a prince to me now. That I suppose is where gray has the pull over ginger."

But it was the rescue of the King of Okky which really gave the turn to the whole of Carter's fortune. They had got the raft into a regular cul-de-sac of reeds and water-lilies, and she lay there stuck on a shoal in the face of a falling river. Creeks radiated all around them like the spokes of some gigantic wheel. The place was alive with crocodiles and flies. Not very far away an intertribal battle advertised itself by an ugly mutter of firing.

"An' chop no lib," said White-Man's-Trouble, by way of winding up the sum of their difficulties.

"Well, find some," Carter snapped. "Make spears, and stab the fish up out of the mud if you can't catch them with nets or hooks. Only see that there's a meal ready for me when I get back, or I'll lam into you with that chiquot you're so fond of using."

He went off then in the warped dugout, with the one-eared man as bow pole, laboriously hunting for a passage into some main stream. The river beneath them gave up fat bubbles of evil odors; the banks of slime on either side reeked under the sun blaze. A dozen times Carter thought he saw open water ahead, and pushed on, and a dozen times found himself embayed. And always he had to jot down compass notes with a nail on the well-scored gunwale of the canoe, so as to keep in touch with the raft, and be ready against that forthcoming time when he would have to pilot a steam launch up to Tin Hill. For though he barely expected to escape with life out of this horrible labyrinth of creeks and waterways, be it always understood he intended to return and demand from the country a fortune, if so be he ever got down again to the seaboard.

At last, however, he swung out into what was obviously a main channel, and was on the point of turning back to fetch the raft, when his eye was held by something that moved sluggishly in mid-stream.

It lay up towards the sun, and was hard to make out because of the dazzle of radiance.

"Can you see what that is?" he asked his bow man in the native.

"It is just a man on a branch," said that savage, with cheerful indifference. "Presently the crocodiles will chop him. Shall we go back now, Effendi, to the raft?"

"No, my callous friend. We'll investigate the person in the tree first. Full speed ahead!"

The clumsy dugout lurched and twisted down the broad marigold-smelling river, and as there was a strong current under her, she soon drew the obstruction into clearer view.

It was a tree clearly enough, swept down by some flood and stranded here in mid-channel to form one of the myriad snags with which West African rivers abound. In it was a black man who hung by his hands from the upper branches, and was perpetually pulling up his toes like some ridiculous jumping-jack. He was a very fat man, and his movements were getting more feeble even as they watched him. But it was not till they got close alongside that they saw the impelling motive of these gymnastics.

A twelve-foot crocodile was in attendance beneath the tree, and every now and again it swam up with a great swirl and shot its grisly jaws out of the water, and snapped noisily at the fat man's toes.

Carter lifted his Winchester and waited for a chance, but of a sudden his bow man turned to him with a face that was gray with fear. "That man," he said, "is the King of Okky, and if you save him, presently we shall both die."

"I had already recognized the gentleman, and I fancy he's far more my enemy than yours, but I'm going to pull him out of this mess for all that, and give him a good level start again on dry land."

Then as the crocodile jumped once more, he threw up his rifle and shot it under the left foreleg, where the protective plates are absent.

The brute jumped, and writhed, and swam away amid cascades of golden spray, and as the bullet was soft-nosed and expanding there would probably be, before many more hours were over, one less pest in Africa. But Carter did not worry his head about that. He paddled the dugout to the tree and called to the King.

His Majesty of Okky was fat, and though once he had been a giant in strength, in these latter years of kingship he had grown soft and flabby. He did all his journeyings in hammock and canoe, and had slaves who saved him the smallest scrap of exercise; and, moreover, he ate and drank to vast excess. So that when the immediate strain was over it can be understood how he hung in the upper branches of that tree too limp and exhausted even to lower himself into the canoe. Carter had to climb onto the branch, and bear a hand before he could get down.

The dugout sank perilously beneath his weight, but the King was no amateur, and balanced cannily. Moreover, presently he panted himself into articulate speech. "I fit for gin," said the King of Okky.

"I bet you are," Carter agreed. "But unfortunately the bar on this packet's closed for want of supplies just at the moment. Try a sup of the local ditch-water out of the baler."

The King did so, and made a face. "I have not drunk water since I became a King," said he. "O Carter, do not turn up stream. I have men at a village down yonder."

"I don't doubt it. But having saved your skin, King, I've my own to think of now."

The King's great body began to shake with laughter.

"Stop that," said Carter sharply, "or you'll burst the gunwales out."

"O Carter," said Kallee, speaking in Okky, "listen. It is only by my favor that you have lived so long. We are both ju-ju men, and between such it is useless to make pretence. But I can tell you all you did since you left Mokki, and met Smith, and went to the cliff whereof ben Hossein told you, and saw the stones which carry the brown glass which you covet so much. I can tell you of your machine which says boo-paa-bumm, and of the way you came down these creeks on a raft, and how you labored prodigiously in the blind channels. I had arranged to let you get so far. To-morrow, when you came abreast of my villages, canoes would have come out--" Here the King screwed round his fat neck and eyed Carter over his shoulder--"O Carter, do you think it strange that I should have wanted a head such as yours?"

"You would not tell me this now if you still wanted that head."

One could not deny that somehow the man had a certain regal dignity about him. "O Carter," he said, "if I have a King's lusts, I have all of a King's gratitude. I was travelling down this river. My canoe was overturned by a snag, and it and the paddlers were swept away down stream, and if the crocodiles have not dealt with the men I will give them their due presently. For myself, I climbed into that tree as you saw, and could not have endured longer. What account was open between us we will wipe from the tally. I owe you for my life now, and I will repay."

"Are my Krooboy and the fishers included in the treaty?"

The King shrugged his great shoulders. "I could give you a better servant than White-Man's-Trouble, and better paddlers than those fishermen. But if they please you, they shall remain alive and well treated. Paddle now quickly down stream to the village, O Carter, and we will drink Krug champagne till a goat is slain and chop prepared."

The village, when they came to it, was not a pleasant sight. It had been rebellious, and the King of Okky had been instilling discipline with a strong hand. Furthermore, two of his canoemen had escaped from the river and reported that the King was drowned. They were also attended to in a way that prevented their ever erring again in this world. The King dispensed champagne, and arranged great matters of life and death with a massive impartiality. And between whiles he found abundant time to talk with his guest, now using Coast English for the sake of greater privacy. His knowledge of what had been going on was at times almost uncanny.

"O Carter," he said, "dem Laura, she lib for Teach-palaver house in Las Palmas."

"She left for Las Palmas in the _Frau Pobst_ certainly. But I don't know where she is staying."

"Teach-palaver house," said the King placidly, "by Telde."

"She was at school once at a convent on the Telde road."

"She lib for there now."

"I say, King, how the deuce do you know that?"

"Savvy plenty funny things," said the King, and turned to do justice on another culprit who was brought before him for trial.

The royal _ménage_ was simple. They dined off a couscousoo and a bowl of stewed goat, such as any well-to-do native farmer might have set on the floor before him for his meal, and thereafter they sat on mats of elaborate straw-work upon the hard earth, and the King consumed at a moderate computation one ounce of snuff before he was inclined for further talk.

Then, "O Carter," said he, "what for dis stone palaver?"

"When that stone is taken to my country they heat it in a furnace with other things, and a white metal runs out."

"Okky-man no fit for make him?"

"No, the job's too complicated."

"Dem stone worth lot o' money, or you no fit for carry small-small load all dem way to coast. And a whole hill of dem stone lib far up ribber. So dem hill worth plenty-much lot o' money."

"There goes my pile," thought Carter bitterly. "The greedy old ruffian's going to hook it for himself."

The King went on. "Dem Kate, she fit for be O'Neill and Craven now?"

"I suppose you may say she is."

"Smith an' Slade all-e-same work-boy for O'Neill and Craven?"

"If you like to put it that way."

"Good. And you," went on this well-informed monarch, wagging a fat forefinger, "you want marry Kate, same's I wanted to marry Laura, an' she no fit for have you, same's Laura no fit for have me dem time?"

Carter dropped his chin onto his knees and said nothing. The King went on, "O Carter, you fit for save my life dis day. If you no come wid dem canoe, I lib for be crocodile chop this minute. So I do not take your red--I do not make you lib for die as I say dis morning, but I fit for make you glad. Dem Dutchmen hold dem factory now at Mokki?"

"They do."

"Then I send my war-boys in at back an' stop roads. But I take ju-ju off roads to dem O'Neill and Craven factories at Smooth, an' Monk, and Malla-Nulla."

"That's very good of you, I'm sure."

"Then dem Kate she love you much when she find dem factory once more do trade."

"I'm afraid, King, it would take a lot more than that to make Kate feel attached to me. You see, I'm no longer in O'Neill and Craven's service. I chucked it when she sold Mokki, and I've been on my own ever since."

The King's eyes gave the ghost of a twinkle. "Den I no fit for open dem roads. So I make you dash another way. I send you for Coast in big canoe of sixty paddles."

"With White-Man's-Trouble?"

"Wid your boy, an' your cargo. I send you in three days' time six more canoes of sixty paddles, full of dem stone you wish. I dash you dem hill of stone where you set up dem dam ju-ju boo-paa-bumm. I tell dem men who lib for ribber banks that you be free for come an' go on all my country while I lib for King; an' if any man he hurt you, I take dem man an' I nail him by hands an' feet to a tree!"

Carter looked up. "Do you mean that?"

The King took snuff. "When I say to a man you lib for die, he die. When I say 'I let you lib,' then he lib. When I say to a man, 'I make you dash,' he get dem dash, even though I have to send my war-boys to take it from somebody other to give it him. O Carter, I lib for be real King."

"You mean you've given me a fortune in return for the small thing I did for you?"

"My life," said the King dryly, "he seem small thing to you. But to me"--he patted his rotundity--"to me dem life be plenty big."

Three days Carter abode in the village, and kept to the inside of his hut to avoid the sights of the place, which to a European eye are unpleasant when an African King is visiting his displeasure upon unruly subjects. He was ministered unto by White-Man's-Trouble, who paid him much unaccustomed deference, and forebore to steal the smallest thing. And at nights he sat with the King, who had an educated palate in champagne, and drank vintage wine at the rate of one case in four days.

"When I lib back for Okky City," the King said once, "you fit for come and see me there now?"

"Certainly, King, if you'll name a date when you haven't got a custom on."

King Kallee looked thoughtfully at his guest. "Dem English no fit for like dem custom-palaver?"

"They don't, one little bit."

"For why?"

"Gets on their nerves."

"Dem English King, he send his war-boys if I make dem custom-palaver more?"

"It's the common topic of conversation down the Coast as to when England will send an expedition to cut you up."

"Because I stop dem roads an' spoil trade to factories?"

"Pooh, King! You know precious little about the British Government. You may spoil all the trade in Africa if you like, you may even cut up half a dozen factory agents or so, and the British Government won't care a little hang. But if you will go on in your simple way crucifying slaves, and carving up your own subjects, why, then, it's only a question of time before they'll pull you off your perch and send you into an inexpensive exile in St. Helena."

"Dem Swizzle-Stick Smith he say same thing."

"It's so obvious."

"But he want me to let him hand dem Okky country over to England, so I say I pull his skin off if I catch him again. What you want for yo'self?"

"Do you mean what do I stand to make out of the deal? Well, not much beyond the satisfaction of keeping your crucifixion tree in a more sanitary state. With the mining right you have given me, I shall be a rich man."

"But if dem English took Okky country?"

"Why, they'd tax the mine, and they'd clap on regulations, till they made a very fine hole in the profits."

"Say dem again."

Carter explained more fully, and then for awhile the King of Okky sat and took snuff in silence.

Then, "O Carter," he asked, "dem King of England he got so many war-boys as me?"

Carter nodded.

"And dey no have trade guns? All Winchesters?"

"I don't know what the present regulation pump-gun is called, but we'll say it's like the Winchester, only plenty-too-much better."

Again the King thought in silence, and the hot night rustled and sighed around them. The moonlight was strong enough to show even the fibre of the fine state mats on which they sat. But at last he motioned away the slave who carried his snuff-mull, and touched Carter's knee with an emphatic finger.

"I believe you speak for true about dem custom. Three days ago you no care if I lib or die?"

"I may as well be frank, and say I should have preferred you dead."

The King gave the ghost of a grin. "There are many like that. But now?"

"Now I prefer you alive and King of Okky."

"Dat is what I thought, an' so I believe you say true when you tell me what you say about dem customs. I do not see why Okky customs should make dem English king fit for send his war-boys. But I no fit for want 'em."

"So you fit for stop dem customs?"

"I fit," said the King, and by that decision gave respite, it has been calculated, to at least eight thousand of his subjects each year who had gone the red paths prescribed by ju-ju.

They drew up a memorandum on the subject there and then, in the form of a letter from the King of Okky to him of Great Britain. Carter suggested the British Foreign Secretary, but Kallee would not hear of it. He as a King, he said, was the equal of any other King. So on a sheet of damp, mildewed note-paper the message was written, and signed by the King in an Arabic scrawl.

And next day it travelled down to the Coast in state inside the battered remains of a once-yellow gladstone bag.