Bones of the River

by Edgar Wallace

“That’s who I’m supposed to be,” said Bones carelessly, and handed a slip of paper to his visitor.

  “Reginald de Coursy, a man of synister appearance, yet of plesing apearance. His eyes show sings of diserpation dissipation disapation his nose is aquerline his mouth creul. He looks like a man who has lived.”

  “Is that you?” asked Hamilton.

  Bones nodded.

  “You look more like a man who has died,” snarled his superior. “What’s the meaning of this dashed nonsense?”

  He did not say “dashed.” Bones screwed up his face in an expression of pain, and the grimace made his face even more startling.

  “Language, dear old thing! That’s one of the things I’m not going to have. I hate to hurt your jolly old feelings, Ham, but the studio must be kept clean.”

  “Studio?”

  “Well, I haven’t got a studio yet,” admitted Bones, “but that’s coming, dear old Felix – you’re Felix.”

  “I’m what?” asked the dazed Hamilton.

  Bones searched the litter of papers by the side of his make-up box and found another slip, which he handed without a word to his chief.

  “Fellix Harington a young and hansom fellow of 26. His countenance is open and Frank and a genal smile is in his eyes, but very deceptful.”

  Hamilton could only look helplessly from the paper to Bones. That gentleman was perfectly composed.

  “There’s a fortune in it, my dear old officer,” he said calmly. “In fact, there’s two fortunes in it. Now, my idea is a play where a seemingly villainous person turns out a jolly old hero in the end. And the seemingly heroic old person turns out a jolly old rotter – robs his old father, and is going to murder him, when up comes Reggie the Knut – that’s me.”

  “Wait a minute,” said the dazed Hamilton. “Do I understand that you have cast me for this part – and may I ask who is the father?”

  “The jolly old Commissioner,” said Bones complacently, and Hamilton’s jaw dropped.

  When he recovered command of his voice: “Do you imagine that Sanders is going to jigger about, wearing false whiskers, just to amuse an infernal–”

  “I’m not sure about the whiskers,” said Bones thoughtfully, “I’ve been turning it over in my mind, dear old Ham, and I’m not so sure that the whiskers would come out. A little beard perhaps, or maybe a couple of mutton chops.”

  Then Bones’ scheme came out. He had written a great play; it was entirely without women characters. He, Sanders and Hamilton were to act the story in their spare time, work in, to use his own expression, “a dinky little battle between savages, where I come along, dear old thing, and foil them single-handed – and it will be a sensation, Ham. There’s never been anything done like it and there never will be again perhaps, unless I do it. Look at the life, my dear old Felix…the wonderful scenery…it will be a sensation, dear old thing. I wouldn’t be surprised if we didn’t make half-a-million.”

  Sanders heard all about this new scheme of Bones’ without being either annoyed or perturbed.

  “But you may tell him from me, Hamilton, that under no conditions will I act the fool in front of his wretched camera. By the way, did you see it?”

  Hamilton nodded. “It’s not a bad-looking camera,” he admitted, “and Bones can turn the handle very well. He’s been to the kitchen, practising on the knife-cleaner, and he says he’s got exactly the right speed.”

  Baffled in his great attempt to create a picture which should startle the world, Bones, the adaptable, decided upon a great native drama.

  “It’s never been done, dear old Ham,” he said eagerly one night at dinner, when he expounded his scheme – and it was curious how quickly he had assimilated the clichés of the studio – “that’s the one thing you’ve got to be careful about on the cinema, old boy, do something that has never been done before. I’m working out the scenery now–”

  “The word you want, I think,” said Hamilton, “is ‘scenario.’”

  “Same thing, my dear old Ham,” said Bones testily. “Good gracious heavens, why do you interrupt me on a trivial little matter like scenery? Scenery or scenario – same jolly old thing.”

  “Where are you laying the plot?” asked Sanders.

  “Anywhere, dear old excellency,” said Bones vaguely. “My idea is to make Ahmet the hero, who runs away with the beautiful Kalambala, the Sultan’s favourite wife. And she’s rescued by a handsome young Englishman–”

  “Need you go any further?” asked Hamilton.

  “A handsome young Englishman,” repeated Bones, with a contemptuous glance at his superior.

  “You, of course,” said Hamilton.

  “Anyway, she’s rescued.”

  “And then what do you do with her?” asked Hamilton.

  But Bones hadn’t got as far as this. He filmed the first scene of this exciting story, and Hamilton and Sanders came down to witness the production. The attempt was a failure for many reasons. Ahmet had to stroll on to the scene, fold his arms, shake his head and smile. Then he had to shrug his shoulders and walk off. And he did it remarkably well until Bones started turning the handle.

  “Roll your eyes,” screamed Bones.

  “Lord, I roll my eyes,” said Ahmet, standing stiffly to attention and saluting.

  Bones stopped turning with a groan. “O man,” he said bitterly, “when I speak to you, do not stick your big feet together and salute me! Stand easy! Now try it again.”

  He tried it again, with no greater success; for this time, instead of saluting, Ahmet stood regimentally at ease. When the scene was made right, new trouble arose. The escaping Sultana was to be played by the wife of a Corporal Hafiz; and Corporal Hafiz refused resolutely, and with much stamping of feet and spitting on the ground, to allow his wife to be carried in Ahmet’s arms.

  “You’re demoralising the detachment, Bones,” said Hamilton sternly, and dismissed the actors to their several duties.

  Bones did not speak to his company commander for two days, at the end of which time he had found a new and more alluring scheme.

  “I’ve got it, old Ham,” he said one day, dashing into the dining-room where the two men were sitting, smoking their after-luncheon cigars, in what shade they could find, for the sun was burning and there was little or no breeze from the sea.

  “You’ll get sunstroke if you go around without your helmet,” said Hamilton lazily. “What have you got? The picture?”

  “The picture!” said Bones triumphantly. “The greatest stunt ever, dear old excellency. And it all came out of jolly old Bones’ nut. Lives and customs of savage old tribes, dear old officer.” He stepped back to notice the effect of his words.

  “Lives and customs of savage tribes?” repeated Hamilton.

  “That’s the idea. Wherever I go, I take the camera, and if I don’t make a thousand a week lecturing on a subject, dear old killjoy, that is dear to the heart of every jolly old patriot, my name is mud.”

  “Your real name I’ve never been able to remember,” said Hamilton, “but it does strike me as being much more feasible than the other.”

  Thereafter, Bones spent a great deal of his time filming native scenes; and for once there happened to be method in his hobby. Having trained Ahmet to turn the handle, he was able to make a personal appearance in most. Sometimes he was standing in a negligent attitude, talking to a native woman as she cooked the evening meal. In other pictures he was patting the heads of little black toddlers (after carefully fixing a handkerchief about their middles, lest the susceptibilities of Surbiton should be shocked). Sometimes he was standing with his arms folded, and a sad but determined look upon his face, on the bow of the Zaire. And to all he supplied titles. He showed Hamilton a list of them.

  “Kindly Chief Comissioner helping Savidges to build a Hut.”

  Or, more flamboyantly, and in keeping with the spirit of modern subtitles:

  “Far from the hum and compitetion of the bussy world, the native goes about his daily tarsks, under the watchful b
ut bernevilent eye of the Cheif Comissioner.”

  “One of the advantages of the cinema,” said Hamilton, “is that you needn’t be able to spell. Who is this Chief Commissioner you keep talking about in your titles, Bones?” he asked, interested. “I didn’t know Sanders was assisting you in your nefarious plan to pander to the debased instincts of the British public!”

  Bones coughed. “Well, to be perfectly candid, dear old thing,” he said, “dear old Sanders did talk about toddling down once, but he got stage-fright, old Ham. You know what these youngsters are, what, what?”

  Bones could be waggish, but Bones could never be so waggish that he could lead Hamilton from his deadly trail.

  “You don’t mean to tell me that you’re masquerading as a Commissioner? Why, even the poorest little street Arab that ever stole sixpence to go to the pictures will recognise you’re fake!”

  Bones could afford to smile indulgently at the other’s strictures.

  “What we want now, Ham,” he said seriously at dinner that night, “is a jolly old war! If we could only get a real good old dust-up between the mighty N’gombi and good old Bosambo, with me in the foreground, just to show that Britain’s watchful eye still keeps a watch, when naughty natives sleep – that’s a good bit of poetry, by the way, dear old thing, and don’t pass it off as your own.”

  “Bones, if you wish for war I’ll kill you,” said Sanders, coming in at that moment. “The territories are quiet, and if we can only get over the harvest without a real big blood-letting, I shall be a happy man.”

  Bones was silent, but not altogether hopeless. There was need for somebody to go to the Ochori country, for there was news of a recrudescence of Leopard trouble, and Bones gladly availed himself of the opportunity.

  On the first night away from headquarters, when the Zaire was tied up to a wood, Private Mahmud sought out his sergeant.

  “Effendi,” said he in coast Arabic, “what is this small box which Tibbetti carries and which you turn with a handle? Some say that it is a new gun; others that it is a taker of pictures. Now, we know that it is not a taker of pictures, because, when Hamiltini desires that a row of Houssas shall appear upon paper – which is against the law of the Prophet – he says, ‘Damnyoustandstill,’ which is an English word, and makes a clicking noise. Now Tibbetti does not say ‘Damnyoustandstill’ for he desires that you should walk; also he turns a handle. Tell me now, Effendi, why these things happen.”

  Sergeant Ahmet, in all solemnity, explained as much of the mystery box as he understood.

  “When Tibbetti turns the handle, pictures appear, one after another, so that when they are looked at quickly, they seem to be one and all moving.”

  “That is too much of a mystery for me,” admitted the inquirer after knowledge, and sought no further information.

  Not unconscious of his responsibility and importance, Ahmet was loth to let the discussion end there.

  “Some day, when Tibbetti is away, I will gather you all together and make a special picture for you, so that your wives may see them. And for this you shall all give me one silver dollar.”

  Though they boggled at the dollar, his men accepted the principle of the offer.

  The opportunity he sought came to them after they had left the Ochori city and were journeying up that wild bank line which the Zaire so seldom traversed. More definite news had reached Bones about the Leopards – not the clean and yellow thing that stalks and slays, but something vile and abominable in the shape of man. Bones became instantly soldier and representative of the law, and for the moment his heart turned from Hollywood.

  * * *

  Obaga came back from his hunting. He had been a month away, and he had brought with him ten bushmen carriers, each with a load of pelts, for he was a skilful and patient man. His wife met him outside the village, her hands crossed before her, token of her meekness, and he passed her without a word, though, if he had known all he was to know, he would have returned to the village alone. She made him his dinner, and served it on the palms of her two hands.

  “I stay here now for three and three moons,” said Obaga, “for the beasts will be breeding, and many have already gone away into their secret places.”

  This she expected, and by native reckoning a month would pass before he learnt the truth. That night, when her husband was sleeping the sleep of utter weariness, she crept forth from her hut, and sped secretly to the wood, where the other man was waiting, she having sent for him.

  “Obaga is returned,” she said. “Now, friend, what shall I do? For when he knows, he will kill me.”

  “Why should he know?” compromised the other, manlike. “For are you not his wife, and is he not a man? I think it is best for you to say, ‘Husband, there is good news for you, and you shall have a son for your house’.”

  She made a sound of impatience. “He knows what he knows,” she said cryptically, but to him understandably. “If I tell him this, I will take his killing spear into my hands, so that it will be sooner over. If you were to come into the hut tonight and spear him as he sleeps, or wait for him when he goes into the wood tomorrow, that would be best.”

  “For you, woman, but not for me,” said the other. “All men in this village know that I am your lover, and Sandi will come with his guns and his soldiers, and my hut will be burnt. Also, Tibbetti is already here. He is sitting in the village of Busuri, where there is a Leopard palaver. It is said that there will be hangings. I know this, because the cunning ones have hidden their pads in the ground.”

  She drew a quick breath. “Bring me the pads,” she whispered. “To-morrow, when it is dark, bring me the leopard pads.”

  He was horrified at the suggestion, but she insisted; and in trepidation and fear he left her. She went back and lay down by her man.

  When the next night came, she found Tebeli, for whom she had dared so much, and he was shaking like a leaf, and in his hands were two ugly skin-shapes, with little knives in place of claws, and the hair had earth upon it, as though they had recently been dug from the ground. He dropped them into the hands she held out as though they were red hot, and, turning without a word, would have fled back towards his village, but she stopped him.

  “Now, my own man, go towards Busuri, where Tibbetti is, and tell him that a Leopard walks toward the village, and that, if they wait by the path, they may take him.”

  He was in no mood for such an adventure, but she was stronger than he, and he went. And M’Libi returned to her hut, the pads, glove-like, on her hands. Obaga was too busy with his spears to notice, but when his eyes turned, he saw in the flickering light of the fire the hideous things she wore, and dropped his spear and leapt up with a roar.

  “Woman who art shameless, what have you there?”

  “These I found in my little box of wood, Obaga,” she said innocently.

  She held her hands up to be admired, and the rusted steel claws glittered evilly.

  “Oh ko!” said Obaga, agitated, “whose things are these?”

  “They belong to a man in the village of Busuri,” she said. “Lobala, the fisher. These he gave to me when I was a little girl.”

  “Give them,” said her husband, snatching them from her hand.

  A second later, he was striding through the village to the forest path that led to Busuri. But the lover of his wife was quicker than he, and on the edge of the village three soldiers seized Obaga and brought him into the presence of Bones.

  Now, of all things certain, this is most sure; any man who carries on his person, or hides in his hut, the insignia of the Leopard, is already dead. From one end of Africa to the other there is no mercy for the sons of the Leopard. Obaga knew that his fate was sealed.

  “Man,” said Bones quietly, as he surveyed the damning evidence, “what horrible things are these?”

  “Lord, they were given to me to bring to the village,” said Obaga.

  “Who gave?” asked Bones, but the man was silent, because it was his wife who had given them.


  “Lord, if I hang, I must hang,” said Obaga. “But I tell you this, that the Leopards are my enemies, for my father was a Fire Ghost, and we of the village of Labala have fought Leopards for a thousand years.”

  Bones knew this was true, and was puzzled how a man from Labala came to be in possession of these things; and the order that should have been given for instant execution was delayed. In the morning the spies brought news from Busuri and the truth was out. Obaga, returning home, found his wife had fled.

  That was the story of Obaga. There it would have ended, but for the village gossip. This matter of the Leopards cleared up to the satisfaction of everybody, save a still form that hung on a tree three miles from the village, Bones turned his thoughts to the customs and habits of native people. The artist in him had prayed that there would be a fight; the administrator in him was heartily glad that the trouble had ended without disturbance. Bones had a brilliant idea. He sent for the chief of the Busuri village and exhibited to him the camera.

  “O chief,” said Bones, “this is a little eye that sees and remembers, and it desires to look upon the brave Ochori in battle. Now, let your young men play for me, pretending that they are warriors of two camps, attacking one another. But this you shall tell them, that if one man hurts the other, he shall be whipped,” he added hastily, knowing with what enthusiasm these spear players entered into the spirit of their exercise.

  On the lower deck of the Zaire a troubled Sergeant Ahmet took counsel with a number of his comrades.

  “Let no man speak to Tibbetti and tell him that I have turned the handle, that your faces should be in this wonderful box,” he said. For, in Bones’ absence, he had that day photographed his self-conscious soldiery. “Tomorrow morning, when it is light, I myself will get the pictures out of the box, for Tibbetti has told me, that all that is within there he will see. And I am a full sergeant, and he may take my stripes away.”

  In the light of the early morning sun, under the curious and interested eyes of his friends, he opened the camera and looked carefully, unrolling the film foot by foot.