Part 4 (1/2)

”What did you want it for? Did you know it was valuable then?”

”Oh, no! I thought it was merely a whitewashed carved wood G.o.d, and I wanted it just to dash to some steamer skipper who had dashed me a case of fizz or something. You know?”

”Yes, I see. Go on. How did you get hold of it?”

”Why, just went and tackled the pa.s.senger-boy and dashed him a case of gin; and when he sobered up again, where was the ju-ju? I got it ash.o.r.e right enough to the pilotage here in Banana, and for the next two weeks thought it was my ju-ju without further palaver.

”Then up comes a n.i.g.g.e.r to explain. The pa.s.senger-boy who had guzzled the gin was no end of a big duke--witch-doctor, and all that, with a record of about three hundred murders to his tally--and he had the cheek to send a blooming amba.s.sador to say things, and threaten, to try and get the ju-ju back. Of course, if the original sportsman had come himself to make his ugly remarks, I'd soon have stopped his fun. That's the best of the Congo Free State. If a n.i.g.g.e.r down here is awkward, you can always get him s.h.i.+pped off as a slave--soldier, that is--to the upper river, and take darned good care he never comes back again. And, as a point of fact, I did tip a word to the commandant here and get that particular amba.s.sador packed off out of harm's way. But that did no special good. Before a week was through up came another chap to tackle me. He spoke flatly about pains and penalties if I didn't give the thing up; and he offered money--or rather ivory, two fine tusks of it, worth a matter of twenty pounds, as a ransom--and then I began to open my eyes.”

”Twenty pounds for that ju-ju! Why, I've picked up many a one better carved for a s.h.i.+lling.”

”Well, this bally thing has value; there's no doubt about that. But where the value comes in, I can't make out. I've overhauled it times and again, but can't see it's anything beyond the ordinary. However, if a n.i.g.g.e.r of his own free will offered two big tusks to get the thing back, it stands to reason it's worth a precious sight more than that. So when the second amba.s.sador came, I put the price down at a quarter of a ton of ivory, and waited to get it.”

Kettle whistled. ”You know how to put on the value,” he said. ”That's getting on for 400 with ivory at its present rates.”

”I was badly in want of money when I set the figure. My poor little wife in Bradford had sent me a letter by the last Antwerp mail saying how hard-up she was, and the way she wrote regularly touched me.”

”I don't like it,” Kettle snapped.

”What, my being keen about the money?”

”No; your having such a deuce of a lot of wives.”

”But I am so very domesticated,” said Nilssen. ”You don't appreciate how domesticated I am. I can't live as a bachelor anywhere. I always like to have a dear little wife and a nice little home to go to in whatever town I may be quartered. But it's a great expense to keep them all provided for. And besides, the law of most countries is so narrow-minded. One has to be so careful.”

Kettle wished to state his views on bigamy with clearness and point, but when he cast his eyes over the frail wreck of a man in the Madeira chair, he forebore. It would not take very much of a jar to send Captain Nilssen away from this world to the Place of Reckoning which lay beyond.

And so with a gulp he said instead: ”You're sure it's deliberate poisoning?”

”Quite. The n.i.g.g.e.r who came here last about the business promised to set ju-ju on me, and I told him to do it and be hanged to him. He was as good as his word. I began to be bad the very next day.”

”How's it managed?”

”Don't know. They have ways of doing these things in Africa which we white men can't follow.”

”Suspect any one?”

”No. And if you're hinting at Mrs. Nilssen in the pilotage there, she's as staunch as you are, bless her dusky skin. Besides, what little chop I've managed to swallow since I've been bad, I've always got out of fresh unopened tins myself.”

”Ah,” said Kettle; ”I fancied some one had been mixing up finely powdered gla.s.s in your chop. It's an old trick, and you don't twig it till the doctors cut you up after you're dead.”

”As if I wasn't up to a kid's game like that!” said the sick man with feeble contempt. ”No, this is regular ju-ju work, and it's beyond the Belgian doctor here, and it's beyond all other white men. There's only one cure, and that's to be got at the place where the poisoning palaver was worked from.”

”And where's that?”

Captain Nilssen nodded down the narrow slip of sand, and mangroves, and nut palms, on which the settlement of Banana is built, and gazed with his sunken eyes at the smooth, green slopes of Africa beyond. ”Dem village he lib for bush,” he said.

”Up country village, eh? They're a nice lot in at the back there, according to accounts. But can't you arrange it by your friend the amba.s.sador?”

”He's not the kind of fool to come back. He's man enough to know he'd get pretty well dropped on if I could get him in my reach again.”

”Then tell the authorities here, and get some troops sent up.”