Again Sanders

1. BONES AND THE BEE-2

"The lord Tibbetti has made you a great riddle," said Sanders tactfully, "but because you are a stupid woman you cannot understand its mystery."

He passed a hint to Hamilton, and Hamilton, who never hinted, brought Bones to the carpet.

"You're demoralizing the detachment, Bones, with this pseudo— science of yours. Keep off biology and astronomy, and confine your lectures to metaphysics."

Bones brightened.

"Thank you, Hamilton, dear old officer. I don't know much about physics, but what about the odd spot of chemistry, dear old sir? Why does a seidlitz powder fizzle? You don't know, old boy! Don't pretend you do—"

"Metaphysics has nothing whatever to do with chemistry," said Hamilton coldly.

"Then," demanded the scornful Bones, "why call it physics—I ask you, dear old thing?

Don't answer if you feel you're incriminating your jolly old self."

Bones was due for a trip to the Akasava. There were palavers to be held, a certain amount of taxation to be collected. More especially, Sanders wanted exact information as to what was happening at Kobala'ba.

The night before Mr. Tibbetts left on his journey, Hamilton uttered a word of warning.

"When you get to Makara's village don't be scientific—if you are, confine yourself to insects. You can't do any harm there. If you start working off little pieces about the universe to the bloodthirsty Akasava, you'll probably start a couple of wars. And I absolutely forbid you to talk about evolution. The Darwinian theory is distinctly unpopular amongst the Houssas. It may bring you into some disrepute with people who hunt monkeys and eat fish—"

"Tell them about Bones," put in Sanders. "An object lesson in industry will do the Akasava no harm."

"A little astronomy, dear old Commissioner!" pleaded Bones. "What about the jolly old constellation of O'Brien? What about Beetlegrease, the notorious and ever—famous star that's a hundred and fifty million times bigger than the sun?"

"Orion and Betelgeuse are the two words you're groping for," said Hamilton sternly,

"and you'll not say a word about them. You remember the trouble we had with the

Northern Ochori people over the moon, sir?"

Sanders nodded.

Long before Bones had taken science seriously, he had explained to the wild and terrified people of the Ochori the substance, character and origin of the lunar orb, with disastrous consequences; for the Northern Ochori, who blamed Bosambo for everything that had happened to the world since its beginning, gathered their spears and went up against their paramount chief. You cannot overturn settled convictions without producing unexpected reactions, and it took Sanders the greater part of a year to convince these misguided people that their first information about the moon was correct, namely, that it was the bright hole in the sky through which M'shimbaM'shamba made his entrances and exits from a disturbed and storm-swept earth.

Kobala'ba is not easily reached. The motor launch dropped Bones at the scarcely visible mouth of the shallow river, and for four days he was paddled through bush and grass and virgin mosquito hordes—a painful experience.

He came to Kobala'ba in the dark of an evening; and, knowing him to be at hand, the villagers burnt a big bonfire on the beach, which served the double purpose of beacon and illumination.

It was not the chief Makara who met him, but T'lini, his wife, a very tall and supple girl of seventeen.

"Lord, I see you! I am T'lini, wife of Makara."

"I see you, T'lini," said Bones, peering at her. "Yet I think I would rather see the chief, your husband, for I do not make palaver with women."

He looked left and right along the crowded beach. Not a warrior was to be seen; only these straight, ebony figures regarding him gravely. She read his thoughts and said: "There are few men in this village, lord Tibbetti, and these put themselves to bed early, because of the cold air of night which gives them pain in their throats."

Bones gaped at her. "Good lord!" he said, in English.

"Also, lord," she went on quickly, "these women you see are the wives of our warriors, and they are so happy that they dance with joy because their men are kind. And every day we work in the fields whilst our husbands go hunting in the forest."

Bones screwed his monocle into his eye, and T'lini shrank back in terror.

"Tell me, T'lini, are you of this village?"

She nodded, which meant "No."

"I come from B'lini on the river. Makara bought me for a bag of salt, also my own sister and the daughter of my father."

Bones scratched his nose but said nothing. He walked to the hut that had been made for him. Here was a fine skin bed to spread his valise upon, and, rejecting the inevitable offer of service with the invariable excuse, he lay down and slept, for he was a very tired man.

It was dark when he woke: the phosphorescent dial of his watch told him it was within a quarter of an hour of dawn, and he rose and dressed. The place was already alive; fires were burning before each hut; shadowy figures flitted up and down the broad street; and with the first violent light of the sun he saw a small body of men coming down from the far end of the village, where Makara's hut was. Makara himself led the party, and very formidable it was, for each man carried a bunch of hunting spears, though the fineries which decked their persons seemed a little inappropriate.

"O Tibbetti, I see you!" boomed Makara. "Give me salt* if I did not come to you last night, but I and my young men, who have been hunting for many days in the forest, were tired. And to—day we go out on a long and terrible journey to find fish and rubber for Sandi and his king."

[*salt = pardon]

"That is a good palaver," said Bones satirically, as he glared at the hunting party through his eyeglass. With the exception of Makara, they were very fat young men, whose flabby flesh suggested anything but prolonged exercise. "But first you shall tell me what place is this."

He pointed to a bare square of hard earth, where once a slave pen had stood—recently, he guessed. It had its fellow a few paces down the slope towards the river. His quick eyes detected a third and a fourth. Four big huts that had been recently demolished.

There were others in all probability, if he looked for them.

Makara answered glibly enough, but his explanation was lame. Bones watched the hunters disappear through the thin woods that lead to the greater forest, and then he called an assembly of all the people, and went up to the palaver house, to find himself con fronting a crowd of a thousand sober—faced women.

"O people," said Bones, "I have come a long way because my lord Sandi cannot make this journey to see you. By night and by day I have journeyed in my canoe along a terrible little river to take taxes for my king. And none are here. For the men who should be warriors and hunters are like children, and have grown lazy, so that there is no rubber or fish for my Government. Now I will tell you a story about bees that you may tell your children and your men."

Bones had an amazing vocabulary. They listened fascinated whilst he told the story of the economy of the hive. When he had finished, T'lini, who was squatting at the foot of the little hill, rose.

"Lord, that is a great riddle," she said. "Now tell me and my sisters: these little things who fly and do no work—are they men folk or women folk?" "Men folk," said Bones, in an unguarded moment.

"And, lord, those who work and gather riches—what are they?"

Bones explained again; became a little inarticulate as they drew him out of his depth.

"That is a good tale," said T'lini, when he had finished. "Rubber we have got, and the skins of wild beasts, but we do not see these things again, and when we ask our lords they say that Sandi has come with his soldiers and taken them for his Government. Now tell us, lord Tibbetti, how may the women bees live through the cold, wet days, but do not the little things that fly and do no work eat up all the riches the women bees have gathered?"

Bones, sure of himself, explained.

"T'lini, that is a good question. Now I will tell you. They who do no work are killed when the wet days come, for the little women bees drive them from the nest and destroy them. And the next season come new little men and they last their season, and at the end are killed."

"Who rules this land of bees?" asked T'lini.

"One who is higher than any—a queen," said Bones, waxing poetical; "one who is as great as Sandi and wiser than I. And all the bee—women honour this one and bow their heads and clap their hands with joy whenever this high one walks abroad." He saw nearly a thousand mouths opened in amazement and was gratified.

Later that day he sent a messenger with a letter to Sanders.

Dear Sir dear sir [it ran rapidly],

Kobalarber is full of feamales feemailes femmales but the men have gone hunting I don't think I don't think.

[Bones had this little trick of repetition.]

I talked about beas bes and how they worked in a scentific sientific manner. Femails deeply impresed. Shall stay the week am giving annother leckture on botny to—morow.

A month later he returned to headquarters.

"Did you give 'em any science?" asked Hamilton.

"Bee—ology, dear old sir—the habits and customs of the jolly old bumble, and a few words about the naughty old honey—maker, as per my letter of the 24th inst. The whole proceedings terminated with a vote of thanks to the chairman."

"Did you see Makara?" asked Sanders.

Bones smiled.

"Not too much, sir. I stayed in the village four days, and the naughty old deceiver and his boy friends didn't come back. They'd only gone about four miles into the forest."

He struck a more serious note when he told the results of his investigations.

"Slavery, eh? I was afraid so," said Sanders gravely. "An ingenious idea, and not the first time it has been practised in the Akasava country."

He sent for a carrier pigeon and, writing a message, flew the bird to one of his spies on the Upper River. Long before the order for Makara's arrest could be executed, there was an alarming outbreak of science at Kobala'ba.

* * * * *

A few nights after Bones' departure, Makara squatted by the fire of his hut, relating to certain close friends, counsellors and male sycophants, the details of a summary administration of justice. For he had taken T'lini his wife and had beaten her till he was tired, and she had run away into the forest to join a party of wives in their search for a peculiarly succulent monkey that was very satisfying to Makara's epicurean taste.

"She cried 'Wow!' and put her hands up," said Makara with relish. "Then she made a great noise and put her arms so..."

He stopped, peering up the village street towards the wood, where a small column had emerged from the trees—a column that must be made up of hunting parties that were not due for days, and should have been scattered, through the hundred and fifty square miles of game preserves. They marched steadily, carrying neither monkeys nor skins, and there was something very peculiar about their solidarity. Ominous, too, for the red of the setting sun turned their spear—heads to the colour of blood.

"O woman," said Makara, in a passion, as T'lini approached him, "I will whip you—"

A spear—head dropped to his throat and pricked him sorely. He collapsed in a panic and was incapable of resistance, as two strong women bound him foot and hand. They laid the forty—seven males of Kobala'ba, fan fashion, about the palaver house, and T'lini, the chief's wife, spoke.

"Tibbetti, the son of Sandi, told us this tale," she said, looking down at the horrified face of her husband, who was the victim nearest to her. "Cala cala all the bee women worked and gathered their magic from flowers, and the bee men sat at home in their huts and ate all that was brought to them, and did no work and killed their wives. And then all the bee women held a palaver and they said: 'From this day we will kill the bee men at the end of every season, and in the next season we will get new men and kill them also when we are done with them.' And Tibbetti said that because of this great magic all the bee people are happy, so that you hear them singing as they go about their work. Tibbetti told us this, and he is wise, for he has three eyes and sees more than we."

She walked to the side of her husband and looked down at him, her spear poised.

"Now I think we shall be happy," she said, and struck as he had taught her...

So slowly did news travel in that backwater of life that it was nearly a month before Sanders heard of the happening. It was brought by a lithe woman warrior who carried her spears with an air.

Sanders listened, and, seasoned as he was to strange happenings in this strangest of lands, the simple recital took his breath away.

"And now there are no men in obala'ba," concluded the messenger, "but next season we will go to the river villages and take such as we wish. But, Sandi, we wish for a ruler, and because we know you are kind to your people we have had a great palaver, and this is agreed, that we ask you, Sandi, to send us your son Tibbetti, that he may be our Queen Bee according to his magical words."

"Deuced awkward," said Bones dismally, as he pulled at his long nose.