The Keepers of the King's Peace by Edgar Wallace

Author:Edgar Wallace
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: ManyBooks.net

CHAPTER VIII

THE TAMER OF BEASTS

Native folk, at any rate, are but children of a larger growth. In the main, their delinquencies may be classified under the heading of "naughtiness." They are mischievous and passionate, and they have a weakness for destroying things to discover the secrets of volition. A too prosperous nation mystifies less fortunate people, who demand of their elders and rulers some solution of the mystery of their rivals' progress. Such a ruler, unable to offer the necessary explanation, takes his spears to the discovery, and sometimes discovers too much for his happiness.

The village of Jumburu stands on the edge of the bush country, where the lawless men of all nations dwell. This territory is filled with fierce communities, banded together against a common enemy--the law. They call this land the B'wigini, which means "the Nationless," and Jumburu's importance lies in the fact that it is the outpost of order and discipline.

In Jumburu were two brothers, O'ka and B'suru, who had usurped the chieftainship of their uncle, the very famous K'sungasa, "very famous," since he had been in his time a man of remarkable gifts, which he still retained to some extent, and in consequence enjoyed what was left of life.

He was, by all accounts, as mad as a man could be, and in circumstances less favourable to himself his concerned relatives would have taken him a long journey into the forest he loved so well, and they would have put out his eyes and left him to the mercy of the beasts, such being the method of dealing with lunacy amongst people who, all unknown to themselves, were eugenists of a most inflexible kind.

But to leave K'sungasa to the beasts would have been equivalent to delivering him to the care of his dearest friends, for he had an affinity for the wild dwellers of the bush, and all his life he had lived amongst them and loved them.

It is said that he could arrest the parrot in the air by a "cl'k!" and could bring the bird screeching and fluttering to his hand. He could call the shy little monkeys from the high branches where they hid, and even the fiercest of buffaloes would at his word come snuffling and nosing his brown arm.

So that, when he grew weak-minded, his relatives, after a long palaver, decided that for once the time-honoured customs of the land should be overridden, and since there was no other method of treating the blind but that prescribed by precedent, he should be allowed to live in a great hut at the edge of the village with his birds and snakes and wild cats, and that the direction of village affairs should pass to his nephews.

Mr. Commissioner Sanders knew all this, but did nothing. His task was to govern the territory, which meant to so direct affairs that the territory governed itself. When the fate of K'sungasa was in the balance, he sent word to the chief's nephews that he was somewhere in

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