"I have the honour to be, sir, "Your obedient servant, "P. G. Hamilton, 'Captain.'"
When two white men, the only specimen of their race and class within a radius of hundreds of miles, are living together in an isolated post, they either hate or tolerate one another. The exception must always be found in two men of a similar service having similar objects to gain, and infused with a common spirit of endeavour.
Fortunately neither Lieutenant Tibbetts nor his superior were long enough associated to get upon one another's nerves.
Lieutenant Tibbetts received this letter while he was shaving, and came across the parade ground outrageously attired in his pyjamas and his helmet. Clambering up the wooden stairs, his slippers flap-flapping across the broad verandah, he burst into the chief's bedroom, interrupting a stern and frigid Captain Hamilton in the midst of his early morning coffee and roll.
"Look here, old sport," said Bones, indignantly waving a frothy shaving brush at the other, "what the dooce is all this about?"
He displayed a crumpled letter.
"Lieutenant Tibbetts," said Hamilton of the Houssas severely, "have you no sense of decency?"
"Sense of decency, my dear old thing!" repeated Bones. "I am simply full of it. That is why I have come."
A terrible sight was Bones at that early hour with the open pyjama jacket showing his scraggy neck, with his fish mouth drooping dismally, his round, staring eyes and his hair rumpled up, one frantic tuft at the back standing up in isolation.
Hamilton stared at him, and it was the stern stare of a disciplinarian. But Bones was not to be put out of countenance by so small a thing as an icy glance.
"There is no sense in getting peevish with me, old Ham," he said, squatting down on the nearest chair; "this is what I call a stupid, officious, unnecessary letter. Why this haughtiness? Why these crushing inferences? Why this unkindness to poor old Bones?"
"The fact of it is, Bones," said Hamilton, accepting the situation, "you are spending too much of your time in the telegraph station."
Bones got up slowly.
"Captain Hamilton, sir!" he said reproachfully, "after all I have done for you."
"Beyond selling me one of your beastly sweepstake tickets for five shillings," said Hamilton, unpleasantly; "a ticket which I dare say you have taken jolly good care will not win a prize, I fail to see in what manner you have helped me. Now, Bones, you will have to pay more attention to your work. There is no sense in slacking; we will have Sanders back here before we know where we are, and when he starts nosing round there will be a lot of trouble. Besides, you are shirking."
"Me!" gasped Bones, outraged. "Me--shirking? You forget yourself, sir!"
Even Bones could not be dignified with a lather brush in one hand and a half-shaven cheek, testifying to the hastiness of his departure from his quarters.
"I only wish to say, sir," said Bones, "that during the period I have had the honour to serve under your command I have settled possibly more palavers of a distressingly ominous character than the average Commissioner is called upon to settle in the course of a year."
"As you have created most of the palavers yourself," said Hamilton unkindly, "I do not deny this. In other words, you have got yourself into more tangles, and you've had to crawl out more often."
"It is useless appealing to your better nature, sir," said Bones.
He saluted with the hand that held the lather brush, turned about like an automaton, tripped over the mat, recovered himself with an effort, and preserving what dignity a man can preserve in pink-striped pyjamas and a sun helmet, stalked majestically back to his quarters. Half-way across he remembered something and came doubling back, clattering into Hamilton's room unceremoniously.
"There is one thing I forgot to say," he said, "about those sweepstake tickets. If I happen to be killed on any future expedition that you may send me, you will understand that the whole of my moveable property is yours, absolutely. And I may add, sir," he said at the doorway with one hand on the lintel ready to execute a strategic flank movement out of range, "that with this legacy I offer you my forgiveness for the perfectly beastly time you have given me. Good morning, sir."
There was a commanding officer's parade of Houssas at noon. It was not until he stalked across the square and clicked his heels together as he reported the full strength of his company present that Hamilton saw his subordinate again.
The parade over, Bones went huffily to his quarters.
He was hurt. To be told he had been shirking his duty touched a very tender and sensitive spot of his.
In preparation for the movement which he had expected to make he had kept his company on the move for a fortnight. For fourteen terrible days in all kinds of weather, he had worked like a native in the forest; with sham fights and blank cartridge attacks upon imaginary positions, with scaling of stockades and building of bridges--all work at which his soul revolted--to be told at the end he had shirked his work!
Certainly he had come down to headquarters more often perhaps than was necessary, but then he was properly interested in the draw of a continental sweepstake which might, with any kind of luck, place him in the possession of a considerable fortune. Hamilton was amiable at lunch, even communicative at dinner, and for him rather serious.
For if the truth be told he was desperately worried. The cause was, as it had often been with Sanders, that French-German-Belgian territory which adjoins the Ochori country. All the bad characters, not only the French of the Belgian Congo, but of the badly-governed German lands--all the tax resisters, the murderers, and the criminals of every kind, but the lawless contingents of every nation, formed a floating nomadic population in the tree-covered hills which lay beyond the country governed by Bosambo.
Of late there had been a larger break-away than usual. A strong force of rebellious natives was reported to be within a day's march of the Ochori boundary. This much Hamilton knew. But he had known of such occurrences before; not once, but a score of times had alarming news come from the French border.
He had indeed made many futile trips into the heart of the Ochori country.
Forced marches through little known territory, and long and tiring waits for the invader that never came, had dulled his senses of apprehension. He had to take a chance. The Administrator's office would warn him from time to time, and ask him conventionally to make his arrangements to meet all contingencies and Sanders would as conventionally reply that the condition of affairs on the Ochori border was engaging his most earnest attention.
"What is the use of worrying about it now?" asked Bones at dinner.
Hamilton shook his head.
"There was a certain magic in old Sanders' name," he said.
Bones' lips pursed.
"My dear old chap," he said, "there is a bit of magic in mine."
"I have not noticed it," said Hamilton.
"I am getting awfully popular as a matter of fact," said Bones complacently. "The last time I was up the river, Bosambo came ten miles down stream to meet me and spend the day."
"Did you lose anything?" asked Hamilton ungraciously.
Bones thought.
"Now you come to mention it," he said slowly, "I did lose quite a lot of things, but dear old Bosambo wouldn't play a dirty trick on a pal. I know Bosambo."
"If