Bosambo of the River

by Edgar Wallace

Bosambo had relatives along the Coast, and these discovered themselves in ratio with his greatness. He had a brother named Siskolo, a tall, bony, and important man.

Siskolo was first in importance by reason of the fact that he had served on one of his Majesty's ships as a Krooman, that he had a smattering of English, and that he had, by strict attention to business during the period of his contact with white men, stolen sufficient to set him up in Liberia as a native storekeeper.

He was called Mr. Siskolo, and had ambitions at some future period to become a member of the Legislative Council.

It cannot be said with truth that the possession of a brother such as Bosambo was gave him any cause for pride or exaltation during the time when Bosambo's name in Liberia was synonymous with mud. It is even on record that after having denied the relationship he referred to Bosambo—when the relationship was a certainty beyond dispute—as a "low nigger."

When the Liberian Government, in its munificence, offered an adequate reward for the arrest of this law-breaker, Mr. Siskolo, in the most public-spirited way, through the columns of the Press, offered to add a personal reward of his own.

Then the public attitude of Liberia changed towards Bosambo, and with this change Siskolo's views upon his brother also underwent a change. Then came a time when Bosambo was honoured in his own land, and men spoke of him proudly, and, as I have indicated, even the public Press wrote of him in terms of pride.

Now Mr. Siskolo, as is recounted, gathered around him all people who were nearly or distantly related to him, and they ranged from the pure aboriginal grandfather to the frock-coated son-in-law, who ran a boot factory in Liberia.

"My friends and my comrades," said Mr. Siskolo oracularly, "you all know that my dear brother Bosambo has now a large territory, and is honoured beyond any other coloured man upon this coast. Now I have loved Bosambo for many years, and often in the night I have wrestled in prayer for his safety. Also, I have spoken well about him to all the white men I have met, and I have on many occasions sent him large sums of money by messenger. If this money has not been received," continued Mr. Siskolo stoutly, "it is because the messengers were thieves, or robbers may have set upon them by the wayside. But all my clerks and the people who love me know that I sent this money, also I have sent him letters praising him, and giving him great riches."

He paused, did Mr. Siskolo, and thrust a bony hand into the pockets of the dress trousers he had acquired from the valet of the French Consul.

"I have called you together," he said slowly, "because I am going to make a journey into the country, and I am going to speak face to face with my beloved brother. For I hear that he has many treasures in his land, and it is not good that he should be so rich, and we, all of us who are related to him in blood, and have loved him and prayed for him for so many years, should be poor."