The prospect was not cheerful.

Presently he saw the chief pass the entrance of the hut, and called him.

“Tell me,” he said, “did Busubu speak the Fearful Word?”

The chief shook his head affirmatively.

“And thus he died, by the pool of the swamp!”

“Lord, thus he died,” agreed the other.

“Mystery solved!” said Bones with melancholy satisfaction.

He had been up early that morning, and he had had an exhausting day. There was something in the suggestion which the chief had made. He was healthy and young and lived in the minute. He had hardly stretched himself upon the ground before he was asleep.

When Bones awoke it was daylight, and he sat up quickly. Through the opening of the hut there was nobody in sight. Something hanging on the thin roof-beam caught his eye and he gasped.

It was his belt and pistol.

“I’m dreaming,” said Bones.

He went blinking out into the light. At the edge of the forest path were two trees, and a man was sitting, his back to Bones, gazing interestedly at two uncomfortable figures tied very tightly to the trunks.

“Bosambo!” called Bones sharply, and the watcher rose.

“Lord, I came up in the night, I and my young men, and M’gula showed me the way you had gone and told me of the Fearful Word he had made you speak.”

“He told you…?”

Bosambo did not meet his eyes.

“Lord Tibbetti, you have the wisdom of a snake. This they told me in the village: that you measured many things with your fine ribbon and looked at many things through your glass-that-makes-little-things-into-big-things.”

Bones went pink.

“Also by looking at leaves and cooking-pots and digging in the sand, and other cunning methods, you sought to find which way Busubu went. All this is very wonderful, but I am a simple man. I burnt M’gula a little, and the soles of old men are very tender…and he told me.”

*  *  *

“I knew all along that it was M’gula,” said Bones to an admiring audience. “In the first place there was a patch of black mud, dear old officer, on the foot of his bed. That showed me two things – and this is where the jolly old art of deduction comes in – it showed me that he had come a long journey and – and–”

“That he’d been standing in mud,” said Hamilton helpfully.

“Exactly!” said the triumphant Bones. “Where did the mud come from?”

“From mud,” suggested Hamilton.

Bones clicked his lips impatiently.

“Dear old officer! Let me tell the story, please – that is, if you want to hear it.”

“I’m afraid, Bones, you’ve been forestalled – Bosambo has sent me two very long and detailed messages,” smiled Sanders. “According to him, M’gula confessed under a primitive form of torture.”

Only for a second was Bones nonplussed.

“But who was it set his jolly old conscience working?” he demanded in triumph.

THE MEDICAL OFFICER OF HEALTH

For the use of Mr Augustus Tibbetts, Lieutenant of Houssas, and called by all and sundry “Bones,” a hut had at one time been erected. It was a large hut, and in many ways a handsome hut, and would have accommodated 999 young officers out of a thousand. There was even a shower bath operating from a lofty barrel. But the interests of Bones were multifarious. His hobbies were many. They came and went, and in their passing left on the shelves, in the cupboards and under the table and bed, distinct evidence of their existence. As the scientist may, by the examination of geological strata, trace the history of the world, so might an expert delving into the expensive litter of his hutment, follow Bones from the Devonian eras (represented by a passionate search for rare and remarkable stamps) through Cretaceous, Tertiary, and Quarternary strata of study and recreation.

Another hut had been added to store his collection, and on its native-built shelves reposed old wireless sets that did not work and never had worked, volumes of self-improvers, piles of literature, thousands of samples ranging from linoleum to breakfast foods, boxes of scientific and quasi-scientific instruments (he took a correspondence course in mountain railway construction, although there were no mountains nearer than Sierra Leone), and rolls of electric flexes.

“What an infernal junk shop!” said Hamilton appalled.

He had come over to make a few caustic remarks about the key of the store-house which, as usual when Bones had its temporary custody, had been left all night in the door, thereby offering temptation to Hamilton’s Houssas, who were loyal but dishonest.

“To your unscientific eyes, my dear old captain and comrade, yes,” said Bones quietly. “To my shrewd old optics, no. Everything there has its value, its raison d’être – which is a French expression that is Greek to you, dear old Ham – its – its requirability.”

“What is this?” asked Hamilton, picking up a queer-looking object.

“That,” said Bones without hesitation, “is an instrument used in wireless – it would take too long to explain, Ham. Unless you’ve got a groundin’ in science, dear old ignoramus, any explanation would be undecipherable–”

“Unintelligible is the word you want,” said Hamilton, and read with difficulty the words stamped upon the steel side of the instrument. “‘Robinson’s Patent Safety Razor Strop’ – you don’t mean ‘wireless’ – you mean ‘hairless.’”

“I wish to good gracious heavens you wouldn’t mess things about,” said Bones testily, as he fixed his monocle and glared at the unoffending strop.

“The truth is, Bones,” said Hamilton when he reached the open and had drawn in long draughts of air with offensive ostentation, “you ought to burn all that rubbish. You’ll be breeding disease of some kind.”

Bones closed his eyes and raised his eyebrows.

“I am fightin’ disease, dear old layman,” he said gravely, and, going back to the hut, returned with a large wooden box. Holding this in the cross of his arm, he opened the lid and disclosed, lying between layers of cotton wool, a number of long, narrow, wooden cases.

“Good Lord!” gasped Hamilton in dismay. “Are you going to do it?”

Bones nodded even more gravely.

“When did this come – Sanders told me nothing about it?”

A faint and pitying smile dawned on the angular face of Bones.

“There are some things which our revered old excellency never tells anybody,” he said gently. “You have surprised our secret, dear old Ham – may I ask you, as a man of honour an’ sensibility, dear old Peepin’ Tom, not to mention the fact that I have told you? I trust you.”

Hamilton went back to the residency, and, in defiance of the demand for secrecy, mentioned his discovery.

Mr Commissioner Sanders looked up from his work. “Vaccination lymph? Oh yes, it came this morning, and I sent it over to Bones. We may not want it, but Administration is worried about the outbreak in the French territory, and it may be necessary to inoculate the border people.