Produced by D Alexander and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) THE KEEPERS OF THE KING'S PEACE BY EDGAR WALLACE WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED LONDON AND MELBOURNE PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY THE WHITEFRIARS PRESS LTD., LONDON AND TONBRIDGE CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I BONES, SANDERS AND ANOTHER 5 II BONES CHANGES HIS RELIGION 28 III THE MAKER OF STORMS 53 IV BONES AND THE WIRELESS 75 V THE REMEDY 99 VI THE MEDICINE MAN 117 VII BONES, KING-MAKER 135 VIII THE TAMER OF BEASTS 154 IX THE MERCENARIES 169 X THE WATERS OF MADNESS 191 XI EYE TO EYE 215 XII THE HOODED KING 233 TO PAT (P. M. C. W.) THE KEEPERS OF THE KING'S PEACE CHAPTER I BONES, SANDERS AND ANOTHER To Isongo, which stands upon the tributary of that name, came a woman of the Isisi who had lost her husband through a providential tree falling upon him. I say "providential," for it was notorious that he was an evil man, a drinker of beer and a favourite of many bad persons. Also he made magic in the forest, and was reputedly the familiar of Bashunbi the devil brother of M'shimba-M'shamba. He beat his wives, and once had set fire to his house from sheer wickedness. So that when he was borne back to the village on a grass bier and the women of his house decked themselves with green leaves and arm in arm staggered and stamped through the village street in their death dance, there was a suspicion of hilarity in their song, and a more cheery step in their dance than the occasion called for. An old man named D'wiri, who knew every step of every dance, saw this and said in his stern way that it was shameless. But he was old and was, moreover, in fear for the decorum of his own obsequies if these outrageous departures from custom were approved or allowed to pass without reprimand. When M'lama, the wife of G'mami, had seen her lord depart in the canoe for burial in the middle island and had wailed her conventional grief, she washed the dust from her body at the river's edge and went back to her hut. And all that was grief for the dead man was washed away with the dust of mourning.