O’Neil hammered the merc he was wrestling down to the ground but had no time to retrieve any weapon. L’Evesque came at him, blade in hand; the Major-general had also dropped his gun when the mamba had tried to strike.

  O’Neil dodged the first wild swing, blocked the second with his hook, and backed away to keep clear of that wicked blade. L’Evesque came after him. The commander was too canny a knife-fighter to allow his adversary to evade his reach.

  “You think you can deny me?” the Frenchman demanded, drawing a second blade for his off-hand. “You think you can match Major-general L’Evesque?”

  “Major-general of what?” O’Neil scorned. “I don’t see any of your thugs still standing. What kind of leader loses every one of his soldiers to a hospital of wounded civilians?”

  “There are always more mercenaries,” L’Evesque growled. “With the missionary’s gold I can buy all the men I want.” He closed in to slash at O’Neil.

  O’Neil was still weaponless save for his hook. He dropped and tumbled, rolling clear of the bright blades, coming up in a defensive crouch. And in his right hand—the mamba he’d seized by the neck as he rolled!

  The Frenchman pushed in, slicing with one knife while holding the other poised to stab. O’Neil hurled the livid snake at him with lethal precision.

  The black mamba locked onto the Major-general’s face and bit down.

  L’Evesque cried out. He dropped his blades to drag the serpent off him. It swiveled in his grip and clamped onto his arm, once, twice, injecting more of the toxin that made it one of Africa’s deadliest predators.

  L’Evesque dropped to his knees. Saliva bubbled through his lips. He fell dead at O’Neil’s feet.

  The snake darted for Sophie. O’Neil caught up one of the Frenchman’s discarded knives and tossed it to skewer the mamba before it struck.

  Then the war was over.

  O’Neil trudged over to cut the captives free. “Hell of a trouble just to deliver a recipe,” he complained.

  ***

  Reverend Foster examined the message from Mrs. Dexter – and laughed.

  “What?” demanded his daughter, half-indignantly. “We all nearly died for that secret message. What is it?”

  “You told the mercenaries it was a Playfair code,” Fletcher remembered. “How is it done? What does it say?”

  Foster folded the note up but kept on grinning. “I told the Major-general whatever he wanted to hear, so as to keep his hostages alive. He wanted a secret message. He wanted buried treasure.” He patted the letter. “I never expected this from Diane, though. This is wonderful!”

  “You want to explain?” O’Neil asked. He’d been almost killed half a dozen times for that message.

  The old clergyman nodded. Everyone had gathered round to hear what was really going on. “This recipe for monkey stew?” he told them, “That’s all it is. It’s an old joke from a very old, dear friend. Diane Fairfax and I, we survived for six weeks together in the jungle, living on bush meat. Monkeys mostly. We used to jest about gourmet cookery with the dratted things. This letter’s not a secret code to some buried treasure. We never marked where the barge went down. We were far more interested in survival, of course. Its location is lost forever. No, this letter is a gracious final message to tell me that Diane forgave me in the end—that she was still my wonderful friend.”

  “Forgave you for what?” Sophie wondered.

  The minister stroked her cheek. “We were lost and afraid, alone in the bush. We’d faced horrors. I was questioning my faith, everything. We depended on each other for survival. For support. For comfort.” Reverend Foster smiled at his daughter. “Nine months later you were born.”

  Sophie’s mouth dropped. “I was adopted. You said…”

  “I’d heard my calling once again by then. I knew I had to stay in the Congo and found my mission. Diane wanted nothing more to do with the place where her father had died. So we parted—badly. She returned to Connecticut with her remaining fortune, what she didn’t give to found my hospital, and she left behind our child in my care. Later she married, I hope to a good man. I don’t know if she ever told him about you. But on her death bed she remembered me and sent me one last remembrance of some awful, sweet days long past.”

  “So there’s no gold,” Fletcher declared. “All that bloodshed and violence was over nothing.”

  “Isn’t it always?” the Reverend asked. “That gold was cursed from the start. It’s well forgotten.”

  Komolo Joe nodded. “We will take the last soldiers down to the police post on the river,” he offered. “Will you swear charges against them, Reverend?”

  “Yes. Or perhaps this young legal gentleman could offer a deposition?”

  Fletcher looked uncomfortable. “Um, well… I wasn’t planning on going back to Degarde and Carriere’s, really, or to Léopoldville right away. There’s all these people who’ve been dragged from their hospital camp that need some help, and I thought… perhaps… they might need some… maybe I could..?”

  “Volunteers are always welcome, Daniel,” Sophie promised him. Her eyes were shining.

  O’Neil was satisfied. He’d delivered his letter. He’d seen justice done. And there was a healthy wad of banknotes in his pocket. “We’ll camp a little way off from here tonight to avoid the carrion-eaters,” he suggested, “then tomorrow I’ll see you safe back to your mission site.” His thoughts turned to logistics. There were still a couple of L’Evesque’s guards on a line of trucks nearby and he could find a use for those vehicles. There was also a further payment from Degarde and Carriere’s to pick up later on.

  “What will you do then, O’Neil?” Fletcher asked him. Somehow the young man’s hand had become entwined with that of the missionary’s daughter.

  O’Neil thought that the former clerk had discovered the romance of Africa at last.

  “I take every day as it comes,” the big man chuckled. “Right now I’ve got a real craving for some well-peppered monkey stew!”

  THE END

  THE GREAT WHITE GODDESS

  by Chuck Miller

  Another night, another low dive in Brazzaville.

  Armless O'Neil sighed and poured another shot of bourbon into his glass. He generally preferred French brandy, but tonight, for some reason, he felt like tormenting his system with the cheap whiskey they sold in this joint. He felt neither happy nor sad. All he felt was... empty. How many nights had he sat in places just like this, in a miasma of smoke, body odor, and God knew what else? Waiting for something, some big break that never came... And how many more such nights lay ahead?

  He scowled. Even in repose, O'Neil's face was forbidding. There was a natural ugliness about it that was not necessarily unappealing in itself. But time and experience had left lines that spoke of a life of violence and danger. Though relatively young, O'Neil had an air of world-weariness that one would expect to find only in a much older man.

  O'Neil was, in fact, feeling the weight of his years this evening. Not yet forty, he sometimes felt as though he were a century old. More and more lately, he found himself thinking about “settling down,” whatever that might mean. If it had any meaning for a man like him. If so, he thought ruefully, it would take money to do it in any kind of style. More money than he had any real hope of acquiring. Where will I be in ten years' time? Sitting right here, feeling ten years worse than I do now? And in twenty years?

  The prospect was unappealing. When he was younger, Armless could effortlessly ignore the specter of the years that might loom ahead of him. He had never given thought to his personal future. As a teenager, he had not expected to live past the age of 25. When he did, he felt certain he would never see 30. But he did that, too, and then made 35. There seemed to be no stopping it.

  He fell into a brown study, staring sightlessly at a spot on the wall. This went on for several minutes. He snapped out of it when he became aware of someone standing close to his table, clearing his throat. He looked up to see a young, wiry black man dressed in a set of jungle fatigues, a pith helmet on his head. He wasn't a native of Africa, Armless was certain.

  “I'm looking for, ah, Armless O'Neil.” The accent was American.

  The young man was only slightly diffident. He was wary, but not frightened.

  “No, you're looking at, ah, Armless O'Neil.”

  “I thought so. How come you have arms?”

  “It's just a nickname,” O'Neil said. “I lost a hand somewhere at some point.” He showed the man the metal hook at the end of his left arm. “Careless of me, eh?”

  “I see. Well, Mister O'Neil, I've heard your name mentioned in connection with some very interesting stories. You are a man of unusual accomplishment, so I am told. My name is Paul Dunbar Davis, and I'm a reporter with the Chicago Defender, in the United States. Have you ever heard of us?”

  O'Neil grew thoughtful, gently scratching his head with the hook. “Seems like I have. A Negro newspaper, right? Didn't your editor persuade Harry Truman to integrate the armed services?”

  “That's right. John H. Sengstacke. A very courageous man.”

  “That's what I thought when I heard about it. A lot of white Americans resent the idea of being forced into close quarters with Negroes. Violently so, in many cases.”

  “Then they shouldn't have brought our ancestors there. But they did, and now is the time for us to start acquiring the rights and responsibilities every citizen has.” Davis gave O'Neil a look that dared him to disagree.

  “I'm with you,” said Armless. “In spirit, anyhow. But I guess you must want something from me other than to talk about newspapers and race relations in the States. How did you find me here?”

  “I checked into the Hotel Imperial a little while ago. The clerk told me that you were staying there, too, and that I might find you in a place like this.”

  O'Neil scowled. “That clerk has a big mouth. I gave him ten francs to forget I was there if anyone asked.”

  “I gave him twenty,” Davis said with a slight smile. “That cured his amnesia, I guess.”

  O'Neil decided he liked the guy's moxie. “Sit down,” he said, waving his hook at the empty chair. “Have a drink with me and tell me what you want.”

  “Well, I have been in Africa for several months now, looking for the kind of stories that you don't find in the American press. Things about the real Africa—past, present and possible futures. Recently, I picked up a very odd tale. Tell me, have you ever heard anything about a hidden valley somewhere on the African continent that is home to a tribe ruled by a white goddess?”

  O'Neil's eyebrows shot up. He laughed. “Not outside of movies or comic books,” he said.

  Davis nodded. “That's what I thought. The whole idea is absurd. And yet, I have heard talk. There is a region—a valley, a village, a ruined temple, I don't know—somewhere to the northeast of here, in the Congo Basin. Now, everything I have heard is second or third-hand. You know, the brother of a trader who passed through my sister's village before the last rainy season...”

  Armless chuckled. “The other 'jungle telegraph’,” he said. “Rumors and suggestions and wild tales get passed around, growing bigger and bigger each time. You haven't been here long enough to be able to separate the wheat from the chaff, Paul. You're listening to the wrong things. Africa is a strange place, and it is wonderful in its own way. But it isn't what you see in the movies back home. There's not any romance here. No orphaned English lords raised by gorillas. Damn few cannibals. Lots of greedy whites from Europe and beyond, looking for something to exploit. And most of the so-called 'noble savages' are no better than their white brethren from abroad. They knife their own people in the back more often than the Europeans do. It's an ugly reality.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  Armless thought for several moments before answering.

  “Because it's home.”

  They drank silently for several minutes.

  “The name I have heard,” Davis finally said, as though he were continuing an active conversation, “is Ben-da or Ben-dada or something along those lines. Does that ring any bells?”

  “You still on that?” Armless grumbled, pouring more whiskey into his glass.

  “Listen” Davis continued, “I’m not asking for a favor from you. My newspaper can pay. Not a fortune, but enough to make it worth your while. If it's some crazy bum steer, you've still earned some money. This thing is stuck in my craw for some reason. I don't know why, but I think there's something in it, some grain of truth.”

  “Well, I don't think so. Anyhow, I'm not a guide. And I'm especially not a guide to imaginary lost villages. There's got to be plenty of real stories out there for you to go after.”

  “You won't help me,” Davis said, sounding crestfallen.

  “I won't help you,” O'Neil confirmed. “Why don't you chase after something sensible, like one of those flying saucers everyone's talking about?”

  ***

  Later, after more whiskey had been polished off, O'Neil and Davis walked together to the Hotel Imperial. Armless remained impervious to Davis's pleas. As they entered the street the hotel was on, they took note of a knot of people gathered around the entrance to a narrow alley running between two drab, dilapidated buildings. Armless veered off in that direction. Peeking over the heads of the onlookers, he saw two men dressed in the uniform of the local gendarmerie. One knelt on the ground next to a human form that lay sprawled in the dirt against a wall. The other was questioning an Egyptian man.

  “Let's see what this is,” Armless said to Davis. “Hell, might be a story of some kind for you.”

  They reached the fringe of the small crowd. “Hey,” Armless said, tapping an old man on the shoulder. “What goes on here?”

  “There's been a murder.”

  “Who is he?”

  “I don't know. Never seen him before. Don't look like he from around here.”

  He certainly didn't. Craning his neck, O'Neil got a look at the body sprawled next to a rubbish bin. Standing on his toes to peep over the heads of the crowd, he gave the corpse a quick once-over. It was—or had been—good-sized man, well-muscled, blond hair cut very short. He was clad in new-looking jungle fatigues and heavy boots.

  Right between his eyes—bright blue, still open, frozen in the final expression of surprise—was a small hole from which a little trickle of blood had leaked, running down the bridge of the man's nose. Small-caliber weapon of some sort, O'Neil figured. Very small.

  Now he could hear what the Egyptian was saying to the gendarme who was questioning him: “I heard him yell and almost at the same moment I heard a gunshot. Funny thing, he yelled a number. 'Nine!' he shouted. Maybe this is a clue?” The cop just shrugged.

  Davis was next to him, but he wasn't looking in the same direction. Following the young American's gaze, Armless saw a girl standing at the edge of the little crowd. She was young and black. She had the appearance of a native African, though she wore Western attire. But her hair had not been artificially straightened, and she wore no makeup.

  She seemed nervous, her eyes darting about. She clutched a small handbag in front of her.

  “Wonder what's up with her,” he whispered to Davis, and laughed silently when he didn’t get a response. The reporter seemed to have suddenly lost interest in the crime scene, or anything else besides the young lady. A young man's fancy. Not that Armless was beyond the point where he could appreciate a good-looking woman. There just didn't seem to be much point in it.

  Armless contemplated the corpse. He looked like he could be German. And, of course, the witness hadn't heard him calling out a number. The man had said “nein,” German for “no.” He figured the gendarmes would puzzle that out for themselves eventually, so he said nothing.

  After the War ended, lots of people had passed through Brazzaville. Of course, that had happened a lot before and during the War, too. Brazzaville was the kind of town one passed through on the way to someplace else. But after the war, the transient population had increased in volume and changed in other ways. There were more and more blonde, blue-eyed specimens like this one here. During the fighting, Brazzaville, though technically part of a French colony—French Equatorial Africa—had rejected the Vichy government, and made it plain that representatives of the Axis powers would not find a warm welcome. Now, though, things were looser.

  A litter had arrived to transport the body to a local undertaker. There would be no fancy detective work, no gathering of microscopic bits of evidence. It was virtually certain that the crime would never be solved. The gendarmes would go through a few more of the motions, but they had probably already started forgetting about it.

  The gendarmes shooed everyone away. “Okay, break it up, nothing more to see here.” Armless looked around. The strange young girl was nowhere to be seen.

  Armless O'Neil trudged back to the Hotel Imperial, a silent Paul Dunbar Davis walking beside him.

  As Armless walked past the front desk, Davis beside him, he noticed the girl he'd seen on the street. She must have arrived just moments earlier. She was sidling through the noisome lobby toward the stairs, still clutching her little handbag. Without quite knowing why, he had an urge to approach her and ask her who she was and what she was doing. He was trying to formulate a plausible excuse for doing so, when his attention was grabbed by a stranger.

  A man seated in a broken-down lounge chair near the desk gave Armless and Davis a look, then turned to the clerk behind the desk.

  “You let this boy stay in this hotel? In a room, like a white man?” he said in a thick voice with an odd accent. Though he was addressing the clerk, it was obvious that his intention was to provoke Paul Dunbar Davis. Armless cast an appraising eye over the speaker. He was not a young man—somewhere north of 60, O'Neil reckoned. His hair and mustache were white, and he was clad in a lightweight white suit. A black tie with a strange-looking tiepin completed his ensemble. The man was mean-looking but soft. The kind that specialized in verbal barbs, but couldn't back it up with his fists. He must have come from money, then. Being born rich can give an imaginary backbone to even the weakest physical specimen, and engender a lot of unwarranted arrogance into the bargain.