Front matter (continued 3)

"Lord," interrupted the little bushman outrageously, "he asks of your lordship only this cloth to make him a fine robe, also ten thousand beads for his wives, and he will be your man for ever."

Sanders showed his teeth in a smile in which could be discovered no amusement.

"He shall be my man," he said significantly

The little bushman shuffled his uneasy feet.

"Lord, it will be death to me to carry your proud message to our city, for we ourselves are very proud people, and Sakola is a man of greater pride than any."

"The palaver is finished," said Sanders, and the little man descended the wooden steps to the sandy garden path.

He turned, shading his eyes from the strong sun in the way that bushmen have, for these folk live in the solemn half-lights of the woods and do not love the brazen glow of the heavens.

"Lord," he said timidly, "Sakola is a terrible man, and I fear that he will carry his spears to a killing."

Sanders sighed wearily and thrust his hands into the deep pockets of his white jacket.

"Also I will carry my spears to a killing," he said. "O ko! Am I a man of the Ochori that I should fear the chattering of a bushman?"

Still the man hesitated.

He stood balancing a light spear on the palm of his hand, as a man occupied with his thoughts will play with that which is in reach. First he set it twirling, then he spun it deftly with his finger and thumb.

"I am the servant of Sakola," he said simply.

Like a flash of light his thin brown arm swung out, the spear held stiffly.

Sanders fired three times with his automatic Colt, and the messenger of the proud chief Sakola went down sideways like a drunken man.

Sergeant Abiboo, revolver in hand, leapt through a window of the bungalow to find his master moving a smouldering uniform jacket—you cannot fire through your pocket with impunity—and eyeing the huddled form of the fallen bushman with a thoughtful frown.

"Carry him to the hospital," said Sanders. "I do not think he is dead."

He picked up the spear and examined the point.

There was lock-jaw in the slightest scratch of it, for these men are skilled in the use of tetanus.

The compound was aroused. Men had come racing over from the Houssa lines, and a rough stretcher was formed to carry away the débris.

Thus occupied with his affairs Sanders had no time to observe the arrival of the mail-boat, and the landing of Mr. Hold.

The big American filled the only comfortable seat in the surf-boat, but called upon his familiar gods to witness the perilous character of his sitting.

He was dressed in white, white irregularly splashed with dull grey patches of sea-water, for the Kroomen who manipulated the sweeps had not the finesse, nor the feather stroke, of a Harvard eight, and they worked independently.

He was tall and broad and thick—the other way. His face was clean-shaven, and he wore a cigar two points south-west.

Yet, withal, he was a genial man, or the lines about his face lied cruelly.

Nearing the long yellow beach where the waters were engaged everlastingly in a futile attempt to create a permanent sea-wall, his references to home ceased, and he confined himself to apprehensive "huh's!"

"Huh!" he grunted, as the boat was kicked into the air on the heels of a playful roller. "Huh!" he said, as the big surfer dropped from the ninth floor to a watery basement. "Huh—oh!" he exclaimed—but there was no accident; the boat was gripped by wading landsmen and slid to safety.

Big Ben Hold rolled ashore and stood on the firm beach looking resentfully across the two miles of water which separated him from the ship.

"Orter build a dock," he grumbled.

He watched, with a jealous eye, the unloading of his kit, checking the packing cases with a piece of green chalk he dug up from his waistcoat pocket and found at least one package missing. The only important one, too. Is this it? No! Is that it? No! Is that—ah, yes, that was it.

He was sitting on it.

"Suh," said a polite Krooman, "you lib for dem k'miss'ner?"

"Hey?"

"Dem Sandi—you find um?"

"Say," said Mr. Hold, "I don't quite get you—I want the Commissioner—the Englishman—savee."

Later, he crossed the neat and spotless compound of the big, cool bungalow, where, on the shaded verandah, Mr. Commissioner Sanders watched the progress of the newcomer without enthusiasm.

For Sanders had a horror of white strangers; they upset things; had fads; desired escorts for passing through territories where the natural desire for war and an unnatural fear of Government reprisal were always delicately balanced.

"Glad to see you. Boy, push that chair along; sit down, won't you?"

Mr. Hold seated himself gingerly.

"When a man turns the scale at two hundred and thirty-eight pounds," grumbled Big Ben pleasantly, "he sits mit circumspection, as a Dutch friend of mine says." He breathed a long, deep sigh of relief as he settled himself in the chair and discovered that it accepted the strain without so much as a creak.

Sanders waited with an amused glint in his eyes.

"You'd like a drink?"

Mr. Hold held up a solemn hand. "Tempt me not," he adjured. "I'm on a diet—I don't look like a food crank, do I?"

He searched the inside pocket of his coat with some labour. Sanders had an insane desire to assist him. It seemed that the tailor had taken a grossly unfair advantage of Mr. Hold in building the pocket so far outside the radius of his short arm.

"Here it is!"

Big Ben handed a letter to the Commissioner, and Sanders opened it. He read the letter very carefully, then handed it back to its owner. And as he did so he smiled with a rare smile, for Sanders was not easily amused.

"You expect to find the ki-chu here?" he asked.

Mr. Hold nodded.

"I have never seen it," said Sanders; "I have heard of it; I have read about it, and I have listened to people who have passed through my territories and who have told me that they have seen it with, I am afraid, disrespect."

Big Ben leant forward, and laid his large and earnest hand on the other's knee.

"Say, Mr. Sanders," he said, "you've probably heard of me—I'm Big Ben Hold—everybody knows me, from the Pacific to the Atlantic. I am the biggest thing in circuses and wild beast expositions the world has ever seen. Mr. Sanders, I have made money, and I am out of the show business for a million years, but I want to see that monkey ki-chu——"

"But——"

"Hold hard." Big Ben's hand arrested the other. "Mr. Sanders, I have made money out of the ki-chu. Barnum made it out of the mermaid, but my fake has been the tailless ki-chu, the monkey that is so like a man that no alderman dare go near the cage for fear people think the ki-chu has escaped. I've run the ki-chu from Seattle to Portland, from Buffalo to Arizona City. I've had a company of militia to regulate the crowds to see the ki-chu. I have had a whole police squad to protect me from the in-fu-ri-ated populace when the ki-chu hasn't been up to sample. I have had ki-chus of every make and build. There are old ki-chus of mine that are now raising families an' mortgages in the Middlewest; there are ki-chus who are running East-side saloons with profit to themselves and their dude sons, there——"

"Yes, yes!" Sanders smiled again. "But why?"

"Let me tell you, sir," again Big Ben held up his beringed hand, "I am out of the business—good! But, Mr. Sanders, sir, I have a conscience." He laid his big hand over his heart and lowered his voice. "Lately I have been worrying over this old ki-chu. I have built myself a magnificent dwelling in Boston; I have surrounded myself with the evidences and services of luxury; but there is a still small voice which penetrates the sound-proof walls of my bedroom, that intrudes upon the silences of my Turkish bath—and the voice says, 'Big Ben Hold—there aren't any ki-chu; you're a fake; you're a swindler; you're a green goods man; you're rollin' in riches secured by fraud.' Mr. Sanders, I must see a ki-chu; I must have a real ki-chu if I spend the whole of my fortune in getting it"; he dropped his voice again, "if I lose my life in the attempt."

He stared with gloom, but earnestness, at Sanders, and the Commissioner looked at him thoughtfully. And from Mr. Hold his eyes wandered to the gravelled path outside, and the big American, following his eyes, saw a discoloured patch.

"Somebody been spillin' paint?" he suggested. "I had——"

Sanders shook his head.

"That's blood," he said simply, and Mr. Hold jerked.

"I've just shot a native," said Sanders, in a conversational tone. "He was rather keen on spearing me, and I was rather keen on not being speared. So I shot him."

"Dead?"

"Not very!" replied the Commissioner. "As a matter of fact I think I just missed putting him out—there's an Eurasian doctor looking him over just now, and if you're interested, I'll let you know how he gets along."

The showman drew a long breath.

"This is a nice country," he said.

Sanders nodded. He called his servants and gave directions for the visitor's comfortable housing.

A week later, Mr. Hold embarked for the upper river with considerable misgiving, for the canoe which Sanders had placed at his disposal seemed, to say the least, inadequate.

It was at this time that the Ochori were in some disfavour with the neighbouring tribes, and a small epidemic of rebellion and warfare had sustained the interest of the Commissioner in his wayward peoples.

First, the N'gombi people fought the Ochori, then the Isisi folk went to war with the Akasava over a question of women, and the Ochori went to war with the Isisi, and between whiles, the little bush folk warred indiscriminately with everybody, relying on the fact that they lived in the forest and used poisoned arrows.

They were a shy, yet haughty people, and they poisoned their arrows with tetanus, so that all who were wounded by them died of lock-jaw after many miserable hours.

They were engaged in harrying the Ochori people, when Mr. Commissioner Sanders, who was not unnaturally annoyed, came upon the scene with fifty Houssas and a Maxim gun, and although the little people were quick, they did not travel as fast as a well-sprayed congregation of .303 bullets, and they sustained a few losses.

Then Timbani, the little chief of the Lesser Isisi, spoke to his people assembled:

"Let us fight the Ochori, for they are insolent, and their chief is a foreigner and of no consequence."

And the fighting men of the tribe raised their hands and cried, "Wa!"

Timbani led a thousand spears into the Ochori country, and wished he had chosen another method of spending a sultry morning, for whilst he was burning the village of Kisi, Sanders came with vicious unexpectedness upon his flank, from the bush country.

Two companies of Houssas shot with considerable accuracy at two hundred yards, and when the spears were stacked and the prisoners squatted, resigned but curious, in a circle of armed guards, Timbani realised that it was a black day in his history.

"I only saw this, lord," he said, "that Bosambo has made me a sorrowful man, for if it were not for his prosperity, I should never have led my men against him, and I should not be here before your lordship, wondering which of my wives would mourn me most."

"As to that, Timbani," said Sanders, "I have no means of knowing. Later, when you work in the Village of Irons, men will come and tell you."

Timbani drew a deep breath. "Then my lord does not hang me?" he asked.

"I do not hang you because you are a fool," said Sanders. "I hang wicked men, but fools I send to hard labour."

The chief pondered. "It is in my mind, Lord Sandi," he said, "that I would as soon hang for villainy as live for folly."

"Hang him!" said Sanders, who was in an obliging mood.

But when the rope was deftly thrown across the limb of a tree, Timbani altered his point of view, electing to drag out an ignominious existence. Wherein he was wise, for whilst there is life there is scope, if you will pardon the perversion.

To the Village of Irons went Timbani, titular chief of the Lesser Isisi, and found agreeable company there, and, moreover, many predecessors, for the Isisi folk are notoriously improvident in the matter of chiefs.

They formed a little community of their own, they and their wives, and at evening time they would sit round a smouldering log of gum wood, their red blankets about their shoulders, and tell stories of their former grandeur, and as they moved the loose shackles about their feet would jingle musically.

On a night when the Houssa sentries, walking along raised platforms, which commanded all views of the prisoners' compound, were unusually lax, Timbani effected his escape, and made the best of his way across country to the bush lands. The journey occupied two months in time, but native folk are patient workers, and there came a spring morning, when Timbani, lean and muscular, stood in the presence of Sakola, the bush king.

"Lord," said he, though he despised all bushmen, "I have journeyed many days to see you, knowing that you are the greatest of all kings."

Sakola sat on a stool carved crudely to represent snakes. He was under four feet in height, and was ill-favoured by bush standards—and the bush standard is very charitable. His big head, his little eyes, the tuft of wiry whisker under his chin, the high cheek bones, all contributed to the unhappy total of ugliness.

He was fat in an obvious way, and had a trick of scratching the calf of his leg as he spoke.

He blinked up at the intruder—for intruder he was, and the guard at each elbow was eloquent of the fact.

"Why do you come here?" croaked Sakola.

He said it in two short words, which literally mean, "Here—why?"

"Master of the forest," explained Timbani glibly, "I come because I desire your happiness. The Ochori are very rich, for Sandi loves them. If you go to them Sandi will be sorry."

The bushman sniffed. "I went to them and I was sorry," he said, significantly.

"I have a ju-ju," said the eager Timbani, alarmed at the lack of enthusiasm. "He will help you; and will give you signs."

Sakola eyed him with a cold and calculating eye. In the silence of the forest they stared at one another, the escaped prisoner with his breast filled with hatred of his overlord, and the squat figure on the stool.

Then Sakola spoke.

"I believe in devils," he said, "and I will try your ju-ju. For I will cut you a little and tie you to the top of my tree of sacrifice. And if you are alive when the sun sets, behold I will think that is a good sign, and go once again into the Ochori land. But if you are dead, that shall be a bad sign, and I will not fight."

When the sun set behind the golden green of the tree tops, the stolid crowd of bushmen who stood with their necks craning and their faces upturned, saw the poor wreck of a man twist slowly.

"That is a good sign," said Sakola, and sent messengers through the forest to assemble his fighting men.

Twice he flung a cloud of warriors into the Ochori territory. Twice the chiefs of the Ochori hurled back the invader, slaying many and taking prisoners.

About these prisoners. Sanders, who knew something of the gentle Ochori, had sent definite instructions.

When news of the third raid came, Bosambo gave certain orders.

"You march with food for five days," he said to the heads of his army, "and behold you shall feed all the prisoners you take from the grain you carry, giving two hands to each prisoner and one to yourself."

"But, lord," protested the chief, "this is madness, for if we take many prisoners we shall starve."

Bosambo waved him away. "M'bilini," he said, with dignity, "once I was a Christian—just as my brother Sandi, was once a Christian—and we Christians are kind to prisoners."

"But, lord Bosambo," persisted the other, "if we kill our prisoners and do not bring them back it will be better for us."

"These things are with the gods," said the pious Bosambo vaguely.

So M'bilini went out against the bushmen and defeated them. He brought back an army well fed, but without prisoners.

Thus matters stood when Big Ben Hold came leisurely up the river, his canoe paddled close in shore, for here the stream does not run so swiftly.

It had been a long journey, and the big man in the soiled white ducks showed relief as he stepped ashore on the Ochori beach and stretched his legs.

He had no need to inquire which of the party approaching him was Bosambo. For the chief wore his red plush robe, his opera hat, his glass bracelets, and all the other appurtenances of his office.

Big Ben had come up the river in his own good time and was now used to the way of the little chiefs.

His interpreter began a conversational oration, but Bosambo cut him short.

"Nigger," he said, in English, "you no speak 'um—I speak 'um fine English. I know Luki, Marki, John, Judas—all fine fellers. You, sah," he addressed the impressed Mr. Hold, "you lib for me? Sixpence—four dollar, good-night, I love you, mister!"

He delivered his stock breathlessly.

"Fine!" said Mr. Hold, awestricken and dazed.

He felt at home in the procession which marched in stately manner towards the chief's hut; it was as near a circus parade as made no difference.

Over a dinner of fish he outlined the object of his search and the reason for his presence.

It was a laborious business, necessitating the employment of the despised and frightened interpreter until the words "ki-chu" were mentioned, whereupon Bosambo brightened up.

"Sah," interrupted Bosambo, "I savee al dem talk; I make 'um English one time good."

"Fine," said Mr. Hold gratefully, "I get you, Steve."

"You lookum ki-chu," continued Bosambo, "you no find 'um; I see 'um; I am God-man—Christian; I savee Johnny Baptist; Peter cut 'um head off—dam' bad man; I savee Hell an' all dem fine fellers."

"Tell him——" began Big Ben.

"I spik English same like white man!" said the indignant Bosambo. "You no lib for make dem feller talky talk—I savee dem ki-chu."

Big Ben sighed helplessly. All along the river the legend of the ki-chu was common property. Everybody knew of the ki-chu—some had seen those who had seen it. He was not elated that Bosambo should be counted amongst the faithful.

For the retired showman had by this time almost salved his conscience. It was enough, perhaps, that evidence of the ki-chu's being should be afforded—still he would dearly have loved to carry one of the alleged fabulous creatures back to America with him.

He had visions of a tame ki-chu chained to a stake on his Boston lawn; of a ki-chu sitting behind gilded bars in a private menagerie annexe.

"I suppose," said Mr. Hold, "you haven't seen a ki-chu—you savee—you no look 'um?"

Bosambo was on the point of protesting that the ki-chu was a familiar object of the landscape when a thought occurred to him.

"S'pose I find 'um ki-chu you dash[#] me plenty dollar?" he asked.

[#] Give.

"If you find me that ki-chu," said Mr. Hold slowly, and with immense gravity, "I will pay you a thousand dollars."

Bosambo rose to his feet, frankly agitated.

"Thousan' dollar?" he repeated.

"A thousand dollars," said Big Ben with the comfortable air of one to whom a thousand dollars was a piece of bad luck.

Bosambo put out his hand and steadied himself against the straw-plaited wall of his hut.

"You make 'um hundred dollar ten time?" he asked, huskily, "you make 'um book?"

"I make 'um book," said Ben, and in a moment of inspiration drew a note-book from his pocket and carefully wrote down the substance of his offer.

He handed the note to the chief, and Bosambo stared at it uncomprehendingly.

"And," said Big Ben, confidentially leaning across and tapping the knee of the standing chief with the golden head of his cane, "if you——"

Bosambo raised his hand, and his big face was solemn.

"Master," he said, relapsing into the vernacular in his excitement, "though this ki-chu lives in a village of devils, and ghosts walk about his hut, I will bring him."

The next morning Bosambo disappeared, taking with him three hunters of skill, and to those who met him and said, "Ho! Bosambo; where do you walk?" he answered no word, but men who saw his face were shocked, for Bosambo had been a Christian and knew the value of money.

Eight days he was absent, and Big Ben Hold found life very pleasant, for he was treated with all the ceremony which is usually the privilege of kings.

On the evening of the eighth day Bosambo returned, and he brought with him the ki-chu.

Looking at this wonder Big Ben Hold found his heart beating faster.

"My God!" he said, and his profanity was almost excusable.

For the ki-chu exceeded his wildest dreams. It was like a man, yet unlike. Its head was almost bald, the stick tied bit-wise between his teeth had been painted green and added to the sinister appearance of the brute. Its long arms reaching nearly to its knees were almost human, and the big splayed feet dancing a never-ceasing tattoo of rage were less than animal.

"Lord," said Bosambo proudly, "I have found the ki-chu!"

The chief's face bore signs of a fierce encounter. It was gashed and lacerated. His arms, too, bore signs of rough surgical dressing.

"Three hunters I took with me," said Bosambo, "and one have I brought back, for I took the ki-chu as he sat on a tree, and he was very fierce."

"My God!" said Big Ben again, and breathed heavily.

They built a cage for the ki-chu, a cage of heavy wooden bars, and the rare animal was screened from the vulgar gaze by curtains of native cloth.

It did not take kindly to its imprisonment.

It howled and gibbered and flung itself against the bars, and Bosambo viewed its transports with interest.

"Lord," he said, "this only I ask you: that you take this ki-chu shortly from here. Also, you shall not show it to Sandi lest he be jealous that we send away from our country so rare a thing."

"But," protested Mr. Hold to the interpreter, "you tell the chief that Mr. Sanders just wants me to catch the ki-chu—say, Bosambo, you savee, Sandi wantee see dem ki-chu?"

They were sitting before the chief's hut on the ninth day of the American's visit. The calm of evening lay on the city, and save for the unhappy noises of the captive no sound broke the Sabbath stillness of the closing day.

Bosambo was sitting at his ease, a bundle of English banknotes suspended by a cord about his neck, and the peace of heaven in his heart.

He had opened his mouth to explain the idiosyncrasies of the Commissioner when——

"Whiff—snick!"

Something flicked past Big Ben's nose—something that buried its head in the straw of the hut with a soft swish!

He saw the quivering arrow, heard the shrill call of alarm and the dribbling roll of a skin-covered drum.

Then a hand like steel grasped his arm and flung him headlong into the hut, for Sakola's headman had come in person to avenge certain indignities and the city of the Ochori was surrounded by twenty thousand bushmen.

Night was falling and the position was desperate. Bosambo had no doubt as to that. A wounded bushman fell into his hands—a mad little man, who howled and spat and bit like a vicious little animal.

"Burn him till he talks," said Bosambo—but at the very sight of fire the little man told all—and Bosambo knew that he spoke the truth.

The lokali on the high watch tower of the city beat its staccato call for help and some of the villagers about answered.

Bosambo stood at the foot of the rough ladder leading to the tower, listening.

From east and south and north came the replies—from the westward—nothing. The bushmen had swept into the country from the west, and the lokalis were silent where the invader had passed.

Big Ben Hold, an automatic pistol in his hand, took his part in the defence of the city. All through that night charge after charge broke before the defences, and at intervals the one firearm of the defending force spat noisily out into the darkness.

With the dawn came an unshaven Sanders. He swept round the bend of the river, two Hotchkiss guns banging destructively, and the end of the bush war came when the rallied villagers of the Ochori fell on the left flank of the attackers and drove them towards the guns of the Zaire.

Then it was that Bosambo threw the whole fighting force of the city upon the enemy.

Sanders landed his Houssas to complete the disaster; he made his way straight to the city and drew a whistling breath of relief to find Big Ben Hold alive, for Big Ben was a white man, and moreover a citizen of another land. The big man held out an enormous hand of welcome.

"Glad to see you," he said.

Sanders smiled.

"Found that ki-chu?" he asked derisively, and his eyes rose incredulously at the other's nod.

"Here!" said Mr. Hold triumphantly, and he drew aside the curtains of the cage.

It was empty.

"Hell!" bellowed Big Ben Hold, and threw his helmet on the ground naughtily.

"There it is!" He pointed across the open stretch of country which separated the city from the forest. A little form was running swiftly towards the woods. Suddenly it stopped, lifted something from the ground, and turned towards the group. As its hands came up, Sergeant Abiboo of the Houssas raised his rifle and fired; and the figure crumpled up.

"My ki-chu!" wailed the showman, as he looked down at the silent figure.

Sanders said nothing. He looked first at the dead Sakola, outrageously kidnapped in the very midst of his people, then he looked round for Bosambo, but Bosambo had disappeared.

At that precise moment the latter was feverishly scraping a hole in the floor of his hut wherein to bank his ill-gotten reward.

CHAPTER X

THE CHILD OF SACRIFICE

Out of the waste came a long, low wail of infinite weariness. It was like the cry of a little child in pain. The Government steamer was drifting at the moment. Her engine had stopped whilst the engineer repaired a float which had been smashed through coming in contact with a floating log.

Assistant-Commissioner Sanders, a young man in those days, bent his head, listening. Again the wail arose; this time there was a sob at the end of it. It came from a little patch of tall, coarse elephant grass near the shore.

Sanders turned to his orderly.

"Take a canoe, O man," he said in Arabic, "and go with your rifle." He pointed. "There you will find a monkey that is wounded. Shoot him, that he may suffer no more, for it is written, 'Blessed is he that giveth sleep from pain.'"

Obedient to his master's order, Abiboo leapt into a little canoe, which the Zaire carried by her side, and went paddling into the grass.

He disappeared, and they heard the rustle of elephant grass; but no shot came.

They waited until the grass rattled again, and

Abiboo reappeared with a baby boy in the crook of his arm, naked and tearful.

This child was a first-born, and had been left on a sandy spit so that a crocodile might come and complete the sacrifice.

This happened nearly twenty years ago, and the memory of the drastic punishment meted out to the father of that first-born is scarcely a memory.

"We will call this child 'N'mika,'" Sanders had said, which means "the child of sacrifice."

N'mika was brought up in the hut of a good man, and came to maturity.

* * * * *

When the monkeys suddenly changed their abiding-place from the little woods near by Bonganga, on the Isisi, to the forest which lies at the back of the Akasava, all the wise men said with one accord that bad fortune was coming to the people of Isisi.

N'mika laughed at these warnings, for he was in Sanders's employ, and knew all things that happened in his district.

Boy and man he served the Government faithfully; loyalty was his high fetish, and Sanders knew this.

The Commissioner might have taken this man and made him a great chief; and had N'mika raised the finger of desire, Sanders would have placed him above all others of his people; but the man knew where he might serve best, and at nineteen he had scotched three wars, saved the life of Sanders twice, and had sent three petty chiefs of enterprising character to the gallows.

Then love came to N'mika.

He loved a woman of the Lesser Isisi—a fine, straight girl, and very beautiful by certain standards. He married her, and took her to his hut, making her his principal wife, and investing her with all the privileges and dignity of that office.

Kira, as the woman was called, was, in many ways, a desirable woman, and N'mika loved her as only a man of intelligence could love her; and she had ornaments of brass and of beads exceeding in richness the possessions of any other woman in the village.

Now, there are ways of treating a woman the world over, and they differ in very little degree whether they are black or white, cannibal or vegetarian, rich or poor.

N'mika treated this woman too well. He looked in the forest for her wishes, as the saying goes, and so insistent was this good husband on serving his wife, that she was hard put to it to invent requirements.

"Bright star reflected in the pool of the world," he said to her one morning, "what is your need this day? Tell me, so that I may go and seek fulfilment."

She smiled. "Lord," she said, "I desire the tail of a white antelope."

"I will find this tail," he said stoutly, and went forth to his hunting, discouraged by the knowledge that the white antelope is seen once in the year, and then by chance.

Now this woman, although counted cold by many former suitors, and indubitably discovered so by her husband, had one lover who was of her people, and when the seeker of white antelope tails had departed she sent a message to the young man.

That evening Sanders was "tied up" five miles from the village, and was watching the sun sinking in the swamp which lay south and west of the anchorage, when N'mika came down river in his canoe, intent on his quest, but not so intent that he could pass his lord without giving him due obeisance.

"Ho, N'mika!" said Sanders, leaning over the rail of the boat, and looking down kindly at the solemn figure in the canoe, "men up and down the river speak of you as the wonderful lover."

"That is true, lord," said N'mika simply; "for, although I paid two thousand matakos for this woman, I think she is worth more rods than have ever been counted."

Sanders nodded, eyeing him thoughtfully, for he suspected the unusual whenever women came into the picture, and was open to the conviction that the man was mad.

"I go now, lord, to serve her," N'mika said, and he played with one of the paddles with some embarrassment; "for my wife desires a tail of a white antelope, and there is no antelope nearer than the N'gombi country—and white antelopes are very little seen."

Sanders's eyebrows rose.

"For many months," continued N'mika, "I must seek my beautiful white swish; but I am pleased, finding happiness in weariness because I serve her."

Sanders made a sign, and the man clambered on deck.

"You have a powerful ju-ju," he said, when N'mika stood before him, "for I will save you all weariness and privation. Three days since I shot a white antelope on the edge of the Mourning Pools, and you shall be given its tail."

Into the hands of the waiting man he placed the precious trophy, and N'mika sighed happily.

"Lord," he said simply, "you are as a god to me—and have been for all time; for you found me, and named me the 'Child of Sacrifice,' and I hope, my fine master, to give my life in your service. This would be a good end for me."

"This is a little thing, N'mika," said Sanders gently; "but I give you now a greater thing, which is a word of wisdom. Do not give all your heart to one woman, lest she squeeze it till you are dead."

"That also would be a great end," said N'mika and went his way.

It was a sad way, for it led to knowledge.

Sanders was coming up the river at his leisure. Two days ahead of him had gone a canoe, swiftly paddled, to summon to the place of snakes, near the elephants' ground where three small rivers meet (it was necessary to be very explicit in a country which abounded in elephants' playgrounds and haunts of snakes, and was, moreover, watered by innumerable rivers), a palaver of the chiefs of his land.

To the palaver in the snake-place came the chiefs, high and puisne, the headmen, great and small, in their various states. Some arrived in war canoes, with lokali shrilling, announcing the dignity and pride of the lazy figure in the stern. Some came in patched canoes that leaked continually. Some tramped long journeys through the forest—Isisi, Ochori, Akasava, Little N'gombi and Greater Isisi. Even the shy bushmen came sneaking down the river, giving a wide berth to all other peoples, and grasping in their delicate hands spears and arrows which, as a precautionary measure, had been poisoned with tetanus.

Egili of the Akasava, Tombolo of the Isisi, N'rambara of the N'gombi, and, last but not least, Bosambo of the Ochori, came, the last named being splendid to behold; for he had a robe of green velvet, sent to him from the Coast, and about his neck, suspended by a chain, jewelled at intervals with Parisian diamonds, was a large gold-plated watch, with a blue enamel dial, which he consulted from time to time with marked insolence.

They sat upon their carved stools about the Commissioner, and he told them many things which they knew, and some which they had hoped he did not know.

"Now, I tell you," said Sanders, "I call you together because there is peace in the land, and no man's hand is against his brother's, and thus it has been for nearly twelve moons, and behold! you all grow rich and fat."

"Kwai!" murmured the chiefs approvingly.

"Therefore," said Sanders, "I have spoken a good word to Government for you, and Government is pleased; also my King and yours has sent you a token of his love, which he has made with great mystery and intelligence, that you may see him always with you, watching you."

He had brought half a hundred oleographs of His Majesty from the headquarters, and these he had solemnly distributed. It was a head-and-shoulder photograph of the King lighting a cigarette, and had been distributed gratis with an English Christmas number.

"Now all people see! For peace is a beautiful thing, and men may lie down in their huts and fear nothing of their using. Also, they may go out to their hunting and fear nothing as to their return, for their wives will be waiting with food in their hands."

"Lord," said a little chief of the N'gombi, "even I, a blind and ignorant man, see all this. Now, I swear by death that I will hold the King's peace in my two hands, offending none; for though my village is a small one, I have influence, owing to my wife's own brother, by the same father and of the same mother, being the high chief of the N'gombi-by-the-River."

"Lord Sandi," said Bosambo, and all eyes were fixed upon a chief so brave and so gallantly arrayed, who was, moreover, by all understanding, related too nearly to Sandi for the Commissioner's ease. "Lord Sandi," said Bosambo, "that I am your faithful slave all men know. Some have spoken evilly of me, but, lo! where are they? They are in hell, as your lordship knows, for we were both Christians before I learnt the true way and worshipped God and the Prophet. Nevertheless, lord, Mussulman and Christian are one alike in this, that they have a very terrible hell to which their enemies go——"

"Bosambo," said Sanders interrupting, "your voice is pleasant, and like the falling of rain after drought, yet I am a busy man, and there are many to speak."

Bosambo inclined his head gravely. The conference looked at him now in awe, for he had earned an admonition from Sandi, and still lived—nay! still preserved his dignity.

"Lord," said Bosambo. "I speak no more now, for, as you say, we have many private palavers, where much is said which no man knows; therefore it is unseemly to stand between other great speakers and your honour." He sat down.

"You speak truly, Bosambo," said Sanders calmly. "Often we speak in private, you and I, for when I speak harshly to chiefs it is thus—in the secrecy of their huts that I talk, lest I put shame upon them in the eyes of their people."

"O, ko!" said the dismayed Bosambo under his breath, for he saw the good impression his cryptic utterance had wrought wearing off with some rapidity.

After the palaver had dispersed, a weary Sanders made his way to the Zaire. A bath freshened him, and he came out to a wire-screened patch of deck to his dinner with some zest. A chicken of microscopic proportions had been the main dish every night for months.

He ate his meal in solitude, a book propped up against a bottle before him, a steaming cup of tea at one elbow, and a little electric hand-lamp at the other.

He was worried. For nine months he had kept a regiment of the Ochori on the Isisi border prepared for any eventualities. This regiment had been withdrawn. Sanders had an uncomfortable feeling that he had made a bad mistake. It would take three weeks to police the border again.

Long after the meal had been cleared away he sat thinking, and then a familiar voice, speaking with Abiboo on the lower deck, aroused him.

He turned to the immobile Houssa orderly who squatted outside the fly wire.

"If that voice is the voice of the chief Bosambo, bring him to me."

A minute later Bosambo came, standing before the meshed door of the fly-proof enclosure.

"Enter, Bosambo," said Sanders, and when he had done so: "Bosambo," he said, "you are a wise man, though somewhat boastful. Yet I have some faith in your judgment. Now you have heard all manner of people speaking before me, and you know that there is peace in this land. Tell me, by your head and your love, what things are there which may split this friendship between man and man?"

"Lord," said Bosambo, preparing to orate at length, "I know of two things which may bring war, and the one is land and such high matters as fishing rights and hunting grounds, and the other is women. And, lord, since women live and are born to this world every hour of the day, faster—as it seems to me—than they die, there will always be voices to call spears from the roof."

Sanders nodded. "And now?" he asked.

Bosambo looked at him swiftly. "Lord," he said suavely, "all men live in peace, as your lordship has said this day, and we love one another too well to break the King's peace. Yet we keep a regiment of my Ochori on the Akasava border to keep the peace."

"And now?" said Sanders again, more softly.

Bosambo shifted uncomfortably. "I am your man," he said, "I have eaten your salt, and have shown you by various heroic deeds, and by terrible fighting, how much I love you, lord Sandi."

"Yet," said Sanders, speaking rather to the swaying electric bulb hanging from the awning, "and yet I did not see the chief of the little Isisi at my palaver."

Bosambo was silent for a moment. Then he heaved a deep sigh.

"Lord," he said, with reluctant admiration, "you have eyes all over your body. You can see the words of men before they are uttered, and are very quick to read thoughts. You are all eyes," he went on extravagantly, "you have eyes on the top of your head and behind your ears. You have eyes——"

"That will do," said Sanders quietly. "I think that will do, Bosambo."

There was another long pause.

"And I tell you this, because there are no secrets between you and me. It was I who persuaded the little chief not to come."

Sanders nodded. "That I know," he said.

"For, lord, I desired that this should be a very pleasant day for your lordship, and that you should go away with your heart filled with gladness, singing great songs; also, as your lordship knows, the Ochori guard has left the Akasava border."

There was no mistaking the significance.

"Why should Bimebibi make me otherwise?" asked Sanders, ignoring the addition.

"Lord," said Bosambo loftily, "I am, as you know, of the true faith, believing neither in devils nor spells, save those which are prescribed by the blessed Prophet, it is well known that Bimebibi is a friend of ghosts, and has the eye which withers and kills. Therefore, lord, he is an evil man, and all the chiefs and peoples of this land are for chopping him—all save the people of the Lesser Isisi, who greatly love him."

Again Sanders nodded.

The Lesser Isisi were the fighting Isisi; they held the land between the Ochori and the Akasava, and were fierce men in some moments, though gentle enough in others. Yet he had had no word from N'mika that trouble was brewing. This was strange. Sanders sat in thought for the greater part of ten minutes. Then he spoke.

"War is very terrible," he said, "for if one mad man comes up against five men who are not mad, behold! they become all mad together. I tell you this, Bosambo, if you do well for me in this matter, I will pay you beyond your dreams."

"How can a man do well?" asked Bosambo.

"He shall hold this war," said Sanders.

Bosambo raised his right arm stiffly.

"This I would do, lord," he said gravely; "but it is not for me, for Bimebibi will cross with the Akasava just as soon as he knows that the Ochori do not hold the border."

"He must never know until I bring my soldiers," said Sanders; "and none can tell him." He looked up quietly, and met the chief's eye. "And none can tell him?" he challenged.

Bosambo shook his head. "N'mika sits in his village, lord," said he; "and N'mika is a great lover of his wife by all accounts."

Sanders smiled. "If N'mika betrays me," he said, "there is no man in the world I will ever trust."

* * * * *

N'mika faced his wife. He wore neither frown nor smile, but upon her face was the terror of death. On a stool in the centre of the hut was the tail of the white antelope, but to this she gave no attention, for her mind was busy with the thoughts of terrible reprisals.

They sat in silence; the fire in the centre of the big hut spluttered and burnt, throwing weird shadows upon the wattle walls.

When N'mika spoke his voice was even and calm.

"Kira, my wife," he said, "you have taken my heart out of me, and left a stone, for you do not love me."

She licked her dry lips and said nothing.

"Now, I may put you away," he went on, "for the shame you have brought, and the sorrow, and the loneliness."

She opened her mouth to speak. Twice she tried, but her tongue refused. Then, again:

"Kill me," she whispered, and kept her staring eyes on his.

N'mika, the Wonderful Lover, shook his head.

"You are a woman, and you have not my strength," he said, half to himself, "and you are young. I have trusted you, and I am afraid."

She was silent.

If the man, her lover, did what she had told him to do in the frantic moment when she had been warned of her husband's return, she might have saved her life—and more.

He read her thoughts in part.

"You shall take no harm from me," he said; "for I love you beyond understanding; and though I stand on the edge of death for my kindness, I will do no ill to you."

She sprang up. The fear in her eyes was gone; hate shone there banefully. He saw the look, and it scorched his very soul—and he heard.

It was the soft pad-pad of the king's guard, and he turned to greet Bimebibi's head chief.

His wife would have run to the guard, but N'mika's hand shot out and held her.

"Take him—take him!" she cried hoarsely "He will kill me—also he plots against the king, for he is Sandi's man!"

Chekolana, the king's headman, watched her curiously, but no more dispassionate was the face her husband turned upon her.

"Kira," he said, "though you hate me, I love you. Though I die for this at the hands of the king, I love you."

She laughed aloud.

She was safe—and N'mika was afraid. Her outstretched finger almost touched his face.

"Tell this to the king," she cried, "N'mika is Sandi's man, and knows his heart——"

The headman, Chekolana, made a step forward and peered into N'mika's face.

"If this is true," he said, "you shall tell Bimebibi all he desires to know. Say, N'mika, how many men of the Ochori hold the border?"

N'mika laughed.

"Ask Sandi that," he said.

"Lord! lord!"—it was the woman, her eyes blazing—"this I will tell you, if you put my man away. On the border there is——"

She gasped once and sighed like one grown weary, then she slid down to the floor of the hut—dead, for N'mika was a quick killer, and his hunting-knife very sharp.

"Take me to the king," he said, his eyes upon the figure at his feet, "saying N'mika has slain the woman he loved; N'mika, the Wonderful Lover; N'mika, the Child of Sacrifice, who loved his wife well, and loved his high duty best."

No other word spoke N'mika.

They crucified him on a stake before the chief's hut, and there Sanders found him three days later, Bimebibi explained the circumstances.

"Lord, this man murdered a woman, so I killed him," he said.

He might have saved his breath, for he had need of it.

CHAPTER XI

"THEY"

In the Akarti country they worshipped many devils, and feared none, save one strange devil, who was called "Wu," which in our language means "They."

"Remember this," said Sanders of the River, as he grasped the hand of Grayson Smith, his assistant.

"I will not forget," said that bright young man; "and, by the way, if anything happens to me, you might find out how it all came about, and drop a note to my people—suppressing the beastly details."

Sanders nodded.

"I will make it a pretty story," he said; "and, whatever happens, your death will be as instantaneous and as painless as my fountain-pen can make it."

"You're a brick!" said Grayson Smith, and turned to swear volubly in Swaheli at his headman—for Smith, albeit young, was a great linguist.

Sanders watched the big canoe as it swung into the yellow waters of the Fasai; watched it until it disappeared round a bank, then sent his steamer round to the current, and set his course homeward.

To appreciate the full value of the Akartis' independence, and their immunity from all attack, it must be remembered that the territory ranged from the Forest-by-the-Waters to the Forest-by-the-Mountains. It was a stretch of broad, pastoral lands, enclosed by natural defences. Forest and swamp on the westward kept back the rapacious people of the Great King, mountain and forest on the south held the Ochori, the Akasava, and the Isisi.

The boldest of the N'gombi never ventured across the saw-shaped peaks of the big mountains, even though loot and women were there for the taking.

The king of the Akarti was undisputed lord of vast territories, and he had ten regiments of a thousand men, and one regiment of women, whom he called his "Angry Maidens," who drank strong juices, and wrestled like men.

Since he was king from the Forest-by-the-Mountains to the Forest-by-the-Waters he was powerful and merciless, and none said "nay" to N'raki's "yea," for he was too fierce, and too terrible a man to cross.

Culuka of the Wet Lands once came down into N'raki's territory, and brought a thousand spears.

Now the Wet Lands are many miles from the city of the king, and the raid that Culuka planned injured none, for the raided territories were poor and stony.

But N'raki, the killer, was hurt in his tenderest spot, and he led his thousands across the swamps to the city of Culuka, and he fought him up to the stockades and beyond. The city he burnt. The men and children he slew out of hand. Culuka he crucified before his flaming hut, and, thereafter, the borders of the killer were immune from attack.

This was a lesson peculiarly poignant, and when the French Government—for Culuka dwelt in a territory which was nominally under the tricolour—sent a mission to inquire into the wherefores of the happening, N'raki cut off the head of the leader, and sent it back with unprintable messages intended primarily for the governor of French West Africa, and eventually for the Quai d'Orsay.

N'raki lived, therefore, undisturbed, for the outrage coincided with the findings of the Demarcation Commission which had been sitting for two years to settle certain border-line questions. By the finding of the Commission all the Akarti country became, in the twinkling of an eye, British territory, and N'raki a vassal of the King of England—though he was sublimely unconscious of the honour.

N'raki was an autocrat of autocrats, and of his many battalions of skilled fighting men, all very young and strong, with shining limbs and feathered heads, he was proudest of his first regiment.

These were the tallest, the strongest, the fleetest, and the fiercest of fighters, and he forbade them to marry, for all men know that women have an evil effect upon warriors; and no married man is brave until he has children to defend, and by that time he is fat also.

So this austere regiment knew none of the comforts or languor of love, and they were proud that their lord, the king, had set them apart from all other men, and had so distinguished them.

At the games they excelled, because they were stronger and faster, knowing nothing of women's influence; and the old king saw their excellence, and said "Wa!"

There was a man of the regiment whose name was Taga'ka, who was a fine man of twenty. There was also in the king's city a woman of fifteen, named Lapai, who was a straight, comely girl, and a great dancer.

She was a haughty woman, because her uncle was the chief witch-doctor, and such was her power that she had put away two husbands.

One day, at the wells, she saw Taga'ka, and loved him; and meeting him alone in the forest, she fell down before him and clasped his feet.

"Lord Taga'ka," said she, "you are the one man in the world I desire."

"I am beyond desire," said Taga'ka, in his arrogant pride; "for I am of the king's regiment, and women are grass for our feet."

And not all her allurements could tempt him to so much as stroke her face; and the heart of the woman was wild with grief.

Then the king fell sick, and daily grew worse.

The witch-doctors made seven sacrifices, and learnt from grisly portents, which need not be described in detail, that the king should take a long journey to the far end of his kingdom, where he should meet a man with one eye, who would live in the shadow of the royal hut.

This he did, journeying for three months, till he came to the appointed place, where he met a man afflicted in accordance with the prediction. And the man sat in the shadow of the king's hut.

Now, it is a fact, which none will care to deny, that the niece of the chief witch-doctor had planned the treatment of the king. She had planned it with great cleverness, and she it was who saw to it that the deformed man waited at the king's hut.

For she loved Taga'ka with all the passion of her soul, and when the long months passed, and the king remained far away, and Lapai whispered into the young man's ear, he took her to wife, though death would be his penalty for his wrong-doing.

The other men of the royal regiment, who held Taga'ka a model in all things austere, seeing this happen, said: "Behold! Taga'ka, the favourite of the king, has taken a woman to himself. Now, if we all do this, it would be better for Taga'ka, and better for us. The king, the old man, will forgive him, and not punish us."

It might have been that N'raki, the king, would have ended his days in the place to which his medicine-man had sent him, but there arose in that district a greater magician than any—a certain wild alien of the Wet Lands, who possessed magical powers, and cured pains in the king's legs by a no more painful process than the laying on of hands, and whom the king appointed his chief magician. And this was the end of the uncle of Lapai; for, if no two kings can rule in one land, most certainly no two witch-doctors can hold power.

And they killed the deposed uncle of Lapai, and used the blood for making spells.

One morning the new witch-doctor stood in the presence of N'raki the king.

"Lord king," he said, "I have had a dream, and it says that your lordship shall go back to your city, and that you shall travel secretly, so that the devils who guard the way shall not lay hands upon you."

N'raki, the king, went back to his city unattended, save by his personal guard, and unheralded, to the discomfort of the royal regiment.

And when he learnt what he learnt, he administered justice swiftly. He carried the forbidden wives to the top of a high mountain and cast them over a cliff, one by one, to the number of six hundred.

And that mountain is to this day called "The Mountain of Sorrowful Women."

One alone he spared—Lapai. Before the assembled people in judgment he spared her.

"Behold this woman, people of the Akarti!" he said; "she that has brought sorrow and death to my regiment. To-day she shall watch her man, Taga'ka, burn; and from henceforth she shall live amongst you to remind you that I am a very jealous king, and terrible in my anger."

The news of the massacre filtered slowly through the territories. It came to the British Government, but the British Government is a cautious Government where primitive natives are concerned.

Sanders, sitting between Downing Street and the District Commissioners of many far-away and isolated spots, realised the futility of an expedition. He sent two special messages, one of which was to a young man named Farquharson, who, at the moment, was shooting snipe on the big swamp south of the Ambalina Mountains. And this young man swore like a Scotsman because his sport had been interrupted, but girded up his loins, and, with half a company of the King's African Rifles, trekked for the city.

On his way he ran into an ambush, and swore still more, for he realised that death had overtaken him before he had had his annual holiday.

He called for his orderly.

"Hafiz," he said in Arabic, "if you should escape, cross the country to the Ochori land by the big river. There you will find Sandi; give him my dear love, and say that Fagozoni sent a cheerful word, also that the Slayer of Regiments is killing his people."

An hour later Farquharson, or Fagozoni, as they called him, was lying before the king, his unseeing eyes staring at the hard, blue heavens, his lips parted in the very ghost of a smile.

"This is a bad palaver," said the king, looking at the dead man. "Now they will come, and I know not what will happen."

In his perturbation he omitted to take into his calculations the fact that he had in his city a thousand men sick with grief at the loss of their wives.

N'raki, the king, was no coward. There was a prompt smelling out of all suspicious characters. Even the councillors about his person were not exempt, for the new witch-doctor found traces of disloyalty in every one.

With the aid of his regiment of virgins, he held his city, and ruthlessly disposed of secret critics. These included men who stood at his very elbow, and there came a time when he found none to whom he might transmit his thoughts with any feeling of security.

News came to him that there was an Arab caravan traversing his western border, trading with his people, and the report he received was flattering to the intelligence and genius of the man in charge of the party.

N'raki sent messengers with gifts and kind words to the intruder, and on a certain day there was brought before him the slim Arab, Ussuf.

"O Ussuf," said the king, "I have heard of you, and of your wisdom. Often you have journeyed through my territories, and no man has done you hurt."

"Lord king," said the Arab, "that is true."

The king looked at him thoughtfully. N'raki, in those days, had reached his maturity; he was a wise, cunning man, and had no illusions.

"Arabi," he said, "this is in my mind: that you shall stay here with me, living in the shadow of my hut, and be my chief man, for you are very clever, and know the ways of foreign people. You shall have treasures beyond your dreams, for in this land there is much dead ivory hidden by the people of my fathers."

"Lord king," said Ussuf, "this is a very great honour, and I am too mean and small a man to serve you. Yet it is true I know the ways of foreign people, and I am wise in the government of men."

"This also I say to you," the king went on slowly, "that I do not fear men or devils, yet I fear 'They,' because of their terrible cruelty. Now if you will serve me, so that I avert the wrath of these, you shall sit down here in peace and happiness."

Thus it came about that Ussuf, the Arab, became Prime Minister to the King of Akarti, and two days after his arrival the new witch-doctor was put away with promptitude and dispatch by a king who had no further use for him.

All the news that came from the territories to Sanders was that the country was being ruled with some wisdom. The fear of "They" was an ever-present fear with the king. The long evenings he sat with his Arab counsellor, thinking of that mysterious force which lay beyond the saw-back.

"I tell you this, Ussuf," he said, "that my heart is like water within me when I think of 'They,' for it is a terrible devil, and I make sacrifices at every new moon to appease its anger."

"Lord king," said Ussuf, "I am skilled in the way of 'They,' and I tell you that they do not love sacrifices."

The king shifted on his stool irritably.

"That is strange," he said, "for the gods told me in a dream that I must sacrifice Lapai."

He shot a swift glance at the Arab, for this Ussuf was the only man in the city who did not deal scornfully with the lonely, outcast woman, whose every day was a hell.

It was the king's order that she should walk through the city twice between sunrise and sunset, and it was the king's pleasure that every man she met should execrate her; and although the native memory is short, and the recollection of the tragedy had died, men feared the king too much to allow her to pass without a formal curse.

Ussuf alone had walked with her, and men had gasped to see the kindly Arabi at her side.

"You may have this woman," said the king suddenly, "and take her into your house."

The Arab turned his calm eyes upon the wizened face of the other.

"Lord," he said, "she is not of my faith, being an unbeliever and an infidel, and, according to my gods, unworthy."

He was wise to the danger his undiplomatic friendship had brought him. He knew the reigns of Prime Ministers were invariably short.

He had become less indispensable than he had been, for the king had regained some of his lost confidence in the loyalty of his people; moreover, he had aroused suspicion in the Akartis' mind, and that was fatal.

The king dismissed him, and Ussuf went back to his hut, where his six Arab followers were.

"Ahmed," he said to one of these, "it is written in the blessed Word that the life of man is very short. Now I particularly desire that it shall be no shorter than the days our God has given to me. Be prepared to-morrow, therefore, to leave this city, for I see an end to my power."

He rose early in the morning, and went to the palaver which began the day. He was not perturbed to discover the seat usually reserved on the right of the king occupied by a lesser chief, and his own stool placed four seats down on the left.

"I have spoken with my wise counsellors," said the king, "also with witch-doctors, and these wise men have seen that the crops are bad, and that there is no fortune in this land, and because of this we will make a great sacrifice."

Ussuf bowed his head.

"Now, I think," said King N'raki slowly, "because I love my people very dearly, and I will not take any young maidens, as is the custom, for the fire, and for the killing, that it would be good for all people if I took the woman Lapai."

All eyes were fixed on Ussuf. His face was calm and motionless.

"Also," the king went on, "I hear terrible things, which fill my stomach with sorrow."

"Lord, I hear many things also," said Ussuf calmly; "but I am neither sorry nor glad, for such stories belong to the women at their cooking-pots and to men who are mad because of sickness."

N'raki made a little face.

"Women or madmen," he said shortly, "they say that you are under the spell of this woman, and that you are plotting against this land, and have also sent secret messengers to 'They,' and that you will bring great armies against my warriors, eating up my country as Sandi ate up the Akasava and the lands of the Great King."

Ussuf said nothing. He would not deny this for many reasons.

"When the moon comes up," said the king, and he addressed the assembly generally, "you shall tie Lapai to a stake before my royal house, and all the young maidens shall dance and sing songs, for good fortune will come to us, as it came in the days of my father, when a bad woman died."

Ussuf made no secret of his movements that day. First he went to his hut at the far end of the village, and spoke to the six Arabs who had come with him into the kingdom.

To the headman he said:

"Ahmed, this is a time when death is very near us all, be ready at moonrise to die, if needs be. But since life is precious to us all, be at the little plantation at the edge of the city at sunset, as soon as darkness falls and the people come in to sacrifice."

He left them and walked through the broad, palm-fringed street of the Akarti city till he came to the lonely hut, where the outcast woman dwelt. It was such a hut as the people of Akarti built for those who are about to die, so that no dwelling-place might be polluted with the mustiness of death.

The girl was starting on her daily penance—a tall, fine woman. She watched the approach of the king's minister without expressing in her face any of the torments which raged in her bosom.

"Lapai," said Ussuf, "this night the king makes a sacrifice."

He made no further explanation, nor did the girl require one.

"If he had made this sacrifice earlier, he would have been kind," she said quietly, "for I am a very sorrowful woman."

"That I know, Lapai," said the Arab gently.

"That you do not know," she corrected. "I had sorrow because I loved a man and destroyed him, because I love my people and they hate me, and now because I love you, Ussuf, with a love which is greater than any."

He looked at her; there was a strange pity in his eyes, and his thin, brown hands went out till they reached to her shoulders.

"All things are with the gods," he said. "Now, I cannot love you, Lapai, although I am full of pity for you, for you are not of my race, and there are other reasons. But because you are a woman, and because of certain teachings which I received in my youth, I will take you out of this city, and, if needs be, die for you."

He watched her as she walked slowly down towards where the people of the Akarti waited for her, drawn by morbid curiosity, since the king's intention was no secret. Then he shrugged his shoulders helplessly.

At nine o'clock, when the virgin guards and the old king went to find her for the killing, she had gone.

So also had Ussuf and his six Arabi. The king's lokali beat furiously, summoning all the country to deliver into his hands the woman and the man.

* * * * *

Sanders, at that moment, was hunting for the Long Man, whose name was O'Fasa. O'Fasa was twelve months gone in sleeping-sickness, and had turned from being a gentle husband and a kindly father into a brute beast. He had speared his wife, cut down the Houssa guard left by Sanders to keep the peace of his village, and had made for the forest.

Now, a madman is a king, holding his subjects in the thrall of fear, and since there was no room in the territory for two kings and Sanders, the Commissioner came full tilt up the river, landed half a company of black infantry, and followed on the ravaging trace of the madman.

At the end of eight days he came upon O'Fasa, the Long Man. He was sitting with his back against a gum-tree, his well-polished spears close at hand, and he was singing the death song of the Isisi, a long low, wailing, sorrowful song, which may be so translated into doggerel English:

Life is a thing so small

That you cannot see it at all;

Death is a thing so wise

That you see it in every guise.

Death is the son of life,

Pain is his favourite wife.

Sanders went slowly across the clearing, his automatic pistol in his hand.

O'Fasa looked at him and laughed.

"O'Fasa," said Sanders gently, "I have come to see you, because my King heard you were sick."

"O ko!" laughed the other. "I am a great man when kings send their messengers to me."

Sanders, his eye upon the spears, advanced warily.

"Come with me, O'Fasa," he said.

The man rose to his feet. He made no attempt to reach his spears. Of a sudden he ducked, and turned, running swiftly towards the black heart of the forest. Sanders raised his pistol, and hesitated a second—just too long. He could not kill the man, though by letting him live he might endanger the lives of his fellows and the peace of the land.

The Commissioner was in an awkward predicament. Ten miles beyond was the narrow gap which led into the territory of N'raki. To lead an armed expedition through that gap would bring about complications which it was his duty and desire to avoid. The only hope was that O'Fasa would double back, for the trail they followed left little doubt as to where he had gone. Unerringly, with the instinct of the hunted beast, he had made for the gap.

They came to the gorge, palm-fringed, and damp with the running waters, at sunset, and camped. They found the spoor of the hunted man, lost it, and picked it up again. At daybreak Sanders, with two men, pushed through the narrow pass and came into the forbidden territory. There was no sign of the fugitive.

Sanders's lokali beat out four urgent messages. They were addressed to a Mr. Grayson Smith, who might possibly be in that neighbourhood, but if he received them, he sent no reply.

Now, madmen and children have a rooted dislike for strange places, and Sanders, backing on this, fixed his ambush in the narrow end of the gorge. Sooner or later O'Fasa would return. At any rate, he decided to give him four days. Thus matters stood when the sometime minister, Ussuf, with a woman and five Arabi, made for the gap, with the swift and tireless guards of the king at their heels.

Three times the Arab had halted to fight off his pursuers, and in one of these engagements he had sustained his only casualty, and had left a dead Arab follower on the ground of his stand.

The gap was in sight, when a regiment of the north, summoned by lokali, swept down on his left and effectively blocked his retreat. Ussuf took up his position on a little rocky hill. His right was protected by swamp land, and his left and rear were open.

"Lapai," he said, when he had surveyed the position, "it seems to me that the death you desire is very close at hand. Now, I am very sorry for you, but God knows my sorrow can do little to save you."

The woman looked at him steadily.

"Lord," she said, "I am very glad if you and I go down to hell together, for in some new, strange world you might love me, and I should be satisfied."

Ussuf laughed, showing his straight rows of white teeth in genuine amusement.

"That we shall see," he said.

The attack came almost at once, but the rifles of the six shot back the assault. At the end of two hours the little party stood intact. A second attack followed; one man of the Arab guard went down with an arrow through his throat, but Ussuf's shooting was effective, and again the northern regiment drew off.

Before the hill, and in the direction of Akarti city, was the king's legion. It was from this point that Ussuf expected the last destroying assault.

"Lapai," he said, turning round, "I——"

The woman had gone! In the fury of the defence he had not noticed her slip away from him. Suddenly she appeared half-way down the hill and turned to him.

"Come back!" he called.

She framed her mouth with two hands that her words might carry better. In the still evening air every word came distinctly.

"Lord," she said, "this is best, for if they have me, they will let you go, and death will come some day to you, and I shall be waiting."

She turned and ran quickly down the hill towards the stiff lines of warriors below.

Then suddenly appeared out of the ground, as It seemed, a tall, lank figure right in her path. She stopped a moment, and the man sprang at her and lifted her without an effort. Ussuf raised his rifle and covered them, but he dare not shoot.

There was another interested spectator. King N'raki, a vengeful man, and agile despite his years, had followed as eagerly as the youngest of his warriors, and now stood in the midst of his counsellors, watching the scene upon the hill.

"What man is that?" he asked. "For I see he is not of our people."

Before the messengers he would have dispatched could be instructed, the tall man, running lightly with his burden, came towards him, and laid a dead woman almost at the king's feet.

"Man," he said insolently, "I bring you this woman, whom I have killed, because a devil put it into my heart to do so."

"Who are you?" asked N'raki. "For I see you are a stranger."

"I am a king," said O'Fasa, the Long Man; "greater than all kings, for I have behind me the armies of white men."

The humour of this twisted truth struck him of a sudden, for he burst into a fit of uncontrollable laughter.

"You have the armies of the white men behind you?" repeated N'raki slowly, and looked nervously from side to side.

"Behold!" said O'Fasa, stretching out his hand.

The king's eyes followed the direction of the hand. Far away across the bare plain he saw black specks of men advancing at regular intervals. The sinking sun set the bayonets of Sander's little force aglitter. The Commissioner had heard the firing, and had guessed much.

"It is 'They,'" said King N'raki, and blinked furiously at the Long Man, O'Fasa.

He turned swiftly to his guard.

"Kill that man!" he said.

* * * * *

Sanders brought his half-company of Houssas to the hill and was met half-way by Ussuf.

"I heard your rifles," he said. "Have you seen anything of a long chap, of wild and aggressive mien!" He spoke in English, and Ussuf replied in the same language.

"A tall man?" he asked, and Sanders wondered a little that a man so unemotional as was Grayson Smith, of the Colonial Intelligence, should speak so shakily.

"I think he is here," said the Englishman in Arab attire, and he led the way down the hill.

N'raki's armies had moved off swiftly. The fear of "They" had been greater in its effect than all its legions.

The Englishmen made their way to where two figures lay in a calm sleep of death.

"Who is the woman?" asked Sanders.

"A native woman, who loved me," said Grayson Smith simply, and he bent down and closed the eyes of the girl who had loved him so well.

CHAPTER XII

THE AMBASSADORS

There is a saying amongst the Akasava:

"The Isisi sees with his eyes, the N'gombi with his ears, but the Ochori sees nothing but his meat."

This is translated badly, but in its original form it is immensely subtle. In the old days before Bosambo became chief, king, headman, or what you will, of his people, the Ochori were quite prepared to accept the insulting description of their sleepiness without resentment.

But this was cala-cala, and now the Ochori are a proud people, and it is not good to throw insulting proverbs in their direction, lest they throw them back with something good and heavy at the end of it.

The native mind works slowly, and it was not until every tribe within three hundred miles had received some significant indication of the change which had come about in the spirit and character of this timorous people, that they realised the Ochori were no longer a race which might serve as butts for the shafts of wisdom.

There was a petty chief of the Isisi who governed a great district, for, although "Isisi" means "small" the name must not be taken literally. He had power under his king to call palavers on all great national questions, such as the failure of crops, the shifting of fishing-grounds, and the infidelities of highly-placed women.

One day he called his people together—his counsellors, his headmen, and all sons of chiefs—and he laid before them a remarkable proposition.

"In the days of my father," said Embed, "the Ochori were a weak and cowardly people; now they have become strong and powerful. Last week they came down upon our brothers of the Akasava and stole their goats and laid shame upon them, and behold! the Akasava, who are great warriors, did nothing more than send to Sandi the story of their sorrow. Now it seems to me that this is because Bosambo, the chief, has a devil of great potency, and I have sent to my king to ask him to entreat the lord Bosambo to tell us why these things should be."

The gathered counsellors nodded their heads wisely. There was no doubt at all that Bosambo had the advantage of communication with a devil; or if this were not so, he was blessed to a minor degree with a nodding acquaintance with one of those ghosts in which the forest of the Ochori abounded.

"And thus says my lord, the king of the Akasava, and of all the territories and the rivers and the unknown lands beyond the forest as far as the eye can see," the chief went on. "He sends me his message by his counsellor, saying: 'It is true Bosambo has a devil, and for the sake of my people I will send to him, asking him to put his strength in our hands, that we may be wise and bold.'"

Now this was a conclusion which had been arrived at simultaneously by the six nations, and, although the thoughts of their rulers were not communicated in such a public fashion, the faith in Bosambo's inspiration was universal, and the idea that Bosambo should be thus approached was a violent and shameless plagiarism on the part of the chief Emberi.

One morning in the late spring the ambassadors of the powers came paddling up to Ochori city in twelve canoes with their headmen, their warriors, their beaters of drums and their carriers. Bosambo, who had no faith whatever in humanity, was warned of their approach and threw the city into a condition of defence. He himself received the deputation on the foreshore, and the spokesman was Emberi.

"Lord Bosambo," said the chief, "we come in peace, and from the chief and the kings and all the peoples of these lands."

"That may be so," said Bosambo, "and my heart is full of joy to see you. But I beg of you that you land your spearmen and your warriors and your beaters of drums on the other side of the river, for I am a timorous man, and I fear that I cannot in this city show you the love and honour which Sandi has asked me to give even to common people."

"But, lord," protested the chief, who, to do him credit, had no warlike or injurious ideas concerning his host, "on the other side of the water there is only sand and water and evil spirits."

"That may be so," said Bosambo; "but on this side of the river there are me and my people, and we desire to live happily for many years. I tell you, that it is better that you should all die because of the sand and the water and the evil spirits, than that I should be slain by those who do not love me."

"My master," said Emberi pompously, "is a great king and a great lover of you."

"Your master," said Bosambo, "is a great liar."

"He loves you," protested Emberi.

"He is still a great liar," said Bosambo; "for the last time I met him he not only said that he would come with his legions and eat me up, but he also called me evil names, such as 'fish-eater' and 'chicken,' and 'fat dog.'"

Bosambo spoke without fear of consequences because he had a hundred of his picked men behind him, and all the advantage of the sloping beach. He would have turned the delegates back to their homes, but that the persistent and alarmed Emberi succeeded in interesting him in his announcements, and, more important, there were landed from one of the canoes, rich presents, including goats and rice and a looking-glass, which latter was, explained Emberi, the very core of his master's soul.

In the end Bosambo left his hundred men to hold the beach, and Emberi persuaded his reluctant followers to make their home on the sandy shore across the river.

Then, and only then, did Bosambo unbend, and had prepared one of his famous feasts, to which all the chiefs of the land contributed in the shape of meat and drink—all the chiefs, that is, except Bosambo, who made a point of giving nothing away to anybody in any circumstances.

The palaver that followed was very interesting, indeed, to the chief of the Ochori. One by one, from nine in the morning to four in the following morning, the delegates spoke.

Much of their speeches dealt with the superlative qualities which distinguished Bosambo's rule—his magnificent courage, his noble generosity—Bosambo glanced quickly round to see the faces of the counsellors who had reluctantly provided the feast—and to the future which awaited all nations which imitated all his virtues.

"Lord, I speak the truth," said Emberi, "and thus it runs that all people from the sea where the river ends, to the leopard's mouth from whence it has its source, know that you are familiar with devils that give you courage and cunning and tell you magic, so that you can make men from rats."

Bosambo nodded his head gravely.

"All this is true," he said. "I have several devils, although I do not always use them. For, as you know, I am a follower of a particular faith, and was for one life-time a Christian, believing in all manners of mysteries of which you know nothing—Marki, Luki, and Johnny Baptist, who are not for you."

He looked round at the awed men and shook his head.

"Nor do you know of the wonders they worked, such as curing burns, and striking dead, and cutting ears. Now I know these things," he continued impressively, "therefore Sandi loves me, for he also is a God-man, and often comes to me to speak with him concerning these white men."

"Lord, what are devils?" asked an impatient delegate.

"Of the devils," repeated Bosambo, "I have many."

He half closed his eyes and was silent for the space of two minutes. He gave the impression that he was counting his staff—and, indeed, this was the idea precisely that he wished to convey.

"O ko!" said Emberi in a hushed voice. "If it is true, as you say it is, then our master desires that you shall send us one devil or two that we might be taught the peculiar manner of these wonderful ghosts."

Bosambo coughed, and glanced round at the sober faces of his advisers.

"I have many devils who serve me," he began. "There is one I know who is very small and has two noses—one before him and one behind—so that he may smell his enemy who stalks him. Also there is one who is so tall that the highest trees are grass to his feet. And another one who is green and walks upside down."

For an hour Bosambo orated at length on dæmonology, even though he might never have known the word. He drew on the misty depths of his imagination. He availed himself of every recollection dealing with science. He spoke of ghosts who were familiar friends, and came to his bidding much in the same way that the civilised dog comes to his master's whistle.

The delegates retired to their huts for the night in a condition of panic when Bosambo informed them that he had duly appointed a particular brand of devil to serve their individual needs, and protect them against the ills which the flesh is heir to.

Now Ochori city and the Ochori nation had indeed awakened from the spell of lethargy under the beneficent and drastic government of Bosambo, and it is known in the history of nations, however primitive or however advanced they may be, that no matter how excellent may be the changes effected there will be a small but compact party who regard the reformer as one who encumbers the earth. Bosambo had of his own people a small but powerful section who regarded all changes with horror, and who saw in the new spirit which the chief had infused into the Ochori, the beginning of the end. This is a view which is not peculiar to the Ochori.

There were old chiefs and headmen who remembered the fat and idle days which preceded the upraising of Bosambo, who remembered how easy it was to secure slave service, and, remembering, spoke of Bosambo with unkindness. The chief might have settled the matter of devils out of hand in his own way, and would, I doubt not, have sent away the delegation happily enough with such messages of the Koran as he could remember written on the paper Sanders had supplied him for official messages.

But it was not Bosambo's way, nor was it the way with the men with whom he had to deal to expedite important palavers. Normally, such a conference as was now assembled, would last at least three days and three nights. It seemed that it would last much longer, for Bosambo had troubles of his own.

At dawn on the morning following the arrival of the delegation, a dust-stained messenger, naked as he was born, came at a jog-trot and panting heavily from the bush road which leads to the Elivi, and without ceremony stood at the door of the royal hut.

"Lord Bosambo," said the messenger, "Ikifari, the chief of Elivi, brings his soldiers and headmen to the number of a thousand, for a palaver."

"What is in his heart?" said Bosambo.

"Master," said the man, "this is in his heart: there shall be no roads in the Ochori, for the men of Elivi are crying out against the work. They desire to live in peace and comfort."

Bosambo had instituted a law of his own—with the full approval of Sanders—and it was that each district should provide a straight and well-made forest road from one city to another, and a great road which should lead from one district to its neighbour.

Unfortunately, every little tribe did not approach the idea with the enthusiasm which Bosambo himself felt, nor regard it with the approval which was offered to this most excellent plan by the King's Government.

For road-making is a bad business. It brings men out early in the morning, and keeps them working with the sweat running off their bare backs in the hot hours of the day. Also there were fines and levies which Bosambo the chief took an unholy joy in extracting whenever default was made.

Of all the reluctant tribes, the Elivi were the most frankly so. Whilst all the others were covered with a network of rough roads—slovenly made, but roads none the less—Elivi stood a virgin patch of land two hundred miles square in the very heart of make-shift civilisation.

Bosambo might deal drastically with the enemy who stood outside his gate. It was a more delicate matter when he had to deal with a district tacitly rebellious, and this question of roads threatened to develop, unhappily.

He had sent spies into the land of the Elivi and this was the first man back.

"Now it seems to me," said Bosambo, half to himself, "that I have need of all my devils, for Ikifari is a bitter man, and his sons and his counsellors are of a mind with him."

He sent his headman to his guests with a message that for the whole day he would be deep in counsel with himself over this matter of ghosts; and when late in the evening the van of the Elivi force was sighted on the east of the village, Bosambo, seated in state in his magnificent palaver-house, adorned with such Christmas plates as came his way, awaited their arrival.

Limberi, the headman, went out to meet the disgruntled force.

"Chief," he said, "it is our lord's wish that you leave your spears outside the city."

"Limberi," said Ikifari, a hard man of forty, all wiry muscle and leanness, "we are people of your race and your brothers. Why should we leave our spears—we who are of the Ochori?"

"You do not come otherwise," said Limberi decisively. "For across the river are many enemies of our lord, and he loves you so much, that for his own protection, he desired your armed men—your spearmen and your swordsmen—to sit outside. Thus he will be confident and happy."

There was no more to be done than to obey.

Ikifari with his counsellors followed the headman to the palaver, and his insolence was notable.

"I speak for all Elivi," he said, without any ceremonious preliminaries. "We are an oppressed people, lord Bosambo, and our young men cry out with great voices against your cruelty."

"They shall cry louder," said Bosambo, and Ikifari, the chief, scowled.

"Lord," he said sullenly, "if it is true that Sandi loves you, he also loves us, and no man is so great in this land that he may stir a people to rebellion."

Bosambo knew this was true—knew it without the muttered approval of Ikifari's headmen. He ran his eye over the little party. They were all there—the malcontents. Tinif'si, the stout headman, M'kera and Calasari, the lesser chiefs; and there was in their minds a certain defiance which particularly exasperated Bosambo. He might punish one or two who set themselves up against his authority, but here was an organised rebellion. Punishment would mean fighting, and fighting would weaken his position with Sanders.

It was the moment to temporise.

Fortunately the devil deputation was not present. It was considered to be against all etiquette for men of another nation to be present at the domestic councils of their neighbours. Otherwise some doubt might have been born in the bosom of Emberi as to the efficacy of Bosambo's devils at this particular moment.

"And this I would say to you, lord," said Ikifari, and Bosambo knew that the crux of the situation would be revealed. "We Elivi are your dogs. You do not send for us to come to your great feasts, nor do you honour us in any way. But when there is fighting you call up our spears and our young men, and you send us abroad to be eaten up by your terrible enemies. Also," he went on, "when you choose your chiefs and counsellors to go pleasant journeys to such places where they are honoured and feasted, you send only men of the Ochori city."

It may be said here that from whatever source Bosambo derived his inspiration, he had certainly acquired royal habits which were foreign to his primitive people. Thus he would dispatch envoys and ambassadors on ceremonious visits bearing gifts and presents which they themselves provided and returning with richer presents which Bosambo acquired. It was, if the truth be told, a novel and pleasant method of extracting blackmail—pleasant because it gave Bosambo little trouble, and afforded his subordinates titillation of importance, and no one had arisen to complain save these unfortunate cities of Akasava—Isisi and N'gombi—which entertained his representatives.

"It is true I have never sent you," said Bosambo, "and my heart is sore at the thought that you should think evil of me because I have saved you all this trouble. For my heart is like water within me. Yet a moon since I sent Kill, my headman, bearing gifts to the king of the bush people, and they chopped him so that he died, and now I fear to send other messengers."

There was an unmistakable sneer on Ikifari's face.

"Lord," he said, with asperity, "Kili was a foolish man and you hated him, for he had spoken evilly against you, stirring up your people. Therefore you sent him to the bushmen and he did not come back." He added significantly: "Now I tell you that if you send me to the bushmen I do not go."

Bosambo thought a moment.

"Now I see," he said, almost jovially, "that Ikifari, whom I love better than my own brother"—this was true—"is angry with me because I have not sent him on a journey. Now I shall show how much I love you, for I will send you all—each of you—as guests of my house, bearing my word to such great nations as the Akasava, the Isisi, the N'gombi; also to the people beyond the river, who are great and give large presents."

He saw the faces brighten, and seized the psychological moment.

"The palaver is finished," said Bosambo magnificently.

He ordered a feast to be made outside the city for his unwelcome guests, and summoned the devil delegates to his presence.

"My friends," he said, "I have given this matter of devils great thought, and since I desire to stand well with you and with your master, I have spent this night in company with six great devils, who are my best friends and who help me in all matters. Now I tell you this—which is known only to myself and to you, whom I trust—that to-day I send to your master six great spirits which inspire me."

There was a hush. The sense of responsibility, which comes to the nervous who are suddenly entrusted with the delivery of a ferocious bull, fell upon the men of the delegation.

"Lord, this is a great honour," said Emberi, "and our masters will send many more presents than your lordship has ever seen. But how may we take these devils with us, for we are fearful and are not used to their ways?"