nch towed the flotilla through the night. A war chant pulsed like a
fevered heart as the moon upon her back lazily chased the stars into the
dawn upon her way to her home in the Mountains of the Moon, to be in turn
extinguished by a furious sun. And all that day, while incandescent heat
tried to boil illimitable waters, the strange fowl waddled on with her
noxious brood. Huddled in the cramped canoes the soldiers slept and
snuffed and sang, to which zu Pfeiffer contentedly listened beneath the
awning. Three times grey walls of falling water enveloped them, sending
frantic black hands to bailing. Once more the moon made the skies to
laugh. When the sun had played his part of a flaming Nemesis, a fringe
grew upon the horizon like the stubble upon a white man's chin.

Zu Pfeiffer had calculated to arrive at the village of Timballa just
within the river at sundown. The headman came down to the strand to meet
them. Immediately he was seized, and the soldiers, as joyous and as
mischievous as children released from school, surrounded the village.

Sitting in full uniform upon the poop of the launch, together with the two
sergeants, zu Pfeiffer held a shauri and demanded sufficient paddlers to
man his forty canoes. The headman, to whom all white men were alike,
thought they were British and hastened to proffer his services, promising
that the Bwana should have the men within two days. Zu Pfeiffer curtly
ordered him to procure them before the sun was overhead on the next day;
and to insure that he was obeyed, detained him as hostage and forbade any
man to pass his line of pickets around the village. The old man protested
that they had not sufficient men in the village, but zu Pfeiffer's spies
had afforded him practically correct information. He gave the headman the
right to send a number of messengers, each accompanied by a soldier, to
the neighbouring villages and promised him fifty lashes and to rase his
village, if the paddlers were not forthcoming.

Solely because he wished to give his men time to recover from their
stiffness did he not insist upon starting that night upon the river trip.
As a good commander he considered his men from every point of view of
efficiency. They loved him. He was a warrior chief as they understood such
to be; carefully he fostered their warrior pride; never were they ordered
to work at menial offices, to fetch or to carry; only to drill and to
fight; his punishments were ferocious, but he gave th