The idea took hold of him and gripped him most powerfully. He took
Sanders' priceless maps and carefully triangulated them, consulting
every other written authority on the ship. He stopped at villages and
held palavers on this question of N'bosini and acquired a whole mass of
conflicting information.

If you smile at Bones, you smile at the glorious spirit of enterprise
which has created Empire. Out of such dreams as ran criss-cross through
the mind of Lieutenant Tibbetts there have arisen nationalities undreamt
of and Empires Caesar never knew.

Now one thing is certain, that Bones, in pursuing his inquiries about
N'bosini, was really doing a most useful piece of work.

The palavers he called had a deeper significance to the men who attended
them than purely geographical inquiries. Thus, the folk of the Isisi
planning a little raid upon certain Akasava fishermen, who had
established themselves unlawfully upon the Isisi river-line, put away
their spears and folded their hands when N'bosini was mentioned, because
Bones was unconsciously probing their excuse before they advanced it.

Idigi, himself, who, in his caution, had prepared Hamilton for some
slight difference of opinion between his own tribe and the N'gombi of
the interior, read into the earnest inquiries of Lieutenant Tibbetts,
something more than a patient spirit of research.

All that Hamilton had set his subordinate to accomplish Bones was doing,
though none was more in ignorance of the fact than himself, and, since
all men owed a grudge to the Ochori, palavers, which had as their object
an investigation into the origin of the N'bosini legend, invariably
ended in the suggestion rather than the statement that the only
authority upon this mysterious land, and the still more mysterious tribe
who inhabited it, was Bosambo of the Ochori. Thus, subtly, was Bosambo
saddled with all responsibility in the matter.

Hamilton's parting injunction to Bones had been:

"Be immensely civil to Bosambo, because he is rather sore with you and
he is a very useful man."

Regarding him, as he did, as the final authority upon the N'bosini,
Bones made elaborate preparations to carry out his chief's commands. He
came round the river bend to the Ochori city, with flags fluttering at
his white mast, with his soldiers drawn up on deck, with his buglers
tootling, and his siren sounding, and Bosambo, ever ready to jump to the
conclusion that he was being honoured for his own sake