of his wife to me, he
shall make against my coming such a road as shall be in width, the
distance between the King's hut and the hut of the King's wife; and he
shall clear from this road all there are of trees, and he shall bridge
the strong stream and dig pits for the floods. And to this end he shall
take every man of his kingdom and set them to labour, and as they work
they shall sing a song which goes:

"We are doing Notiki's work,
The work Notiki set us to do,
Rather than send to the lord his King
The presents which Bosambo demanded.

"The palaver is finished."

This is the history, or the beginning of the history, of the straight
road which cuts through the heart of the Ochori country from the edge of
the river by the cataracts, even to the mountains of the great King, a
road famous throughout Africa and imperishably associated with Bosambo's
name--this by the way.

On the first day following the tax palaver Bosambo went down the river
with four canoes, each canoe painted beautifully with camwood and gum,
and with twenty-four paddlers.

It was by a fluke that he missed Sanders. As it happened, the
Commissioner had come back to the big river to collect the evidence of
the murdered woman's brother who was a petty headman of an Isisi fishing
village. The _Zaire_ came into the river almost as the last of Bosambo's
canoes went round the bend out of sight, and since a legend existed on
the river, a legend for the inception of which Bosambo himself was
mainly responsible, that he was in some way related to Mr. Commissioner
Sanders, no man spoke of Bosambo's passing.

The chief came to headquarters on the third day after his departure from
his city. His subsequent movements are somewhat obscure, even to
Sanders, who has been at some pains to trace them.

It is known that he drew a hundred and fifty pounds in English gold from
Sanders' storekeeper--he had piled up a fairly extensive credit during
the years of his office--that he embarked with one headman and his wife
on a coasting boat due for Sierra Leone, and that from that city came a
long-winded demand in Arabic by a ragged messenger for a further
instalment of one hundred pounds. Sanders heard the news on his return
to headquarters and was a little worried.

"I wonder if the devil is going to desert his people?" he said.

Hamilton the Houssa laughed.

"He is more likely to desert his people than to desert a balance of four
hundred pou