nd counsels of discretion was
N'gori till his son turned on him, grinning as his wont when in his
least pleasant mood.

"O, my father," said he softly, "they say on the river that men who die
swiftly say no more than 'wait' with their last breath; now I tell you
that all my young men who plot secretly with me, are for chopping
you--but because I am like a god to them, they spare you."

"My son," said N'gori uneasily, "this is a very high palaver, for many
chiefs have risen and struck at the Government, and always Sandi has
come with his soldiers, and there have been backs that have been sore
for the space of a moon, and necks that have been sore for this time,"
he snapped finger, "and then have been sore no more."

"Sandi has gone," said M'fosa.

"Yet his fetish stands," insisted the old man; "all day and all night
his dreadful spirit watches us; for this we have all seen that the very
lightnings of M'shimba M'shamba run up that stick and do it no harm.
Also M'ilitani and Moon-in-the-Eye----"

"They are fools," a counsellor broke in.

"Lord M'ilitani is no fool, this I know," interrupted a fourth.

"Tibbetti comes--and brings no soldiers. Now I tell you my mind that
Sandi's fetish is dead--as Sandi has passed from us, and this is the
sign I desire--I and my young men. We shall make a killing palaver in
the face of the killing stick, and if Sandi lives and has not lied to
us, he shall come from the end of the world as he said."

He rose up from the ground. There was no doubt now who ruled the
Akasava.

"The palaver is finished," he said, and led the way back to the city,
his father meekly following in the rear.

Two days later Bones arrived at the city of the Akasava, bringing with
him no greater protection than a Houssa orderly afforded.

III

On a certain night in September Mr. Commissioner Sanders was the guest
of the Colonial Secretary at his country seat in Berkshire.

Sanders, who was no society man, either by training or by inclination,
would have preferred wandering aimlessly about the brilliantly lighted
streets of London, but the engagement was a long-standing one. In a
sense he was a lion against his will. His name was known, people had
written of his character and his sayings; he had even, to his own
amazement, delivered a lecture before the members of the Ethnological
Society on "Native Folk-lore," and had emerged from the ordeal
triumphantly. The guests of Lord Castleberry found Sanders a