osambo himself.

"This is a mad thing," said Bosambo when her father offered the
suggestion; "for, as you know, T'meli, I have one wife who is a thousand
wives to me."

"Lord, I will be ten thousand," said D'riti, present at the interview
and bold; "also, Lord, it was predicted at my birth that I should marry
a king and the greater than a king."

"That is me," said Bosambo, who was without modesty; "yet, it cannot
be."

So they married D'riti to a chief's son who beat her till one day she
broke his thick head with an iron pot, whereupon he sent her back to her
father demanding the return of his dowry and the value of his pot.

She had her following, for she was a dancer of fame and could twist her
lithe body into enticing shapes. She might have married again, but she
was so scornful of common men that none dare ask for her. Also the
incident of the iron pot was not forgotten, and D'riti went swaying
through the village--she walked from her hips, gracefully--a straight,
brown, girl-woman desired and unasked.

For she knew men too well to inspire confidence in them. By some weird
intuition which certain women of all races acquire, she had probed
behind their minds and saw with their eyes, and when she spoke of men,
she spoke with a conscious authority, and such men, who were within
earshot of her vitriolic comments, squirmed uncomfortably, and called
her a woman of shame.

So matters stood when the _Zaire_ came flashing to the Ochori city and
the heart of Bones filled with pleasant anticipation.

Who was so competent to inform him on the matter of the souls of native
women as Bosambo of the Ochori, already a crony of Bones, and admirable,
if for no other reason, because he professed an open reverence for his
new master? At any rate, after the haggle of tax collection was
finished, Bones set about his task.

"Bosambo," said he, "men say you are very wise. Now tell me something
about the women of the Ochori."

Bosambo looked at Bones a little startled.

"Lord," said he, "who knows about women? For is it not written in the
blessed Sura of the Djin that women and death are beyond
understanding?"

"That may be true," said Bones, "yet, behold, I make a book full of wise
and wonderful things and it would be neither wise nor wonderful if there
was no word of women."

And he explained very seriously indeed that he desired to know of the
soul of native womanhood, of her thoughts and her dreams and her high
desires