d; the well folk are on the edge
of the N'gomb forest, building huts and singing----"

"How long do they stay?" interrupted Hamilton.

"Lord, who knows?" said the man.

"Ogibo of the Akasava has spoken evilly of his king and mightily of
himself----"

"Make a note of that, Bones."

"Make a note of which, sir?"

"Ogibo--he looked like a case of sleep-sickness the last time I was in
his village--go on."

"Ogibo also says that the father of his father was a great chief and was
lord of all the Akasava----"

"That's sleeping sickness all right," said Hamilton bitterly. "Why the
devil doesn't he wait till Sanders is back before he goes mad?"

"Drop him a line, sir," suggested Bones, "he's a remarkable feller--dash
it all, sir, what the dooce is the good of bein' in charge of the
district if you can't put a stop to that sort of thing?"

"What talk is there of spears in this?" asked Hamilton of the spy.

"Lord, much talk--as I know, for I serve in this district."

"Go swiftly to Ogibo, and summon him to me for a high _lakimbo_,[8]"
said Hamilton; "my soldiers shall carry you in my new little ship that
burns water[9]--fly pigeons to me that I may know all that happens."

[Footnote 8: Palaver.]

[Footnote 9: The motor-launch.]

"On my life," said the spy, raised his hand in salute and departed.

"These well people you were talkin' about, sir," asked Bones, "who are
they?"

But Hamilton could give no satisfactory answer to such a question, and,
indeed, he would have been more than ordinarily clever had he been able
to.

The wild territories are filled with stubborn facts, bewildering
realities, and extraordinary inconsequences. Up by the N'gombi lands
lived a tribe who, for the purposes of office classification, were known
as "N'gombi (Interior)," but who were neither N'gombi nor Isisi, nor of
any known branch of the Bantu race, but known as "the people of the
well." They had remarkable legends, sayings which they ascribed to a
mythical Idoosi; also they have a song which runs:

O well in the forest!
Which chiefs have digged;
No common men touched the earth,
But chiefs' spears and the hands of kings.

Now there is no doubt that both the sayings of Idoosi and the song of
the well have come down from days of antiquity, and that Idoosi is none
other than the writer of the lost book of the Bible, of whom it is
written:

"Now the rest of the acts of Solomon, first and last, are they