who had been stolen, because they knew him well, but more or less
inaccurately with the man who was charged with his recovery.

They also spoke of Bosambo "now on his way to England," and it is a fact
that a small fleet of motor-boats containing pressmen awaited the
incoming coast mail at Plymouth only to discover that their man was not
on board.

Happily, Sanders was in total ignorance of the stir which the
disappearance created. He knew, of course, that there would be talk
about it, and had gloomy visions of long reports to be written. He would
have felt happier in his mind if he could have identified Mimbimi with
any of the wandering chiefs he had met or had known from time to time.
Mimbimi was literally a devil he did not know.

Nor could any of the cities or villages which had received a visitation
give the Commissioner more definite data than he possessed. Some there
were who said that Mimbimi was a tall man, very thin, knobbly at the
knees, and was wounded in the foot, so that he limped. Others that he
was short and very ugly, with a large head and small eyes, and that when
he spoke it was in a voice of thunder.

Sanders wasted no time in useless inquiries. He threw a cloud of spies
and trackers into the forest of Bim-bi and began a scientific search;
snatching a few hours sleep whenever the opportunity offered. But though
the wings of his beaters touched the border line of the Ochori on the
right and the Isisi on the left, and though he passed through places
which hitherto had been regarded as impenetrable on account of divers
devils, yet he found no trace of the cunning kidnapper, who, if the
truth be told, had broken through the lines in the night, dragging an
unwilling and exasperated member of the British Government at the end
of a rope fastened about his person.

Then messages began to reach Sanders, long telegrams sent up from
headquarters by swift canoe or rewritten on paper as fine as cigarette
paper and sent in sections attached to the legs of pigeons.

They were irritating, hectoring, worrying, frantic messages. Not only
from the Government, but from the kidnapped man's friends and relatives;
for it seemed that this man had accumulated, in addition to a great deal
of unnecessary information, quite a large and respectable family circle.
Hamilton came up with a reinforcement of Houssas without achieving any
notable result.

"He has disappeared as if the ground had opened and swallowed him," said