ngs shall speak in pride of you," he paused again.

Now it was a dead silence which greeted his peroration. Notably
unenthusiastic was this gathering, twiddling its toes and blandly
avoiding his eye. Two moons before he had extracted something more than
his tribute--a tribute which was the prerogative of government.

Yet then, as Notiki said under his breath, or openly, or by innuendo as
the sentiment of his company demanded, four and twenty canoes laden with
the fruits of taxation had come to the Ochori city, and five only of
those partly filled had paddled down to headquarters to carry the Ochori
tribute to the overlord of the land.

"I will bring back with me new things," said Bosambo enticingly;
"strange devil boxes, large magics which will entrance you, things that
no common man has seen, such as I and Sandi alone know in all this land.
Go now, I tell thee, to your people in this country, telling them all
that I have spoken to you, and when the moon is in a certain quarter
they will come in joy bearing presents in both hands, and these ye shall
bring to me."

"But, lord!" it was the bold Notiki who stood in protest, "what shall
happen to such of us headmen who come without gifts in our hands for
your lordship, saying 'Our people are stubborn and will give nothing'?"

"Who knows?" was all the satisfaction he got from Bosambo, with the
additional significant hint, "I shall not blame you, knowing that it is
not because of your fault but because your people do not love you, and
because they desire another chief over them. The palaver is finished."

Finished it was, so far as Bosambo was concerned. He called a council of
his headmen that night in his hut.

Bosambo made his preparations at leisure. There was much to avoid before
he took his temporary farewell of the tribe. Not the least to be counted
amongst those things to be done was the extraction, to its uttermost
possibility, of the levy which he had quite improperly instituted.

And of the things to avoid, none was more urgent or called for greater
thought than the necessity for so timing his movements that he did not
come upon Sanders or drift within the range of his visible and audible
influence.

Here fortune may have been with Bosambo, but it is more likely that he
had carefully thought out every detail of his scheme. Sanders at the
moment was collecting hut tax along the Kisai river and there was also,
as Bosambo well knew, a murder trial of great com