s and most powerful chiefs, and entailed upon him a
loss of prestige which it would be difficult if not impossible to
recover. He was childishly jealous of the slightest interference with
his supreme authority, and he fretted and chafed himself into a state of
fury almost bordering upon madness as he reflected upon the veiled
menaces to himself which had been only too distinctly recognisable in
every manifestation of these strangers' extraordinary power on the
preceding day. He recognised that their deliberate intention had been
to show him that during their sojourn in his country he must in all
respects conform to their wishes, and model his conduct strictly in
accordance with their ideas of what was right and proper, or take the
consequences. And what were those consequences likely to be? Judging
from what he had already seen, his dethronement and utter humiliation
seemed to be among the least severe of future possibilities. Instead of
remaining the irresponsible autocrat he had hitherto been, he would,
during the sojourn of these strangers in his vicinity, be obliged to
carefully weigh and consider his every word and action, in order that he
might neither say nor do anything which could by any possibility prove
distasteful to them. And if this state of servile, abject, slavish
submission was to be his condition during the period of their stay--
which might last the Great Fetisch himself only knew how long--his life
would not be worth having, it would simply be a grinding, insupportable
burden to him.

As these unwelcome reflections thronged through his mind he grew so
madly ferocious that he issued orders for the instant execution of
certain white prisoners which had fallen into his hands a few months
before, countermanding the order almost immediately afterwards--and,
happily, in good time--partly because they were women, and he still
hoped, notwithstanding present difficulties and frequent former
failures, to add them to his harem; and partly because he was under the
apprehension that, among their other attributes, his mysterious visitors
might possess that of omniscience, and, getting knowledge of the
execution, object to and call him to account for it. It was a similar
consideration alone which deterred him from solacing himself by the
impalement of half a dozen or so of his principal ministers, the entire
suite having an exceedingly lively time of it that morning, and being
infinitely thankful when they w