ant here in the country that God has given to
us? Go back to your own country."

His voice became hard with a tragic sternness.

"I am trying," he went on, "to lead my people to act according to
the word of God which we have received from you white people, and yet
_you_ show them an example of wickedness such as we never knew. You,"
and his voice rose in burning scorn, "you, the people of the word
of God! You know that some of my own brothers"--he was referring to
Khamane especially--"have learned to like the drink, and you know that
I do not want them to see it even, that they may forget the habit. Yet
you not only bring it in and offer it to them, but you try to tempt
_me_ with it.

"I make an end of it to-day. Go! Take your cattle and leave my town
and _never come back again_!"

No man moved or spoke. They were utterly shamed and bewildered. Then
one white man, who had lived in the town since he was a lad, pleaded
with Khama for pity as an old friend.

"You," said the chief with biting irony, "my friend? You--the
ringleader of those who despise my laws. You are my worst enemy. You
pray for pity? No! for you I have no pity. It is my duty to have pity
on my people over whom God placed me, and I am going to show them pity
to-day; and that is my duty to them and to God.... Go!"

And they all went.

Then the chief ordered in his young warriors and huntsmen.

"No one of you," he said, "is to drink beer." Then he called a great
meeting of the whole town. In serried masses thousand upon thousand
the Bamangwato faced their great chief. He lifted up his voice:

"I, Khama, your chief, order that you shall not make beer. You take
the corn that God has given to us in answer to our prayers and you
destroy it. Nay, you not only destroy it, but you make stuff with it
that causes mischief among you."

There was some murmuring.

His eyes flashed like steel.

"You can kill me," he said, "but you cannot conquer me."

* * * * *

_The Black Prince of Eighty_

If you rode as a guest toward Khama's town over seventy years after
those far-off days when Livingstone first went there, as you came in
sight of the great stone church that the chief has built, you would
see tearing across the African plain a whirlwind of dust. It would
race toward you, with the soft thunder of hoofs in the loose soil.
When the horses were almost upon you--with a hand of steel--chief
Khama would rein in his charge