uld mop 'em up!"

"Most immoral! That's how we got--" Stalky quoted the name of a province
won by just such a sacrifice.

"Yes, but the beasts dominated one end of my cotton-belt like anything.
They chivied me out of it when I went to take soil for analysis--me and
Imam Din."

"Sahib! Is there a need?" The voice came out of the darkness, and the
eyes shone over Adam's shoulder ere it ceased.

"None. The name was taken in talk." Adam abolished him with a turn of
the finger. "I couldn't make a casus belli of it just then, because my
Chief had taken all the troops to hammer a gang of slave kings up north.
Did you ever hear of our war against Ibn Makarrah? He precious nearly
lost us the Protectorate at one time, though he's an ally of ours now."

"Wasn't he rather a pernicious brute, even as they go?" said Stalky.
"Wade told me about him last year."

"Well, his nickname all through the country was 'The Merciful,' and he
didn't get that for nothing. None of our people ever breathed his
proper name. They said 'He' or 'That One,' and they didn't say it aloud,
either. He fought us for eight months."

"I remember. There was a paragraph about it in one of the papers," I
said.

"We broke him, though. No--the slavers don't come our way, because our
men have the reputation of dying too much, the first month after they're
captured. That knocks down profits, you see."

"What about your charming friends, the Sheshahelis?" said the Infant.

"There's no market for Sheshaheli. People would as soon buy crocodiles.
I believe, before we annexed the country, Ibn Makarrah dropped down on
'em once--to train his young men--and simply hewed 'em in pieces.
The bulk of my people are agriculturists just the right stamp for
cotton-growers. What's Mother playing?--'Once in royal'?"

The organ that had been crooning as happily as a woman over her babe
restored, steadied to a tune.

"Magnificent! Oh, magnificent!" said the Infant loyally. I had never
heard him sing but once, and then, though it was early in the tolerant
morning, his mess had rolled him into a lotus pond.

"How did you get your cannibals to work for you?" asked Strickland.

"They got converted to civilization after my Chief smashed Ibn
Makarrah--just at the time I wanted 'em. You see my Chief had promised
me in writing that if I could scrape up a surplus he would not bag it
for his roads this time, but I might have it for my cotton game. I only
needed two hundred pounds.