d."

CHAPTER VI

THE MEDICINE MAN

At the flood season, before the turbulent tributaries of the Isisi River
had been induced to return to their accustomed channels, Sanders came
back to headquarters a very weary man, for he had spent a horrid week in
an endeavour--successful, but none the less nerve-racking--to impress an
indolent people that the swamping of their villages was less a matter of
Providence and ghosts than the neglect of elementary precaution.

"For I told you, Ranabini," said an exasperated Sanders, "that you
should keep the upper channel free from trees and branches, and I have
paid you many bags of salt for your services."

"Lord, it is so," said Ranabini, scratching his brown leg thoughtfully.

"At the full of the moon, before the rains, did I not ask you if the
channel was clear, and did you not say it was like the street of your
village?" demanded Sanders, in wrath.

"Lord," said Ranabini frankly, "I lied to you, thinking your lordship
was mad. For what other man would foresee with his wonderful eye that
rains would come? Therefore, lord, I did not think of the upper channel,
and many trees floated down and made a little dam. Lord, I am an
ignorant man, and my mind is full of my own brother, who has come from a
long distance to see me, for he is a very sick man."

Sanders's mind was occupied by no thought of Ranabini's sick brother, as
the dazzling white _Zaire_ went thrashing her way down stream. For he
himself was a tired man, and needed rest, and there was a dose of
malaria looming in the offing, as his aching head told him. It was as
though his brains were arranged in slats, like a venetian blind, and
these slats were opening and closing swiftly, bringing with each
lightning flicker a momentary unconsciousness.

Captain Hamilton met him on the quay, and when Sanders landed--walking a
thought unsteadily, and instantly began a long and disjointed account of
his adventures on a Norwegian salmon river--Hamilton took him by the arm
and led the way to the bungalow.

In ten minutes he was assisting Sanders into his pyjamas, Sanders
protesting, albeit feebly, and when, after forcing an astonishing amount
of quinine and arsenic down his chief's throat, Hamilton came from the
semi-darkness of the bungalow to the white glare of the barrack square,
Hamilton was thoughtful.

"Let one of your women watch by the bed of the lord Sandi," said he to
Sergeant Abiboo, of the Houssas, "and she sh