uts which Gulabala had sent out came back with the news that the
way to sanctuary was barred by Bosambo.

Now, of all the men that the Kulumbini hated, they hated none more than
the Chief of the Ochori. For he alone never scrupled to overlook them,
and to dare their anger by flogging such of them as raided his territory
in search of game.

"Ko," said Gulabala, deeply concerned, "this Bosambo is Sandi's dog. Let
us go back to our village and say we have been hunting, for Bosambo will
not cross into our lands for fear of Sandi's anger."

They reached the village, and were preparing to remove the last evidence
of their crime--one goat looks very much like another, but women can
speak--when Sanders came striding down the village street, and Gulabala,
with his curved execution knife in his hand, stood up by the side of the
woman he had slain.

"O Gulabala," said Sanders softly, "this is an evil thing."

The chief looked left and right helplessly.

"Lord," he said huskily, "Bosambo and his people put me to shame, for
they spied on me and overlooked me. And we are proud people, who must
not be overlooked--thus it has been for all time."

Sanders pursed his lips and stared at the man.

"I see here a fine high tree," he said, "so high that he who hangs from
its top branch may say that no man overlooks him. There you shall hang,
Gulabala, for your proud men to see, before they also go to work for my
King, with chains upon their legs as long as they live."

"Lord," said Gulabala philosophically, "I have lived."

Ten minutes later he went the swift way which bad chiefs go, and his
people were unresentful spectators.

"This is the tenth time I have had to find a new chief in this belt,"
said Sanders, pacing the deck of the _Zaire_, "and who on earth I am to
put in his place I do not know."

The _lokalis_ of the Kulumbini were already calling headmen to grand
palaver. In the shade of the reed-thatched _lokali_ house, before the
hollow length of tree-trunk, the player worked his flat drumsticks of
ironwood with amazing rapidity. The call trilled and rumbled, rising and
falling, now a patter of light musical sound, now a low grumble.

Bosambo came--by the river route--as Sanders was leaving the _Zaire_ to
attend the momentous council.

"How say you, Bosambo--what man of the Kulumbini folk will hold these
people in check?"

Bosambo squatted at his lord's feet and set his spear a-spinning.

"Lord," he confessed, "I kno