d.

"There is some talk of an Akasava rising," said Sanders at breakfast one
morning. "I don't know why this should be, for my information is that
the Akasava folk are fairly placid."

"Where does the news come from, sir?" asked Hamilton.

"From the Isisi king--he's in a devil of a funk, and has begged Bosambo
to send him help."

That help was forthcoming in the shape of Bosambo's new army, which
arrived on the outskirts of the Isisi city and sat in idleness for a
month, at the end of which time the people of the Isisi represented to
their king that they would, on the whole, prefer war to a peace which
put them on half rations in order that six thousand proud warriors might
live on the fat of the land.

The M'gimi warriors marched back to the Ochori, each man carrying a
month's supply of maize and salt, wrung from the resentful peasants of
the Isisi.

Three weeks after, Bosambo sent an envoy to the King of the Akasava.

"Let no man know this, Gubara, lest it come to the ears of Sandi, and
you, who are very innocent, be wrongly blamed," said the envoy solemnly.
"Thus says Bosambo: It has come to my ears that the N'gombi are secretly
arming and will very soon send a forest of spears against the Akasava.
Say this to Gubara, that because my stomach is filled with sorrow I will
help him. Because I am very powerful, because of my friendship with
Bonesi and his cousin, N'poloyani, who is also married to Bonesi's aunt,
I have a great army which I will send to the Akasava, and when the
N'gombi hear of this they will send away their spears and there will be
peace."

The Akasava chief, a nervous man with the memory of all the discomforts
which follow tribal wars, eagerly assented. For two months Bosambo's
army sat down like a cloud of locusts and ate the Akasava to a condition
bordering upon famine.

At the end of that time they marched to the N'gombi country, news having
been brought by Bosambo's messengers that the Great King was crossing
the western mountains with a terrible army to seize the N'gombi forests.
How long this novel method of provisioning his army might have continued
may only be guessed, for in the midst of Bosambo's plans for maintaining
an army at the expense of his neighbours there was a great happening in
the Morjaba country.

S'kobi, the fat chief, had watched the departure of his warriors with
something like relief. He was gratified, moreover (native-like), by the
fact that he had confounded San