maidens.”
The young man was tall, straight of back, and well made of shoulder, and he showed no remorse for his outrageous conduct. Rather there was an air about him of desperate earnestness.
“Lord,” he said, “I love Nimimi, who is the daughter of my chief, the chief of the village of Togobonobo. And because she is a beautiful dancer, and men come from afar to see her, her father demands two thousand rods for her, and I am a poor man.”
“‘The father is always right,’” quoted Sanders, “for it is said on the River, ‘A thing is worth its price and that which you give away is worth nothing.’”
“This woman loves me,” said the youth, “and because of her I have saved a thousand matakos, which, as your lordship knows, is a great fortune.”
“What can I do?” asked Sanders, with one of his rare smiles.
“Lord, you are all-powerful,” said the agitated young man, “and if you say to the chief her father — ?”
Sanders shook his head.
“That may not be,” he said.
There was something in the spring air, something responsive in his blood, that inclined him to act as he did, for after a moment’s thought he turned to Abiboo.
“Take this man,” he said, “and give him — ?”
“Lord, I have the whip ready,” said Abiboo complacently. “For I knew that your lordship would be offended by this foolish one.”
“Give him a thousand matakos from the store, that he may buy the woman of his desire.”
Abiboo, a little dazed, went slowly to do his master’s bidding.
“Lord,” said Kobolo, and fell at the Commissioner’s feet, “you are as my father and mother, and I will repay you with good words and thoughts.”
“Repay me with matakos,” said the practical Sanders. “Go, take your girl, and God help you!”
Yet he was in no cynical mood. Rather there was a gentleness, a mild stirring of emotions long repressed, a strange tenderness in heart, which harmonised with the tenderness of the young green trees, with the play of budding life about him.
He stood watching the native as he paddled to shore, singing a loud song, tuneless save for the tune of joy that ran through it. Wistfully Sanders watched. This man, little better than an animal, yet obedient to the inexorable laws which Sanders in his wisdom defied; hastening, with his brass rods, to a glorious life, to a hut and a wife, and the raising of young children to manhood. To toil and the dangers and vicissitudes of his peculiar lot; but to the fulfilment of his highest destiny.
The Commissioner stood watching him until he saw the canoe ground on the beach, and the man leap lightly ashore and make the boat fast.
Sanders shook his head and turned the handle of the telegraph to “full speed.”
He made no pretence at reading; his gaze was abstracted. Presently he rose and walked into his cabin. He pulled the curtains across the door as though he desired none to witness his folly, then he took a key from his pocket and unlocked the little safe which was let into the wall over the head of his bunk, He opened a drawer and took out a fat brown book.
He laid it upon his desk and turned the leaves.
It was his bank book from the coast agent of Cox, and the balance to his credit ran into five figures, for Sanders had been a careful man all his life, and had bought land at Lagos in the days when you could secure a desirable building lot for the price of a dress suit.
He closed the book, and replacing it in the safe resumed his seat on the bridge.
In the course of the next day he arrived at headquarters.
It was late in the afternoon when the Zaire went slowly astern into the little dock, which Sanders with much labour had built.
It was a pretentious little dock, the pride of his days, for it had walls of concrete and a big sluice gate, and it had been erected at the time when the Zaire had undergone her repairs. Sanders never saw that dock without a feeling of intense gratification. It was the “child” which awaited his return; the creation of his mind which welcomed him back.
And there was a concrete footpath from the dock to the residency — this he had built. On each side Isisi palms had been planted — the work of his hands. They seemed pitiably insignificant.
He surveyed the residency without joy. It stood on a little rise; from its corrugated root to its distempered stoep, a model of neatness and order.
“God bless the place!” said Sanders irritably.
For its old charm had departed; the old pleasant homecoming had become a bleak and wearisome business. And the house was lonely and needed something. It needed a touch which he could not supply. He walked disconsolately through the rooms, lit a pipe, knocked it out again, and wandered vaguely in the direction of the Houssas lines.
Captain Hamilton, of the King’s Houssas, in white shirt and riding breeches, leant over the rail of the stoep and watched him.
“Back again,” he said conventionally.
“No,” said Sanders disagreeably, “I’m on the top river catching flies.”
Hamilton removed his pipe.
“You’ve been reading the American Sunday Supplements,” he said calmly, “which is either a sign of mental decrepitude or the awakening of a much-needed sense of humour.”
He called to his servant. “Alt,” he said solemnly, “prepare the lord Sandi such a cup of tea as the houris of paradise will prepare for the Khalifa on the great day.”
“What rot you talk, Hamilton!” said Sanders irritably when the man had gone. “You know well enough the Khalifa would drink nothing but Turkish coffee on that occasion.”
“Who knows?” asked the philosophical Hamilton. “Well, and how are all your good people?”
“They’re all right,” said Sanders, seating himself in a big chair.
“The usual murders, witchcraft and pillage,” Hamilton grinned. “Bosambo the virtuous sitting on the foreshore of the Ochori, polishing his halo and singing comic songs!”
“Bosambo — oh, he’s subdued just now!” said Sanders, stirring the tea which the man had brought, “he’s the best chief on this river, Hamilton,” the other nodded, “if I had my way — if I were the British Government — I’d make him paramount chief of all these territories.”
“You’d have a war in ten minutes,” said the Houssa skipper, “but he’s a good man. Depressed, was he?”
“Horribly — I’ve never seen him so worried, and I’m blest if I know why!”
Hamilton smiled. “Which shows that a poor devil of a soldier, who is not supposed to be au courant with the gossip of the River, may be wiser than a patent stampedin-every-link Commissioner,” he said. “Bosambo is very fond of that Kano wife of his.”
“I know that, my good chap,” said Sanders, “and a good wife is half the making of a man. Why, what is a man without—”
He saw the curious laughing eyes of the other watching him, and stopped, and under the tan his eyes went red.
“You’re singularly enthusiastic, Sandi Labolo,” he said, using the Commissioner’s native name; “you’re not thinking—”
“What about Bosambo’s wife?” interrupted Sanders loudly.
The Houssa was eyeing him suspiciously. “Bosambo’s wife,” he repeated, “oh — she goes the way of womankind! Bosambo hopes and fears — after the way of men. He has no child.”
“Oh!