ght. At the sight of the white men she poised on her toes, one foot
forward and hands extended as if about to whirl into a dance, staring with
the curiosity of a fawn.

Tall for a native maid, the light bronze of her immature breasts revealed
that she was of the Wongolo ruling caste. Around her slender neck was a
circlet of bright blue beads. As zu Pfeiffer stiffened and stared she
wheeled and fled into the hut.

"Gott im Himmel!" he muttered. "The body of Lucille in Carmen!"

"Who is that woman?" he demanded of Schultz.

"I don't know, Excellence," replied the sergeant and spoke to the black
sergeant-major. "She is the daughter of the chief Bamana, Excellence,
visiting these other women. I will have her removed."

"I will not have the sense of caste abused," said zu Pfeiffer, gazing into
the hut. "That is not policy. Have her sent to the fort, sergeant, and
placed under guard."

"Excellence!"

Zu Pfeiffer swung on his heels and strode out and up the hill of MKoffo.
The inspection was more hurried than usual that day. Then he returned to
the hill of Kawa Kendi to hold court in the big marquee tent. After a
lunch and a long siesta in the heat of the noonday he strolled around the
village superintending the rasing of huts and the staking out of the new
village which was to rise upon the ashes of the old one, a concrete
example of the wisdom and power of the new lord, Eyes-in-the-hands.

Under squads of askaris gangs of prisoners, criminal and political, bound
by a light chain about each neck, laboured at clearing away charred stumps
and debris, while other natives portered in saplings and loads of grass,
each village which had submitted sending its allotted quota.

Trumpets blared. The keepers of the coughing monsters made magical dances
with their fire sticks up on the hill of Kawa Kendi. The black, white and
red totem of the conqueror fluttered to earth like a wounded bird. Night
closed like a black lid placed upon the steaming cauldron of the sun.

After dinner zu Pfeiffer sat in his private tent at the rear of the
marquee drinking brandy. Upon a camp table covered by a violet cloth was
the portrait in the ivory frame at which he gazed as he smoked. The blue
eyes and the feminine lips softened as sentimentally as any sex-starved
Puritan virgin; perhaps not in spite of, but because of, a mediaeval code
as senseless as the native system of tabu, for natural emotions suppressed
find an outlet in some form.

Fr