THE FETISH STICK

N'gori the Chief had a son who limped and lived. This was a marvellous
thing in a land where cripples are severely discouraged and malformity
is a sure passport for heaven.

The truth is that M'fosa was born in a fishing village at a period of
time when all the energies of the Akasava were devoted to checking and
defeating the predatory raidings of the N'gombi, under that warlike
chief G'osimalino, who also kept other nations on the defensive, and
held the river basin, from the White River, by the old king's territory,
to as far south as the islands of the Lesser Isisi.

When M'fosa was three months old, Sanders had come with a force of
soldiers, had hanged G'osimalino to a high tree, had burnt his villages
and destroyed his crops and driven the remnants of his one-time
invincible army to the little known recesses of the Itusi Forest.

Those were the days of the Cakitas or government chiefs, and it was
under the beneficent sway of one of these that M'fosa grew to manhood,
though many attempts were made to lure him to unfrequented waterways
and blind crocodile creeks where a lame man might be lost, and no one be
any the wiser.

Chief of the eugenists was Kobolo, the boy's uncle, and N'gori's own
brother. This dissatisfied man, with several of M'fosa's cousins, once
partially succeeded in kidnapping the lame boy, and they were on their
way to certain middle islands in the broads of the river to accomplish
their scheme--which was to put out the eyes of M'fosa and leave him to
die--when Sanders had happened along.

He it was who set all the men of M'fosa's village to cut down a high
pine tree--at an infernal distance from the village, and had men working
for a week, trimming and planing that pine; and another week they spent
carrying the long stem through the forest (Sanders had devilishly chosen
his tree in the most inaccessible part of the woods), and yet another
week digging large holes and erecting it.

For he was a difficult man to please. Broad backs ran sweat to pull and
push and hoist that great flagstaff (as it appeared with its strong
pulley and smooth sides) to its place. And no sooner was it up than my
lord Sandi had changed his mind and must have it in another place.
Sanders would come back at intervals to see how the work was
progressing. At last it was fixed, that monstrous pole, and the men of
the village sighed thankfully.

"Lord, tell me," N'gori had asked, "why you put this