nds which now stands to his credit here," he said. "Bosambo
has felt the call of civilization. I suppose he ought to have secured
your permission to leave his territory?"

"He has given his people work to keep them busy," Sanders said a little
gravely. "I have had a passionate protest from Notiki, one of his chiefs
in the north. Bosambo has set him to build a road through the forest,
and Notiki objects."

The two men were walking across the yellow parade ground past the
Houssas hut in the direction of headquarters' bungalow.

"What about your murderer?" asked Hamilton, after a while, as they
mounted the broad wooden steps which led to the bungalow stoep.

Sanders shook his head.

"Everybody lied," he said briefly. "I can do no less than send the man
to the Village. I could have hung him on clear evidence, but the lady
seemed to have been rather unpopular and the murderer quite a person to
be commended in the eyes of the public. The devil of it is," he said as
he sank into his big chair with a sigh, "that had I hanged him it would
not have been necessary to write three foolscap sheets of report. I
dislike these domestic murderers intensely--give me a ravaging brigand
with the hands of all people against him."

"You'll have one if you don't touch wood," said Hamilton seriously.

Hamilton came of Scottish stock--and the Scots are notorious prophets.

II

Now the truth may be told of Bosambo, and all his movements may be
explained by this revelation of his benevolence. In the silence of his
hut had he planned his schemes. In the dark aisles of the forests, under
starless skies when his fellow-huntsmen lay deep in the sleep which the
innocent and the barbarian alone enjoy; in drowsy moments when he sat
dispensing justice, what time litigants had droned monotonously he had
perfected his scheme.

Imagination is the first fruit of civilization and when the reverend
fathers of the coast taught Bosambo certain magics, they were also
implanting in him the ability to picture possibilities, and shape from
his knowledge of human affairs the eventual consequences of his actions.
This is imagination somewhat elaborately and clumsily defined.

To one person only had Bosambo unburdened himself of his schemes.

In the privacy of his great hut he had sat with his wife, a steaming
dish of fish between them, for however lax Bosambo might be, his wife
was an earnest follower of the Prophet and would tolerate no such
abominatio