said Bosambo, and stole forth from the hut like
a thief to obey.

All that day he sat before his hut and even sent away the wife of his
heart and the child M'sambo, that the rest of M'gani of the N'gombi
should not be disturbed.

That night when darkness had come and the glowing red of hut fires grew
dimmer, M'gani came from the hut.

Bosambo had sent away the guard and accompanied his guest to the end of
the village.

M'gani, with only a cloak of leopard skin about him, twirling two long
spears as he walked, was silent till he came to the edge of the city
where he was to take farewell of his host.

"Tell me this, Bosambo, where are Sandi's spies that I may avoid them?"

And Bosambo, without hesitation, told him.

"M'gani," said he, at parting, "where do you go now? tell me that I may
send cunning men to guard you, for there is a bad spirit in this land,
especially amongst the people of Lombobo, because I have offended B'limi
Saka, the chief."

"No soldiers do I need, O Bosambo," said the other. "Yet I tell you this
that I go to quiet places to learn that which will be best for my
people."

He turned to go.

"M'gani," said Bosambo, "in the day when you shall see our lord Sandi,
speak to him for me saying that I am faithful, for it seems to me, so
high a man are you that he will listen to your word when he will listen
to none other."

"I hear," said M'gani gravely, and slipped into the shadows of the
forest.

Bosambo stood for a long time staring in the direction which M'gani had
taken, then walked slowly back to his hut.

In the morning came the chief of his councillors for a hut palaver.

"Bosambo," said he, in a tone of mystery, "the Walker-of-the-Night has
been with us."

"Who says this?" asked Bosambo.

"Fibini, the fisherman," said the councillor, "for this he says, that
having toothache, he sat in the shadow of his hut near the warm fire and
saw the Walker pass through the village and with him, lord, one who was
like a devil, being big and very ugly."

"Go to Fibini," said a justly annoyed Bosambo, "and beat him on the feet
till he cries--for he is a liar and a spreader of alarm."

Yet Fibini had done his worst before the bastinado (an innovation of
Bosambo's) had performed its silencing mission, and Ochori mothers
shepherded their little flocks with greater care when the sun went down
that night, for this new terror which had come to the land, this black
ghost with the wildfire fame was r