essed view, and the Lombobo people would have been swept
from existence--wiped ruthlessly from the list of nations, but that was
not the way of Government, which is patient and patient and patient
again till in the end, by sheer heavy weight of patience, it crushes
opposition to its wishes.

They called Lamalana the barren woman, the Drinker of Life, but she had
at least drunken without ostentation, and if she murdered with her own
large hands, or staked men and women from a sheer lust of cruelty, there
were none alive to speak against her.

Outside the town of Lombobo[6] was a patch of beaten ground where no
grass grew, and this place was called "wa boma," the killing ground.

[Footnote 6: The territories are invariably named after the principal
city, which is sometimes, perhaps, a little misleading.--E. W.]

Here, before the white men came, sacrifices were made openly, and it was
perhaps for this association and because it was, from its very openness,
free from the danger of the eavesdropper, that Lamalana and her father
would sit by the hour, whilst he told her the story of ancient
horrors--never too horrible for the woman who swayed to and fro as she
listened as one who was hypnotized.

"Lord," said she, "the Walker of the Night comes not alone to the
Lombobo; all people up and down the river have seen him, and to my mind
he is a sign of great fortune showing that ghosts are with us. Now, if
you are very brave, we will have a killing greater than any. Is there no
hole in the hill[7] which Bosambo dug for your shame? And, lord, do not
the people of the Ochori say that this child M'sambo is the light of his
father's life? O ko! Bosambo shall be sorry."

[Footnote 7: _See_ "The Right of Way."]

Later they walked in the forest speaking, for they had no fear of the
spirits which the last slanting rays of the dying sun unlocked from the
trees. And they talked and walked, and Lombobo huntsmen, returning
through the wood, gave them a wide berth, for Lamalana was possessed of
an eye which was notoriously evil.

"Let us go back to the city," said Lamalana, "for now I see that you are
very brave and not a blind old man."

"There will be a great palaver and who knows but M'ilitani will come
with his soldiers?"

She laughed loudly and hoarsely, making the silent forest ring with
harsh noise.

"O ko!" she said, then laughed no more.

In the centre of the path was a man; in the half light she saw the
leopard skin an