are favoured by me, being simple people and very timid. Give them a
passage through your territory, for they seek a holy land, and find
them high places for the digging of holes, for they seek truth. Now
peace on your house, Bosambo."

"On my ship, by channel of rocks."

"Lord, it is true," said the old chief, "we seek a shining thing that
will stay white when it is white, and black when it is black, and the
wise Idoosi has said, 'Go down into the earth for truth, seek it in the
deeps of the earth, for it lies in secret places, in centre of the world
it lies.'"

Bosambo thought long and rapidly, then there came to him the bright
light of an inspiration.

"What manner of holes do you dig, old man?"

"Lord, we dig them deep, for we are cunning workers, and do not fear
death as common men do; also we dig them straightly--into the very heart
of hills we dig them."

Bosambo looked at the sloping ground covered with hateful gum.

"Old man," said he softly, "here shall you dig, you and your people, for
in the heart of this hill is such a truth as you desire--my young men
shall bring you food and build huts for you, and I will place one who is
cunning in the way of hills to show you the way."

The old man's eyes gleamed joyously, and he clasped the ankles of his
magnanimous host.

"Lord," said he humbly, "now is the prophecy fulfilled, for it was said
by the great Idoosi, 'You shall come to a land where the barbarian
rules, and he shall be to you as a brother!'"

"Nigger," said Bosambo in his vile English--yet with a certain hauteur,
"you shall dig 'um tunnel--you no cheek 'um, no chat 'um, you lib for
dear tunnel one time."

He watched them as, singing the song of the well, they went to work,
women, men, and even little children undermining the Chief B'limisaka's
territory and creating for Bosambo the right of way for which his soul
craved.

CHAPTER IX

THE GREEN CROCODILE

_Cala cala_, as they say, seven brothers lived near the creek of the
Green One. It was not called the creek of the Green One in those far-off
days, for the monstrous thing had no existence.

And the seven brothers had seven wives who were sisters, and it would
appear from the legend that these seven wives were unfaithful to their
husbands, and upon a certain night in the full of the moon, the brothers
returning from an expedition into the forest, discovered the extent of
their infamy, and they tied the sist