and were awakened by the incessant
lightning--so incessant that the weaver birds who lived in palms that
fringed the Ochori streets came chattering to life.

It was too loud a noise, that M'shimba M'shamba made for the _lokali_
man of the Ochori to hear the message that N'gori sent--the
panic-message designed to lure Bosambo to the newly-purchased spears.

Bones heard it--Bones, standing on the bridge of the _Zaire_ pounding
away upstream, steaming past the Akasava city in a sheet of rain.

"Wonder what the jolly old row is?" he muttered to himself, and summoned
his sergeant. "Ali," said he, in faultless Arabic, "what beating of
drums are these?"

"Lord," said the sergeant, uneasily, "I do not know, unless they be to
warn us not to travel at night. I am your man, Master," said he in a
fret, "yet never have I travelled with so great a fear: even our Lord
Sandi does not move by night, though the river is his own child."

"It is written," said Bones, cheerfully, and as the sergeant saluted and
turned away, the reckless Houssa made a face at the darkness. "If old
man Ham would give me a month or two on the river," he mused, "I'd set
'em alight, by Jove!"

By the miraculous interposition of Providence Bones reached the Ochori
village in the grey clouded dawn, and Bosambo, early astir, met the lank
figure of the youth, his slick sword dangling, his long revolver holster
strapped to his side, and his helmet on the back of his head, an eager
warrior looking for trouble.

"Lord, of you I have heard," said Bosambo, politely; "here in the Ochori
country we talk of no other thing than the new, thin Lord whose
beautiful nose is like the red flowers of the forest."

"Leave my nose alone," said Bones, unpleasantly, "and tell me, Chief,
what killing palaver is this I hear? I come from Government to right all
wrongs--this is evidently his nibs, Bosambo." The last passage was in
his own native tongue and Bosambo beamed.

"Yes, sah!" said he in the English of the Coast. "I be Bosambo, good
chap, fine chap; you, sah, you look um--you see um--Bosambo!"

He slapped his chest and Bones unbent.

"Look here, old sport," he said affably: "what the dooce is all this
shindy about--hey?"

"No shindy, sah!" said Bosambo--being sure that all people of his city
were standing about at a respectful distance, awe-stricken by the sight
of their chief on equal terms with this new white lord.

"Dem feller he lib for Akasava, sah--he be bad fe