black at the wrist, then the arm must
be cut off.'

"I sat down on my camp stool and reflected. Really I was waiting for the
sun to rise, since it was useless to attempt an operation in that light.
The man, Kalubi, thought that I had refused his petition and became
terribly agitated.

"'Be merciful, White Lord,' he prayed, 'do not let me die. I am afraid
to die. Life is bad, but death is worse. O! If you refuse me, I will
kill myself here before you and then my ghost will haunt you till you
die also of fear and come to join me. What fee do you ask? Gold or ivory
or slaves? Say and I will give it.'

"'Be silent,' I said, for I saw that if he went on thus he would throw
himself into a fever, which might cause the operation to prove fatal.
For the same reason I did not question him about many things I should
have liked to learn. I lit my fire and boiled the instruments--he
thought I was making magic. By the time that everything was ready the
sun was up.

"'Now,' I said, 'let me see how brave you are.'

"Well, Allan, I performed that operation, removing the finger at the
base where it joins the hand, as I thought there might be something in
his story of the poison. Indeed, as I found afterwards on dissection,
and can show you, for I have the thing in spirits, there was, for the
blackness of which he spoke, a kind of mortification, I presume, had
crept almost to the joint, though the flesh beyond was healthy enough.
Certainly that Kalubi was a plucky fellow. He sat like a rock and never
even winced. Indeed, when he saw that the flesh was sound he uttered a
great sigh of relief. After it was all over he turned a little faint, so
I gave him some spirits of wine mixed with water which revived him.

"'O Lord Dogeetah,' he said, as I was bandaging his hand, 'while I live
I am your slave. Yet, do me one more service. In my land there is a
terrible wild beast, that which bit off my finger. It is a devil; it
kills us and we fear it. I have heard that you white men have magic
weapons which slay with a noise. Come to my land and kill me that wild
beast with your magic weapon. I say, Come, Come, for I am terribly
afraid,' and indeed he looked it.

"'No,' I answered, 'I shed no blood; I kill nothing except butterflies,
and of these only a few. But if you fear this brute why do you not
poison it? You black people have many drugs.'

"'No use, no use,' he replied in a kind of wail. 'The beast knows
poisons, some it swallows and t