thought, Scars!" Omar shouted to me in English a moment later. "We
have travelled away from Mo, crossed Tieba's territory, and have now
entered the country of the great Mohammedan chief Samory, my nation's
bitterest enemy. It was he who seized my father by a ruse and sent his
head back to my mother as a hideous souvenir."

"But what object has Kouaga in bringing us here?" I asked.

"I cannot imagine," he answered. "Unless he travelled to England, for the
sole purpose of delivering me into the hands of our enemies. Three times
within the last five years has Samory attempted to invade our country,
but each time has been repulsed with a loss that has partially paralysed
his power. All along the right bank of the Upper Niger his bands of
hirelings and mercenaries, whom we call Sofas, are constantly raiding for
slaves. Indeed Samory's troops are the fiercest and most merciless in
this country. They are the riff-raff of the West Soudan and are a terror
to friend and foe, a bar to the peaceful settlement of all lands within
the range of their devastating expeditions."

"Do they make raids towards your country?" I inquired, for I had heard
long ago of this notorious slave-dealing chief.

"Yes, constantly. They are pitiless marauders who lay waste whole
kingdoms and transform populous districts into gloomy solitudes. While on
my way from Mo to England we passed through Sati, a large market town at
the convergence of several caravan routes, which was only three months
before a prosperous and wealthy place situated fifty miles south of our
border. We found everything had been raided by the Sofas, who had sacked,
burned or destroyed what they were unable to take away. Heaps of cinders
marked the sites of former homesteads, the ground was strewn with
potsherds, rice and other grain trodden under foot, while our horses
moved forward knee deep in ashes. The whole land, lately very rich,
prosperous and thickly peopled, was a melancholy picture of utter
desolation."

"Do you think we have actually fallen into Samory's hands?" I asked.

"I fear so."

"But is not Kouaga Grand Vizier of Mo? Surely he would not dare to take
us through the enemy's land," I said.

"Do you not remember that when he met us at Eastbourne he forbade us to
inform Makhana of our intended departure?" he answered. "He had some
object in securing our silence and getting us away from England secretly.
It now appears more than probable that my mother has dismis