y too numerous family
of daughters, thus disgusting and seriously disappointing the king, who
had confidently looked forward to being this time blessed with a son.
This was by no means the first disappointment of the kind that the
monarch had been called upon to endure; and it had been his wont, on
such occasions, to banish the offending wife from his presence,
replacing her with a new one. He proposed to follow the same rule upon
the present occasion; and the only difficulty which lay in his way
consisted in suitably filling up the vacancy. There were, of course,
hundreds of sable damsels within the limits of his dominions who would
gladly have accepted the responsibilities of the position, but that
would no longer suit king M'Bongwele; the women of his own race had, one
and all, so far as he had tried them, failed disgracefully in their duty
of providing him with an heir, and he was now determined to try
elsewhere. He happened to have in his possession, as prisoners, four
white women, one of whom was somewhat elderly, whilst the remaining
three were young, and, though by no means sufficiently _embonpoint_ to
be strictly handsome, from an African savage's point of view, still
attractive enough to justify his choice of either of them as a wife.
The difficulty with these women was that they were unfortunately all
insane--a circumstance which (in accordance with one of the many
superstitious beliefs of the natives, and quite apart from the equally
important objection of consequent unsuitability) effectually precluded
any resort to threats or compulsion for enabling the king to carry out
his plans. And it was for the purpose of securing these unfortunate
creatures' restoration to reason that M'Bongwele now resolved to invoke
the potent aid of his new prisoners. When making up his mind to this
course he was at first greatly puzzled as to how he should approach the
individuals he had so basely betrayed, and how explain and excuse his
conduct; but at last the happy idea suggested itself of ignoring his
ill-behaviour altogether; and acting upon this, and without giving
himself time for further consideration, he hurried off to the hut and
presented himself before his prisoners.

Seating himself jauntily upon one of the bedsteads, he opened the
negotiations by explaining that he had come to express his admiration
of, and his thanks for, the wonderful manner in which the woman had been
saved from the deadly effects of the sn