ich I am sworn to deliver to you and to all your
nation. Also you would do well to put away that fair woman whose price
was the murder of him that fed you."

"I cannot do it," answered the wizard. "I will listen to your teaching,
but I will not rob my heart of her it craves alone. White Man, I am not
like the rest of my nation. I have not sought after women; I have but
one wife, and she is old and childless. Now, for the first time in my
days, I love this girl--ah, you know not how!--and I will take her, and
she shall be the mother of my children."

"Then, Hokosa, you will take her to your sorrow," answered Owen
solemnly, "for she will learn to hate you who have robbed her of royalty
and rule, giving her wizardries and your grey hairs in place of them."

And thus for that night they parted.

CHAPTER VIII

THE FIRST TRIAL BY FIRE

On the following day, while Owen sat eating his morning meal with a
thankful heart, a messenger arrived saying that the king would receive
him whenever it pleased him to come. He answered that he would be with
him before noon, for already he had learned that among natives one loses
little by delay. A great man, they think, is rich in time, and hurries
only to wait upon his superiors.

At the appointed hour a guard came to lead him to the royal house, and
thither Owen went, followed by John bearing a Bible. Umsuka was seated
beneath a reed roof supported by poles and open on all sides; behind him
stood councillors and attendants, and by him were Nodwengo the prince,
and Hokosa, his mouth and prophet. Although the day was hot, he wore a
kaross or rug of wild catskins, and his face showed that the effects
of the poisoned draught were still upon him. At the approach of Owen he
rose with something of an effort, and, shaking him by the hand, thanked
him for his life, calling him "doctor of doctors."

"Tell me, Messenger," he added, "how it was that you were able to cure
me, and who were in the plot to kill me? There must have been more than
one," and he rolled his eyes round with angry suspicion.

"King," answered Owen, "if I knew anything of this matter, the Power
that wrote it on my mind has wiped it out again, or, at the least, has
forbidden me to speak of its secret. I saved you, it is enough; for the
rest, the past is the past, and I come to deal with the present and the
future."

"This white man keeps his word," thought Hokosa to himself, and he
looked at him thanking him with h