chiefs. When they were not occupied with some errand, they would
lounge about playing games with one another in the open space just by
the King's hut.

Often when Mackay came to speak with the King, he had to wait in this
place before he could have audience of M'tesa. He would bring with
him large sheets of paper on which he had printed in his workshop the
alphabet and some sentences. The printing was actually done with the
little hand-press that Mackay had used in his attic when he was a boy
in his old home in Rhynie. He had taken it with him all the way to
Uganda, and now was setting up letters and sentences in a language
which had never been printed before.

The Baganda boys who had gathered round the White-Man-of-Work with
wondering eyes, as he with his "magic" printed the sheets of paper,
now crowded about him as he unrolled one of these white sheets with
the curious black smudges on them. Mackay made the noise that we call
A and then B, and pointed to these curious-shaped objects which we
call the letters of the alphabet. Then he got them to make the noise
and point to the letter that represented that sound. At last the
keenest of the boys really could repeat the alphabet right through and
begin to read whole words from another sheet--Baganda words--so that
at length they could read whole sentences.

Two of these pioneer boys became very good scholars. One named Mukasa
became a Christian and was baptised with the name Samweli (Samuel);
another called Kakumba was baptised Yusufu (Joseph). A third boy had
been captured from a tribe in the north, and his skin was of a much
lighter brown than that of the Baganda boys. This light-skinned
captured slave was named Lugalama.

Each of these boys felt that it was a very proud day when at last he
could actually read a whole sheet of printing from beginning to end
in his own language--from "Our Father" down to "the Kingdom, the power
and the glory, Amen."

One morning these page-boys leapt to their feet as they heard the
familiar rattle of the drums that heralded the coming of King M'tesa.
They bowed as he entered the hall and sat heavily on his stool, while
his chiefs ranged themselves about him.

On a stool near the King sat Mackay, the White-Man-of-Work. His
bronzed face was set in grim determination, for he knew that on that
morning he had a difficult battle to fight.

Another loud battering of drum-heads filled the air. The entrance to
the hut was darkened by