one in courtesy, the chief offered him the choice of all
the maidens of Kulumbini, and Sanders, to whom such offers were by no
means novel, had got out of a delicate situation in his usual manner,
having resort to witchcraft for the purpose. For he said, with due
solemnity and hushed breath, that it had been predicted by a celebrated
witch-doctor of the lower river that the next wife he should take to
himself would die of the sickness-mongo, and said Sanders--

"My heart is too tender for your people, O Chief, to lead one of your
beautiful daughters to death."

"O Sandi," replied Gulabala hopefully, "I have many daughters, and I
should not miss one. And would it not be good service for a woman of my
house to die in your hut?"

"We see things differently, you and I," said Sanders, "for, according to
my religion, if any woman dies from witchcraft, her ghost sits for ever
at the foot of my bed, making terrifying faces."

Thus Sanders had made his escape, and had received at odd intervals the
tribute of these remote people.

For years they had dwelt without interference, for they were an unlucky
people to quarrel with, and, save for one or two trespasses on the part
of Gulabala, there was no complaint made concerning them. It is not
natural, however, for native people to prosper, as these folks did,
without there growing up a desire to kill somebody. For does not the
river saying run: "The last measure of a full granary is a measure of
blood"?

In the dead of a night Gulabala took three hundred spears across the
frontier to the Ochori village of Netcka, and returned at dawned with
the spears all streaky. And he brought back with him some twenty women,
who would have sung the death-song of their men but for the fact that
Gulabala and his warriors beat them.

Gulabala slept all the day, he and his spears, and woke to a grisly
vision of consequence.

He called his people together and spoke in this wise--

"Soon Sandi and his headmen will come, and, if we are here, there will
be many folk hanged, for Sandi is a cruel man. Therefore let us go to a
far place in the forest, carrying our treasure, and when Sandi has
forgiven us, we will come back."

A good plan but for the sad fact that Bosambo of the Ochori was less
than fifty miles away at the dawn of that fatal day, and was marching
swiftly to avenge his losses, for not only had Gulabala taken women, but
he had taken sixty goats, and that was unpardonable.

The sco