ders. But when the Commissioner had gone
and S'kobi remembered all that he had said, a great doubt settled like a
pall upon his mind. For three days he sat, a dejected figure, on the
high carved stool of state before his house, and at the end of that time
he summoned S'gono, the M'joro.

"S'gono," said he, "I am troubled in my stomach because of certain
things which our lord Sandi has said."

Thereupon he told the plebeian councillor much of what Sanders had said.

"And now my M'gimi are with Bosambo of the Ochori, and he sells them to
this people and that for so much treasure and food."

"Lord," said S'gono, "is my word nothing? Did I not say that I would
raise spears more wonderful than the M'gimi? Give me leave, King, and
you shall find an army that shall grow in a night. I, S'gono, son of
Mocharlabili Yoka, say this!"

So messengers went forth to all the villages of the Morjaba calling the
young men to the king's hut, and on the third week there stood on a
plateau beneath the king's palaver house a most wonderful host.

"Let them march across the plain and make the Dance of Killing," said
the satisfied king, and S'gono hesitated.

"Lord King," he pleaded, "these are new soldiers, and they are not yet
wise in the ways of warriors. Also they will not take the chiefs I gave
them, but have chosen their own, so that each company have two leaders
who say evil things of one another."

S'kobi opened his round eyes.

"The M'gimi did not do this," he said dubiously, "for when their
captains spoke they leapt first with one leg and then with the other,
which was beautiful to see and very terrifying to our enemies."

"Lord," begged the agitated S'gono, "give me the space of a moon and
they shall leap with both legs and dance in a most curious manner."

A spy retailed this promise to a certain giant chief of the Great King
who was sitting on the Morjaba slopes of the mountains with four
thousand spears, awaiting a favourable moment to ford the river which
separated him from the rich lands of the northern Morjaba.

This giant heard the tidings with interest.

"Soon they shall leap without heads," he said, "for without the
M'gimi they are little children. For twenty seasons we have waited,
and now comes our fine night. Go you, B'furo, to the Chief of
The-Folk-beyond-the-Swamp and tell him that when he sees three fires on
this mountain he shall attack across the swamp by the road which he
knows."

It was a well-plan