he group whom Bones had motioned away when he started
to speak to the king.

"This palaver is finished," he said, "and the white lord stays in my hut
for a night."

"Good egg," said Bones as the crowd streamed from the kraal.

Senhor Bonaventura heard of the arrival of a white man at the chief's
great kraal and was not perturbed, because there were certain favourite
traders who came to the king from time to time. He was more concerned by
the fact that a labour draft of eight hundred men who had been promised
by Karata had not yet reached Moanda, but frantic panic came from the
remarkable information of Karata's eccentricities which had reached him
from his lieutenant.

The duc's letter may be reproduced.

"ILLUSTRIOUS AND EXCELLENT SENHOR,

"It is with joy that I announce to you the most remarkable
reformation of King Karata. The news was brought to me that the
king had received a number of visitors of an unauthorized
character, and though I had, as I have reported to you, Illustrious
and Excellent Senhor, the most unpleasant experience at the hands
of the king, I deemed it advisable to go to the city of the Greater
M'fusi and conduct an inquiry.

"I learnt that the king had indeed received the visitors, and that
they had departed on the morning of my arrival carrying with them
one of their number who was sick. With this party was a white man.
But the most remarkable circumstance, Illustrious and Excellent
Senhor, was that the king had called a midnight palaver of his
councillors and high people of state and had told them that the
strangers had brought news of such sorrowful character that for
four moons it would be forbidden to look upon his face. At the end
of that period he would disappear from the earth and become a god
amongst the stars.

"At these words, Illustrious and Excellent Senhor, the king with
some reluctance took from one of the strangers a bag in which two
eyes had been cut, and pulled it over his head and went back into
his hut.

"Since then he has done many remarkable things. He has forbidden
the importation of drink, and has freed all labour men to their
homes. He has nominated Zifingini, the elder chief of the M'fusi,
to be king after his departure, and has added another fighting
regiment to his army.

"He is quite changed, and though they cannot see