of languages, for had he not attended a great
mission school in Monrovia? "Master, you dam' fine feller, you look 'um
better feller, you no find um. You be same like Moses and Judi Escariot,
big fine feller, by golly--yas."

All night long, between the visits which Bones had been making from the
moored _Wiggle_ to the village (feeling the patient's pulse with a
profound and professional air and prescribing brandy and milk), Bosambo
had been busy.

"Stand you at the door, Secundi," he said to his headman, "and let one
of your men go to the shore to warn me of my lord Tibbetti's coming, for
I have work to do. It seems this Maker of Storms were better with Sandi
than with me."

"Tibbetti is a fool, I think," suggested Secundi.

Bosambo, kneeling on a rush mat, busy with a native chisel and a pot of
clay paint, looked up.

"I have beaten older men than you with a stick until they have wept," he
said, "and all for less than you say. For this is the truth, Secundi,
that a child cannot be a fool, though an old man may be a shame. This is
the word of the blessed prophet. As for Tibbetti, he has a clean and
loving heart."

There was a rustle at the door and a whispered voice.

The box and the tools were thrust under a skin rug and Bosambo again
became the interesting invalid.

In the morning Bosambo had said farewell, and a blushing Bones listened
with unconcealed pleasure to the extravagant praise of his patient.

"And this I tell you, Tibbetti," said Bosambo, standing thigh-deep in
the river by the launch's side, "that knowing you are wise man who
gathers wisdom, I have sent to the end of my country for some rare and
beautiful thing that you may carry it with you."

He signalled to a man on the bank, and his servant brought him a curious
object.

It was, Bones noted, a square box apparently of native make, for it was
fantastically carved and painted. There were crude heads and hideous
forms which never were on land or sea. The paint was brilliant; red,
yellow and green indiscriminately splashed.

"This is very ancient and was brought to my country by certain forest
people. It is a Maker of Storms, and is a powerful ju-ju for good and
evil."

Bones, already a collector of native work, was delighted. His delight
soothed him for his failure in other respects.

He returned to headquarters empty-handed and sat the centre of a
chilling group--if we except Patricia Hamilton--and endeavoured, as so
many successful