Part 5 (1/2)

”It's an old friend of yours,” said Carter ”My people tell me that this old God-box contains the stone of the Ochori”

”Oh!” said Sanders, with sudden interest

He breakfasted with his subordinate, inspected his little garrison of thirty, visited his farm, admired his sweet potatoes, and patronised his tomatoes

Then he went back to the boat and wrote a short dispatch in the tiniest of handwriting on the fli me 14,” he said to his servant, and Abiboo caeon in his hand

”Now, little bird,” said Sanders, carefully rolling his letter round the red leg of the tiny courier and fastening it with a rubber band, ”you've got two hundred miles to fly before sunrise to-eon in his hand, walked with it to the stern of the boat, and threw it into the air

His crew of twelve -pot-that pot which everlastingly boils

”Yoka!” he called, and his half-naked engineer caet your wood aboard; I am for Isisi”

There was no doubt at all that this new God was an extremely powerful one Three hours fro canoe with fourdolefully Sanders ree where woreen leaves, wailed by the river's edge

He slowed down till he ca stark in the bottoo you with this body?” he asked

”To Isisi, lord,” was the answer

”The middle river and the little islands are places for the dead,” said Sanders brusquely ”It is folly to take the dead to the living”

”Lord,” said the man who spoke, ”at Isisi lives a God who breathes life; this man”-he pointed doards-”is my brother, and he died very suddenly because of a leopard So quickly he died that he could not tell us where he had hidden his rods and his salt Therefore we take hih life to make his relations comfortable”

”The middle river,” said Sanders quietly, and pointed to such a lone island, all green with tangled vegetation, as round ”What is your name?”

”Master, my name is N'Kema,” said the man sullenly

”Go, then, N'Kema,” he said, and kept the steamer slow ahead whilst he watched the canoe turn its blunt nose to the island and diseines full ahead, steered clear of a sandbank, and regained the fairway

He was genuinely concerned

The stone was so That the stone existed, he knew There were legends innumerable about it; and an explorer had, in the early days, seen it through his glasses Also the ”ghosts clad in brass” he had heard about-these fantastic and warlike shades who o out to battle-all except the Ochori, ere never warlike, and whohosts could incite to deeds of violence

You will have remarked that Sanders took native people seriously, and that, I rehosts were factors, and fetishes potent possibilities A man who knew less would have been areat responsibility He arrived at the city of Isisi in the afternoon, and observed, even at a distance, that so The crowd of women and children that the arrival of the Co in from mid-stream and followed the water-path that leads to shoal

Only the king and a handful of oldwas nervous and in trouble

”Lord,” he blurted, ”I a in this city because of the new God; the people are asseht and day watching the God in the box”