"Lord," he wheezed, "none came with news of this great honour, or my young men would have met you, and my maidens would have danced the road flat with their feet. Take!"
Sanders extended both palms and received the tribute of salt and corn, and solemnly handed the crushed mess to his orderly.
"O S'kobi," he said, "I came swiftly to make a secret palaver with you, and my time is short."
"Lord, I am your man," said S'kobi, and signalled his councillors and elder men to a distance.
Sanders was in some difficulty to find a beginning.
"You know, S'kobi, that I love your people as my children," he said, "for they are good folk who are faithful to government and do ill to none."
"Wa!" said S'kobi.
"Also you know that spearmen and warriors I do not love, for spears are war and warriors are great lovers of fighting."
"Lord, you speak the truth," said the other, nodding, "therefore in this land I will have made a law that there shall be no spears, save those which sleep in the shadow of my hut. Now well I know why you have come to make this palaver, for you have heard with your beautiful long ears that I have sent away my fighting regiments."
Sanders nodded.
"You speak truly, my friend," he said, and S'kobi beamed.
"Six times a thousand spears I had—and, lord, spears grow no corn. Rather are they terrible eaters. And now I have sent them to their villages, and at the next moon they should have burnt their fine war-knives, but for a certain happening. We folk of Morjaba have no enemies, and we do good to all. Moreover, lord, as you know, we have amongst us many folk of the Isisi, of the Akasava and the N'gombi, also men from the Great King's land beyond the High Rocks, and the little folk from The-Land-beyond-the-Swamp. Therefore, who shall attack us since we have kinsmen of all amongst us?"
Sanders regarded the jovial king with a sad little smile.
"Have I done well by all men?" he asked quietly. "Have I not governed the land so that punishment comes swiftly to those who break the law? Yet, S'kobi, do not the Akasava and the Isisi, the N'gombi and the Lower River folk take their spears against me? Now I tell you this which I have discovered. In all beasts great and little there are mothers who have young ones and fathers who fight that none shall harass the mother."
"Lord, this is the way of life," said S'kobi.
"It is the way of the Bigger Life," said Sanders, "and greatly the way of man-life. For the women bring children to the land and the men sit with their spears ready to fight all who would injure their women. And so long as life lasts, S'kobi, the women will bear and the men will guard; it is the way of Nature, and you shall not take from men the desire for slaughter until you have dried from the hearts of women the yearning for children."
"Lord," said S'kobi, a fat man and easily puzzled, "what shall be the answer to this strange riddle you set me?"
"Only this," said Sanders rising, "I wish peace in this land, but there can be no peace between the leopard who has teeth and claws and the rabbit who has neither tooth nor claw. Does the leopard fight the lion or the lion the leopard? They live in peace, for each is terrible in his way, and each fears the other. I tell you this, that you live in love with your neighbours not because of your kindness, but because of your spears. Call them back to your city, S'kobi."
The chief's large face wrinkled in a frown.
"Lord," he said, "that cannot be, for these men have marched away from my country to find a people who will feed them, for they are too proud to dig the ground."
"Oh, damn!" said Sanders in despair, and went back the way he came, feeling singularly helpless.
The Odyssey of the discarded army of the Morjaba has yet to be written. Paradoxically enough, its primary mission was a peaceful one, and when it found first the frontiers of the Akasava and then the river borders of the Isisi closed against it, it turned to the north in an endeavour to find service under the Great King, beyond the mountains. Here it was repulsed and its pacific intentions doubted. The M'gimi formed a camp a day's march from the Ochori border, and were on the thin line which separates unemployment from anarchy when Bosambo, Chief of the Ochori, who had learnt of their presence, came upon the scene.
Bosambo was a born politician. He had the sense of opportunity and that strange haze of hopeful but indefinite purpose which is the foundation of the successful poet and statesman, but which, when unsuccessfully developed, is described as "temperament."
Bones, paying a business call upon the Ochori, found a new township grown up on the forest side of the city. He also discovered evidence of discontent in Bosambo's harassed people, who had been called upon to provide fish and meal for the greater part of six thousand men who were too proud to work.
"Master," said Bosambo, "I have often desired such an army as this, for my Ochori fighters are few. Now, lord, with these men I can hold the Upper River for your King, and Sandi and none dare speak against him. Thus would N'poloyani, who is your good friend, have done."
"But who shall feed these men, Bosambo?" demanded Bones hastily.
"All things are with God," replied Bosambo piously.
Bones collected all the available information upon the matter and took it back to headquarters.
"H'm," said Sanders when he had concluded his recital, "if it were any other man but Bosambo … you would require another battalion, Hamilton."
"But what has Bosambo done?" asked Patricia Hamilton, admitted to the council.
"He is being Napoleonic," said Sanders, with a glance at the youthful authority on military history, and Bones squirmed and made strange noises. "We will see how it works out. How on earth is he going to feed them, Bones?"
"Exactly the question I asked, sir an' Excellency," said Bones in triumph. "'Why, you silly old ass–'"
"I beg your pardon!" exclaimed the startled Sanders.
"That is what I said to Bosambo, sir," explained Bones hastily. "'Why, you silly old ass,' I said, 'how are you going to grub 'em?' 'Lord Bones,' said Bosambo, 'that's the jolly old problem that I'm workin' out.'"
How Bosambo worked out his problem may be gathered.
"There is some talk of an Akasava rising," said Sanders at breakfast one morning. "I don't know why this should be, for my information is that the Akasava folk are fairly placid."
"Where does the news come from, sir?" asked Hamilton.
"From the Isisi king—he's in a devil of a funk, and has begged Bosambo to send him help."
That help was forthcoming in the shape of Bosambo's new army, which arrived on the outskirts of the Isisi city and sat in idleness for a month, at the end of which time the people of the Isisi represented to their king that they would, on the whole, prefer war to a peace which put them on half rations in order that six thousand proud warriors might live on the fat of the land.
The M'gimi warriors marched back to the Ochori, each man carrying a month's supply of maize and salt, wrung from the resentful peasants of the Isisi.
Three weeks after, Bosambo sent an envoy to the King of the Akasava.
"Let no man know this, Gubara, lest it come to the ears of Sandi, and you, who are very innocent, be wrongly blamed," said the envoy solemnly. "Thus says Bosambo: It has come to my ears that the N'gombi are secretly arming and will very soon send a forest of spears against the Akasava. Say this to Gubara, that because my stomach is filled with sorrow I will help him. Because I am very powerful, because of my friendship with Bonesi and his cousin, N'poloyani, who is also married to Bonesi's aunt, I have a great army which I will send to the Akasava, and when the N'gombi hear of this they will send away their spears and there will be peace."
The Akasava chief, a nervous man with the memory of all the discomforts which follow tribal wars, eagerly assented. For two months Bosambo's army sat down like a cloud of locusts and ate the Akasava to a condition bordering upon famine.
At the end of that time they marched to the N'gombi country, news having been brought by Bosambo's messengers that the Great King was crossing the western mountains with a terrible army to seize the N'gombi forests. How long this novel method of provisioning his army might have continued may only be guessed, for in the midst of Bosambo's plans for maintaining an army at the expense of his neighbours there was a great happening in the Morjaba country.
S'kobi, the fat chief, had watched the departure of his warriors with something like relief. He was gratified, moreover (native-like), by the fact that he had confounded Sanders. 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-planned campaign which the Great King's generals and the Chief of The-People-beyond-the-Marsh had organized. With the passing of the warrior caste the enemies of the Morjaba had moved swiftly. The path across the swamp had been known for years, but the M'gimi had had one of their camps so situated that no enemy could debouch across, and had so ordered their dispositions that the northern river boundary was automatically safeguarded.
Now S'gono was a man of the fields, a grower and seller of maize and a breeder of goats. And he had planned his new army as he would plan a new garden, on the basis that the nearer the army was to the capital, the easier it was to maintain. In consequence the river-ford was unguarded, and there were two thousand spears across the marshes before a scared minister of war apprehended any danger.
He flung his new troops against the Great King's chief captain in a desperate attempt to hold back the principal invader. At the same time, more by luck than good generalship, he pushed the evil people of the marsh back to their native element.
For two days the Morjaba fought desperately if unskilfully against the seasoned troops of the Great King, while messengers hurried east and south, seeking help.
Bosambo's intelligence department may have shown remarkable prescience in unearthing the plot against the peace and security of the Morjaba, or it may have been (and this is Sanders's theory) that Bosambo was on his way to the Morjaba with a cock and bull story of imminent danger. He was on the frontier when the king's messenger came, and Bosambo returned with the courier to treat in person.
"Five thousand loads of corn I will give you, Bosambo," said the king, "also a hundred bags of salt. Also two hundred women who shall be slaves in your house."
There was some bargaining, for Bosambo had no need of slaves, but urgently wanted goats. In the end he brought up his hirelings, and the people of the Morjaba city literally fell on the necks of the returned M'gimi.
The enemy had forced the northern defences and were half-way to the city when the M'gimi fell upon their flank.
The giant chief of the Great King's army saw the ordered ranks of the old army driving in his flank, and sent for his own captain.
"Go swiftly to our lord, the King, and say that I am a dead man."
He spoke no more than the truth, for he fell at the hand of Bosambo, who made a mental resolve to increase his demand on the herds of S'kobi in consequence.
For the greater part of a month Bosambo was a welcome visitor, and at the end of that time he made his preparations to depart.
Carriers and herdsmen drove or portered his reward back to the Ochori country, marching one day ahead of the main body.
The M'gimi were summoned for the march at dawn, but at dawn Bosambo found himself alone on the plateau, save for the few Ochori headmen who had accompanied him on his journey.
"Lord," said S'kobi, "my fine soldiers do not go with you, for I have seen how wise is Sandi who is my father and my mother."
Bosambo choked, and as was usual in moments of intense emotion, found refuge in English.
"Dam' nigger!" he said wrathfully, "I bring um army, I feed um, I keep um proper—you pinch um! Black t'ief! Pig! You bad feller! I speak you bad for N'poloyani—him fine feller."
"Lord," said the uncomprehending king, "I see that you are like Sandi for you speak his tongue. He also said 'Dam' very loudly. I think it is the word white folk say when they are happy."
Bosambo met Bones hurrying to the scene of the fighting, and told his tale.
"Lord," said he in conclusion, "what was I to do, for you told nothing of the ways of N'poloyani when his army was stolen from him. Tell me now, Tibbetti, what this man would have done."
But Bones shook his head severely.
"This I cannot tell you, Bosambo," he said, "for if I do you will tell others, and my lord N'poloyani will never forgive me."
CHAPTER X
THE WATERS OF MADNESS
Unexpected things happen in the Territories which Mr. Commissioner Sanders rules. As for example: Bones had gone down to the beach to "take the mail." This usually meant no more than receiving a mail-bag wildly flung from a dancing surf-boat. On this occasion Bones was surprised to discover that the boat had beached and had landed, not only the mail, but a stranger with his baggage.
He was a clean-shaven, plump man, in spotless white, and he greeted Bones with a friendly nod. "Morning!" he said. "I've got your mail."
Bones extended his hand and took the bag without evidence of any particular enthusiasm.
"Sanders about?" asked the stranger.
"Mr. Sanders is in residence, sir," said Bones, ponderously polite.
The other laughed. "Show the way," he said briskly.
Bones looked at the new-comer from the ventilator of his pith helmet to the soles of his pipe-clayed shoes. "Excuse me, dear old sir," he said, "have I the honour of addressin' the Secretary of State for War?"
"No," answered the other in surprise. "What made you think that?"
"Because," said Bones, with rising wrath, "he's the only fellow that needn't say 'please' to me."
The man roared with laughter. "Sorry," he said. "Please show me the way."
"Follow me, sir," said Bones.
Sanders was not "in residence," being, in fact, inspecting some recent—and native—repairs to the boilers of the Zaire.
The stranger drew up a chair on the stoep without invitation and seated himself. He looked around. Patricia Hamilton was at the far end of the stoep, reading a book. She had glanced up just long enough to note and wonder at the new arrival. "Deuced pretty girl that," said the stranger, lighting a cigar.
"I beg your pardon?" said Bones.
"I say that is a deuced pretty girl," said the stranger.
"And you're a deuced brute, dear sir," said Bones, "but hitherto I have not commented on the fact."
The man looked up quickly. "What are you here," he asked—"a clerk or something?"
Bones did not so much as flush. "Oh, no," he said sweetly. "I am an officer of Houssas—rank, lieutenant. My task is to tame the uncivilized beast an' entertain the civilized pig with a selection of music. Would you like to hear our gramophone?"
The new-comer frowned. What brilliant effort of persiflage was to follow will never be known, for at that moment came Sanders.
The stranger rose and produced a pocket-book, from which he extracted a card and a letter. "Good morning, Commissioner!" he said. "My name's Corklan—P. T. Corklan, of Corklan, Besset and Lyons."
"Indeed," said Sanders.
"I've got a letter for you," said the man.
Sanders took the note, opened it, and read. It bore the neat signature of an Under-Secretary of State and the embossed heading of the Extra-Territorial Office, and it commended Mr. P. T. Corklan to Mr. Commissioner Sanders, and requested him to let Mr. Corklan pass without let or hindrance through the Territories, and to render him every assistance "compatible with exigencies of the Service" in his "inquiries into sugar production from the sweet potato."
"You should have taken this to the Administrator," said Sanders, "and it should bear his signature."
"There's the letter," said the man shortly. "If that's not enough, and the signature of the Secretary of State isn't sufficient, I'm going straight back to England and tell him so."
"You may go to the devil and tell him so," said Sanders calmly; "but you do not pass into these Territories until I have received telegraphic authority from my chief. Bones, take this man to your hut, and let your people do what they can for him." And he turned and walked into the house.
"You shall hear about this," said Mr. Corklan, picking up his baggage.
"This way, dear old pilgrim," said Bones.
"Who's going to carry my bag?"
"Your name escapes me," said Bones, "but, if you'll glance at your visitin' card, you will find the name of the porter legibly inscribed."
Sanders compressed the circumstances into a hundred-word telegram worded in his own economical style.
It happened that the Administrator was away on a shooting trip, and it was his cautious secretary who replied—
"Administration to Sanders.—Duplicate authority here. Let Corklan proceed at own risk. Warn him dangers."
"You had better go along and tell him," said Sanders. "He can leave at once, and the sooner the better."
Bones delivered the message. The man was sitting on his host's bed, and the floor was covered with cigar ash. Worst abomination of all, was a large bottle of whisky, which he had produced from one of his bags, and a reeking glass, which he had produced from Bones's sideboard.
"So I can go to-night, can I?" said Mr. Corklan. "That's all right. Now, what about conveyance, hey?"
Bones had now reached the stage where he had ceased to be annoyed, and when he found some interest in the situation. "What sort of conveyance would you like, sir?" he asked curiously.
(If you can imagine him pausing half a bar before every "sir," you may value its emphasis.)
"Isn't there a steamer I can have?" demanded the man. "Hasn't Sanders got a Government steamer?"
"Pardon my swooning," said Bones, sinking into a chair.
"Well, how am I going to get up?" asked the man.
"Are you a good swimmer?" demanded Bones innocently.
"Look here," said Mr. Corklan, "you aren't a bad fellow. I rather like you."
"I'm sorry," said Bones simply.
"I rather like you," repeated Mr. Corklan. "You might give me a little help."
"It is very unlikely that I shall," said Bones. "But produce your proposition, dear old adventurer."
"That is just what I am," said the other. He bit off the end of another cigar and lit it with the glowing butt of the old one. "I have knocked about all over the world, and I have done everything. I've now a chance of making a fortune. There is a tribe here called the N'gombi. They live in a wonderful rubber country, and I am told that they have got all the ivory in the world, and stacks of rubber hidden away."
Now, it is a fact—and Bones was surprised to hear it related by the stranger—that the N'gombi are great misers and hoarders of elephant tusks. For hundreds of years they have traded ivory and rubber, and every village has its secret storehouse. The Government had tried for years to wheedle the N'gombi into depositing their wealth in some State store, for riches mean war sooner or later. They lived in great forests—the word N'gombi means "interior"—in lands full of elephants and rich in rubber trees.
"You are a regular information bureau," said Bones admiringly. "But what has this to do with your inquiry into the origin of the candy tree?"
The man smoked in silence for awhile, then he pulled from his pocket a big map. Again Bones was surprised, because the map he produced was the official map of the Territories. He traced the river with his fat forefinger.
"Here is the N'gombi country from the east bank of the Isisi, and this is all forest, and a rubber tree to every ten square yards."
"I haven't counted them," said Bones, "but I'll take your word."
"Now, what does this mean?" Mr. Corklan indicated a twisting line of dots and dashes which began at the junction of the Isisi River and the Great River, and wound tortuously over five hundred miles of country until it struck the Sigi River, which runs through Spanish territory. "What is that?" he asked.
"That, or those," said Bones, "are the footprints of the mighty swoozlum bird that barks with its eyes an' lives on buttered toast an' hardware."
"I will tell you what I know it is," said the man, looking up and looking Bones straight in the eye—"it is one of those secret rivers you are always finding in these 'wet' countries. The natives tell you about 'em, but you never find 'em. They are rivers that only exist about once in a blue moon, when the river is very high and the rains are very heavy. Now, down in the Spanish territory"—he touched Bones's knee with great emphasis—"they tell me that their end of the secret river is in flood."
"They will tell you anything in the Spanish territory," said Bones pleasantly. "They'd tell you your jolly old fortune if you'd cross their palms with silver."
"What about your end?" asked the man, ignoring the scepticism of his host.
"Our end?" said Bones. "Well, you will find out for yourself. I'd hate to disappoint you."
"Now, how am I going up?" asked the man after a pause.
"You can hire a canoe, and live on the land, unless you have brought stores."
The man chuckled. "I've brought no stores. Here, I will show you something," he said. "You are a very good fellow." He opened his bag and took out a tight packet which looked like thin skins. There must have been two or three hundred of them. "That's my speciality," he said. He nipped the string that tied them together, stripped one off, and, putting his lips to one end, blew. The skin swelled up like a toy balloon. "Do you know what that is?"
"No, I cannot say I do," said Bones.
"You have heard of Soemmering's process?"
Bones shook his head.
"Do you know what decimal 1986 signifies?"
"You've got me guessing, my lad," said Bones admiringly.
The other chuckled, threw the skins into his bag, and closed it with a snap. "That's my little joke," he said. "All my friends tell me it will be the death of me one of these days. I like to puzzle people"—he smiled amiably and triumphantly in Bones's face—"I like to tell them the truth in such a way they don't understand it. If they understood it—Heavens, there'd be the devil to pay!"
"You are an ingenious fellow," said Bones, "but I don't like your face. You will forgive my frankness, dear old friend."
"Faces aren't fortunes," said the other complacently, "and I am going out of this country with money sticking to me."
"I'm sorry for you," said Bones, shaking his head; "I hate to see fellows with illusions."
He reported all that occurred to the Commissioner, and Sanders was a little worried.
"I wish I knew what his game is," he said; "I'd stop him like a shot, but I can't very well in the face of the Administrator's wire. Anyway, he will get nothing out of the N'gombi. I've tried every method to make the beggars bank their surpluses, and I have failed."
"He has got to come back this way, at any rate," said Hamilton, "and I cannot see that he will do much harm."
"What is the rest of his baggage like?"
"He has a case of things that look like concave copper plates, sir," said Bones, "very thin copper, but copper. Then he has two or three copper pipes, and that is about his outfit."
Mr. Corklan was evidently no stranger to the coast, and Bones, who watched the man's canoe being loaded that afternoon, and heard his fluent observations on the slackness of his paddlers, realized that his acquaintance with Central Africa was an extensive one. He cursed in Swahili and Portuguese, and his language was forcible and impolite. "Well," he said at last, "I'll be getting along. I'll make a fishing village for the night, and I ought to reach my destination in a week. I shan't be seeing you again, so I'll say good-bye."
"How do you suppose you're going to get out of the country?" asked Bones curiously.
Mr. Corklan laughed. "So long!" he said.
"One moment, my dashin' old explorer," said Bones. "A little formality—I want to see your trunks opened."
A look of suspicion dawned on the man's face. "What for?"
"A little formality, my jolly old hero," said Bones.
"Why didn't you say so before?" growled the man, and had his two trunks landed. "I suppose you know you're exceeding your duty?"
"I didn't know—thanks for tellin' me," said Bones. "The fact is, sir an' fellow-man, I'm the Custom House officer."
The man opened his bags, and Bones explored. He found three bottles of whisky, and these he extracted.
"What's the idea?" asked Mr. Corklan.
Bones answered him by breaking the bottles on a near-by stone.
"Here, what the dickens–"
"Wine is a mocker," said Bones, "strong drink is ragin'. This is what is termed in the land of Hope an' Glory a prohibition State, an' I'm entitled to fine you five hundred of the brightest an' best for attemptin' to smuggle intoxicants into our innocent country."
Bones expected an outburst; instead, his speech evoked no more than a snigger.
"You're funny," said the man.
"My friends tell me so," admitted Bones. "But there's nothin' funny about drink. Acquainted as you are with the peculiar workin's of the native psychology, dear sir, you will understand the primitive cravin' of the untutored mind for the enemy that we put in our mouths to steal away our silly old brains. I wish you 'bon voyage.'"
"So long," said Mr. Corklan.
Bones went back to the Residency and made his report, and there, for the time being, the matter ended. It was not unusual for wandering scientists, manufacturers, and representatives of shipping companies to arrive armed with letters of introduction or command, and to be dispatched into the interior. The visits, happily, were few and far between. On this occasion Sanders, being uneasy, sent one of his spies to follow the adventurer, with orders to report any extraordinary happening—a necessary step to take, for the N'gombi, and especially the Inner N'gombi, are a secretive people, and news from local sources is hard to come by.
"I shall never be surprised to learn that a war has been going on in the N'gombi for two months without our hearing a word about it."
"If they fight amongst themselves—yes," said Captain Hamilton; "if they fight outsiders, there will be plenty of bleats. Why not send Bones to overlook his sugar experiments," he added.
"Let's talk about something pleasant," said Bones hastily.
It was exactly three months later when he actually made the trip.
"Take the Zaire up to the bend of the Isisi," said Sanders one morning, at breakfast, "and find out what Ali Kano is doing—the lazy beggar should have reported."
"Any news from the N'gombi?" asked Hamilton.
"Only roundabout stories of their industry. Apparently the sugar merchant is making big experiments. He has set half the people digging roots for him. Be ready to sail at dawn."
"Will it be a dangerous trip?" asked the girl.
"No. Why?" smiled Sanders.
"Because I'd like to go. Oh, please, don't look so glum! Bones is awfully good to me."
"Better than a jolly old brother," murmured Bones.
"H'm!" Sanders shook his head, and she appealed to her brother.
"Please!"
"I wouldn't mind your going," said Hamilton, "if only to look after Bones."
"S-sh!" said Bones reproachfully.
"If you're keen on it, I don't see why you shouldn't—if you had a chaperon."
"A chaperon!" sneered Bones. "Great Heavens! Do, old skipper, pull yourself together. Open the jolly old window and give him air. Feelin' better, sir?"
"A chaperon! How absurd!" cried the girl indignantly. "I'm old enough to be Bones's mother! I'm nearly twenty—well, I'm older than Bones, and I'm ever so much more capable of looking after myself."
The end of it was that she went, with her Kano maid and with the wife of Abiboo to cook for her. And in two days they came to the bend of the river, and Bones pursued his inquiries for the missing spy, but without success.