"Now," said he, "I come to you, being young in the service of the Government, and unworthy to tread in my lord Sandi's way. Yet I hold the laws in my two hands even as Sandi held them, for laws do not change with men, neither does the sun change whatever be the land upon which it shines. Now, I say to you and to all men, deliver to me the slayer of B'chumbiri that I may deal with him according to the law." There was a dead silence, and Bones waited. Then the silence grew into a whisper, from a whisper into a babble of suppressed talk, and finally somebody laughed. Bones stood up, for this was his supreme moment. "Come out to me, O killer!" he said softly, "for who am I that I can injure you? Did I not hear some voice say _g'la_, and is not _g'la_ the name of a fool? O, wise and brave men of the Akasava who sit there quietly, daring not so much as to hit a finger before one who is a fool!" Again the silence fell. Bones, his helmet on the back of his head, his hands thrust into his pockets, came a little way down the hill towards the semi-circle of waiting eldermen. "O, brave men!" he went on, "O, wonderful seeker of danger! Behold! I, _g'la_, a fool, stand before you and yet the killer of B'chumbiri sits trembling and will not rise before me, fearing my vengeance. Am I so terrible?" His wide open eyes were fixed upon the uncle of B'chumbiri, and the old man returned the gaze defiantly. "Am I so terrible?" Bones went on, gently. "Do men fear me when I walk? Or run to their huts at the sound of my puc-a-puc? Do women wring their hands when I pass?" Again there was a little titter, but M'gobo, the uncle of B'chumbiri, grimacing now in his rage, was not amongst the laughers. "Yet the brave one who slew----" M'gobo sprang to his feet. "Lord," he said harshly, "why do you put all men to shame for your sport?" "This is no sport, M'gobo," answered Bones quickly. "This is a palaver, a killing palaver. Was it a woman who slew B'chumbiri? so that she is not present at this palaver. Lo, then I go to hold council with women!" M'gobo's face was all distorted like a man stricken with paralysis. "Tibbetti!" he said, "I slew B'chumbiri--according to custom--and I will answer to Sandi, who is a man, and understands such palavers." "Think well," said Bones, deathly white, "think well, O man, before you say this." "I killed him, O fool," said M'gobo loudly, "though his father turned woman at the last--with these hands I cut him, using two knives----" "Damn you!" said Bones, and shot him dead. * * * * * Hamilton, so far convalescent that he could smoke a cigarette, heard the account without interruption. "So there you are, sir," said Bones at the side. "An' I felt like a jolly old murderer, but, dear old officer, what was I to do?" Still Hamilton said nothing, and Bones shifted uncomfortably. "For goodness gracious sake don't sit there like a bally old owl," he said, fretfully. "Was I wrong?" Hamilton smiled.