He wagged his head when Bosambo had finished his recital, did this general of twenty-one. "You're a jolly old sportsman, Bosambo," he said very seriously, "and you're in the dooce of a hole, if you only knew it. But you trust old Bones--he'll see you through. By Gad!" Bosambo, bewildered but resourceful, hearing, without understanding, replied: "I be fine feller, sah!" "You bet your life you are, old funnyface," agreed Bones, and screwed his eyeglass in the better to survey his protege. IV Chief N'gori organized a surprise party for Bosambo, and took so much trouble with the details, that, because of his sheer thoroughness, he deserved to have succeeded. _Lokali_ men concealed in the bush were waiting to announce the coming of the rescue party, when N'gori sent his cry for help crashing across the world. Six hundred spearmen stood ready to embark in fifty canoes, and five hundred more waited on either bank ready to settle with any survivors of the Ochori who found their way to land. The best of plans are subject to the banal reservation, "weather permitting," and the signal intended to bring Bosambo to his destruction was swallowed up in the bellowings of the storm. "This night being fine," said N'gori, showing his teeth, "Bosambo will surely come." His Chief Counsellor, an ancient man of the royal tribe,[2] had unexpected warnings to offer. A man had seen a man, who had caught a glimpse of the _Zaire_ butting her way upstream in the dead of night. Was it wise, when the devil Sandi waited to smite, and so close at hand, to engage in so high an adventure? [Footnote 2: That which I call the Akasava proper is the very small, dominant clan of a tribe which is loosely called "Akasava," but is really Bowongo.] "Old man, there is a hut in the forest for you," said N'gori, with significance, and the Counsellor wilted, because the huts in the forest are for the sick, the old, and the mad, and here they are left to starve and die; "for," N'gori went on, "all men know that Sandi has gone to his people across the black waters, and the M'ilitani rules. Also, in nights of storms there are men who see even devils." With more than ordinary care he prepared for the final settling with Bosambo the Robber, and there is a suggestion that he was encouraged by the chiefs of other lands, who had grown jealous of the Ochori and their offensive rectitude. Be that as it may, all things were made ready, even to the knives of sacrifice and the young saplings which had not been employed by the Akasava for their grisly work since the Year of Hangings. At an hour before midnight the tireless _lokali_ sent out its call: "We of the Akasava" (four long rolls and a quick succession of taps) "Danger threatens" (a long roll, a short roll, and a triple tap-tap)