Lieutenant Francis Augustus Tibbetts of the Houssas was at some disadvantage with his chief and friend. Lieutenant F. A. Tibbetts might take a perfectly correct attitude, might salute on every possible occasion that a man could salute, might click his heels together in the German fashion (he had spent a year at Heidelberg), might be stiffly formal and so greet his superior that he contrived to combine a dutiful recognition with the cut direct, but never could he overcome one fatal obstacle to marked avoidance--he had to grub with Hamilton. Bones was hurt. Hamilton had behaved to him as no brother officer should behave. Hamilton had spoken harshly and cruelly in the matter of a commission with which he had entrusted his subordinate, and with which the aforesaid subordinate had lamentably failed to cope. Up in the Akasava country a certain wise man named M'bisibi had predicted the coming of a devil-child who should be born on a night when the moon lay so on the river and certain rains had fallen in the forest. And this child should be called "Ewa," which is death; and first his mother would die and then his father; and he would grow up to be a scourge to his people and a pestilence to his nation, and crops would wither when he walked past them, and the fish in the river would float belly up in stinking death, and until Ewa M'faba himself went out, nothing but ill-fortune should come to the N'gombi-Isisi. Thus M'bisibi predicted, and the word went up and down the river, for the prophet was old and accounted wise even by Bosambo of the Ochori. It came to Hamilton quickly enough, and he had sent Bones post-haste to await the advent of any unfortunate youngster who was tactless enough to put in an appearance at such an inauspicious moment as would fulfil the prediction of M'bisibi. And Bones had gone to the wrong village, and that in the face of his steersman's and his sergeant's protest that he was going wrong. Fortunately, by reliable account, no child had been born in the village, and the prediction was unfulfilled. "Otherwise," said Hamilton, "its young life would have been on your head." "Yes, sir," said Bones. "I didn't tell you there were two villages called Inkau," Hamilton confessed, "because I didn't realize you were chump enough to go to the wrong one." "No, sir," agreed Bones, patiently. "Naturally," said Hamilton, "I thought the idea of saving the lives of innocent babes would have been sufficient incentive." "Naturally, sir," said Bones, with forced geniality. "I've come to one conclusion about you, Bones," said Hamilton. "Yes, sir," said Bones, "that I'm an ass, sir, I think?" Hamilton nodded--it was too hot to speak.