They talked on weapons and they talked on war; they talked of sport as each of them understood it; they talked on horse-breeding as it was practised in Kano and Sokoto, and also of horse-breeding as it was carried on in the Craven district and the Yorkshire dales. Carter tried without any success whatever to make Hossein understand the humor of the battle of the roses as it was waged between his father and mother in the Yorkshire vicarage; the Haûsa in his turn gave the light side of a slave-hunting raid, and made Carter's flesh creep. They had abundant interests in common, too, in the romance of commerce, and discussed regretfully the decay of ivory and the sensational rise of rubber. Carter as the paid servant of O'Neill and Craven tried to hear of rubber lands which could be bought and resold to an English company, but Ali ben Hossein was emphatic in his refusal to help a white immigration onto the acres of his fatherland. "Let us talk as traders, oh Effendi. Do not ask me to be the traitor who will make smooth the path for the invader. And for the present I bid you to consider this shortage in the supply of pink kola nuts. Now, the white kola nuts, which have not that dryness which is demanded by the palates of the Western Soudan, we can get from Lagos and the Coast factories in larger quantities than ever. But the growers declare the crop of pink nuts to be practically a failure this year, and therein I say they lie." And so on, with matter which had too technical a flavor to carry general interest. Now, the leopard had clawed Ali ben Hossein's thigh grievously, and the subsequent neglect of the wound had been abominable, but the man had been a clean liver and his toughness was great. In ten days he could hobble, and in a fortnight announced his departure. "I am a merchant without merchandise, Effendi, and must needs be back about my affairs. If I do not gather them into my hands again another will." "I'd stand you tick to the extent of a dozen loads of goods if I had 'em," said Carter cordially, "but as you've seen for yourself, the factory's cleaned out. And Allah knows when the next steamer will drive in." "May your tribe increase, Effendi. I have had too much at your hands already. But though no money may pass over what you have done, yet I ask you to accept a gift, that is a mere token." It was a piece of gray stone which sprouted with rich brown crystals. It was shaped like a squat duck, some inch and a half long, and Ali ben Hossein wore it alongside the little leather parcel which held a verse of the Koran and hung by a thong from his neck. "O Effendi, you are young, and that will bring you pleasure more than could be bought with ten quills of gold. Wear that, and your grief will fade." "Poof!" said Carter, "I've no griefs."