Now, as the servant of O'Neill and Craven, Carter had done his work well and indeed enthusiastically, and after he had left the firm's employ he had neither competed with them in business nor done them harm in any way whatever. It is true that at his memorable interview with the King of Okky with a little persuasion he could have got that grateful monarch to take off the embargo which he had laid on the factories at Monk, Malla-Nulla, and Smooth River, though the fact that he did not put forward pressure on this point could hardly have reached the ear of Miss O'Neill. Indeed it is to be doubted if she ever knew that any reference to her name or affairs cropped up at all. But be that as it may, she certainly from the date of sending her cable to Cascaes began to interest herself in opposing Carter's schemes. The first he knew of it was a typewritten letter from Liverpool on the firm's note-paper beginning "Dear sir," and ending "O'Neill & Craven, per K. O'Neill." In arid business sentences it understood he had "a tin-mining proposition up Smooth River," it pointed out that "our firm for many years has had very far-reaching interests in this neighborhood," and it suggested that O'Neill and Craven should buy the mine "to prevent any clash of interests." Carter replied to this curtly enough that Tin Hill was not in the market, and took the next boat home to Liverpool. He had picked up a distressed merchant skipper named Kettle, and put him in charge of the motor boat, and the canoes, and the mining work generally, and though in their short interview he decided that Kettle was the most tactless man in Africa, he believed him to be honest, and instinctively knew him to be capable. "One thing I must ask," he said at the end of their talk, "and that is that you do not try any proselytizing up here. Your creed, I have no doubt, is very excellent at home, but out here where they are either Moslemin or nothing it will only stir up disputes, and that I won't have. Is that quite agreed?" "I have learned, sir," said the sailor, "to obey orders to the letter even though I know them to be against an owner's best interests." "Um," said Carter, and stared at him thoughtfully. "Well, Captain, I think it would be safest if you went on those lines. You will find your chief engineer, who carries the name of White-Man's-Trouble, beautifully unreliable in most things, but he understands the launch's engines wonderfully, and I like him. I'd take it as a favor if you'd deal with him as lightly as possible." "I'll bear your words in mind, sir, though, as a man who has handled everything colored that serves afloat, I'd like to point out that pampering spoils them." "The only other point to remember is that I've made my name up these rivers mainly by being known as a ju-ju man--sort of wizard, in fact. You'll have no difficulty, I suppose, in following up that line now I've given you the hint?"