"No use crying over a marriage that's over. Everybody that knows her will do his best for Laura, and if any man tried hanky-panky tricks with her he'd probably die one of the local deaths of Africa in very quick time. But about this white woman. I heard about her, too. There was a big tom-toming far away in the bush one night, ten minutes after the sun went out, and my boys listened hard and then set up a fine chatter. It was long enough before I could make anything out of them, but at last I heard something about 'a white mammy' that set me thinking. I got the idea at first that someone, probably the Okky-men, had been knocking a she-missionary on the head, and that made me cock up my ears. You know when a trader or a man in one of the services gets scuppered out here, the pious people at home say it's his own brutal fault and the poor African is quite right in what he does. But when it's a missionary, the Exeter Hall crew insist on war." Slade put up the usual Coaster's wish for the future of Exeter Hall. "Quite so," said Swizzle-Stick Smith. He got up and limped across to the doorway and stood there for a minute puffing pale blue smoke into the dazzle of sunshine. Then he came back again and once more sat on the earthen floor with his back against a bale. "The boys out there, both yours and mine, are still harping on the same subject." "I didn't make out that the white woman was killed." "Nor did I, when I went into the matter further. I was only explaining what gave me the first interest in the subject, because if there had been a she-missionary killed, all the bush would know that meant war, and they would slaughter every white man they came across out of sheer light-heartedness. No, if that had happened, you would not have seen me here. I should have lit out for the Coast, one-time. But I presently found that the white woman had not been killed, but that she was a someone who seemed to puzzle my boys exceedingly. There seemed to be heap-too-much ju-ju about her. She did things no one else could tackle." "Sort of champion lady weight-lifter? Boy, fill Mr. Smith's pipe and bring him fire." "You know that Kroo word, Oomsha, that means Sultana or woman-above-a-headman, or something like that?" "I heard a tale of an Oomsha once somewhere up Sokoto way. She's been head wife of an Emir, and when he died she killed all the heirs and ran the town herself. I thought it meant more witch or conjurer. It's a ju-ju word." "Well, I won't quarrel with you over etymology, and we seem to agree enough on the definition for practical purposes. Now, my boys said that this white woman was an Oomsha. Did you hear that?" "Not I. I tell you I thought it was Laura they were gassing about, and I didn't trouble myself to inquire more deeply."