"I am as your father and your mother," he said. "I carry you in my arms; when the waters came up and destroyed your gardens I came with manioc and salt and saved you; when the sickness came I brought white men who scraped your arms and put magic in your blood; I have made peace, and your wives are safe from M'Gombi and Isisi folk, yet you are for killing me." The other nodded. "That is true talk, master--but such is the way of ju-jus. They are very High Things, and do not remember." Sanders was worried; this matter was out of his reach. "What said the ju-ju?" "Lord, it said very clearly, speaking through the mouth of an old man, M'fabaka of Begeli----" "M'fabaka of Begeli?" repeated Sanders softly, and noted the name for a speedy hanging. "This old man saw a vision, and in this vision, which he saw with great pain and foaming at the mouth and hot eyeballs, he saw white men slain by black men and their houses burnt." "When was this?" "When the moon was full"--six days ago, thought Sanders--"and he saw a great king with many legions marching through the land making all white men fear him." He went on to give, as only a native memory can recall, the minutest detail of the king's march; how he slew white men and women and put their house to flames; how his legions went dancing before him. "And all this happened at the full of the moon," he finished; "therefore we, too, went out to slay, and, knowing that your Highness would be coming as is your custom to give judgment at this season of the year, it was thought wise to kill you, also the Christ-man." He told all this in a matter-of-fact tone, and Sanders knew that he spoke the truth. Another man would have been more affected by that portion of the narrative which touched him most nearly, but it was the king ("a great man, very large about the middle"), and his devastating legions who occupied the Commissioner's thoughts. There was truth behind this, he did not doubt that. There was a rising somewhere that he had not heard of; very quickly he passed in mental review the kings of the adjoining territories and of his own lands. Bosambo of Monrovia, that usurper of the Ochori chieftainship, sent him from time to time news of the outlying peoples. There was no war, north or south or east. "I will see this old man M'fabaka of Begeli," he said. Begeli is a village that lies on an in-running arm of the river, so narrow that it seems like a little river, so still that it is apparently a lake. Forests of huge trees slope down on either bank, and the trees are laced one to the other with great snake-like tendrils, and skirted at foot with rank undergrowth. The _Zaire_ came cautiously down this stretch of calm water, two Maxim guns significantly displayed at the bridge. A tiny little steamer this _Zaire_. She had the big blue of England drooping from the flagstaff high above the stern wheel--an ominous sign, for when Sanders flew the Commissioner's flag it meant trouble for somebody.