Sanders caught the wheel as it spun and beckoned another steersman forward. The nose of the steamer had turned to the offending canoe. This was an unhappy circumstance for the men therein, for both guns now covered it, and they rattled together, and through the blue haze you saw the canoe emptied. That was the end of the fight. A warrior in the fifth boat held his spear horizontally above his head in token of surrender, and ten minutes later the chief of the rebels was on board. "Master," he said calmly, as they led him to Sanders' presence, "this is a bad palaver. How will you deal with me?" Sanders looked at him steadily. "I will be merciful with you," he said, "for as soon as we come to the village I shall hang you." "So I thought," said the chief without moving a muscle; "and I have heard it said that you hang men very quickly so that they feel little pain." "That is my practice," said Sanders of the River, and the chief nodded his head approvingly. "I would rather it were so," he said. It was to a sorrowful village that he came, for there were many women to wail their dead. Sanders landed with his Houssas and held a high palaver under the trees. "Bring me the old man M'fabaka who sees visions," he said, and they brought him a man so old that he had nothing but bones to shape him. They carried him to the place of justice and set him down before the Commissioner. "You are an evil man," said Sanders, "and because your tongue has lied many men have died; to-day I hang your chief upon a tree, and with him certain others. If you stand before your people and say, 'Such a story, and such a story was a lie and no other thing,' you may live your days; but, if you persist in your lying, by my God, and your god, you shall die!" It was a long time before the old man spoke, for he was very old and very frightened, and the fear of death, which is the ghost of some old men, was on him. "I spoke the truth," he quavered at last. "I spoke of what I saw and of what I knew--only that." Sanders waited. "I saw the great king slay and burn; yesterday I saw him march his regiments to war, and there was a great shouting, and I saw smoke." He shook his head helplessly. "I saw these things. How can I say I saw nothing?" "What manner of king?" asked Sanders. Again there was a long interval of silence whilst the old man collected himself. "A great king," he said shakily, "as big as a bull about the middle, and he wore great, white feathers and the skin of a leopard." "You are mad," said Sanders, and ended the palaver. * * * * * Six days later Sanders went back to headquarters, leaving behind him a chastened people.