"That is so, lord," said Abiboo. "Now I will trust you to go amongst my crew discovering their gods. If I ask them myself, they will lie to me out of politeness, inventing this god and that, thinking they please me." Abiboo chose the meal hour, when the sun had gone out and the world was grey and the trees motionless. He came back with the information as Sanders was drinking his second cup of coffee in the loneliness of the tiny deck-house. "Master," he reported, "three men worship no god whatever, three more have especial family fetishes, and two are Christians more or less, and the four Houssas are with me in faith." "And you?" Abiboo, the Kano boy, smiled at Sanders' assumption of innocence. "Lord," he said, "I follow the Prophet, believing only in the one God, beneficent and merciful." "That is good," said Sanders. "Now let the men load wood, and Yoka shall have steam against moonrise, and all shall be ready for slipping." At ten o'clock by his watch he fell-in his four Houssas, serving out to each a short carbine and a bandoleer. Then the party went ashore. The king in his patience sat in his hut, and Sanders found him. "You will stay here, Milini," he commanded, "and no blame shall come to you for anything that may happen this night." "What will happen, master?" "Who knows!" said Sanders, philosophically. The streets were in pitch darkness, but Abiboo, carrying a lantern, led the way. Only occasionally did the party pass a tenanted hut. Generally they saw by the dull glow of the log that smouldered in every habitation that it was empty. Once a sick woman called to them in passing. It was near her time, she said, and there was none to help her in the supreme moment of her agony. "God help you, sister!" said Sanders, ever in awe of the mysteries of birth. "I will send women to you. What is your name?" "They will not come," said the plaintive voice. "To-night the men go out to war, and the women wait for the great dance." "To-night?" "To-night, master--so the ghosts of brass decree." Sanders made a clicking noise with his mouth. "That we shall see," he said, and went on. The party reached the outskirts of the city. Before them, outlined against a bronze sky, was the dark bulk of a little hill, and this they skirted. The bronze became red, and rose, and dull bronze again, as the fires that gave it colour leapt or fell. Turning the shoulder of the hill, Sanders had a full view of the scene. Between the edge of the forest and slope of the hill was a broad strip of level land. On the left was the river, on the right was swamp and forest again. In the very centre of the plain a huge fire burnt. Before it, supported by its poles, on two high trestles, a square box. But the people! A huge circle, squatting on its haunches, motionless, silent; men, women, children, tiny babies, at their mothers' hips they stretched; a solid wheel of humanity, with the box and the fire as a hub.