"Tell him he's a silly ass!" bellowed Cuthbert and followed his carriers. This natural path the caravan took extended in almost a straight line through the forest. It was a strange path because of its very smoothness, and the only drawback lay in the fact that it seemed to be the breeding-place of flies--little black flies, as big as the house-fly of familiar shape, if anything a little bigger. They terrified the natives for many reasons, but principally because they stung. They did not terrify Cuthbert, because he was dressed in tapai cloth; none the less, there were times when these black flies found joints in his armour and roused him to anger. This path extended ten miles and made pleasant travelling. Then the explorer struck off into the forest, following another path, well beaten, but more difficult. By devious routes Mr. Cuthbert came into the heart of Sanders' territories, and he was successful in this, that he avoided Sanders. He had with him a caravan of sixty men and an interpreter, and in due course he reached his objective, which was the village of a great chief ruling a remarkable province--Bosambo, of the Ochori, no less; sometime Krooman, steward of the Elder Dempster line, chief on sufferance, but none the less an interesting person. Bosambo, you may be sure, came out to greet his visitor. "Say to him," said Cuthbert to his interpreter, "that I am proud to meet the great chief." "Lord chief," said the interpreter in the vernacular, "this white man is a fool, and has much money." "So I see," said Bosambo. "Tell him," said Cuthbert, with all the dignity of an ambassador, "that I have come to bring him wonderful presents." "The white man says," said the interpreter, "that if he is sure you are a good man he will give you presents. Now," said the interpreter carefully, "as I am the only man who can speak for you, let us make arrangements. You shall give me one-third of all he offers. Then will I persuade him to continue giving, since he is the father of mad people." "And you," said Bosambo briefly, "are the father of liars." He made a sign to his guard, and they seized upon the unfortunate interpreter and led him forth. Cuthbert, in a sweat of fear, pulled a revolver. "Master," said Bosambo loftily, "you no make um fuss. Dis dam' nigger, he no good; he make you speak bad t'ings. I speak um English proper. You sit down, we talk um." So Cuthbert sat down in the village of Ochori, and for three days there was a great giving of presents, and signing of concessions. Bosambo conceded the Ochori country--that was a small thing. He granted forest rights of the Isisi, he sold the Akasava, he bartered away the Lulungo territories and the "native products thereof"--I quote from the written document now preserved at the Colonial Office and bearing the scrawled signature of Bosambo--and he added, as a lordly afterthought, the Ikeli district. "What about river rights?" asked the delighted Cuthbert.