George understood the gesture; his interpreter told him the rest; and, as a Houssa servant reached out his hand to the chief, the son of the house of Widnes, strong in the sense of his righteousness, struck it back. "Look here, Sanders," forgetting all his previous misgivings and fears concerning the chief, "I should say that you have punished this poor devil enough!" "Take that man, sergeant," said Sanders sharply; and the Houssa gripped Olari by the shoulder and flung him backward. "You shall answer for this!" roared the Hon. George Tackle, in impotent wrath. "What are you going to do with him? My God! No, no!--not without a trial!" He sprang forward, but the Houssas caught him and restrained him. * * * * * "For what you have done," said the correspondent--this was a month after, and he was going aboard the homeward steamer--"you shall suffer!" "I only wish to point out to you," said Sanders, "that if I had not arrived in the nick of time, you would have done all the suffering--they were going to sacrifice you on the night I arrived. Didn't you see the post?" "That is a lie!" said the other. "I will make England ring with your infamy. The condition of your district is a blot on civilisation!" * * * * * "There is no doubt," said Mr. Justice Keneally, summing up in the libel action, Sanders v. _The Courier and Echo_ and another, "that the defendant Tackle did write a number of very libellous and damaging statements, and, to my mind, the most appalling aspect of the case is that, commissioned as he was to investigate the condition of affairs in the district of Lukati, he did not even trouble to find out where Lukati was. As you have been told, gentlemen of the jury, there are no less than four Lukatis in West Africa, the one in Togoland being the district in which it was intended the defendant should go. How he came to mistake Lukati of British West Africa for the Lukati of German Togoland, I do not know, but in order to bolster up his charges against a perfectly-innocent British official he brought forward a number of unsupported statements, each of which must be regarded as damaging to the plaintiff, but more damaging still to the newspaper that in its colossal ignorance published them." The jury awarded Sanders nine thousand seven hundred and fifty pounds. CHAPTER VI. THE DANCING STONES. Heroes should be tall and handsome, with flashing eyes; Sanders was not so tall, was yellow of face, moreover had grey hair. Heroes should also be of gentle address, full of soft phrases, for such tender women who come over their horizon; Sanders was a dispassionate man who swore on the slightest provocation, and had no use for women any way.