"Who are you?" "I am a stranger," said the man. The warrior came nearer and looked in his face. "You are a spy of Sandi," he said, and then the other closed with him. The warrior would have shouted, but a hand like steel was on his throat. The sentinel made a little sound like the noise a small river makes when it crosses a shallow bed of shingle, then his legs bent limply, and he went down. The sleeper bent down over him, wiped his knife on the bare shoulder of the dead man, and went on his way to the river. Under the bush he found a canoe, untied the native rope that fastened it, and stepping in, he sent the tiny dug-out down the stream. * * * * * "And what do you make of all this?" asked Sanders. He was standing on his broad stoep, and before him was the spy, a lithe young man, in the uniform of a sergeant of Houssa Police. "Master, it is the secret society, and they go to make a great killing," said the sergeant. The Commissioner paced the verandah with his head upon his breast, his hands clasped behind his back. These secret societies he knew well enough, though his territories had been free of them. He knew their mushroom growth; how they rose from nothingness with rituals and practices ready-made. He knew their influence up and down the Liberian coast; he had some knowledge of the "silent ones" of Nigeria, and had met the "white faces" in the Kassai. And now the curse had come to his territory. It meant war, the upsetting of twenty years' work--the work of men who died and died joyfully, in the faith that they had brought peace to the land--it meant the undermining of all his authority. He turned to Abiboo. "Take the steamer," he said, "and go quickly to the Ochori country, telling Bosambo, the chief, that I will come to him--the palaver is finished." He knew he could depend upon Bosambo if the worst came. In the days of waiting he sent a long message to the Administration, which lived in ease a hundred miles down the coast. He had a land wire running along the seashore, and when it worked it was a great blessing. Fortunately it was in good order now, but there had been times when wandering droves of elephants had pulled up the poles and twisted a mile or so of wire into a hopeless tangle. The reply to his message came quickly. "Take extreme steps to wipe out society. If necessary arrest Tigili. I will support you with four hundred men and a gunboat; prefer you should arrange the matter without fuss. "Administration."