"Lord," she went on, and Sanders wondered at the bitterness in her tone, "it is said that you hate women." "Then a lie is told," said Sanders. "I do not hate women; rather I greatly honour them, for they go down to the caves of hell when they bear children; also I regard them highly because they are otherwise brave and very loyal." She said nothing. Her head was sunk till her chin rested on her bare, brown breast, but she looked at him from under her brows, and her eyes were filled with a strange luminosity. Something like a panic awoke in Sanders' heart--had the mischief been done? He cursed Ludley, and breathed a fervent, if malevolent, prayer that his ship would go down with him. But her words reassured him. "I made Lijingii love me," she said, "though he was a great lord, and I was a slave; I also would have gone down to hell, for some day I hoped I should bear him children, but now that can never be." "And thank the Lord for it!" said Sanders, under his breath. He would have given her some words of cheer, but she turned abruptly from him and walked away. Sanders watched the graceful figure as it receded down the straggling street, and went back to his steamer. He was ten miles down the river before he remembered that the reproof he had framed for the girl had been undelivered. "That is very extraordinary," said Sanders, with some annoyance, "I must be losing my memory." Three months later young Penson came out from England to take the place of the returned Ludley. He was a fresh-faced youth, bubbling over with enthusiasm, and, what is more important, he had served a two-years' apprenticeship at Sierra Leone. "You are to go up to Isisi," said Sanders, "and I want to tell you that you've got to be jolly careful." "What's the racket?" demanded the youth eagerly. "Are the beggars rising?" "So far as I know," said Sanders, putting his feet up on the rail of the verandah, "they are not--it is not bloodshed, but love that you've got to guard against." And he told the story of M'Lino, even though it was no creditable story to British administration. "You can trust me," said young Penson, when he had finished. "I trust you all right," said Sanders, "but I don't trust the woman--let me hear from you from time to time; if you don't write about her I shall get suspicious, and I'll come along in a very unpleasant mood." "You can trust me," said young Penson again; for he was at the age when a man is very sure of himself. Remarkable as it may read, from the moment he left to take up his new post until he returned to headquarters, in disgrace, a few months later, he wrote no word of the straight, slim girl, with her wonderful eyes. Other communications came to hand, official reports, terse and to the point, but no mention of M'Lino, and Sanders began to worry.