"You may go," he said; and the woman, a little puzzled, walked along the plank that connected the boat with the shore, and disappeared into the bush. Three weeks later his spies brought word that men were dying unaccountably on the Upper River. None knew why they died, for a man would sit down strong and full of cheer to his evening meal, and lo! in the morning, when his people went to wake him, he would be beyond waking, being most unpleasantly dead. This happened in many villages on the Little River. "It's getting monotonous," said Sanders to the captain of the Houssas. "There is some wholesale poisoning going on, and I am going up to find the gentleman who dispenses the dope." It so happened that the first case claiming investigation was at Isisi City. It was a woman who had died, and this time Sanders suspected the husband, a notorious evil-doer. "Okali," he said, coming to the point, "why did you poison your wife?" "Lord," said the man, "she died of the sickness. In the evening she was well, but at the dark hour before sun came she turned in her sleep saying 'Ah! oh!' and straightway she died." Sanders drew a long breath. "Get a rope," he said to one of his men, and when the rope arrived Abiboo scrambled up to the lower branch of a copal-gum and scientifically lashed a block and tackle. "Okali," said Sanders, "I am going to hang you for the murder of your wife, for I am a busy man and have no time to make inquiries; and if you are not guilty of her murder, yet there are many other abominable deeds you have been guilty of, therefore I am justified in hanging you." The man was grey with terror when they slipped the noose over his neck and strapped his hands behind him. "Lord, she was a bad wife to me and had many lovers," he stammered. "I did not mean to kill her, but the Devil Man said that such medicine would make her forget her lovers----" "Devil Man! What Devil Man?" asked Sanders quickly. "Lord, there is a devil greatly respected in these parts, who wanders in the forest all the time and gives many curious medicines." "Where is he to be found?" "Lord, none know. He comes and goes, like a grey ghost, and he has a fetish more powerful than a thousand ordinary devils. Master, I gave the woman, my wife, that which he gave to me, and she died. How might I know that she would die?" "_Cheg'li_," said Sanders shortly to the men at the rope-end, and _cheg'li_ in the dialect of the River means "pull." * * * * * "Stop!" Sanders was in a changeable mood, and a little irritable by reason of the fact that he knew himself to be fickle. "How came this drug to you? In powder, in liquid, or----" The man's lips were dry. He could do no more than shake his head helplessly. "Release him," said Sanders; and Abiboo loosened the noose and unstrapped the man's hands. "If you have lied to me," said Sanders, "you die at sunset. First let me hear more of this Devil Man, for I am anxious to make his acquaintance."