"Gentlemen," the old man went on, tapping the breast of his victim with the handle of his scalpel, "I shall make an incision----" Sanders came from his place of concealment, and walked steadily towards the extemporised operating-table. "Professor," he said gently, and the madman looked at him with a puzzled frown. "You are interrupting the clinic," he said testily; "I am demonstrating----" "I know, sir." Sanders took his arm, and Sir George Carsley, a great scientist, consulting surgeon to St. Mark's Hospital, London, and the author of many books on tropical diseases, went with him like a child. * * * * * CHAPTER XII. THE LONELY ONE. Mr. Commissioner Sanders had lived so long with native people that he had absorbed not a little of their simplicity. More than this, he had acquired the uncanny power of knowing things which he would not and could not have known unless he were gifted with the prescience which is every aboriginal's birthright. He had sent three spies into the Isisi country--which lies a long way from headquarters and is difficult of access--and after two months of waiting they came to him in a body, bearing good news. This irritated Sanders to an unjustifiable degree. "Master, I say to you that the Isisi are quiet," protested one of the spies; "and there is no talk of war." "H'm!" said Sanders, ungraciously. "And you?" He addressed the second spy. "Lord," said the man, "I went into the forest, to the border of the land, and there is no talk of war. Chiefs and headmen told me this." "Truly you are a great spy," scoffed Sanders; "and how came you to the chiefs and headmen? And how did they greet you? 'Hail! secret spy of Sandi'? Huh!" He dismissed the men with a wave of his hand, and putting on his helmet went down to the Houssa lines, where the blue-coated soldiers gambled in the shade of their neat white barracks. The Houssa captain was making palatable medicine with the aid of a book of cigarette papers and a six-ounce bottle of quinine sulphide. Sanders observed his shaking hand, and talked irritably. "There's trouble in the Isisi," he said, "I can smell it. I don't know what it is--but there's devilry of sorts." "Secret societies?" suggested the Houssa. "Secret grandmothers," snarled Sanders. "How many men have you got?" "Sixty, including the lame 'uns," said the Houssa officer, and swallowed a paperful of quinine with a grimace. Sanders tapped the toe of his boot with his thin ebony stick, and was thoughtful. "I may want 'em," he said. "I'm going to find out what's wrong with these Isisi people." * * * * *