"Woman, where do you go?" said Imgani. "Master, I go to the village which is by the river, this being the path," she flurried. "What have you there?" "Manioc, for bread," she whispered thickly. "You are a root-eater," said Imgani, nodding his head. "Master, let me go," she said, staring at him. Imgani jerked his head. "I see you are afraid of me--yet I want nothing from you," he said. "I am Imgani, which means the Lonely One; and I have no desire for wives or women, being too high a man for such folly. You are safe, root-eater, for if I wished I would fill this forest with the daughters of chiefs, all very beautiful, all moaning for me." The girl's fear had disappeared, and she looked at him curiously. Moreover, she recognised that there was truth in his claim of austerity. Possibly she was a little piqued, for she said tartly enough, employing an Isisi proverb: "Only the goat bleats at the mouth of the leopard's cave--the Isisi grow fat on strangers." He looked at her, his head cocked on one side. "They say in the lower country that the Isisi sell men to the Arabi," he said musingly. "That is bad talk; you may go." With another jerk of his head he dismissed her. She had gone some little distance when he called her back. "Root-eater," he said, "if men ask you who I be, you shall say that I am Imgani the Lonely One, who is a prince amongst the princes; also that I have killed many men in my day--so many that I cannot count them. Also say that from my house, which I have built by the river, to as far as a man can see in every way, is my kingdom, and let none stray therein, except to bring gifts in their hands, for I am very terrible and very jealous." "Lord," said the girl, "I will say all this." And she went, half running, in the direction of the village, leaving Imgani to continue on his way. Now this village had many young men eager to please the girl, who carried manioc, for she was a chief's daughter, and she was, moreover, fourteen, a marriageable age. So when she came flying along the village street, half hysterical in her fear, crying, babbling, incoherent, there was not wanting sympathy nor knight valiant to wipe out the insult. Six young men, with spears and short swords, danced before the chief and the chief's daughter (how important she felt, any woman of any race will tell you), and one of them, E'kebi, a man gifted with language, described from sunset to moonrise, which is roughly four hours, exactly what would happen to Imgani when the men of the Isisi fell upon him; how his eyes would shrivel as before a great and terrible fire, and his limbs wither up, and divers other physiological changes which need not be particularised.