The messenger returned and met the party on the road. What was his attitude towards the intruders it is impossible to say. He may have been insolent, secure in the feeling that he was representing his master's attitude towards white men; he may have offered fight in the illusion that the six warriors he took with him were sufficient to enforce the king's law. It is certain that he never returned. Instead there came to the king's kraal a small but formidable party under a white man, and they arrived at a propitious moment, for the ground before the king's great hut was covered with square bottles, and the space in front of the palace was crowded with wretched men chained neck to neck and waiting to march to the coast and slavery. The white man pushed back his helmet. "Goodness gracious Heavens!" he exclaimed, "how perfectly horrid! Bosambo, this is immensely illegal an' terrificly disgustin'." The Chief of the Ochori looked round. "Dis feller be dam' bad," was his effort. Bones walked leisurely to the shady canopy under which the king sat, and King Karata stared stupidly at the unexpected vision. "O King," said Bones in the Akasavian vernacular which runs from Dacca to the Congo, "this is an evil thing that you do--against all law." Open-mouthed Karata continued to stare. To the crowded kraal, on prisoner and warrior, councillor and dancing woman alike, came a silence deep and unbroken. They heard the words spoken in a familiar tongue, and marvelled that a white man should speak it. Bones was carrying a stick and taking deliberate aim, and after two trial strokes he brought the nobbly end round with a "swish!" A bottle of square-face smashed into a thousand pieces, and there arose on the hot air the sickly scent of crude spirits. Fascinated, silent, motionless, King Karata, named not without reason "The Terrible," watched the destruction as bottle followed bottle. Then as a dim realization of the infamy filtered through his thick brain, he rose with a growl like a savage animal, and Bones turned quickly. But Bosambo was quicker. One stride brought him to the king's side. "Down, dog!" he said. "O Karata, you are very near the painted hut where dead kings lie." The king sank back and glared to and fro. All that was animal in him told of his danger; he smelt death in the mirthless grin of the white man; he smelt it as strongly under the hand of the tall native wearing the monkey-tails of chieftainship. If they would only stand away from him they would die quickly enough. Let them get out of reach, and a shout, an order, would send them bloodily to the ground with little kicks and twitches as the life ran out of them. But they stood too close, and that order of his meant his death. "O white man," he began. "Listen, black man," said Bosambo, and lapsed into his English; "hark um, you dam' black nigger--what for you speak um so?"