"Which way do you go, Muchini?" asked Bosambo. Now, between Muchini and the Chief of the Ochori was a grievance dating back to the big war, when Bosambo had slain the N'gombi chief of the time with his own hands. "I go to the river to call a palaver of all free men," said Muchini; "for I tell you this, Bosambo, that I have found a great magic which will make us greater than Sandi, and it has been prophesied that I shall be a king over a thousand times a thousand spears. For I have a small box which brings even M'shimba to my call." Bosambo, a head and shoulders taller than the other, waved his hand towards the forest path which leads eventually to the Ochori city. "Here is a fine moment for you, Muchini," he said, "and you shall try your great magic on me and upon my young men. For I say that you do not go by this way, neither you nor your warriors, since I am the servant of Sandi and of his King, and he has sent me here to keep his peace; go back to your village, for this is the way to Death." Muchini glared at his enemy. "Yet this way I go, Bosambo," he said huskily, and looked over his shoulder towards his followers. Bosambo swung round on one heel, an arm and a leg outstretched in the attitude of an athlete who is putting the shot. Muchini threw up his wicker shield and pulled back his stabbing-spear, but he was a dead man before the weapon was poised. Thus ended the war, and the N'gombi folk went home, never so much as striking a blow for the yellow box which Bosambo claimed for himself as his own personal loot. At the time, Mr. Commissioner Sanders, C.M.G., was blissfully ignorant of the miraculous happenings which have been recorded. He was wholly preoccupied by the novelty which the presence of Patricia Hamilton offered. Never before had a white woman made her home at the Residency, and it changed things a little. She was at times an embarrassment. When Fubini, the witch-doctor of the Akasava, despatched five maidens to change Sandi's wicked heart--Sanders had sent Fubini to the Village of Irons for six months for preaching unauthorized magic--they came, in the language of Bones, "doocedly undressed," and Patricia had beaten a hurried retreat. She was sometimes an anxiety, as I have already shown, but was never a nuisance. She brought to headquarters an aroma of English spring, a clean fragrance that refreshed the heat-jaded Commissioner and her brother, but which had no perceptible influence upon Bones. That young officer called for her one hot morning, and Hamilton, sprawling on a big cane chair drawn to the shadiest and breeziest end of the verandah, observed that Bones carried a wooden box, a drawing-board, a pad of paper, two pencils imperfectly concealed behind his large ear, and a water-bottle. "Shop!" said Hamilton lazily. "Forward, Mr. Bones--what can we do for you this morning?" Bones shaded his eyes and peered into the cool corner.