Ko-boru was all for a long and impressive palaver, but recognized a certain absence of encouragement in the Commissioner's tone. Therefore he came straight to the point. "Now, you are our father and our mother, Sandi," he said, in conclusion, "and when you speak, all wonders happen. Also you have very beautiful friends, Militini, who speak a word and set his terrible soldiers moving like leopards towards a kill, and Tibbetti, the young one who is innocent and simple. So I say to you, Sandi, that if you speak one word to Yoka, he will come back to my daughter, his wife." Sanders stood by the rail of the stoep and looked down upon the spokesman. "I hear strange things, Ko-boru," he said quietly. "They tell me stories of a woman with many lovers and an evil tongue; and once there came to me Yoka with a wounded head, for this daughter of yours is very quick in her anger." "Lord," said the flustered Ko-boru, "such things happen even in love." "All things happen in love," said Sanders, with a little smile, "and, if it is to be, Yoka will return. Also, if it is to be, he will not go back to the woman, and she will be free. This palaver is finished." "Lord," pleaded Ko-boru, "the woman will do no more angry things. Let him come back from sunrise to moonset----" "This palaver is finished," repeated Sanders. On their way back to Bingini the relatives of Ko-boru made a plot. It was the first plot that had been hatched in the shadow of headquarters for twenty years. "Would it be indiscreet to ask what your visitors wanted?" asked the girl, as the crestfallen deputation was crossing the square to their canoe. "It was a marriage palaver," replied Sanders, with a little grimace, "and I was being requested to restore a husband to a temperamental lady who has a passion for shying cook-pots at her husband when she is annoyed." The girl's laughing eyes were fixed upon his. "Poor Mr. Sanders!" she said, with mock seriousness. "Don't be sorry for me," smiled Sanders. "I'm rather domestic, really, and I'm interested in this case because the man concerned is my steersman--the best on the river, and a capital all-round man. Besides that," he went on seriously, "I regard them all as children of mine. It is right that a man who shirks his individual responsibilities to the race should find a family to 'father.'" "Why do you?" she asked, after a little pause. "Why do I what?" "Shirk your responsibilities," she said. "This is a healthy and a delightful spot: a woman might be very happy here." There was an awkward silence. "I'm afraid I've been awfully impertinent," said Patricia, hurriedly rising, "but to a woman there is a note of interrogation behind every bachelor--especially nice bachelors--and the more 'confirmed' he is, the bigger the question mark." Sanders rose to her. "One of these days I shall do something rash," he threatened, with that shy laugh of his. "Here is your little family coming."