"No, sir," said Bones. "But I wanted a little extra steam to get up to the ship, so I burnt the dashed thing. I knew it would come in handy sooner or later." CHAPTER V THE REMEDY Beyond the far hills, which no man of the Ochori passed, was a range of blue mountains, and behind this again was the L'Mandi country. This adventurous hunting men of the Ochori had seen, standing in a safe place on the edge of the Great King's country. Also N'gombi people, who are notoriously disrespectful of all ghosts save their own, had, upon a time, penetrated the northern forest to a high knoll which Nature had shaped to the resemblance of a hayrick. A huntsman climbing this after his lawful quarry might gain a nearer view of the blue mountains, all streaked with silver at certain periods of the year, when a hundred streams came leaping with feathery feet from crag to crag to strengthen the forces of the upper river, or, as some said, to create through underground channels the big lakes M'soobo and T'sambi at the back of the N'gombi country. And on summer nights, when the big yellow moon came up and showed all things in her own chaste way, you might see from the knoll of the hayrick these silver ribbons all a-glitter, though the bulk of the mountain was lost to sight. The river folk saw little of the L'Mandi, because L'Mandi territory lies behind the country of the Great King, who looked with a jealous eye upon comings and goings in his land, and severely restricted the movement and the communications of his own people. The Great King followed his uncle in the government of the pleasant O'Mongo lands, and he had certain advantages and privileges, the significance of which he very imperfectly interpreted. His uncle had died suddenly at the hands of Mr. Commissioner Sanders, C.M.G., and the land itself might have passed to the protection of the Crown, for there was gold in the country in large and payable quantities. That such a movement was arrested was due largely to the L'Mandi and the influence they were able to exercise upon the European Powers by virtue of their military qualities. Downing Street was all for a permanent occupation of the chief city and the institution of a conventional _regime_; but the L'Mandi snarled, clicked their heels, and made jingling noises with their great swords, and there was at that moment a Government in office in England which was rather impressed by heel-clicking and sword-jingling, and so the territory of the Great King was left intact, and was marked on all maps as Omongoland, and coloured red, as being within the sphere of British influence. On the other hand, the L'Mandi people had it tinted yellow, and described it as an integral portion of the German Colonial Empire.