"Go with God," said Bosambo piously, as he stepped into his own canoe, and released his hold of the other with its slumbering freight, "for if your king is so great, he will bring you to your own lands; and if he is not great, then you are liars. O Abiboo"--he spoke over his shoulder to the sergeant of Houssas--"tell me, how many of the magic white stones of Bonesi did you put in their drink?" "Bosambo, I put four in each, as you told me, and if my lord Tibbetti misses them, what shall I say?" "You shall say," said Bosambo, "that this is Sandi's own word--that when men plan evils they must first sleep. And I think these men will sleep for a long time. Perhaps they will sleep for ever--all things are with God." CHAPTER VI THE MEDICINE MAN At the flood season, before the turbulent tributaries of the Isisi River had been induced to return to their accustomed channels, Sanders came back to headquarters a very weary man, for he had spent a horrid week in an endeavour--successful, but none the less nerve-racking--to impress an indolent people that the swamping of their villages was less a matter of Providence and ghosts than the neglect of elementary precaution. "For I told you, Ranabini," said an exasperated Sanders, "that you should keep the upper channel free from trees and branches, and I have paid you many bags of salt for your services." "Lord, it is so," said Ranabini, scratching his brown leg thoughtfully. "At the full of the moon, before the rains, did I not ask you if the channel was clear, and did you not say it was like the street of your village?" demanded Sanders, in wrath. "Lord," said Ranabini frankly, "I lied to you, thinking your lordship was mad. For what other man would foresee with his wonderful eye that rains would come? Therefore, lord, I did not think of the upper channel, and many trees floated down and made a little dam. Lord, I am an ignorant man, and my mind is full of my own brother, who has come from a long distance to see me, for he is a very sick man." Sanders's mind was occupied by no thought of Ranabini's sick brother, as the dazzling white _Zaire_ went thrashing her way down stream. For he himself was a tired man, and needed rest, and there was a dose of malaria looming in the offing, as his aching head told him. It was as though his brains were arranged in slats, like a venetian blind, and these slats were opening and closing swiftly, bringing with each lightning flicker a momentary unconsciousness. Captain Hamilton met him on the quay, and when Sanders landed--walking a thought unsteadily, and instantly began a long and disjointed account of his adventures on a Norwegian salmon river--Hamilton took him by the arm and led the way to the bungalow.