"O S'kobi," he said, "I came swiftly to make a secret palaver with you, and my time is short." "Lord, I am your man," said S'kobi, and signalled his councillors and elder men to a distance. Sanders was in some difficulty to find a beginning. "You know, S'kobi, that I love your people as my children," he said, "for they are good folk who are faithful to government and do ill to none." "Wa!" said S'kobi. "Also you know that spearmen and warriors I do not love, for spears are war and warriors are great lovers of fighting." "Lord, you speak the truth," said the other, nodding, "therefore in this land I will have made a law that there shall be no spears, save those which sleep in the shadow of my hut. Now well I know why you have come to make this palaver, for you have heard with your beautiful long ears that I have sent away my fighting regiments." Sanders nodded. "You speak truly, my friend," he said, and S'kobi beamed. "Six times a thousand spears I had--and, lord, spears grow no corn. Rather are they terrible eaters. And now I have sent them to their villages, and at the next moon they should have burnt their fine war-knives, but for a certain happening. We folk of Morjaba have no enemies, and we do good to all. Moreover, lord, as you know, we have amongst us many folk of the Isisi, of the Akasava and the N'gombi, also men from the Great King's land beyond the High Rocks, and the little folk from The-Land-beyond-the-Swamp. Therefore, who shall attack us since we have kinsmen of all amongst us?" Sanders regarded the jovial king with a sad little smile. "Have I done well by all men?" he asked quietly. "Have I not governed the land so that punishment comes swiftly to those who break the law? Yet, S'kobi, do not the Akasava and the Isisi, the N'gombi and the Lower River folk take their spears against me? Now I tell you this which I have discovered. In all beasts great and little there are mothers who have young ones and fathers who fight that none shall harass the mother." "Lord, this is the way of life," said S'kobi. "It is the way of the Bigger Life," said Sanders, "and greatly the way of man-life. For the women bring children to the land and the men sit with their spears ready to fight all who would injure their women. And so long as life lasts, S'kobi, the women will bear and the men will guard; it is the way of Nature, and you shall not take from men the desire for slaughter until you have dried from the hearts of women the yearning for children." "Lord," said S'kobi, a fat man and easily puzzled, "what shall be the answer to this strange riddle you set me?"