"That you shall do when you have carried out all our master's works," said Wafa, and added with confidence: "Have no fear, for soon you shall see great wonders." They heard the deep boom of the _Zaire's_ siren signalling a solitary and venturesome fisherman to quit the narrow fair-way, and presently she came round the bend of the river, a dazzling white craft, showering sparks from her two slender smoke-stacks and leaving behind her twin cornucopias of grey smoke. Wafa stepped into a canoe, and, seeing that the others were preparing to follow him, he struck out swiftly, man[oe]uvring his ironwood boat to the very waters from whence a scared fisherman was frantically paddling. "Go not there, foreigner," wailed the Isisi Stabber-of-Waters, "for it is our lord Sandi, and his puc-a-puc has bellowed terribly." "Die you!" roared Wafa. "On the river bottom your body, son of a fish and father of snakes!" "O foreign frog!" came the shrill retort. "O poor man with two men's wives! O goatless----" Wafa was too intent upon his business to heed the rest. He struck the water strongly with his broad paddles, and reached the centre of the channel. Bones of the Houssas put up his hand and jerked the rope of the siren. _Whoo-o-o--woo-o-op!_ "Bless his silly old head," said Bones fretfully, "the dashed fellow will be run down!" The girl was dusting Bones's cabin, and looked round. "What is it?" she asked. Bones made no reply. He gripped the telegraph handle and rung the engines astern as Yoka, the steersman, spun the wheel. Bump! Bump! Bumpity bump! The steamer slowed and stopped, and the girl came out to the bridge in alarm. The _Zaire_ had struck a sandbank, and was stranded high, if not dry. "Bring that man on board," said the wrathful Bones. And they hauled to his presence Wafa, who was neither Arab nor N'gombi, but combined the vices of both. "O man," said Bones, glaring at the offender through his eyeglass, "what evil ju-ju sent you to stop my fine ship?" He spoke in the Isisi dialect, and was surprised to be answered in coast Arabic. "Lord," said the man, unmoved by the wrath of his overlord, "I come to make a great palaver concerning spirits and devils. Lord, I have found a great magic." Bones grinned, for he had that sense of humour which rises superior to all other emotions. "Then you shall try your magic, my man, and lift this ship to deep water." Wafa was not at all embarrassed. "Lord, this is a greater magic, for it concerns men, and brings to life the dead. For, lord, in this forest is a wonderful tree. Behold!" He took from his loose-rolled waistband a piece of wood. Bones took it in his hand. It was the size of a corn cob, and had been newly cut, so that the wood was moist with sap. Bones smelt it. There was a faint odour of resin and camphor. Patricia Hamilton smiled. It was so like Bones to be led astray by side issues.