Moreover, a collector of taxes had been beaten to death, and another, Bosambo suspected, had been drowned. Bosambo, wearing his cloak of monkey tails and in his hand his three short killing spears, listened hour after hour as speaker after speaker arose and addressed him. Then at last spoke M’febi, a chief and suspected witch-doctor. All the day he had been waiting for this man, the most powerful of his subjects and the most antagonistic.

“Lord Bosambo, you have heard,” said M’febi, in a deathly silence, “from one end of the land to the other there is sickness, and none who lie down at night know what the sun will show. Now I know, being a wise man and acquainted with mysteries, that there is a reason, and this I tell you. The Fearful Word has been spoken, and the Swamp Ghost is abroad.”

A murmur of horror ran through the assembly. Men rubbed their hands in the dust and smeared their arms hurriedly.

“Because of this,” M’febi went on, gratified by the sensation he had caused, “our crops are rotting and our goats lie down and die, making noises in their throats. Now you, Bosambo, who are so clever and are loved by Sandi, you shall show us a magic that will make the corn rise up and the goats become lively.”

Bosambo raised his hand to check further eloquence.

“M’febi,” he said, “am I a magician? Can I make the dead live? Say this.”

M’febi hesitated, sensing danger. “Lord, you are not,” he admitted.

“It was good you said that,” said Bosambo ominously, “for if I were such a magician I should have speared you where you stand, knowing that I could bring you to life again. As for the Fearful Word, that is your story. And, I tell you, M’febi, that I have a quick way with men and chiefs who bring me ghosts when I ask for rubber. They also make noises in their throats and sleep on their faces. I will have tribute, for that is my due and the due of Sandi and his king. As for these northern men who conspire against me, I will take fire and spears to them, and they shall give blood for tribute. The palaver is finished.”

That day he summoned his fighting regiments, young men who sneered at spirits and laughed in the face of M’shimba M’shamba Himself, and they came to the call of his lokali, in tens and tens from every village within sound of his drum, and made spear play on the plain beyond the city.

Bones arrived to find the capital an armed camp, and Bosambo, meeting him on the beach, thought it prudent to say nothing of the unrest in his land. It was when Bones put forward the suggestion that the chief should accompany him to the northern territory that his face fell, and he found some difficulty in explaining his unwillingness.

“Lord Tibbetti, I would go to the end of the world for Sandi, but for you I would go up into hell. But now is a bad time, for I have many palavers to hold, and it is the month of taxing. Therefore, Tibbetti, go alone, and I will come after you before the full moon.”

A plan which suited the amateur detective, who wanted the full credit for the discoveries he was confident of making.

“This Busubu was mad,” said Bosambo at parting. “As to M’gula, I know nothing of him because he is a common man. I think if you would burn his feet a little he would tell you, Tibbetti, for the soles of old men are very tender.”

Bones knew a better way.

On the morning of the day that Bones arrived in the village, M’gula held a secret conference with the chiefs of the three revolting tribes, whose territories adjoined his own.

“My spies have brought me word that Tibbetti is coming with soldiers in his little ship to hear the manner of Busubu’s death. Now, Tibbetti is my friend, for he has shown me the way to power. And because he is my friend, I will send him to you to make a palaver.”

“But if he comes, he will bring his soldiers,” demurred one of the rebel chiefs, “and that would be a bad palaver. How do we know, M’gula, that you will not speak evilly of us to Tibbetti, who is the son of Sandi? For it is clear that you have now become a man too great for your village, and they say that you desire to rule the three northern tribes in the manner of Gubala.”

He named an ancient chief who had been dead 800 years, but to the native 800 years is yesterday, and yesterday is centuries past.

M’gula was nonplussed by the crude expression of his own secret thoughts and ambitions.

“After Tibbetti has gone, we will speak again,” he said. “You shall come to my fine house and we will have a feast.”

“Better you came to my fine house and had a feast,” said the spokesman of the northern tribes, significantly, “for I do not wish to have a pain in my belly, and lie in the middle island, M’gula.”

It seemed that the death of M’gula’s nephews had not passed unnoticed. However, he appeased his guests, sent them back to their territories satisfied with his bona fides, and prepared for the coming of Bones.

Lieutenant Tibbetts had not arrived in the village more than half an hour before; with a large pipe in his mouth and a ferocious frown on his face, he began his investigations. Willing but untruthful men and women showed him the exact spot on the beach where Busubu had been standing when the crocodile seized him. In corroboration they pointed to the identical silurian, basking at that moment on a low sandbank in the middle of the river, open-mouthed. Bones had a momentary impulse to shoot the crocodile and make a thorough investigation of his interior, but thought perhaps that too long a time had passed for such clues to be of any value. With the assistance of a tape-measure and a piece of pencil he made an exact plan of the village, showing the distance from Busubu’s house to the river. Then he interviewed Busubu’s late wives, sullen, stupid women, wholly absorbed in their domestic occupations.