disloyally, “but he eats too much and drinks too much–especially drinks too much! When you hear him talking like a Dundee mill-hand, you’ll know you have only to ask, to have. He’s been crossed in love too,” he added bitterly. “Would you mind keeping off the subject of women, and especially Scottish women, tonight?”

Bones promised.

He came early and found Sir Macalister in the jocose or cocktail stage of affability. He even dared admit his purchase of a saxophone. The Administrator sneered at saxophones. Towards the end of dinner he confessed his own musical weakness.

“Mon,” he said, “ye’re daft if ye wouldna raither hear the bonnie pipies than ony flibberjigibbet of a saxophone! Stewart, laddie, gie me ma pipes oot of ma trunkie!”

When Sir Macalister talked this way he was happy: the stern Administrator had become the human Scotsman.

For two hours Bones sat in awe on the edge of his chair, his big hands on his knees, his monocle fixed, glaring respectfully at a big man in evening dress, his lapel glittering with decorations, who strode springily up and down the long dining-room, a tartan-covered bag under his arm, four beribboned pipes erect…He played “Flowers of the Forest” and the “Lament of the Prince”…the pipes wailed eerily, dirgily but beautifully. And with his own administrative hands he put the bag beneath his guest’s arm and taught him the strange, mad way of the bagpipes. Bones trod on air…

“Ye’re doin’ fine! I’ll gie ye an auld set I brocht oot for Stewart, but the laddie has nae gift for the pipes.”

And, near midnight:

“Sit ye doon, Mr. Tibbetts. Ye’ll be takin’ the wee boat back to the Territories the morn? Aye–ye’re young! Laddie, when I waur yere age I mind a wee bit lassie…Maggie Broon, by name. She waur a crofter’s daughter, Tibbetts, she was no ma ain class, ye’ll understaund…”

Stewart Clay saw the visitor on his way to his hotel.

“He’s not a bad old stick, but I wish Maggie Brown had died before he saw her. I get her two nights a week neat and undiluted!”

“Dear old Stewart,” said Bones urgently, “which pipe is it that you hang round your neck–is it the one that makes the ee-ing noise or the jolly old oo-er?”

Bones returned to his own headquarters a transfigured young man, and the engineer of the little Bassam was glad to see the back of him.

“I thought something had got into the guides, Mac,” he said to the captain, “and there was me sluicin’ oil into the dam’ engine to stop the squeak, an’ it was that herrin’-gutted officer-boy playin’ on his so-and-so doodah all the something time!”

Sanders really did not mind–the presence of an Administrator in his area worried rather than awed him. He went down to the little concrete quay to say farewell to his Excellency, and since he had thoughtfully added certain comforts to the furnishings of the Zaire and reinforced the poverty-stricken cellar of the big white boat. Sir Macalister was almost friendly.

“Sorry to have given you so much trouble, Mr. Sanders,” he said affably, “but I’m going to make this an annual visit…previous administrators have been a bit too slack.”

“I should be very careful of the old king, sir, if I were you.” said Sanders. “Personally, I should not have held the palaver–the mere fact that he asked for it so soon after the last little talk I had with his chief, looks very suspicious to me. You quite understand that this palaver was called by the king and not by me? He anticipated your message by twenty-four hours.”

“So much the better, Mr. Sanders!” beamed his Excellency. “I shall find him in a conciliatory mood!”

The wheel of the Zaire began threshing astern. Bones, in spotless white, stood on the forward deck and saluted stiffly and magnificently, and the Zaire, backing slowly to midstream, turned her nose–to the black waters and, her stem wheel whirling excitedly, she passed the bend of the river out of sight.

“I hope he drowns!” said Hamilton malignantly, as they walked back to the Residency. “And even drowning is too good for the man who introduced Bones to bagpipes!”

But for once in his life Bones was content to leave the navigation of the boat in the capable hands of Yoka, who was chief engineer and shoal-smeller.

“I’m here if I’m wanted, sir an’ Excellency,” he explained gravely. “The mere fact that I’m standin’ on this jolly old deck sort of gives the fellows confidence.”

Sir Macalister, his sun helmet on the back of his head, paced up and down the awning-covered forebridge.

“You must tell me any places of interest we may pass, Mr. Tibbetts,” were his only instructions, and Bones was talking for the rest of the day.

“…that jolly old island there, dear sir, was where I fell out of a boat and was nearly swallowed by a naughty old crocodile…if you stand over here, dear old sir, you can see…no, you can’t!…yes, you can! There it is…that village in the trees…I was bitten by a shocking old mosquito and my jolly old arm swole–swoled–swelled up as big as your jolly old head…simply fearful!…You see that sandbank, sir, in the middle of the stream, sir? I was once stranded there for a whole day, sir…it was simply ghastly…nothing to see but water…That village there, sir, is called…I’m dashed if I know what it’s called.” The listening Yoka supplied the name sotto voce. “Umbala…that’s it–Umbala…rather like umbrella, what? haw, haw! That’s not bad, dear old sir…”

“Well, what happened in the village?”

“I was bitten by a dog there, sir…a jolly old cooking dog…simply terrible…I had to stay in bed all day, sir…That creek is called…” (Yoka obliged again.) “Libisini, that’s it! It leads to a jolly old lake, sir, quite an extraordinary jolly old lake–all water and things…I once fell into that jolly old lake…I got quite wet…”

At the Ochori city Bosambo awaited his guests, and when he discovered that Sanders had not come his face fell.

“Lord, this is a bad palaver,” he said, and for Bosambo he was serious. “For my spies have brought word that two of the old king’s regiments are sitting on the far side of the mountain. And because of this I have gathered all my spears and have sent throughout the land for my young fighting men.”

Bones pulled at his long nose and pouted–sure evidence of his perturbation.

“Oh, ko! You tell me bad news,” he said dismally, “for this man is a King’s man and a very high One.”

Bosambo surveyed the unconscious Macalister, busy at that moment, through his interpreter, in speaking to the headmen gathered to meet him.

“To me he looks like a fat cow,” he said, without offence, “and this is a wonder to me, that all your high Ones are fat and old.”

Bones was pardonably annoyed.

“You’re a silly old josser,” he said.

“Same like you, sah, and many times,” returned Bosambo handsomely.

All that evening Bones spent in a vain endeavour to dissuade the great man from making the journey. They had with them an escort of twenty Houssas, and the road to the mountains led through dense thicket in which riflemen would be practically useless.

“Mr. Tibbetts,” said his Excellency tremendously, “a British official never shirks his duty. That sacred word should be written in gold and placed above his head, so that sleeping or waking he can see it!”

“Personally, dear old sir,” murmured Bones, “I never sleep with my jolly old eyes open. The point is, dear old Excellency–“

“Mr. Tibbetts, you are growing familiar,” said Macalister.

Bones reasoned with the great man’s A.D.C., and Lieutenant Stewart Clay gave him little comfort. “He has no imagination,” he said, “except about Scottish women named Brown.