The People of the River | Page 7

huts.
"Look," he said, and Bosambo took his place. "What do you see?"
asked Sanders.
"The city of the Lesser Isisi," said Bosambo.
"Look well," said Sanders, "but that is the city you have won by a
certain game."
Bosambo shifted uncomfortably.
"When I come to my new city--" he began.
"I also will come," said Sanders significantly. On the stool before the
huts the three little wooden cups still stood, and Sanders had seen them,
also the red ball. "To-morrow I shall appoint a new chief to the Lesser
Isisi. When the moon is at full I shall come to see the new chief," he
said, "and if he has lost his land by 'a certain game' I shall appoint two
more chiefs, one for the Isisi and one for the Ochori, and there will be
sorrow amongst the Ochori, for Bosambo of Monrovia will be gone
from them."
"Lord," said Bosambo, making one final effort for Empire, "you said
that if M'laka gave, Bosambo should keep."
Sanders picked up the red ball and slipped it under one cup. He
changed their positions slightly.
"If your game is a fair game," he said, "show me the cup with the ball."
"Lord, it is the centre one," said Bosambo without hesitation.
Sanders raised the cup.
There was no ball.

"I see," said Bosambo slowly, "I see that my lord Sandi is also a
Christian."
"It was a jest," explained Bosambo to his headmen when Sanders had
departed; "thus my lord Sandi always jested even when I nursed him as
a child. Menchimis, let the lokali sound and the people be brought
together for a greater palaver and I will tell them the story of Sandi,
who is my half-brother by another mother."
2. THE ELOQUENT WOMAN
THERE was a woman of the N'Gombi people who had a suave tongue.
When she spoke men listened eagerly, for she was of the kind peculiar
to no race, being born with stirring words.
She stirred the people of her own village to such effect that they went
one night and raided French territory, bringing great shame to her
father; for Sanders came hurriedly north, and there were some summary
whippings, and nearly a burying. Thereupon her father thought it wise
to marry this woman to a man who could check her tongue.
So he married her to a chief, who was of the N'Gombi folk, and this
chief liked her so much that he made her his principal wife, building a
hut for her next to his. About her neck he had fixed a ring of brass,
weighing some twenty-four pounds--a great distinction which his other
wives envied.
This principal wife was nearly fifteen years old--which is approaching
middle age on the River--and was, in consequence, very wise in the
ways of men. Too wise, some thought, and certainly her lord had cause
for complaint when, returning from a hunting expedition a day or two
before he could possibly return, he found his wife more happy than was
to his liking and none too lonely.
"M'fashimbi," he said, as she knelt before him with her arms folded
meekly on her bare, brown bosom, "in the days of my father I should
bend down a stripling tree and rope your neck to it, and when your head
was struck from your body I should burn you and he that made me

ashamed. But that is not the law of the white man, and I think you are
too worthless a woman for me to risk my neck upon."
"Lord, I am of little good," she said.
For a whole day she lay on the ground surrounded by the whole of the
village, to whom she talked whilst the workmen sawed away at the
brass collar. At the end of that time the collar was removed from her
neck, and the chief sent her back to the parent from whom he had most
expensively bought her. He sent her back in the face of great opposition,
for she had utilised her time profitably and the village was so moved by
her eloquence that it was ripe for rebellion.
For no woman is put away from her man, whether she wears the
feathers and silks of Paris or the camwood and oil of the N'Gombi,
without harbouring for that man a most vengeful and hateful feeling,
and no sooner had M'fashimbi paddled clear of her husband's village
than she set herself the task of avenging herself upon him.
There accompanied her into exile the man with whom, and for whom,
she had risked and lost so much. He was named Otapo, and he was a
dull one.
As they paddled, she, kneeling in the canoe behind him, said: "Otapo,
my husband has done me a great wrong and