“How does feeling run in these parts? Sapazani, you know, doesn’t carry a particularly good reputation.”
“Depends on how it’s handled. By the way, if I were you I wouldn’t name names,” for the boy had just come into the room to change the plates, and the swift look of interest that had flashed across his face as he caught the name of his chief was not lost on the experienced up-country man. “This boy here belongs to his tribe, and he’ll connect his chief’s name with the police uniform. See?”
Meyrick felt small, and said so.
“Did he hear? What an idiot I am. Well, Mr Halse, you were chaffing me about the Sub-Inspectorship, but it’s obvious I’m not ripe for it yet.”
Ben Halse passed it off with a tactful and consolatory remark, and they talked about other things. Not until afterwards did it occur to Meyrick that his host had given him no information whatever on the subject of the loyalty of Sapazani.
“He’s got some cheek, that same party whom we won’t name,” said Francis. “He flatly refused to salute his magistrate with the ‘Bayéte’ when he went to see him—hailed him as ‘Inkose’ instead; said the ‘Bayéte’ was the salute for kings.”
“He’s about right,” said Ben Halse. “There’s a precious deal too much of that ‘Bayéte’ joke going along. Every waggon-builder’s apprentice seems to expect it. What did Downes say? I’d like to have been there.”
“He nearly died of rage. Then he asked Sapazani, rather sneeringly, which king he would give the ‘Bayéte’ to, and the answer was, ‘Any king,’ which was rather smart. Downes talked of arresting him for treating his court with insolence, but there were only three of our chaps in the place, and Sapazani had a following with him big enough to have captured the whole show, even with kerries, so he chucked that plan.”
“Well, he was wise there,” said Ben Halse. “There’s no law in existence here or anywhere else I know of, that compels a native to address his magistrate as ‘Your Majesty,’ which is what giving him the salute royal amounts to. And this particular chief—to name no names—is quite knowing enough to get hold of a lawyer to stick up for him. There’s more than one that would be glad to, and could do it too.”
The fact was that the speaker knew all about this incident as well as did the narrator—and a good deal more connected with it which the latter didn’t, but this he kept to himself.