“Well, you see, a drug, even of a poisonous nature, may have other uses than to cause death. It may be administered in sufficiently small proportions to cause a sort of waking stupefaction, a semi-consciousness in which the will power lies torpid, and the recipient may be made to do or say anything which others may choose to make him do or say. Now Zavula is an important chief—a very important chief—and respected as a singularly able and level-headed one, consequently his ‘word’ once uttered would carry more weight than that of upstarts like Babatyana and half a dozen others put together. See?”
“Yes. In other words he’d be of more use to them alive than dead?”
“That’s it. But—by the way, Elvesdon, it’s a pity I didn’t have that bowl a bit sooner. You know traces of some poisons are easier located if investigated early.”
“Yes, but we were both of us so infernally busy. And perhaps neither of us took the thing sufficiently seriously.”
The two were seated in Elvesdon’s inner office, and were, so to say, holding an inquest on the District Surgeon’s investigation of old Zavula’s drinking bowl. The doctor was a sturdy, thick-set man, of anything from fifty onwards but probably much more; grizzled and red-faced; very downright in manner, but genial and well-liked. He and the new magistrate had taken to each other at once.
“Think there’ll be trouble Elvesdon—over the new tax for instance?” said the doctor.
“The Lord only knows, and He won’t tell. I’m doing all I can, but this business of Zavula’s looks more than a bit ugly. I don’t mind telling you. Babatyana’s an infernal scoundrel, and he’s practically chief of the Amahluzi. Poor old Zavula is for all practical purposes only a sleeping partner, I’m afraid.”
“M-m,” said the other.
“Well I think, as you can’t certify that this stuff was enough to constitute an attempt on old Zavula’s life, there’s nothing to be gained by stirring up any mud over the job. He’s cute enough, and obviously able to take care of himself. The jolly old boy sent me quite an affectionate message only the day before yesterday—no—it was the day before that.”
The grisly side to this statement lay in the fact that on the day named the said ‘jolly old boy’ was lying in his unknown grave in the rock cleft—had been for some time—and the whole of the Amahluzi tribe was in a simmering state of incipient rebellion.