"Then dem Kate she love you much when she find dem factory once more do trade."
"I'm afraid, King, it would take a lot more than that to make Kate feel attached to me. You see, I'm no longer in O'Neill and Craven's service. I chucked it when she sold Mokki, and I've been on my own ever since."
The King's eyes gave the ghost of a twinkle. "Den I no fit for open dem roads. So I make you dash another way. I send you for Coast in big canoe of sixty paddles."
"With White-Man's-Trouble?"
"Wid your boy, an' your cargo. I send you in three days' time six more canoes of sixty paddles, full of dem stone you wish. I dash you dem hill of stone where you set up dem dam ju-ju boo-paa-bumm. I tell dem men who lib for ribber banks that you be free for come an' go on all my country while I lib for King; an' if any man he hurt you, I take dem man an' I nail him by hands an' feet to a tree!"
Carter looked up. "Do you mean that?"
The King took snuff. "When I say to a man you lib for die, he die. When I say 'I let you lib,' then he lib. When I say to a man, 'I make you dash,' he get dem dash, even though I have to send my war-boys to take it from somebody other to give it him. O Carter, I lib for be real King."
"You mean you've given me a fortune in return for the small thing I did for you?"
"My life," said the King dryly, "he seem small thing to you. But to me"—he patted his rotundity—"to me dem life be plenty big."
Three days Carter abode in the village, and kept to the inside of his hut to avoid the sights of the place, which to a European eye are unpleasant when an African King is visiting his displeasure upon unruly subjects. He was ministered unto by White-Man's-Trouble, who paid him much unaccustomed deference, and forebore to steal the smallest thing. And at nights he sat with the King, who had an educated palate in champagne, and drank vintage wine at the rate of one case in four days.