Kate Meredith, Financier

by Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne

"Not a bit of it. I'm the man that's going to shoulder the difficulties."

"Oh, you didn't know it. But if you asked a favor for my father's daughter from the purser of the Secondee—she's the boat that's due—you would get an unkind answer. We're in debt all round, and I'm afraid he didn't behave very well to either the purser or the captain of the Secondee. Now, please do not press me any more. I stay here at Smooth River factory."

George Carter hit the table with his fist. "Then I stay, too. The da Silvas will put me up, and if they object, I'll turn them out into the bush and live in their house alone. Malla-Nulla must look after itself."

"What will Mr. K. say to that?"

"He will approve. K.'s a tough nut in business matters, but he's a man all through."

"Is he?" said the girl with a queer smile. "I don't agree with you."'

"One may not at the moment like the way he hustles one along in his letters," said Carter stoutly, "but he's a man all through, and if he was to get to know how things are fixed here, and to hear I'd stuck to my own job at Malla-Nulla and left you in the lurch at Smooth River, he'd fire me one-time, even if he had to get a steamer specially stopped to land his mail. No, K. O'Neill would have no use for brutes of that description in his employ. Now, if you'll be so very nice, my dear, as to pick up that swizzle-stick and make me a good grippy cocktail, when I've had that I'll go out and do what I can to discourage the Okky men if they see fit to pay a call."

Now, his Majesty the King of Okky once boasted to a West African official that he could put 20,000 spearmen into the field, but there is no doubt that this was an over-estimate. Moreover many of the Okky troops carried flintlock guns and matchets in place of the spear, and others again were bowmen, and still others wielded the Dahomey axe. But his Majesty was a parvenu king who had fought his way to the throne, and he saw to it that there was no inefficiency in his War Office. He made the conditions of service sufficiently pleasant to tempt in the fighting Moslemin from the Haûsa country, and these fine soldiers of fortune gave the needful stiffening to his own pagan levies.

Then, also, the King of Okky made full use of the great cult of Ju-ju. The average West African king is completely under the thumb of the ju-ju men, and if he is not actually their nominee and puppet, he knows that if he runs at all counter to their wishes and policy, he will die some frantic death devised by the cleverest poisoners on earth. But King Kallee the First was not only King of Okky but he was also Head Ju-ju man of that mysterious state, or as it is sometimes written, Head Witch-doctor. He could, when he chose, hale a subject from his dwelling and pin him to the Okky City crucifixion tree for no further reason than his kingly will. He could also cause a piece of fluttering rag, or a bunch of hen's feathers to be tied above a subject's lintel, and that subject and all his household would not dare to pass the charm; nor would anyone else dare to have communion with them; so that in the end they would die of hunger and thirst and become a pestilence to the community among whom they had lived; and no one thought of raising the breath of objection. The King had put ju-ju on one of his own subjects, and that was all.

Moreover the King, having set eyes on Laura Slade, wished to instal her in a wing of the great mud palace of Okky as his wife. So far, throughout life, when he had created a wish, fulfilment followed as a matter of course, be the means what they might. In his demands for Laura, Kallee was at times amazed at his own moderation. He had approached Slade (who to him was the girl's proprietor) just as one native gentleman might approach another, and inquired her price. Slade, who could not give a decisive answer even to such a preposterous matter as this, temporized after his usual custom. The King naturally saw in this a scheme to enhance the girl's price and displayed royal munificence. He would pay Slade a thousand puncheons of palm oil and a thousand bags of rubber, and two thousand bags of kernels; and when Slade waved this aside and spoke of his daughter's reluctance for matrimony, Kallee spoke of the splendor in which his chief queen would live. Slaves in all abundance, cloth as fine as silk, ornaments of gold, and an American alarm clock should be hers; her food should be coos-cousoo of the finest, her drink should be Heidsieck of a vintage year exclusively. All the affairs of State should be exhibited for her approval, and even his two brass cannon should be housed in her apartments. The King showed himself to be the royal lover in lavish perfection, and Slade could not bring himself to cut short the offer and tell him that the whole thing was impossible. He temporized, and congratulated himself each time the matter came up on having got rid of the King without rupture of their friendly relations.