There is no middle island on the river about which some legend or buried treasure does not float.
Hamilton, hurrying forward to the support of his second-in-command, stopped long enough to interview two sulky chiefs.
"What palaver is this?" he demanded of Iberi, "that you carry your spears to a killing? For is not the river big enough for all, and are there no burying-places for your old men that you should fight so fiercely?"
"Lord," confessed Iberi, "upon that island is a treasure which has been hidden from the beginning of time, and that is the truth—N'Yango!"
Now, no man swears by his mother unless he is speaking straightly, and Hamilton understood.
"Never have I spoken of this to the Chief of the Isisi," Iberi went on, "nor he to me, yet we know because of certain wise sayings that the treasure stays and young men of our houses have searched very diligently though secretly. Also Bosambo knows, for he is a cunning man, and when we found he had put his warriors to the seeking we fought him, lord, for though the treasure may be Isisi or Akasava, of this I am sure it is not of the Ochori."
Hamilton came to the Ochori city to find a red-eyed Bones stalking majestically up and down the beach.
"What is the matter with you?" demanded Hamilton. "Fever?"
"Not at all," replied Bones, huskily; but with a fine carelessness.
"You look as if you hadn't had a sleep for months," said Hamilton.