This happened nearly twenty years ago, and the memory of the drastic punishment meted out to the father of that first-born is scarcely a memory.
"We will call this child 'N'mika,'" Sanders had said, which means "the child of sacrifice."
N'mika was brought up in the hut of a good man, and came to maturity.
* * * * *
When the monkeys suddenly changed their abiding-place from the little woods near by Bonganga, on the Isisi, to the forest which lies at the back of the Akasava, all the wise men said with one accord that bad fortune was coming to the people of Isisi.
N'mika laughed at these warnings, for he was in Sanders's employ, and knew all things that happened in his district.
Boy and man he served the Government faithfully; loyalty was his high fetish, and Sanders knew this.
The Commissioner might have taken this man and made him a great chief; and had N'mika raised the finger of desire, Sanders would have placed him above all others of his people; but the man knew where he might serve best, and at nineteen he had scotched three wars, saved the life of Sanders twice, and had sent three petty chiefs of enterprising character to the gallows.
Then love came to N'mika.
He loved a woman of the Lesser Isisi—a fine, straight girl, and very beautiful by certain standards. He married her, and took her to his hut, making her his principal wife, and investing her with all the privileges and dignity of that office.