It might have been that N'raki, the king, would have ended his days in the place to which his medicine-man had sent him, but there arose in that district a greater magician than any—a certain wild alien of the Wet Lands, who possessed magical powers, and cured pains in the king's legs by a no more painful process than the laying on of hands, and whom the king appointed his chief magician. And this was the end of the uncle of Lapai; for, if no two kings can rule in one land, most certainly no two witch-doctors can hold power.
And they killed the deposed uncle of Lapai, and used the blood for making spells.
One morning the new witch-doctor stood in the presence of N'raki the king.
"Lord king," he said, "I have had a dream, and it says that your lordship shall go back to your city, and that you shall travel secretly, so that the devils who guard the way shall not lay hands upon you."
N'raki, the king, went back to his city unattended, save by his personal guard, and unheralded, to the discomfort of the royal regiment.
And when he learnt what he learnt, he administered justice swiftly. He carried the forbidden wives to the top of a high mountain and cast them over a cliff, one by one, to the number of six hundred.
And that mountain is to this day called "The Mountain of Sorrowful Women."
One alone he spared—Lapai. Before the assembled people in judgment he spared her.
"Behold this woman, people of the Akarti!" he said; "she that has brought sorrow and death to my regiment. To-day she shall watch her man, Taga'ka, burn; and from henceforth she shall live amongst you to remind you that I am a very jealous king, and terrible in my anger."
The news of the massacre filtered slowly through the territories. It came to the British Government, but the British Government is a cautious Government where primitive natives are concerned.