Sanders, at that moment, was hunting for the Long Man, whose name was O'Fasa. O'Fasa was twelve months gone in sleeping-sickness, and had turned from being a gentle husband and a kindly father into a brute beast. He had speared his wife, cut down the Houssa guard left by Sanders to keep the peace of his village, and had made for the forest.
Now, a madman is a king, holding his subjects in the thrall of fear, and since there was no room in the territory for two kings and Sanders, the Commissioner came full tilt up the river, landed half a company of black infantry, and followed on the ravaging trace of the madman.
At the end of eight days he came upon O'Fasa, the Long Man. He was sitting with his back against a gum-tree, his well-polished spears close at hand, and he was singing the death song of the Isisi, a long low, wailing, sorrowful song, which may be so translated into doggerel English:
Life is a thing so small
That you cannot see it at all;
Death is a thing so wise
That you see it in every guise.
Death is the son of life,
Pain is his favourite wife.
Sanders went slowly across the clearing, his automatic pistol in his hand.
O'Fasa looked at him and laughed.
"O'Fasa," said Sanders gently, "I have come to see you, because my King heard you were sick."
"O ko!" laughed the other. "I am a great man when kings send their messengers to me."
Sanders, his eye upon the spears, advanced warily.
"Come with me, O'Fasa," he said.