The Englishmen made their way to where two figures lay in a calm sleep of death.
"Who is the woman?" asked Sanders.
"A native woman, who loved me," said Grayson Smith simply, and he bent down and closed the eyes of the girl who had loved him so well.
CHAPTER XII
THE AMBASSADORS
There is a saying amongst the Akasava:
"The Isisi sees with his eyes, the N'gombi with his ears, but the Ochori sees nothing but his meat."
This is translated badly, but in its original form it is immensely subtle. In the old days before Bosambo became chief, king, headman, or what you will, of his people, the Ochori were quite prepared to accept the insulting description of their sleepiness without resentment.
But this was cala-cala, and now the Ochori are a proud people, and it is not good to throw insulting proverbs in their direction, lest they throw them back with something good and heavy at the end of it.
The native mind works slowly, and it was not until every tribe within three hundred miles had received some significant indication of the change which had come about in the spirit and character of this timorous people, that they realised the Ochori were no longer a race which might serve as butts for the shafts of wisdom.