Bosambo had instituted a law of his own—with the full approval of Sanders—and it was that each district should provide a straight and well-made forest road from one city to another, and a great road which should lead from one district to its neighbour.
Unfortunately, every little tribe did not approach the idea with the enthusiasm which Bosambo himself felt, nor regard it with the approval which was offered to this most excellent plan by the King's Government.
For road-making is a bad business. It brings men out early in the morning, and keeps them working with the sweat running off their bare backs in the hot hours of the day. Also there were fines and levies which Bosambo the chief took an unholy joy in extracting whenever default was made.
Of all the reluctant tribes, the Elivi were the most frankly so. Whilst all the others were covered with a network of rough roads—slovenly made, but roads none the less—Elivi stood a virgin patch of land two hundred miles square in the very heart of make-shift civilisation.
Bosambo might deal drastically with the enemy who stood outside his gate. It was a more delicate matter when he had to deal with a district tacitly rebellious, and this question of roads threatened to develop, unhappily.
He had sent spies into the land of the Elivi and this was the first man back.
"Now it seems to me," said Bosambo, half to himself, "that I have need of all my devils, for Ikifari is a bitter man, and his sons and his counsellors are of a mind with him."
He sent his headman to his guests with a message that for the whole day he would be deep in counsel with himself over this matter of ghosts; and when late in the evening the van of the Elivi force was sighted on the east of the village, Bosambo, seated in state in his magnificent palaver-house, adorned with such Christmas plates as came his way, awaited their arrival.
Limberi, the headman, went out to meet the disgruntled force.
"Chief," he said, "it is our lord's wish that you leave your spears outside the city."