When Sanders took up his duties on the river, Ofesi was a lank and awkward youth of whom his fellows stood in awe.
Sanders was in awe of nobody. He listened quietly to the recital of portents, omens, and the like, and when it was finished, he delivered a little homily on the fallibility of human things and the extraordinarily high death-rate which existed amongst those misguided people who walked outside the rigid circle of the land.
Ofesi had neighbours more hearty than Sanders, and by these he was accepted as something on account of the total wonder which the years would produce.
So Ofesi grew and flourished, doing much mischief in his way, which was neither innocent nor boyish, and the friendly hand which is upraised to small boys all the world over never fell sharply upon his well-covered nerves, because Ofesi was predestined and immune.
In course of time he was appointed by the then king of the Akasava to the chieftainship of the village of Mi-lanti, and the city of the Akasava breathed a sigh of relief to see his canoe go round the bend of the river out of sight.
No report of the chief's minor misdoings came to Sanders because this legend of destiny carried to all the nations save and except one.
It is said that Ofesi received more homage and held a more regal court in his tiny principality than did the king his master; that N'gombi, Isisi, and the tribes about sent him presents doubly precious, and that he had a household of sixty wives, all contributed by his devotees. It was also said that he made the intoxicating distributions of Mr. Fish possible, but Sanders had no proof of this.
He raided his friends impartially, did all manner of unpleasant things, terrorised the river from the Lesser Isisi to the edge of the Ochori, and the fishermen watching his war canoes creeping stealthily through the night would say: "Let no man see the lord Ofesi; lest in the days to come he remember and blind us."
Whether from sheer cunning or from the intuitive faculty which is a part of genius, Ofesi grew to stout manhood without once violating the border line of the Ochori.
Until upon a day——