"For how was I to speak?" said Bosambo, after the palaver. "No man knows how your lordship thinks."
"You have ears," said Sanders, a little irritated.
"They are large," admitted Bosambo, "so large that they hear your beautiful voice, but not so long that they hear your lordship's loving thoughts."
Sanders's thoughts were by no means loving, and they diminished in beauty day by day as the ship which carried Tobolaka to his empire drew nearer.
Sanders did not go down to the beach to meet him; he awaited his coming on the verandah of the residency, and when Tobolaka arrived, clad from head to foot in spotless white, with a helmet of exact colonial pattern on his head, Sanders swore fluently at all interfering and experimenting Governments.
"Mr. Sanders, I presume?" said Tobolaka in English, and extended his hand.
"Chief," said Sanders in the Isisi tongue, "you know that I am Sandi, so do not talk like a monkey; speak rather in the language of your people, and I will understand you better—also you will understand me."
It so happened that Tobolaka had prepared a dignified little speech, in the course of which he intended congratulating Sanders on the prosperity of the country, assuring him of whole-hearted co-operation, and winding up with an expression of his wishes that harmonious relation should exist between himself and the State.
It was founded on a similar speech delivered by King Peter of Servia on his assuming the crown. But, unfortunately, it was in English, and the nearest Isisi equivalent for congratulation is an idiomatic phrase which literally means, "High-man-look-kindly-on-dog-slave-who-lies-at-feet." And this, thought Tobolaka, would never do at all, for he had come to put the Commissioner in his place.
Sanders condescended to talk English later when Tobolaka was discussing Cabinet Ministers.