"Mr. Tobolaka—King Tobolaka," she said.
A look of horror, which he did not attempt to disguise, swept over the face of the Commissioner.
"You've come out to marry him—a black man?" he gasped.
The girl flushed a deep red.
"That's my business," she said stiffly. "I'm not asking advice from you. Say, I've heard about you—your name's mud along this old coast, but I'm not afraid of you. I've got a permit to go up the Isisi, and I'm goin'."
She was on her feet, her arms akimbo, her eyes blazing with anger, for, womanlike, she felt the man's unspoken antagonism.
"My name may be mud," said Sanders quietly, "and what people say about me doesn't disturb my sleep. What they would say about me if I'd allowed you to go up-country and marry a black man would give me bad nights. Miss Tavish, the mail-boat leaves in an hour for Sierra Leone. There you will find a steamer to take you to England. I will arrange for your passage and see that you are met at Southampton and your passage provided for New York."
"I'll not go," she stormed; "you don't put that kind of bluff on me. I'm an American citizeness and no dud British official is going to boss me—so there!"
Sanders smiled.
He was prepared to precipitate matters now to violate treaties, to create crises, but he was not prepared to permit what he regarded as an outrage. In turn she bullied and pleaded; she even wept, and Sanders's hair stood on end from sheer fright. To make the situation more difficult, a luxurious Isisi canoe with twenty paddlers had arrived to carry her to the city, and the headman in charge had brought a letter from her future lord welcoming her in copper-plate English. This letter Sanders allowed the man to deliver.