They escorted the messenger, and Bosambo saw, by the magnificence of his garb, by the four red feathers which stood out of his hair at varying angles, that the matter was important.
"I come from the king of all this land," said the messenger; "from Tobolaka, the unquenchable drinker of rivers, the destroyer of the evil and the undutiful."
"Man," said Bosambo, "you tire my ears."
"Thus says my king," the messenger went on: "'Let Bosambo come to me by sundown that he may do homage to me and to the woman I take to wife, for I am not to be thwarted, nor am I to be mocked. And those who thwart me and mock me I will come up against with fire and spear.'"
Bosambo was amused.
"Look around, Kilimini," he said, "and see my soldiers, and this city of the Ochori, and beyond by those little hills the fields where all things grow well; especially do you look well at those fields by the little hills."
"Lord, I see these," said the messenger.
"Go back to Tobolaka, the black man, and tell him you saw those fields which are more abundant than any fields in the world—and for a reason."
He smiled at the messenger, who was a little out of his depth.
"This is the reason, Kilimini," said Bosambo. "In those fields we buried many hundreds of the Isisi who came against my city in their folly—this was in the year of the Elephants. Tell your king this: that I have other fields to manure. The palaver is finished."