Sandi might relent, and appoint him to a great chieftainship.
Or he might dig from the river-bed some such treasure as U'fabi, the N'gombi man, did once upon a time.
Arachi, entranced with this latter idea, went one morning before sunrise to a place by the shore and dug. He turned two spadefuls of earth before an infinite weariness fell upon him, and he gave up the search.
"For," he argued, "if treasure is buried in the river-bed, it might as well be there as elsewhere. And if it be not there, where may it be?"
Arachi bore his misfortune with philosophy. He sat in the bare and bleak interior of his hut, and explained to his wife that the men who had robbed him—as he said—hated him, and were jealous of him because of his great powers, and that one day, when he was a great chief, he would borrow an army from his friends the N'gombi, and put fire to their houses.
Yes, indeed, he said "borrow," because it was his nature to think in loans.
His father-in-law came on the day following the deporting, expecting to save something from the wreckage on account of Koran's dowry. But he was very late.
"O son of shame!" he said bitterly. "Is it thus you repay for my priceless daughter? By Death! but you are a wicked man."
"Have no fear, fisherman," said Arachi loftily, "for I am a friend of Sandi, and be sure that he will do that for me which will place me high above common men. Even now I go to make a long palaver with him, and, when I return, you shall hear news of strange happenings."
Arachi was a most convincing man, possessing the powers of all great borrowers, and he convinced his father-in-law—a relation who, from the beginning of time, has always been the least open to conviction.