He would have given her some words of cheer, but she turned abruptly from him and walked away. Sanders watched the graceful figure as it receded down the straggling street, and went back to his steamer.
He was ten miles down the river before he remembered that the reproof he had framed for the girl had been undelivered.
"That is very extraordinary," said Sanders, with some annoyance, "I must be losing my memory."
Three months later young Penson came out from England to take the place of the returned Ludley. He was a fresh-faced youth, bubbling over with enthusiasm, and, what is more important, he had served a two-years' apprenticeship at Sierra Leone.
"You are to go up to Isisi," said Sanders, "and I want to tell you that you've got to be jolly careful."
"What's the racket?" demanded the youth eagerly. "Are the beggars rising?"
"So far as I know," said Sanders, putting his feet up on the rail of the verandah, "they are not—it is not bloodshed, but love that you've got to guard against."
And he told the story of M'Lino, even though it was no creditable story to British administration.
"You can trust me," said young Penson, when he had finished.
"I trust you all right," said Sanders, "but I don't trust the woman—let me hear from you from time to time; if you don't write about her I shall get suspicious, and I'll come along in a very unpleasant mood."