"Don't be beastly," said the other, scowling. "I know she's a native and all that sort of thing, but my people at home will get used to her colour——"
"Go on board my boat," said Sanders quietly. "Regard yourself as my prisoner."
Sanders brought him down to headquarters without troubling to investigate the flogging of O'Sako, and no word passed concerning M'Lino till they were back again at headquarters.
"Of course I shall send you home," said Sanders.
"I supposed you would," said the other listlessly. He had lost all his self-assurance on the journey down river, and was a very depressed young man indeed.
"I must have been mad," he admitted, the day before the mail boat called en route for England; "from the very first I loved her—good heavens, what an ass I am!"
"You are," agreed Sanders, and saw him off to the ship with a cheerful heart.
"I will have no more sub-commissioners at Isisi," he wrote acidly to the Administration. "I find my work sufficiently entertaining without the additional amusement of having to act as chaperon to British officials."
He made a special journey to Isisi to straighten matters out, and M'Lino came unbidden to see him.
"Lord, is he gone, too?" she asked.