The sergeant saluted, produced a tawdry little notebook, all brass binding and gold edges, and made a laborious note.
"As for you," said Sanders to the woman, "you drop your damned bush-mesmerism, or I'll treat you in the same way—alaki?"
"Yes, lord," she said meekly, and departed.
Two Houssas tied Tembeli to a tree, and the sergeant gave him twenty-one with a pliable hippo-hide—the extra one being the sergeant's perquisite.
In the morning the sergeant reported that Tembeli had died in the night, and Sanders worried horribly.
"It isn't the flogging," he said; "he has had the chicotte before."
"It is the woman," said the sergeant wisely. "She is a witch; I foresaw this when she joined the column."
They buried Tembeli, the son of Sekambano, and Sanders wrote three reports of the circumstances of the death, each of which he tore up.
Then he marched on.
That night the column halted near a village, and Sanders sent the woman, under escort, to the chief, with orders to see her safely to the Sangar River. In half an hour she returned, with the escort, and Sergeant Abiboo explained the circumstances.