"Go back to your master, slave," said Imgani, "and say to him that I go to find a spot of sufficient loneliness, where I may sleep this night and occupy myself with high thoughts. When I have found such a place I will return. Say, also, that I am a prince of my own people, and that my father has legions of such quantity that, if every fighting man of the legions were to take a handful of sand from the bottom of the river, the river would be bottomless; also say that I am named Imgani, and that I love myself better than any man has loved himself since the moon went white that it might not look like the sun."
He went on, leaving the messenger filled with thought.
True to his promise, Imgani returned.
He came back to find that there was a palaver in progress, the subject of the palaver being the unfortunate relative by marriage to the chief's principal wife.
"Who," the chief was saying, "has put shame upon me, being as great a fool as his cousin, my wife."
"Master," said the poor relation humbly, "I entreated him to return; but he was a man of great pride, and, moreover, impatient to go."
"Your mother was a fool," said the chief; "her mother also was a fool, and your father, whoever he was, and no man knows, was a great fool."
This interesting beginning to a crude address on hereditary folly was interrupted by the return of Imgani, and as he came slowly up the little hillock the assembly took stock of him, from the square, steel razor stuck in the tight-fitting leopard-skin cap to the thin bangles of brass about his ankles.
The chief, a portly man of no great courage, observed the spears, noting that the hafts were polished smooth by much handling.
"Lord," said he mildly, "I am chief of this village, appointed by the Government, who gave me a medal to wear about my neck, bearing on one side the picture of a great man with a beard, and on the other side certain devil marks and writings of vast power. This was given to me that all people might know I was chief, but I have lost the medal. None the less, I am chief of this village, as this will show."