The nose of the steamer had turned to the offending canoe. This was an unhappy circumstance for the men therein, for both guns now covered it, and they rattled together, and through the blue haze you saw the canoe emptied.
That was the end of the fight. A warrior in the fifth boat held his spear horizontally above his head in token of surrender, and ten minutes later the chief of the rebels was on board.
"Master," he said calmly, as they led him to Sanders' presence, "this is a bad palaver. How will you deal with me?"
Sanders looked at him steadily.
"I will be merciful with you," he said, "for as soon as we come to the village I shall hang you."
"So I thought," said the chief without moving a muscle; "and I have heard it said that you hang men very quickly so that they feel little pain."
"That is my practice," said Sanders of the River, and the chief nodded his head approvingly.
"I would rather it were so," he said.
It was to a sorrowful village that he came, for there were many women to wail their dead.
Sanders landed with his Houssas and held a high palaver under the trees.