"Poor chap, poor chap!" was all that he said.
He sent no message to Olari; he made no preparations for a punitive raid; he went on signing documents, inspecting Houssas, attending dinner parties, as though Carter had never lived or died. All these things the spies of Olari reported, and the chief was thankful.
Lukati being two hundred miles from headquarters, through a savage and mountainous country, an expedition was no light undertaking, and the British Government, rich as it is, cannot afford to spend a hundred thousand pounds to avenge the death of a subordinate official. Of this fact Sanders was well aware, so he employed his time in collecting and authenticating the names of Carter's assassins. When he had completed them he went a journey seventy miles into the bush to the great witch-doctor Kelebi, whose name was known throughout the coast country from Dakka to the Eastern borders of Togoland.
"Here are the names of men who have put shame upon me," he said; "but principally Olari, chief of the Lukati people."
"I will put a spell upon Olari," said the witch-doctor; "a very bad spell, and upon these men. The charge will be six English pounds."
Sanders paid the money, and "dashed" two bottles of square-face and a piece of proper cloth. Then he went back to headquarters.
One night through the village of Lukati ran a whisper, and the men muttered the news with fearful shivers and backward glances.
"Olari, the chief, is cursed!"
Olari heard the tidings from his women, and came out of his hut into the moonlight, raving horribly.
The next day he sickened, and on the fifth day he was near to dead and suffering terrible pains, as also were six men who helped in the slaying of Carter. That they did not die was no fault of the witch-doctor, who excused his failure on account of the great distance between himself and his subjects.