What happened to the messenger I would rather not describe. That he was killed, is saying the least. Just before he died, when the glaze of death must have been on his eyes, and his poor wrecked body settling to the rest of oblivion, he was carried to a place before the king's hut, and Daihili danced the Dance of the Spirits. This much is now known.
Sanders did nothing; nor did the British Government, but hurried notes were exchanged between ambassadors and ministers in Paris, and that was the end of the incident.
Two Icheli spies went up into the great king's country. One came back saying that the dancing girl was the favourite wife of the old king, and that her whims swayed the destinies of the nation. Also he reported that because of this slim girl who danced, many men, councillors, and captains of war had died the death.
The other spy did not come back.
It may have been his discovery that induced the girl to send an army against the Icheli, thinking perchance that her people were spying upon her.
One day the city of Icheli was surrounded by the soldiers of the great king, and neither man, woman nor child escaped.
The news of the massacre did not come to Sanders for a long time. The reason was simple there was none to carry the message, for the Icheli are isolated folk. One day, however, an Isisi hunting party, searching for elephants, came upon a place where there was a smell of burning and many skeletons—and thus Sanders knew——
"We cannot," wrote Monsieur Leon Marchassa, Minister for Colonial Affairs, "accept responsibility for the misdoings of the king of the Yitingi, and my Government would regard with sympathetic interest any attempt that was made by His Majesty's Government to pacify this country."
But the British Government did nothing, because war is an expensive matter, and Sanders grinned and cursed his employers genially.
Taking his life in his hands, he went up to the border of Yitingi, with twenty policemen, and sent a messenger—a Yitingi messenger—to the king. With the audacity which was not the least of his assets, he demanded that the king should come to him for a palaver.