The invaders turned and faced the long-barrelled Webleys, and the fight was finished. Later, Wafa came to the bridge with bright steel manacles on his wrist. His companions in the mad adventure sat on the iron deck below, roped leg to leg, and listened with philosophic calm as the Houssa sentry drew lurid pictures of the fate which awaited them.
Bones sat in his deep chair, and the prisoner squatted before him. "You shall tell my lord Sandi why you did this wickedness," he said, "also, Wafa, what evil thought was in your mind."
"Lord," said Wafa cheerfully, "what good comes to me if I speak?" Something about the man's demeanour struck Bones as strange, and he rose and went close to him.
"I see," he said, with a tightened lip. "The palaver is finished."
They led the man away, and the girl, who had been a spectator, asked anxiously: "What is wrong, Bones?"
But the young man shook his head. "The breaking of all that Sanders has worked for," he said bitterly, and the very absence of levity in one whose heart was so young and gay struck a colder chill to the girl's heart than the yells of the warring N'gombi. For Sanders had a big place in Patricia Hamilton's life. In an hour the Zaire was refloated, and was going at full speed down stream.
Sanders held his court in the thatched palaver house between the Houssa guard-room and the little stockade prison at the river's edge—a prison hidden amidst the flowering shrubs and acacia trees.
Wafa was the first to be examined. "Lord," he said, without embarrassment, "I tell you this—that I will not speak of the great wonders which lay in my heart unless you give me a book[6] that I shall go free."
Sanders smiled unpleasantly. "By the Prophet, I say what is true," he began confidentially; and Wafa winced at the oath, for he knew that truth was coming, and truth of a disturbing character. "In this land I govern millions of men," said Sanders, speaking deliberately, "I and two white lords. I govern by fear, Wafa, because there is no love in simple native men, save a love for their own and their bellies."