"Bosambo is alive to-day," he said simply, "praisin'—if I may be allowed to boast—the name of Bones the Medicine Man. Look here, sir."
He dragged towards him along the floor of the hut a package covered with a piece of native sacking. This he whisked away and revealed the hideous handiwork of an artist who had carved and painted as true to nature as a man may who is not quite certain whether the human eye is half-way down the nose or merely an appendage to his ear.
"That, sir," said Bones impressively, "is one of the most interestin' specimens of native work I have ever seen: a gift! From Bosambo to the jolly old doctor man who dragged him, if I might so express it, from the very maws of death."
He made his dramatic pause.
Sanders bent down, took a penknife from his pocket and scraped the paint from a flat oblong space on the top.
There for all men to see—save Bones who was now engaged in a relation of his further adventure to his one sympathizer—was a brass plate, and when the paint had been scraped away, an inscription—
Department du Médicins, Etat Congo Belge.
Sanders and Hamilton gazed, fascinated and paralysed to silence.
"I've always had a feelin' I'd like to be a medicine man." Bones prattled on. "You see——"
"One moment, Bones," interrupted Sanders quietly. "Did you open this box by any chance?"