The official lighted a cigarette, put on his hat, and walked towards the door. He was met by his head messenger.
"Another case, Morena,"[A] said the messenger, pointing to a middle-aged native squatting in the courtyard softly clapping his hands. The hard-worked white man paused; he had thoughts of tea awaiting him in his bungalow a hundred yards away.
"Tell the man to come to-morrow," he said, and walked off in the direction of his house.
The head messenger turned to the man sitting in the yard and said: "The Morena won't hear you to-day; you must sleep in the compound for to-night; to-morrow he will listen."
"But my case is a big one," replied the stranger. "The father of his people will surely hear my case."
The messenger pointed to the compound: "All cases are heavy in the hands of those who bring them; the compound is there."
The man was evidently distressed. Raising his voice in the hope that the Commissioner would hear him, he shouted shrilly: "Ma-we! Ma-we! But mine is a big case, it is one of killing—of killing of people; the father of his people must hear me. Oh! Morena, I have a case, a big case, a case of killing."
But the Native Commissioner had reached his house and was out of sight, the native clerk had locked the office door and, heedless of the man's wailing, walked away. If he thought at all, it was that sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof; evil meaning work to him.
"Come, father," said the head messenger, "I go now to the compound, and you with me; to-morrow the Morena will hear your case before any other. I, Mokorongo, will see to it."
But the man was not to be consoled. "No," said he, "my case is a big one, of people killed by witchcraft; I, too, will die to-night. Take me to the Morena, my father; do not refuse and so kill me."