native rope was fixed to its topmost branches, and the other about his neck. The tree was slowly released till the head of the offender was held taut.
"Now!" said the king, and his executioner struck off the head, which was flung fifty yards by the released sapling.
It fell at the feet of Mr. Commissioner Sanders, who, with twenty-five Houssas and a machine gun, had just landed from the Zaire.
Sanders was annoyed; he had travelled three days and four nights with little sleep, and he had a touch of fever, which made him irritable.
He walked into the village and interrupted an eloquent address on the obligations of the conquered, which the N'gombi thief thought it opportune to deliver.
He stopped half-way through his speech, and lost a great deal of interest in the proceedings as the crowd divided to allow of Sanders's approach.
"Lord," said Tigilini, that quick and subtle man, "you have come at a proper time, for these people were in rebellion against your lordship, and I have subdued them. Therefore, master, give me rewards as you gave to Bosambo of the Ochori."
Sanders gave nothing save a brief order, and his Houssas formed a half circle about the hut of the king – Tigilini watching the manoeuvre with some apprehension.
"If," he said graciously. "I have done anything which your lordship thinks I should not have done, or taken that which I should not have taken, I will undo and restore."
Sanders, hands on hips, regarded him dispassionately.
"There is a body." He pointed to the stained and huddled thing on the ground. "There, by the path, is a head. Now, you shall put the head to that body and restore life."
"That I cannot do," said the king nervously, "for I am no ju-ju."
Sanders spoke two words in Arabic, and Tigilini was seized.
They carried the king away, and no man ever saw his face again, and it is a legend that Tigilini, the king, is everlastingly chained to the hind leg of M'shimba M'shamba, the green devil of the Akasava. If the truth be told, Tigilini went no nearer to perdition than the convict prison at Sierra Leone, but the legend is not without its value as a deterrent to ambitious chiefs.
Sanders superintended the evacuation of the Kiko, watched the crestfallen N'gombi retire to their own lands, and set up a new king without fuss or ceremony. And the smooth life of the Kiko people ran pleasantly as before.
They tilled the ground and bred goats and caught fish. From the marsh forest, which was their backland, they gathered rubber and copal, and this they carried by canoe to the mouth of the river and sold.
So they came to be rich, and even the common people could afford three wives.
Sanders was very wise in the psychology of native wealth. He knew that people who grew rich in corn were dangerous, because corn is an irresponsible form of property, and had no ramifications to hold in check the warlike spirit of its possessors.
He knew, too, that wealth in goats, in cloth, in brass rods, and in land was a factor for peace, because possessions which cannot be eaten are ever a steadying influence in communal life.
Sanders was a wise man. He was governed by certain hard and fast rules, and though he was well aware that failure in any respect to grapple with a situation would bring him a reprimand, either because he had not acted according to the strict letter of the law, or because he "had not used his discretion" in going outside that same inflexible code, he took responsibility without fear.
It was left to his discretion as to what part of the burden of taxation individual tribes should bear, and on behalf of his government he took his full share of the Kiko surplus, adjusting his demands according to the measure of the tribe's prosperity.
Three years after the enterprising incursion of the N'gombi, he came to the Kiko country on his half-yearly visit.
In the palaver house of the city he listened to complaints, as was his custom.
He sat from dawn till eight o'clock in the morning, and after the tenth complaint he turned to the chief of the Kiko, who sat at his side.
"Chief," he said, with that air of bland innocence which would have made men used to his ways shake in their tracks, "I observe that all men say one thing to me – that they are poor. Now this is not the truth."
"I am in your hands," said the chief diplomatically; "also my people, and they will pay taxation though they starve."
Sanders saw things in a new light.
"It seems," he said, addressing the serried ranks of people who squatted about, "that there is discontent in your stomachs because I ask you for your taxes. We will have a palaver on this."
He sat down, and a grey old headman, a notorious litigant and a league-long speaker, rose up.
"Lord," he said dramatically, "justice!"
"Kwai!" cried the people in chorus.
The murmur, deep-chested and unanimous, made a low, rumbling sound like the roll of a drum.
"Justice!" said the headman. "For you, Sandi, are very cruel and harsh. You take and take and give us nothing, and the people cry out in pain."
He paused, and Sanders nodded.
"Go on," he said.
"Corn and fish, gum and rubber, we give you," said the spokesman; "and when we ask whither goes this money, you point to the puc-a-puc3 and your soldiers, and behold we are mocked. For your puc-a-puc comes only to take our taxes, and your soldiers to force us to pay."
Again the applauding murmur rolled.
"So we have had a palaver," said the headman, "and this we have said among ourselves: 'Let Sandi remit one-half our taxes; these we will bring in our canoes to the Village-by-the-Big-Water, for we are honest men, and let Sandi keep his soldiers and his puc-a-puc for the folk of the Isisi and the Akasava and the N'gombi, for these are turbulent and wicked people.'"
"Kwai!"
It was evidently a popular movement, and Sanders smiled behind his hand.
"As for us," said the headman, "we are peaceable folk, and live comfortably with all nations, and if any demand of us that we shall pay tribute, behold it will be better to give freely than to pay these taxes."
Sanders listened in silence, then he turned to the chief.
"It shall be as you wish," he said, "and I will remit one half of your taxation – the palaver is finished."
He went on board the Zaire that night and lay awake listening to the castanets of the dancing women – the Kiko made merry to celebrate the triumph of their diplomacy.
Sanders left next day for the Isisi, having no doubt in his mind that the news of his concession had preceded him. So it proved, for at Lukalili no sooner had he taken his place in the speech-house than the chief opened the proceedings.
"Lord Sandi," he began, "we are poor men, and our people cry out against taxation. Now, lord, we have thought largely on this matter, and this say the people: 'If your lordship would remit one-half our taxes we should be happy, for this puc-a-puc' – "
Sanders
Steamer.
