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To the Zaire at sundown came D'riti, a girl of proper height, hollow backed, bare to the waist, with a thin skirting of fine silk cloth which her father had brought from the Coast, wound tightly about her, yet not so tightly that it hampered her swaying, lazy walk. Also, this Bones saw, she was gifted with more delicate features than the native woman can boast as a rule.
"D'riti," said Hamilton, "to-morrow I send you back to your people." "Lord, I stay with Tibbetti who loves women and is happy to talk of them. Also some day I shall be his wife, for this is foretold." She shot a tender glance at poor Bones. "That cannot be," said Hamilton calmly, "for Tibbetti has three wives, and they are old and fierce " "Oh, lord!" wailed Bones.
But the woman came round the corner of the deck-house, shyly, yet with a certain confidence. "Lord," she said, "behold I am here, your poor slave; there are wonderful things about women which I have not told you " "O, D'riti!" said Bones in despair, "I know all things, and it is not lawful that you should follow me so far from your home lest evil be said of you."
She might have married again, but she was so scornful of common men that none dare ask for her. Also the incident of the iron pot was not forgotten, and D'riti went swaying through the village she walked from her hips, gracefully a straight, brown, girl-woman desired and unasked. For she knew men too well to inspire confidence in them.
"O, D'riti," he stammered, "it is true I wish to speak of women, for I make a book that all white lords will read." "Therefore have I come," she said. "Now listen, O my lord, whilst I tell you of women, and of all they think, of their love for men and of the strange way they show it. Also of children " "Look here," said Bones, loudly. "I don't want any any private information, my child "
"Lord, I will be ten thousand," said D'riti, present at the interview and bold; "also, Lord, it was predicted at my birth that I should marry a king and the greater than a king." "That is me," said Bosambo, who was without modesty; "yet, it cannot be."
"After all, sir, the poor girl seems to be fond of me, sir the human heart, sir I don't know why she should take a fancy to me." "That's what I want to know," said Hamilton, briefly; "if she is mad, I'll send her to the mission hospital along the Coast." "You've a hard and bitter heart," said Bones, sadly. D'riti came ready to flash her anger and eloquence at Hamilton; on the verge of defiance.
"And they would beat you and make you carry wood and water," Hamilton said; he saw the look of apprehension steal into the girl's face. "And more than this, D'riti, the Lord Tibbetti is mad when the moon is in full, he foams at the mouth and bites, uttering awful noises." "Oh, dirty trick!" almost sobbed Bones.
"Go, therefore, D'riti," said Hamilton, "and I will give you a piece of fine cloth, and beads of many colours." It is a matter of history that D'riti went. "I don't know what you think of me, sir," said Bones, humbly, "of course I couldn't get rid of her " "You didn't try," said Hamilton, searching his pockets for his pipe. "You could have made her drop you like a shot." "How, sir?"
"The Soul of the Native Woman," repeated Bones, in an ecstasy of self-admiration, and having chosen his subject he proceeded to find out something about it. Now, about this time, Bosambo of the Ochori might, had he wished and had he the literary quality, have written many books about women, if for no other reason than because of a certain girl named D'riti.
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