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An envoy came to the Ochori country bearing green branches of the Isisi palm, which signifies peace, and at the head of the mission for mission it was came M'fosa. "Lord Bosambo," said the man who limped, "N'gori the chief, my father, has sent me, for he desires your friendship and help; also your loving countenance at his great feast." "Oh, oh!" said Bosambo, drily, "what king's feast is this?"
It was too loud a noise, that M'shimba M'shamba made for the lokali man of the Ochori to hear the message that N'gori sent the panic-message designed to lure Bosambo to the newly-purchased spears. Bones heard it Bones, standing on the bridge of the Zaire pounding away upstream, steaming past the Akasava city in a sheet of rain.
He beckoned the three men who had come down from the Akasava as bearers of the invitation. "Say again what your master desires," he said. "Thus speaks N'gori, and I talk with his voice," said the spokesman, "that you shall cut down the devil-stick which Sandi planted in our midst, for it brings shame to us, and also to M'fosa the son of our master."
Sixteen hundred fighting men waited for the signal from the hidden lokali player, on the far side of the river bend. At the first hollow rattle of his sticks, N'gori pushed off in his royal canoe.
"Now, Bosambo," said N'gori, after a while, "you have my spears and your young men hold the streets and the river. What will you do? Do you sit here till Sandi returns and there is law in the land?" This was the one question which Bosambo had neither the desire nor the ability to answer.
Bosambo received an envoy from the Chief of the Akasava, and the envoy brought with him presents of dubious value and a message to the effect that N'gori spent much of his waking moments in wondering how he might best serve his brother Bosambo, "The right arm on which I and my people lean and the bright eyes through which I see beauty."
"Oh, fool!" said he, justly exasperated, "have I nothing to do I, who have all Sandi's high and splendid business in hand but I must come through the rain because a sick maiden sees visions?" "Bosambo, I am a fool," agreed N'gori, meekly, and again his rescuer returned home.
Once Bosambo was out of sight, N'gori collected all the convertible property of his city and sent it in ten canoes to the edge of the N'gombi country, for N'gombi folk are wonderful makers of spears and have a saleable stock hidden against emergency. For the space of a month there was enacted a comedy of which Hamilton was ignorant.
Lokali men concealed in the bush were waiting to announce the coming of the rescue party, when N'gori sent his cry for help crashing across the world. Six hundred spearmen stood ready to embark in fifty canoes, and five hundred more waited on either bank ready to settle with any survivors of the Ochori who found their way to land.
Bosambo was in the dark street instanter, his booming war-drum calling urgently. Twenty canoes filled with fighting men, paddling desperately with the stream, raced to the aid of the defenceless Akasava. At dawn, on the beach of the city, N'gori met his ally.
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