you met him last night?”

“Yes. I was passing along the road when I heard Jim turn him out of the gate, and [Pg 64]order him not to show his black mug inside the grounds again. I wondered what on earth a darky was doing at Dale End. Thinking he was a Hindu, one of the natives who come to England to read up law, I spoke to him, but as soon as we reached a lamp I saw he was a negro. He was in awful trouble, and appeared to have been badly handled. As soon as he discovered that I was a friend of yours—which I mean to remain, no matter how your father and my uncle disagree—he became very excited and appealed to me for assistance. The villagers spotted him and began to gather, so I took him to the Manor, unfortunately.”

[Pg 64]

“Why unfortunately?” demanded Minkie.

“Because some of the servants told my uncle he was there, and the old boy made me bring him upstairs.”

“Well?”

“I nearly lost my temper with both of them. It seems that Schwartz, who was a low-down trader on the Niger, stole some sort of ju-ju, or small fetish, belonging to the Kwantu bushmen, the most powerful tribe in the hinterland. [Pg 65]That was three years ago. Since then he has become enormously wealthy, and the niggers say it is because he holds this ju-ju, which is the luckiest thing in Africa. They, at least, have had all sorts of plagues since they lost it, tsetse fly, smallpox, bad rubber years, and I don’t know what besides. At any rate they are on the verge of rebellion. Their ju-ju men, or wizards, are preaching wholesale murder of the whites. Some German traders have supplied them with Mannlicher rifles and ammunition, and there is real danger of a terrific mutiny. Now, I am a British officer, and I have some experience of superstitious natives, if not of negroes, so I can quite realize what may happen out there if the cause of disaffection is not removed. You can hardly grasp the serious nature of the business, Minkie, but Dorothy, being older—”

[Pg 65]

“Can appreciate it much better, of course,” said Minkie. “Yet I am beginning to see things. Did Prince John say what would happen if the ju-ju were restored?”

“That is a very 

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