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of Bones’ mask.
    “For the love of Mike, what are you trying to do?” gasped Hamilton, spluttering and coughing.
    Bones made signs. After his helmet had been removed, he propounded the results of his experiments.
    “There isn’t a jolly old rat left alive,” he said triumphantly; “the beetles have turned in their jolly old numbers, and the mosquitos have quietly passed away!”
    “Are any of the company left?” demanded Hamilton. “Phew!”
    “Creosote,” began Bones, in his professorial manner, “is one of those jolly old bug-haters–”
    “Bones, I’ve got a job for you,” said Sanders hastily. “Get steam in the Wiggle and go up to the Lesser Isisi and on to the French frontier. Near a village which I gather is M’taka there is smallpox. Vaccinate everybody within a ten mile radius and be happy.”
    “And keep away from the French territory,” warned Hamilton.
    Bones smiled contemptuously. “Am I a ravin’ old ass?”
    “Not ‘old,’” said Hamilton.
    Within two hours Bones was on his way, a huge pipe clenched between his teeth, a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles (“And God knows where he got those from!” said Hamilton in despair) on his nose, and, balanced upon his knees, a ponderous medical tome. The fact that it was a surgical work dealing with nerve centres made no difference to Bones, it was the only medical work he had – it had been sent to him, in response to his written request to a London publisher for a novel that was enjoying some popularity at the time. And if, reading Bones’ vile handwriting, the publisher translated his request for “Walter Newman’s Sister” into “Watts’ Diseases of the Nervous System,” he was hardly to blame.
    In course of time he came to the Lesser Isisi, and was received with great honour by the new chief. It seemed that every man, woman and child in the village had turned out to meet him. But there were no marks of special enthusiasm, nor did any of the people smile. And the folk of the Lesser Isisi are only too ready to laugh.
    “Lord,” said the new chief, “all men know that you bring great magic in your two hands, for Sandi has spoken well of you, and it is known that you are a friend of ju-jus and ghosts. Therefore, my people have come that they may see this magic which is greater than the magic of our fathers.”
    This he said publicly, for all men to hear. In the privacy of his hut, he told another story.
    “The people have anger in their stomachs, because Sandi whipped Lulaga, and there have been secret palavers,” he said. “And, lord, I think they will make an end to me. Also, there is a saying that Sandi loves death and hates the people of the lsisi, so that he would be glad if the cooking-pots were broken and the roofs of the village were fallen.”
    Thus he symbolised death, for when a man of the Isisi passes, the pots wherein his food was cooked are broken on his grave, and no man tends his hut until the winds and the rain bring it sagging to the ground.
    “That is foolish talk,” said Bones, “since Sandi has sent me to make all people well by the wonder which is in my little box. Behold, I will put into their arms a great medicine, so that they shall laugh at ghosts and mock at devils. For I am very honoured in my land because of my great wisdom with medicine,” added Bones immodestly.
    Accompanied by four soldiers, he marched two days into the forest and came at last to the village by the water, and arrived only in time; for, in defiance of Sandi’s orders, three men from the Frenchi village had crossed in the night and were being entertained by the headman himself. They left hurriedly and noisily, Bones chasing them to their canoe, and whacking at them with his walking stick until they were out of reach of his arm. Then he came back to the village and called a palaver. In the palaver house, placed upon an upturned drum, and covered with one of his famous sanitary handkerchiefs, were innumerable little tubes and a