"Dem Swizzle-Stick Smith he say same thing."
"But he want me to let him hand dem Okky country over to England, so I say I pull his skin off if I catch him again. What you want for yo'self?"
"Do you mean what do I stand to make out of the deal? Well, not much beyond the satisfaction of keeping your crucifixion tree in a more sanitary state. With the mining right you have given me, I shall be a rich man."
"Why, they'd tax the mine, and they'd clap on regulations, till they made a very fine hole in the profits."
Carter explained more fully, and then for awhile the King of Okky sat and took snuff in silence.
Then, "O Carter," he asked, "dem King of England he got so many war-boys as me?"
"And dey no have trade guns? All Winchesters?"
"I don't know what the present regulation pump-gun is called, but we'll say it's like the Winchester, only plenty-too-much better."
Again the King thought in silence, and the hot night rustled and sighed around them. The moonlight was strong enough to show even the fibre of the fine state mats on which they sat. But at last he motioned away the slave who carried his snuff-mull, and touched Carter's knee with an emphatic finger.
"I believe you speak for true about dem custom. Three days ago you no care if I lib or die?"
"I may as well be frank, and say I should have preferred you dead."
The King gave the ghost of a grin. "There are many like that. But now?"
"Now I prefer you alive and King of Okky."
"Dat is what I thought, an' so I believe you say true when you tell me what you say about dem customs. I do not see why Okky customs should make dem English king fit for send his war-boys. But I no fit for want 'em."
"I fit," said the King, and by that decision gave respite, it has been calculated, to at least eight thousand of his subjects each year who had gone the red paths prescribed by ju-ju.
They drew up a memorandum on the subject there and then, in the form of a letter from the King of Okky to him of Great Britain. Carter suggested the British Foreign Secretary, but Kallee would not hear of it. He as a King, he said, was the equal of any other King. So on a sheet of damp, mildewed note-paper the message was written, and signed by the King in an Arabic scrawl.