his grain) to obey.

"We shall have these fellows rebelling next," said the Commandant, "if
you push them too hard; and if they join the rest, where shall we be?"

"There are a thousand of your troops in the mutiny already, according to
your tally," said Kettle stiffly, "and I don't see that if this hundred
joined them it would make much difference to us, one way or the other.
Besides," he added, almost persuasively, "if I had the handling of them
they would not join the others. They would stay here and do as they
were told."

"Captain Kettle," snapped the Commandant, "you have heard my orders. If
I have any more of this hectoring spirit from you, I shall report your
conduct when we get back to Stanley Pool."

"You may report till you're black in the face," said Kettle truculently;
"but if you don't put a bit more backbone into things, you'll do it as a
ghost and not as a live man. Look at your record up to date. You come up
here at the head of a fine expedition; you set your soldiers to squeeze
the tribes for rubber and ivory; they don't bring in enough niggers'
ears to show that they've used their cartridges successfully, and so you
shoot them down in batches; and then you aren't man enough to keep your
grip on them, but when they've had enough of your treatment, they just
start in and rebel."

"One man can't fight a thousand."

"You can't, anyway. If the Doc and I had turned up with this launch half
an hour later, your excellent troops would have knocked you on the head