Kate Meredith, Financier by Cutcliffe Hyne

The attack on Smooth River factory did not take place without due warning. It seemed that a large caravan of native merchants from the hinterland had come through the Okky country with a fine cargo of produce since the King had stopped the roads. Whether they had cut new roads through the bush for themselves, or fought their way past the obstructing ju-ju, they did not explain; they arrived at the factory with kernels, a few tusks of discolored ivory, a few quills of water-worn gold, and a fine parcel of high-grade rubber, which were duly valued; they took cloth, six flint-lock guns, a case or two of gin, and the balance in pink Kola-nuts by way of payment; and with these on the skulls of their carriers, they marched away along the Beach and out of this history.

Then presently there came down envoys from the King of Okky demanding with a fine inconsistency that O'Neill and Craven's factory should pay his Majesty the transit blackmail which he had been unable to collect himself. Carter was sent for, post-haste, from Malla-Nulla, and was at first minded to tell those envoys to go to a kingdom which repute says is even hotter than West Africa. But thoughts of Laura living there by herself, and a dread of the horrors of native war made him offer a compromise. "Open the roads," said he, "and we'll pay up these fellows' dues, though your King knows perfectly well he hasn't an atom of claim on this factory. It's the custom for traders to pay for going through a country if they can't avoid paying; they never pay once they are through; and never, never, never, throughout all the wicked history of Africa has there been a case of an English factory being fool enough to pay toll which its casual customers have slipped through without paying.