Wild Life under the Equator

War is looming on the banks of the Ovenga. Witchcraft is at the bottom of the trouble. The Bakalais have met from every vale and from every hill, and chiefs and elders and warriors have come to ask for the head of Pendé. I am alone of all my race in this turmoil.

Pendé was a younger brother of King Obindji, and was himself the chief of a village. Pendé was disliked by every body. The fearful accusation which the Bakalais brought against him was this. Pendé was said to have stolen the bones of dead persons in the forest and to have made a fetich with them, which fetich was to keep trade away from a particular village. Pendé was an _aniemba_ (a wizard); for who ever heard of men who went and stole human bones and kept them, that were not sorcerers? Pendé's ways were strange and mysterious. People could not understand them, and he must be killed. Obindji being the eldest brother, they called on him to issue an order for the killing of Pendé.