Lieutenant Bones by Edgar Wallace — Read

Mr. Commissioner Sanders sat in the palaver house of an N'gombi village, and the deep circle of half-naked cannibals who squatted about him were not happy. The cooking-pots of the village were untended, for the women and even the children had gathered at the edge of the crowd to hear in what manner Sandi would accept an embarrassing situation.

All the morning the chief and his headmen had been talking, walking about the semicircle and waving their arms in gesticulations which betokened at once their earnestness and apprehension, and now the last speaker had finished, and it was the turn of the Law Giver.