/> But as the irate crowd dashed onward through the great tenantless

chambers they tore down the rich silk hangings and trod them underfoot,

broke up the tiny gold-inlaid tables, and out of sheer wantonness hacked

the soft divans with their swords.



The discovery that the Naya had fled increased the indignation of the

mob, and were it not for the urgent appeal of Kona, who had at once

assumed the commandership, the whole of the magnificent rooms would no

doubt have been wrecked. As it was, however, the good counsels of the

Dagomba head-man prevailed, and wanton hands were stayed from committing

more serious excesses.



Whither the Great White Queen had fled no one knew. To every nook and

corner search parties penetrated; even the sleeping apartment, with its

massive bed of ivory and hangings of purple, gold-embroidered satin, was

not held sacred. Yet nowhere could the once-dreaded ruler be discovered.

Some cried that she had escaped into the city in the guise of a slave,

others that she had descended into the cavern where stood the gigantic

Temple of Zomara.



Another fact puzzled us greatly. From our elevated position we could see

afar off a fierce conflict proceeding near the city gate on that side

where access could be gained only by the steep flight of steps. Once,

when I had looked, I saw that the city was comparatively quiet; now,

however, this conflict had broken out again suddenly, and judging from

the smoke and tumult it must have been terrific. All were surprised, and

stood watching the clouds of grey smoke roll up into the bright morning

air. But soon it died away, and believing it to be an outbreak by the

conquered troops subdued with a firm hand by the victorious people, we

thought no more of it.



The hours that succeeded were full of stirring incidents, and it was long

before the least semblance of order could be restored in the city. With

Kona I went forth into the crowded, turbulent streets, and the sight that

met our gaze was awful. Bodies of soldiers and civilians were lying

everywhere, the faces of some, to whom death had come swiftly, so calm

and composed that they looked as if they slept, while upon the

blood-smeared countenances of others, hideously mutilated perhaps, were

terrible expressions, showing in what frightful agony they had passed

into eternity. The road-ways were strewn with heaps of corpses; the

gutters flowed with blood.



At such terrible cost had the tyrannical reign of the Naya been

terminated; by such a frightful loss of human life had Omar been raised

to the Emerald Throne.



Greater part of that eventful day was spent by Niaro, Kona, Goliba and

myself in restoring order, while the people themselves, assisted by the

troops, who had already sworn allegiance to their young Naba, cleared

the streets and removed, as far as possible, all traces of the deadly

feud. But to us there came no tidings of the Naya, although the strictest

watch was kept everywhere to prevent her escaping.



The people were determined that if she might not pay the penalty of her

evil deeds by death, she should at least be held captive in one of the

foul dungeons beneath the palace, where so many of their relatives had

rotted and died in agony or starvation.



A blazing noontide was succeeded by a calm and peaceful evening. Through

many hours I had endeavoured, as far as lay in my power, to assume the

command given me, and assisted by a number of quaintly-garbed officials

enthusiastic in Omar's cause, I found my office by no means difficult.

Order again reigning in the streets and the bodies removed, the city had

quietly settled down, though of course not to its usual peacefulness.

Crowds of the more excited ones still surged up and down the broad

thoroughfares, calling down vengeance upon the once powerful queen, but

all voices were united in cheers for the Naba Omar, their chosen ruler.



Save for those required to preserve order, the survivors of the troops

were back in barracks long before sunset, and the palace-guard had been

reorganised under Kona's personal supervision. The Dagombas alone

comprised Omar's body-guard, and I found on my return to the palace that

they had exchanged their scanty clothes of native bark-cloth for the rich

bright-coloured silk uniforms of those who had acted in a similar

capacity to the Naya. With their black happy shining faces they looked a

magnificent set of men, though for the first few hours they appeared a

trifle awkward in gay attire that was entirely strange to them. It was

amusing, too, to watch how each stalked by, erect and proud, like a

peacock spreading its brilliant plumage to the sun.



That night, when the bright moon rose, lighting up the great silent

court, until yesterday occupied by the terrible queen and her corrupt

entourage, Omar and I sat together discussing the events of those

fateful hours since midnight. We had eaten from the gold dishes in which

the Naya's food had been served; we had quenched our thirst from the

jewel-encrusted goblets that she was wont to raise to her thin blue lips.

By Omar's side I thus tasted, for the first time, the pleasures of

royalty.



My old chum had sent away his attendants, the host of slaves with the

twelve Dagombas who acted as the body-guard on duty, and we sat alone

together in the moonlight, the quiet broken only by the distant roll of a

drum somewhere down in the city, and the cool plashing of the beautiful

fountain as it fell softly into its crystal basin. Kona, Goliba and Niaro

were all away at their duties, and now for the first time for many hours,

we had a few minutes to talk together.



"Do you know, Scars," Omar said, moving uneasily upon the royal divan

that had been carried out into the court at his orders, while, tired out,

I reclined upon another close to him--"do you know there is but one thing

I regret, now that I have succeeded to the throne that was my

birthright?"



"Regret!" I exclaimed. "What regret can you have? Surely you were

entirely right in acting as you did? The people were anxious for a just

and upright ruler, and having regard to the fact that your mother plotted

your assassination in so cold-blooded a manner, her overthrow is justly

deserved."



"Yes, yes, I know," he answered, rather impatiently. "But it is not

that--not that. One thing remains to complete my happiness, but

alas!"----and he sighed heavily without finishing his sentence.



"Why speak so despondently?" I inquired, surprised. "As Naba of Mo all

things are possible."



"Alas! not everything," he said, with an air of melancholy.



"Well, tell me," I urged. "Why are you so downcast?"



"I--I have lost Liola," he answered hoarsely. "Truth to tell, Scarsmere,

I loved Goliba's daughter."



"She is absolutely beautiful," I admitted. "No man can deny that she is

handsome enough to share your royal throne."



"Indeed she was," he said with emotion, his chin upon his breast.



"Was!" I cried. "Why do you speak thus?"



"Because she is dead!" he answered huskily. "Ah! Scars, you don't know

how fondly I loved her ever since the first moment we met. I loved her

better than life; better than all this honour and pomp to which I have

succeeded. Yet she has been taken from me, and my life in future will be

devoid of that happiness I had contemplated. True I am Naba of Mo,

successor to the stool whereon a line of unconquered monarchs have sat

throughout a thousand years, yet all is an empty pleasure now that my

well-beloved is lost to me."



"Have you obtained definite news of her death?" I asked sympathetically.



"Yes. When we were captured in Goliba's house, she, too, was seized by

the soldiers. While held powerless I saw her struggling with her captors,

for they had somehow obtained knowledge of the part she had played in

our conspiracy against their queen. The Naya had, it appears, ordered her

guards to bring us all before her, dead or alive. With valiant courage

she resented the indignity of arrest, and as a consequence she was

brutally killed by those who held her prisoner."



"How have you ascertained this?" I asked, shocked at the news, for I

myself had admired Liola's extraordinary beauty.



"To-day I have had before me the three survivors of the guards who

captured us, and all relate the same story. They say that a young girl,

taken prisoner with us, while being dragged up the roadway towards the

palace was in danger of being released by the people, and one of their

comrades, remembering the Naya's orders that none of us were to escape,

in the melee raised his sword and plunged it into her heart."



"The brute!" I cried. "Is the murderer among the survivors?"



"No. All three agree that the mob, witnessing his action, set upon him

and literally tore him limb from limb."



"A fate he certainly deserved," I said. "But has her body been

recovered?"



"A body has been found and I have seen it. But the limbs are crushed, and

her face is, alas! trampled out of all recognition, although the dress

answers exactly to one that Goliba says his daughter possessed, and in

which I myself saw her. There is, alas! no doubt of her fate. She has

been brutally murdered, and at the instigation of the Naya, who sent

forth her fiendish horde to kill us."



"I knew from the manner you exchanged glances with Liola that you loved

her," I said, after a pause, brief and painful.



"Yes," he answered sadly. "Surreptitiously I had breathed into her ear

words of affection, and had been transported to a veritable paradise of

delight by the discovery that she reciprocated my love. But," he added,

harshly, "my brief happy love-dream is now ended. I must live and work

only for my people; they must be to me both sweetheart and wife. I must

act as my ancestors have done, indulging them and loving them."



Never before, even in the moments when as fellow-adventurers things

looked blackest, had I seen him in so utterly dejected an attitude. The

light had died from his face, and he had suddenly become burdened by a

monarch's responsibilities; prematurely aged by a bitter sorrow that had

sapped all youthful gaiety from his buoyant heart.



With heartfelt sympathy I endeavoured to console him, but all was

unavailing. That he had loved her madly was only too apparent, and it

seemed equally certain that she was dead, for shortly afterwards Goliba

entered, and in a voice full of emotion told us how he had been able to

identify the body, and that his tardy attendance upon his royal master

was due to the fact that he had been superintending her burial.



The old sage's words visibly increased Omar's burden of sorrow, for in

the moonlight I saw a tear trickle down his pale cheek, glistening for an

instant brighter than the jewels upon his robe. Liola had fallen victim

to the inhuman brutality of the Naya's guards, and Mo had thus been

deprived of a bewitchingly handsome queen.



The denouement of this stirring story of a throne was indeed a tragic

one; Goliba had lost his only daughter, the pride of his heart, and Omar

the woman he loved.



The silence that followed was broken by a hasty footstep, and the tall

dark figure of Kona approached.



"A strange fact hath transpired, O Master!" he cried breathlessly,

addressing Omar.



"Speak, tell me," the young Naba exclaimed, starting up. "Is it of Liola

that thou bearest news?"



"Alas! no. That she was murdered in the first moments of the conflict is

only too certain," he answered. "The news I bring thee is amazing. While

we were engaged in the struggle for thy throne, thine enemies, the people

of Samory, entered the city and fought side by side with the military!"



"Samory's people here!" we all three cried, starting up.



"They were, but they have departed no one knows whither. Their numbers

were not great, but they sacked and burned several large buildings near

the city-gate and fought desperately to join their allies the troops of

Mo, but were at last prevented and driven back by the people in a fierce

bloody conflict that actually occurred after thou wert enthroned."



Then I remembered having noticed the smoke of the encounter, and how with

others, I had been puzzled.



"But how could they enter our country, and unseen approach the city?"

Omar exclaimed astounded.



"I know not the intricacies of the approaches to Mo save the perilous Way

of the Thousand Steps," Kona replied. "The force may have been the

rear-guard of the army that attacked Mo, and were defeated in the great

chasm known as the Grave of Enemies. If they approached by that means

they must have followed closely in our footsteps, and through the

treachery of spies, been admitted to the city at a time when the

alertness of the guards was diverted by the popular rising."



"Were their losses great in the fight?" Goliba asked.



"Terrible. Whole streets and market-places in the vicinity of the

entrance to the city were found strewn with their dead," the black giant

answered. "Apparently the people discovered the identity of their enemies

and took no prisoners. With the exception of about two hundred survivors

all were killed."



"And the survivors have escaped!" Omar observed thoughtfully.



"Yes. Owing to the lax watch kept at the gate during those momentous

hours, they were enabled to descend the steps to the plain and get clear

away."



"They must nevertheless be still in Mo. They must be found," Omar cried

excitedly. "While they are among us our country will be in jeopardy, for

they will act as spies. Samory hath set his mind upon conquering this our

land; his plot must be frustrated."



"Already have I given orders for a search from the land's most northerly

limits even to the Grave of Enemies, O Master," Kona answered. "All the

men who could be spared from guarding the city I have dispatched on

expeditions with orders to attack and destroy the fugitives."



"They cannot have travelled far," the young ruler said. "They have only

about twelve hours' start of your men."



"To a man our troops are now loyal to thee," the newly-created chief of

the army answered. "They are alive to the fact that Samory's fighting-men

are their bitterest foes, therefore if the survivors of that intrepid

force are within our boundaries, they will assuredly be overtaken and

killed."



"I would rather that they were captured and held as hostages," Omar said.

"Enough blood hath been already shed to-day."



"The order to capture them is not sufficient incentive to thine army to

rout them from their hiding-place," Kona replied. "They have had the

audacity to make a dash upon thy city and burn some of its most renowned

and beautiful structures, therefore in their opinion if not in thine,

death alone would expiate their offence."



"I would wish their lives to be spared," Omar repeated. "But the army is

under thy control, and I leave the final annihilation of the band of

freebooters unto thee. Hast thou obtained any tidings of the Naya's

flight?"



"None. My Dagombas have searched every nook and corner of this thy

palace, each prison dungeon hath been entered by detachments of soldiers,

while enthusiastic parties have descended to the subterranean Temple of

Zomara, but found only the dwarf priests there. The Naya hath disappeared

as completely as if Zomara had crushed her between his jaws."



"Her disappearance is amazing," Omar observed. "Even her personal

attendants whom I have questioned are ignorant of the direction she hath

taken. They declare that she escaped within ten minutes of the blowing up

of the palace-gate. The catastrophe alarmed her, and she saw in the fall

of these defences the instability of her throne."



"All is being done that can be done to secure her arrest," Kona said. "It

is absolutely necessary that we should hold her captive, or, like the

deposed queen of the Nupe, she may stir up strife and form a plot to

reascend the stool."



"To thee, Kona, I look to guard me from mine enemies," my friend

exclaimed. "We must elucidate the mystery of the sudden descent of this

weak force of Samory's, the rapidity with which they struck their blow,

and the means by which they have, within twelve hours, so completely

eluded us."



"News of them hath been flashed even unto the furthermost limits of thy

kingdom, O Great Chief," Kona assured him. "No effort shall be spared by

thy servant in executing thy commands. I go forth again, and sleep shall

not close my eyes until the men of Samory have been overtaken."



With these words he made deep obeisance to the newly-enthroned sovereign,

and lifting his long native spear, which he still retained, he swore

vengeance most terrible upon the enemies of Mo, who had, with such

consummate strategic skill, entered and attacked the city at the moment

when it remained undefended.



"There is some deep mystery underlying this, Scars," Omar said, when Kona

had stalked away into the darkness, and Goliba had risen and crossed the

moon-lit court in response to a message delivered by a black slave. "I am

scarcely surprised at Kona's failure to capture the Naya; indeed,

personally, I should only be too happy to know that she had got safely

beyond the limits of Mo. But the sudden attack and rapid disappearance of

this marauding band of Samory proves two things; first that our country,

long thought impregnable, may be invaded, and secondly that through

Kouaga Samory is in possession of certain of our secrets."



"What secrets?" I asked.



"Secrets upon the preservation of which the welfare and safety of my

country depend," he answered mysteriously. Then, with a sudden air of

dejection, he added: "But there, what matters after all, now that Liola

is dead and my life is desolate? At the very moment when the greatest

honour has been bestowed upon me and I am enthroned Naba, the saviour of

my people, the greatest sorrow has also fallen upon me."



After a moment's silence he started up in sudden desperation, crying:

"Slave have I been to evil all the days of my life! I have toiled and

earned nothing; I have sown in care and reaped not in merriment; I have

poisoned the comfort of others, but no blessing hath fallen into my own

lap. Blasted are the paths whereon I trod; my past actions are ravenous

vultures gnawing on my vitals, and the sharpened claws of malicious

spirits await my arrival among the regions of the accursed."



"Yes," I observed with a sigh, for the remembrance of that bright,

beautiful face was to me likewise one of ineffable sadness. "Yes," I

said, "Fate has indeed been unkind. What she has bestowed with one hand,

she has taken away with the other."



Then we were silent. Above the cool plashing music of the fountain could

be heard the distant roar of voices in great rejoicing, while upon the

starlit sky was still reflected a red ominous glare from the fires raging

in the city that no effort of man could subdue. At the gate leading

outward to the next court stood two sentries with drawn swords gleaming

in the moonbeams, mute and motionless like statues, while echoing along

the colonnade was the measured tramp of the soldier as he paced before

the entrance of the gilded Hall of Audience, the scene of so many

stirring dramas in the nation's history. From the divan whereon I sat I

could see the great Emerald Throne glittering green under a brilliant

light, with its golden image of the sacred crocodile and its banner

bearing the hideous vampire-bat, while around it were still grouped the

officials of the household, the body-guard of faithful Dagombas, the

slaves ready with their great fans, and Gankoma, the executioner, with

his bright double-edged doka, all standing in patience, awaiting the

coming of their royal master.



The Court of Mo was, I reflected, a strange admixture of European

civilization and culture with African superstition and barbarity. On the

one hand the buildings were of marble or stone, magnificent in their

proportions, with decorations in the highest style of Moorish art, the

arms were of the latest pattern surreptitiously imported from England and

many of them faithfully copied by skilful, enlightened workmen;

electricity was known and used, and the tastes of the people showed a

refinement almost equal to that of any European state. Yet in religion

there prevailed the crudest and most ignorant forms of superstition, one

of which was the horrible practice of burying alive all sick persons,

while the custom of the executioner accompanying the reigning monarch

everywhere, ready to obey the royal command, was distinctly a relic of

savage barbarism.



"A few moments ago you spoke of secrets that must be preserved," I said

presently, turning to Omar.



"Yes," he answered slowly. "But my heart is too full of poignant grief to

think of them. To-night the secrets are mine alone; to-morrow you shall

be in possession of at least one of them. I have, however, much yet to

do, I see, before I rest," he added, glancing over his shoulder into the

brilliant hall where stood the empty throne.



Then rising wearily, he sighed for Goliba's dead daughter, and weighted

by his rich robes, slowly strode across to the arched entrance from which

the light streamed forth, and as he set foot upon its threshold every

proud head bowed to earth in deep, abject obeisance.