Page:The land of fetish.pdf/300

 The palaver then terminated.

The sickness of which Buaki spoke was only a diplomatic fiction, and in speaking of the sword-bearer, Yow Mensah, he unwittingly let a cat out of the bag which the Governor would have much preferred keeping in confinement. As we have seen, the embassy left Coomassie on April 6th, but only arrived at Prahsu on the 16th. Now Buaki well knew that no one would believe that eleven days were required to traverse the seventy-three miles of actual distance from the capital to the river, and not wishing, in the interests of his mission, to inform the Governor of what had really taken place, and let him know how nearly he had made war inevitable, he started the story of having been ill to account for the delay, which, as I have already shown, was caused by Mensah's order. The Governor had somehow gained an inkling of what was really happening in Ashanti, and, to use the words of a high Colonial official of much experience, seeing that it was no time for further buffoonery, and that peace and war were trembling in the balance, he gave up his supposed dignified attitude of reserve, and, taking the initiative himself, sent Yow Mensah to the envoys to say he was waiting for them.[A] Of course they then came on at once, just as

[Footnote A: This man had arrived from Coomassie on March 30th and