The Stolen Child 
his pipe. He was a perfect picture of repose and 
cool impudence. As soon as 1 saw him 1 knew 
that nothing serious was the matter; but I was so 
relieved that I did not lose my temper and every¬ 
thing passed off very pleasantly. 
Another of his peculiarities was that he would 
not own slaves and made it a capital crime for 
any of the people of his chiefdom to own them. 
But he would sell all captives in war to meet the 
expenses of that war, and in this way was in¬ 
directly a slave owner. His vengeful, ferocious 
temper showed itself once in the murder of his 
own child. When the mission girl whom he had 
kidnapped escaped to Lagos, leaving her son to 
his mercy, he called the child to him and cut off 
its head with his own hand. 
I have always thought he was partially in¬ 
sane, especially as he believed that he would 
never die. He did seem to bear a charmed life 
and survived the most of his contemporaries, after 
having passed through untold perils on the battle¬ 
field. He imagined himself a demigod, and that 
some day he would go up to heaven like Shango. 
1 would have been afraid of this savage if it had 
not been that he was subordinate entirely to the 
Bashorun, and the latter had never failed to 
show himself a friend whenever 1 needed his 
251 
