A boy ran to Khama to tell him. The chief went to the house and strode
in. The room was a wreck. The men lay senseless with their white
shirts stained with blood.
Khama with set, stern face turned and walked to the house where he
often went for counsel, the home of his friend, Mr. Hepburn, the
missionary. Mr. Hepburn lay ill with fever. Khama told him what the
white men had done. Hepburn burned with shame and anger that his own
fellow-countrymen should so disgrace themselves. Ill as he was he rose
and went out with the chief and saw with his own eyes that it was as
Khama said.
"I will clear them all out of my town," cried the chief.
It was Saturday night.
_Khama's Decisive Hour_
On the Monday morning Khama sent word to all the white men to come
to him. It was a cold, dreary day. The chief sat waiting in the
_Kgotla_[47] while the white men came together before him. Hepburn,
the missionary, sat by his side. Those who knew Khama saw as soon as
they looked into his grim face that no will on earth could turn him
from his decisions that day.
"You white men,"[48] he said to them sternly, "have insulted and
despised me in my own town because I am a black man. If you despise us
black men, what do you want here in the country that God has given to
us? Go back to your own country.
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