Part 16 (2/2)
”What do you know of them then?” I asked ”But stay--before you answer, I will speak what I know,” and I repeated what I had learned from Hans, who confir out, however, any nall
”It is all true,” said Babeht-in-the-Darkness speaks, was one of the wives of my uncle and I knew her well Hearken! These Kendah are a terrible nation and countless in nu is called Simba, which means Lion He who rules is always called Simba, and has been so called for hundreds of years He is of the Black Kendah whose God is the elephant Jana, but as Light-in-Darkness has said, there are also the White Kendah who are Arab men, the priests and traders of the people The Kendah will allow no stranger within their doors; if one comes they kill him by torment, or blind him and turn him out into the desert which surrounds their country, there to die These things the old woht-in-Darkness, also I have heard them from others, and what she did not tell reat breeders of the beasts called camels which they sell to the Arabs of the north Go not near them, for if you pass the desert the Black Kendah will kill you; and if you escape these, then their king, Simba, will kill you; and if you escape him, then their God Jana will kill you; and if you escape hiic Oh! long before you look upon the faces of those priests you will be dead many times over”
”Then why did they ask me to visit them, Babemba?”
”I know not, Macu of you to the God Jana, whom no spear can harm; no, nor even your bullets that pierce a tree”
”I a to make trial of that o to see these things for ourselves”
”Yes,” echoed Ragnall, ”we e, for I had been translating to theh he would much rather stay behind
”Ask him if there are any snakes there, sir,” he said, and foolishly enough I put the question to give s
”Yes, O Bena Yes, O cock of the Ashpit,” replied Babeuardians of the shrine of the White Kendah is such a snake as was never seen elsewhere in the world”
”Then say to hie, when I had translated almost autoo to say e little knew the future and its gifts
Then we came to the question of bearers The end of it was that after soreat affection for us, pro to disht escape our doom,” as he remarked cheerfully
Four days later we started, accompanied by about one hundred and twenty picked men under the command of old Babemba himself, who, he explained, wished to be the last to see us alive in the world This was depressing, but other circuh even ht before we left Hans arrived and asked me to ”write a paper” for him I inquired what he wantedto his death and had property, namely the 650 that had been left in a bank to his credit, he desired to e of Babemba The only provision of the said as that I was to inherit his property, if I lived If I died, which, he added, ”of course you must, Baas, like the rest of us,” it was to be devoted to furnishi+ng poor black people in hospital with so to drink instead of the ”coater” that was given to them there Needless to say I turned him out at once, and that testamentary deposition remained unrecorded Indeed it was unnecessary, since, as I reminded him, on my advice he had already made a will before we left Durban, a circuotten
The second event, which occurred about an hour before our departure, was, that hearing ain the market-place where once Hans and I had been tied to stakes to be shot to death with arrows, I went out to see as the ht of about a hundred old wo their loudest in a melancholy unison Behind these stood the entire population of Beza-Toho chanted a kind of chorus
”What the devil are they doing?” I asked of Hans
”Singing our death-song, Baas,” he replied stolidly, ”as they say that where we are going no one will take the trouble to do so, and it is not right that great lords should die and the heavens above re”
”That's cheerful,” I reht out if he wished to persevere in this business, for to tell the truth my nerve was shaken
”I must,” he answered simply, ”but there is no reason why you and Hans should, or Savage either for the o,” I said, ”and where I go Hans will go
Savage must speak for hi a very honest and faithful man It was the more to his credit since, as he informed me in private, he did not enjoy African adventure and often dreanall whence he superintended the social activities of that great establishment
So we departed and h every kind of country After we had passed the head of the great lake wherein lay the island, if it really was an island, where the Pongo used to dwell (one clear lasses I discerned the mountain top that marked the former residence of the Mother of the Flower, and by contrast ita route known to Babeh a land with very few inhabitants, ties and scarcely understood the art of cultivating the soil, even in its most primitive fores ceased and thencefore only encountered soame which they shot with poisoned arrows Once they attacked us and killed two of the Mazitu with those horrid arrows, against the venom of which no remedy that we had in our e exhibited his courage if not his discretion, for rushi+ng out of our thorn fence, aftera bushmen with both barrels at a distance of five yards--he was, I think, the worst shot I ever saw--he seized the little viper with his hands and dragged hie escaped with his life I do not know, for one poisoned arroent through his hat and stuck in his hair and another just grazed his leg without drawing blood
This valorous deed was of great service to us, since ere able through Hans, who knew soe, to explain to our prisoner that if ere shot at again he would be hung This inforrunt, to his amiable tribe, of which it appeared he was a kind of chief, with the result that ere no more molested Later, ere clear of the bushreat rapidity