Part 21 (1/2)
”We accept the offer of Sih it would be easy for this lord to kill him nohere he stands, namely, to yield ourselves as prisoners on his oath that no hareance will be terrible Now in proof of his good faith, let Simba draw near and drink the cup of peace with us, for we thirst”
”Not so,” said the ht kill him with his tube Give naniingerly fashi+on After all, I reflected, there is nothing much more useless than a rifle without ath, and presently Simba himself, accompanied by some of his e cup hollowed from an elephant's tusk, rode up to us This Sie moustache and a chin shaved except for a little tuft of hair which he wore at its point like an Italian His eyes were big and dark, frank-looking, yet now and again with sinister expression in the corners of them He was not nearly so black as enerations his blood had been crossed with that of the White Kendah He wore his hair long without any head-dress, held in place by a band of gold which I suppose represented a crown On his forehead was a large white scar, probably received in some battle Such was his appearance
He looked at reat curiosity, and I have often wondered since what kind of an impression I produced upon him My hat had fallen off, or I had knocked it off when I fired otten to replace it, and er than usual, had not been recently brushed My worn Norfolk jacket was dyed with blood froainst ht leg and boot were stained in a siainst ether I must have appeared a most disreputable object
Soiven, however, in a remark, which of course I pretended not to understand, that I overheard him make to one of his officers:
”Truly,” he said, ”we th
And yet this little white porcupine is strength itself, for see how ht us Also consider his eyes that appear to pierce everything Jana hirinds the rocks will tell us all”
All of this I caught perfectly, ht that he spoke out ofa month in their company I understood the Kendah dialect of Bantu very well
Having delivered himself thus he rode nearer and said:
”You, Prophet Mart, , and have accepted them Therefore discuss theiven I give, neither greater nor less by the weight of a hair”
”So be it, O King,” answered Mart with his usual s ever seemed to disturb ”Only remember that if those terms are broken either in the letter or in the spirit, especially the spirit” (that is the best rendering I can give of his word), ”the manifold curses of the Child will fall upon you and yours Yes, though you kill us all by treachery, still those curses will fall”
”May Jana take the Child and all orshi+p it,” exclai with evident irritation
”In the end, O King, Jana will take the Child and its followers--or the Child will take Jana and his followers Which of these things must happen is known to the Child alone, and perchance to its prophets
Meanwhile, for every one of those of the Child I think that three of the followers of Jana, or more, lie dead upon this field Also the caravan is now out of your reach with two of the white lords and many of such tubes which deal death, like that which we have surrendered to you
Therefore because we are helpless, do not think that the Child is helpless Jana , or you would have set your trap better”
I thought that this coolly insolent speech would have produced some outburst, but in fact it see no reply to it, Simba said almost humbly:
”I come to drink the cup of peace with you and the white lord, O Prophet Afterwards we can talk Give reat ivory cup ater fro sprinkled a little upon the ground, I suppose as an offering, drank from the cup, doubtless to show that it was not poisoned Watching carefully, Ithe motions of his throat Then he handed the cup with a bow to Mart, ith a still deeper bow passed it toabsolutely parched I absorbed about a pint of it, and feeling a new man, passed the horn to Mart, ed the rest Then it was filled again for our three White Kendah, the King first tasting the water as before, after which Mart and I had a second pull
When at length our thirst was satisfied, horses were brought to us, serviceable and docile little beasts with sheepskins for saddles and loops of hide for stirrups On these we mounted and for the next three hours rode across the plain, surrounded by a strong escort and with an ar on each side of our horses and holding in his hand a thong attached to the ring of the bridle, no doubt to prevent any atteh so at us, and through beautiful crops of rain that in this country were now just ripening The luxuriant appearance of these crops suggested that the rains must have been plentiful and the season all that could be desired Froes by the track arose aEvidently their inhabitants had already heard that certain of their ht
At the end of the third hour we began to enter the great forest which I had seen when first we looked down on Kendahland It was filled with splendid trees, e to me, but perhaps because of the denseness of their overshadowing crowns there was coeneral effect of the place was very gloo foliage of the tops of thosein this forest, it may have been four or five miles in diameter, but whether it was natural or artificial I am not sure I think, however, that it was probably the forround, which lay a goodforest, and the wonderful fertility of the soil, which suggested that it had once been deposited upon an old lake bottorew upon that clearing; they werethe road that ran through the tall corn, for here every inch was cultivated, we came suddenly upon the capital of the Black Kendah, which was known as Sie place, somewhat different from any other African settlement hich I am acquainted, inasmuch as it was not only stockaded but completely surrounded by a broad artificial h the centre of the town, over which es placed at the cardinal points of the coh to bear horses or stock, but so made that in the event of attack they could be destroyed in a few ate, a stout tie, where the king was received with salutes by an aruard, we entered one of the main streets of the tohich ran from north to south and from east to west It was broad and on either side of it were the dwellings of the inhabitants set close together because the space within the stockade was lis of mud with flat roofs of some kind of cement Evidently they were built upon the model of Oriental and North African houses of which some debased tradition remained with these people Thus a stairway or ladder ran from the interior to the roof of each house, whereon its inhabitants were accustoood part of the year, also to eat in the cool of the day Many of theathered there noatch us pass, men, women, and children, all except the little ones decently clothed in long garments of various colours, the women for the most part in white and the men in a kind of bluish linen
I saw at once that they had already heard of the fight and of the considerable losses which their people had sustained, for their reception of us prisoners was most unfriendly Indeed the men shook their fists at us, the women screaues in token of derision or defiance Most of these demonstrations, however, were directed at Mart and his followers, who only smiled indifferently At me they stared in wonder not unate we came to an inner enclosure, that answered to the South African cattle kraal, surrounded by a dry ditch and a tireen fence of soh ates, to find ourselves in an oval space, perhaps five acres in extent
Evidently this served as a round, but all around it were open sheds where hundreds of horses were stabled No cattle seeoats were driven in every day for slaughter purposes at a shareat stock kraals built beyond the forest to the south, where they were safe fro by the White Kendah
A tall reed fence cut off the southern end of this marketplace, outside of which ere ordered to disate we found within the fence a large hut or house built on the same model as the others in the tohich Mart whispered toBehind it were s females, who advanced to ht and left were two s of about equal size, one of which was occupied by the royal guard and the other was the guest-house whither ere conducted