“Ranni! Do you think Mafumu is all right?” shouted Jack from the back of the line. “He’s been gone for ages. He won’t get lost, will he?”
Ranni spoke to the guide in front. The man laughed and made some sort of quick answer.
“He says that Mafumu knows his forest as an ant knows its own anthill,” translated Ranni. “He says, too, that he would not care at all if Mafumu were eaten by a crocodile or caught by a leopard. He doesn’t seem at all fond of his small nephew, does he?”
“I think he’s a horrid man,” said Peggy. “My goodness — are there leopards about?”
“Well, you needn’t worry even if there are,” said Ranni. “Pilescu and I have guns, and our leader has plenty of spears ready.”
It was cool and dark in the forest and the little company were able to go for a long way without resting, twisting and turning through the trees. Frogs croaked somewhere, and birds called harshly. Jack spotted some brightly coloured parrots, and there were some rather queer squirrel-like creatures that hopped from branch to branch. The monkeys were most interested in the children, and a little crowd of them swung through the trees, following the company for quite a long way.
At last the forest came to an end. The trees became fewer, and the sun shone between, making golden freckles on the ground that danced and moved as the trees waved their branches.
“Well, that couldn’t have been a very big forest if it only took us such a short time to go through,” said Mike.
“It is really a very big one,” said Pilescu. “But we have only gone through a corner of it. If we went deeper into it we should not be able to get along. We should have to take axes and knives to cut our way through.”
The children were still worried about Mafumu, but he suddenly appeared again, bent nearly double under his old load and carrying a new load of the juicy-looking yellow fruit. He gave some to each child, grinning cheerfully.