“Nay; for I have a mighty charm against all river beasts, enchanted by Bakahenzie, the greatest of magicians.”
“Ehh!” commented Birnier, contorting his swollen lips in the dark, “would that I had such an one! Thinkest thou that the men did as they were bidden?”
“Who knows what is in the heart of a goat?” returned Mungongo contemptuously, for they were of another tribe.
“Ah, listen!”
The mutter of the hand-drum grew swifter as a high tenor chanted to the accompaniment of the abdominal grunting and the laryngeal shrilling:
“We have come from afar from the Place of the waters!
From the place where dwells the mighty Eater-of-Men!
Hard was the road as the hills of Kilimanjaro!
Hot was the sun as the wrath of Inyira the bold!
The son of Banyala!