"It isn't for Sanders' sake or mine or your own, Bones—but for—well, for the whole crowd of us—white folk. You'll have to do your best, old man."
Bones took the other's hand, snivelled a bit despite his fierce effort of restraint, and went aboard the Zaire.
"Tell all men," said B'chumbiri, addressing his impassive relatives, "that I go to a great day and to many strange lands."
He was tall and knobby-kneed, spoke with a squeak at the end of his deeper sentences, and about his tired eyes he had made a red circle with camwood. Round his head he had twisted a wire so tightly that it all but cut the flesh: this was necessary, for B'chumbiri had a headache which never left him day or night.
Now he stood, his lank body wrapped in a blanket, and he looked with dull eyes from face to face.
"I see you," he said at last, and repeated his motto which had something to do with monkeys.
They watched him go down the street towards the beech where the easiest canoe in the village was moored.
"It is better if we go after him and put out his eyes," said his elder brother; "else who knows what damage he will do for which we must pay?"
Only B'chumbiri's mother looked after him with a mouth that drooped at the side, for he was her only son, all the others being by other wives of Mochimo.