"This," said Bosambo, with much friendliness, "you will sell to the N'gombi, who are lovers of such things, and they will pay you well."
Wooling came to the N'gombi territory with the happy sense of having purchased fifty pounds for fourpence, and entered it, for he regarded official warnings as the expression of a poor form of humour.
He found the N'gombi (as he expected) in a mild and benevolent mood. They purchased by public subscription one of his beautiful chains to adorn the neck of their chief, and they fêted him, and brought dancing women from the villages about, to do him honour.
They expressed their love and admiration for Sandi volubly, until, discovering that their enthusiasm awoke no responsive thrill in the heart or the voice of their hearer, they tactfully volunteered the opinion that Sandi was a cruel and oppressive master.
Whereupon Wooling cursed them fluently, calling them eaters of fish and friends of dogs; for it is against the severe and inborn creed of the Coast to allow a nigger to speak disrespectfully of a white man—even though he is a Government officer.
"Now listen all people," said Wooling; "I have a great and beautiful object to sell you——"
* * * * *
Over the tree-tops there rolled a thick yellow cloud which twisted and twirled into fantastic shapes.
Sanders walked to the bow of the Zaire to examine the steel hawser. His light-hearted crew had a trick of "tying-up" to the first dead and rotten stump which presented itself to their eyes.
For once they had found a firm anchorage. The hawser was clamped about the trunk of a strong young copal which grew near the water's edge. An inspection of the stern hawser was as satisfactory.