"These are matters too high for my understanding," he said. "Yet I know that he takes the Angola because they are great gardeners, and cunning in the pruning of trees."
Again Arachi had reason for thinking profoundly.
This Abdul, as he saw, must come to the Upper River for the people of the Lesser Akasava, who were also great gardeners. He would take no Isisi, because they were notoriously lazy, and moreover, died with exasperating readiness when transplanted to a foreign soil.
He continued his journey till he came to the place where he would have turned off had he taken a short cut to the French territory.
Here he left his paddlers and his guest, and made his way up the creek of Still Waters.
Half-a-day's paddling brought him to the camp of Abdul. The slaver's silent runners on the bank had kept pace with him, and when Arachi landed he was seized by men who sprang apparently from nowhere.
"Lead me to your master, O common men," said Arachi, "for I am a chief of the Isisi, and desire a secret palaver."
"If you are Isisi, and by your thinness and your boasting I see that you are," said his captor, "my lord Abdul will make easy work of you."
Abdul Hazim was short and stout, and a lover of happiness. Therefore he kept his camp in that condition of readiness which enabled him to leave quickly at the first sight of a white helmet or a Houssa's tarboosh.
For it would have brought no happiness to Abdul had Sanders come upon him.