Exactly what that meant, I am not disposed to guess.
George stayed a month as the guest of Lukati. He had intended to stay at the most three days, but there was always a reason for postponing his departure.
Once the carriers deserted, once the roads were not safe, once Olari asked him to remain that he might see his young men dance. George did not know that his escort of four Houssas were feeling uneasy, because his interpreter—as big a fool as himself—could not interpret omens. George knew nothing of the significance of a dance in which no less than six witch-doctors took part, or the history of the tumble-down hut that stood in solitude at one end of the village. Had he taken the trouble to search that hut, he would have found a table, a chair, and a truckle bed, and on the table a report, soiled with dust and rain, which began:
"I have the honour to inform your Excellency that the natives maintain their industrious and peaceable attitude."
For in this hut in his lifetime lived Carter, Deputy Commissioner; and the natives, with their superstitious regard for the dead, had moved nothing.
It was approaching the end of the month, when the Hon. George thought he detected in his host a certain scarcely-veiled insolence of tone, and in the behaviour of the villagers something more threatening.
The dances were a nightly occurrence now, and the measured stamping of feet, the clash of spear against cane shield, and the never-ending growl of the song the dancers sang, kept him awake at nights. Messengers came to Olari daily from long distances, and once he was awakened in the middle of the night by screams. He jumped out of bed and pushed aside the fly of his tent to see half a dozen naked women dragged through the streets—the result of a raid upon the unoffending Bokari. He dressed, in a sweat of indignation and fear, and went to the chief's hut, fortunately without his interpreter, for what Olari said would have paralysed him.
In the morning (after this entirely unsatisfactory interview) he paraded his four Houssas and such of his carriers as he could find, and prepared to depart.
"Master," said Olari, when the request was interpreted, "I would rather you stayed. The land is full of bad people, and I have still much to tell you of the devilishness of Sandi. Moreover," said the chief, "to-night there is to be a great dance in your honour," and he pointed to where three slaves were engaged in erecting a big post in the centre of the village street.
"After this I will let you go," said Olari, "for you are my father and my mother."