For a trying spell his undaunted spirit had stood between the valley and destruction, and the wild men went back to Hassan with a tale of a terrible white man who had struck down their bravest with a great blade.
"That Ghoorka knife," he said, "is a great weapon;" and with that summing-up of the struggle in the gloom of the defile he lit his pipe, and sat down to gaze upon the valley, so peaceful in appearance, so charged with the everlasting tragedy of life. "If those people were whites, or Arabs, they would now be following up the enemy to crush him while he is disorganized. But being blacks, they don't look further ahead than their noses, which were made short for the purpose."
"Let us go down and offer to lead an expedition in pursuit," said
Compton.
"I guess not, Dick. They'd leave us to do all the fighting ourselves; and there's no sense in that. What we have to think about is how to get away."
"Surely there is no difficulty about that. We will go when it suits us."
"I'm not so sure," said Mr. Hume, gravely.
"But Muata is our friend."
"Muata cannot do what he likes, and, if he could, you've got to remember this—that Muata in the Okapi, dependent on us, is another person to Muata the chief in his own kraal."
"I don't think he would be treacherous," said Venning.
"He need not go so far as that to upset our plans. Maybe he would find it convenient to keep us here as his 'white men' until it suits him to let us go. You see, he has got to think of himself as chief and of his people first."