“Get up, Wimba,” commanded Frank. “Tell Chief Ruku-Ru that our Great Spirit is about to bless him for this deed.”
Once more Wimba faced the chief and in a voice trembling with feeling he repeated Frank’s words.
Then Frank inflated the final step in his hastily-thought-out plan. Setting his fingers to his lips he whistled. But this time only twice. It was the agreed signal.
From the air boomed forth again the mysterious voice:
“O, Chief Ruku-Ru, thy name shall be great as an administrator of justice. Thy tribe shall be fruitful, thy cattle fat, thy springs filled with sweet water. I have spoken.”
Silence.
“Let’s make our getaway now, Frank,” whispered Jack. “We’ve gotten out of this a whole lot better than we had any right to expect. Don’t tempt fate too much.”
But filled with the confidence of success, Frank only smiled. He whispered to Wimba, and the latter addressing Chief Ruku-Ru announced that in honor of the occasion his white masters would that night bring music from the air, and that they invited the whole tribe to assemble after dusk before the council tree.
With this, leaving the chief and all the assemblage stunned, the boys and Wimba departed. As they moved away, the Kikuyus opened a passage for them in grotesque haste. Now that the strain of the situation was over, both Frank and Jack were seized with an insane desire to laugh. But they managed to control their emotions, and to retain upon their faces a look of the most solemn gravity. Only when at length they had passed out of earshot of the multitude and had put the last of the grass-thatched huts behind them, did they give way to their feelings. Then they flung themselves prone into the long buffalo grass of the meadow separating the village from their encampment and rolling over and over they simply howled with laughter while Wimba watched them in the greatest astonishment.
“I’ll never forget that scene to my dying day,” laughed Jack, finally.