The trio—Somali Jack, Raggy, and Harry—are very friendly now.
Only once did Jack allude to that night when they fled from Mahmoud’s camp. It is in terms of admiration and in broken English.
“You give me proper trashing that night. I think I feel your shut hand on my nose now. Wah-ee! he do make him smart, and my eyes all fill with water hat hat ha!”
Yes, Jack could afford to laugh now, for Harry was not a bad master to him.
Somali Jack is happier, and, to use his own words—
“I have one stake in de world now. I all same as one Arab, I have a soul. You, master, have said so. I believe what my master says. Of course I believe what he tell me. I not all same as one koodoo—die on de hill and rot. No, I float away, away, away, past de clouds, and past de stars to de bright land of love, where Jesu reigns. Oh yes, Somali Jack is happy and proud.”
The trio are now in an unknown land.
It might be called the Land of Depopulation, for long ago the few natives that slavery left have died or fled away. There is hardly a vestige of the remains of their villages, only here and there a kind of clearing with what appears to be a hedge around it. But if you pulled away the creepers on top of this you would find old rotten palisades—indication enough that those poor creatures had made some vain attempts at defending themselves against the inroads of the Arab invader.
Harry had not long continued in the caravan route that led to the land of the drunken king. The sights he came upon every now and then while following it were sickening. It was quite evident that of the hundred slaves whom Mahmoud had chosen, at least twenty had fallen by the way, in rather less than three weeks, and been left to perish in the bush or on the grass beneath a blazing sun.
He would have followed the more southern route, and endeavour to find out the whereabouts of his fellows, but such a proceeding would have been absurdly impracticable. A white slave is thought worth a thousand black at some of the courts of African kings. He could not have redeemed his men, and to have attempted to rescue them in any other way would have only ended in failure, and in slavery to himself and companions. No, there was at present no hope. But he had more than one plan which he meant to try when a chance should occur.