He said something which Raggy translated, “Come on for true.”
They went on “for true,” and soon found themselves in a grove and under a canopy of grass-cloth. On the green-sward they all squatted down to a banquet, the like of which Harry had not seen for many days.
It was not served on china, you may be sure, and there were no forks, only knives. The plates were of yellow-brown clay, and as soft as a brick. In the centre was a huge dish of curried rice; before each of his guests was placed a curried fowl. Then there were floury and well-cooked yams, sweet potatoes and plantains, and a large chattee of water.
Raggy ate up his fowl every bit, so did Somali Jack. Harry failed on his last drumstick, and the king laughed again, and cried, “Lobo! Lobo!”
Then there was more wandering about the island, and another banquet or fried fish and fruit on their return.
All the time Harry and Jack stuck to their rifles. One never knows what savages may turn out to be, and had anything occurred they were determined to sell their lives as dearly as possible.
Next day, and next, and next, were simply repetitions of the first, with this difference—that the king took his guests round his islands in his barge, rowed now by five dark-skinned boatmen on each side, and this will give you some idea of the size of it.
Every evening after supper, sitting out under the stars, the king being only dimly visible as a kind of shape, Harry had to tell stories of all the kings and potentates and countries in the world.
He got a little tired at last, and found it better and easier to invent tales of imagination, based upon the stories he had read, such as the novels of Cooper and Walter Scott, than to stick to plain geography and pure history. This pleased this strange king even better, and he was constantly saying, “Lobo!” during Harry’s recitals.
I dare say, however, that Raggy, through whom, as a medium, the stories had to pass, embellished them somewhat on his own account.