As naturally as if he had been voted into it, did Harry now quietly and coolly assume command of the whole army, both Googagoo’s and ’Ngaloo’s. The latter king he could not respect, albeit it was through his instrumentality that they had all escaped utter annihilation. He tried to feel grateful to ’Ngaloo, but it was impossible, he really could not help observing that the great chief had a selfish, grasping, and grovelling mind. There were times, indeed, that he could scarcely feel civil to the savage.
And no wonder. ’Ngaloo, after looking for a long time at Harry’s actions, and admiring his bustling but well-trained activity, came, and with cool audacity made a proposition to him. It was couched in the following terms:
“We soon go back now to my beautiful land among the mountains. I am a great king now. I have been a great king all my life. I am now twice a great king, because I shall reign over all the rich land and woods of my dear brother King Kara-Kara, whose confounded dead nose I pulled on the battlefield. So there is no king in the world so great now as ’Ngaloo. Come, then, and live with me. I will make of you a big chief. I will cut the head of my prime minister off, and you shall reign in his stead, and have all his wives as slaves—”
It was precisely at this point that Harry interrupted the king’s poetical harangue.
Harry simply said—
“Bosh!”
Very emphatically he said it, too. Then he wheeled right round and proceeded with his duty.
’Ngaloo went away then, somewhat crestfallen; but he had a private commissariat of his own, and he found some rum there, so he consoled himself with that.
A few hours afterwards, ’Ngaloo might have been seen marching about among Harry’s troops, with a sottish kind of a smile on his face.