Essequibo was a strange name to give this nigger boy. (The name of a river in South America.) It came by chance, and suited him well. He was clever, this lad; and proved a treasure to the little expedition in many a trial. His English was not of the purest, he had learnt it in Zanzibar; but he could talk the languages of the interior tribes and Arabic as well. It is truly wonderful how soon boys of this caste learn languages.
Zona was guide and chief of the party; he knew the land well, and he knew the river. He knew which way to go to avoid unfriendly Indians, and he knew also the shortest tracks. So you may fancy them going on and on day after day in their search for the land of gold, sometimes gliding along the silent and unknown river, sometimes plunging into deep, dark forests; at other times toiling over arid plains, round the spurs of lofty mountains, or wading deep through miry marsh lands, the home, par excellence, of the most loathsome of Saurian monsters; but journeying ever with light hearts, for hope still pointed onwards.
At night, by the camp fire, Archie and Kenneth used to build aerial castles, and plan out the kind of future that they should spend in Scotland when they had wealth. But never a night passed without a chapter being read, a psalm sung, and a prayer said. Zona used to retire to the bush, and it is but fair to say that, according to his lights, he was as good at heart as any of the others.
They had hired over a dozen sturdy Indians to carry boats and ammunition, but these men needed watching, both by night and by day. They were necessary evils, that is all. Not that negroes of this kind are not often faithful enough, but they need a master eye to guide them, else they soon lose heart and faint and fail—then fly.
More than once Keebo prevented these men from stampeding, for Keebo was ever watchful.
For many weeks our heroes kept on in the same slow course, defying every obstacle. They were now little more than fifty miles from the goal of their desires.
“If gold or diamonds,” said Kenneth to Archie, “be but half as plentiful as represented, we have only to collect and retire. We have overcome every danger, and avoided the greatest danger of all—the Logobo country. We will go more swiftly down stream than we came up.”
Archie was quite as hopeful as Kenneth.
Harvey hardly so much so.