Long before daybreak they were fifteen miles at least from Cannibal Mountain, and soon they found themselves on the banks of a broad river.
The queen made Kep rest far up in the green foliage of a vast spreading tree while she herself ran off to find food. She soon returned bringing many kinds of delicious fruits. For a while they rested, then from the bushes close by the river she dragged a light black canoe, and beckoned him to take his seat.
He did so, and next moment the boat was rapidly being paddled down the beautiful river.
Kep was too full of thought to take much heed of the sweet romantic scenery that changed and changed at every bend of the stream. But he observed by looking at the sun and judging the time, that they were not taking the direction in which the Breezy lay. Sometimes, indeed, they were facing directly east.
This was indeed a mystery. But he determined not even to ask the queen, lest he might seem to doubt her goodness and honesty.
Just one question however he asked. Did, he wanted to know, the lovely young queen Boona kill the ugly old one with her own hands.
"Pah! no," she answered. "I not hab her black blood run ober my hands and spit on my booful dless (dress). No, no, Boona hab plenty fliends in the palace."
She rose higher in his estimation now. Much higher. He was not sitting near a murderess after all. So now he determined to let things slide. And thinking thus, the boy, just where he sat, dropped into a sound sleep unlike anything he had ever enjoyed before.
* * * * *
We must be done now with the cannibal chief, Gobolohlo. He was tried just there on the beach by drum-head court martial, sentenced, tied to a tree, and a volley of rifle bullets fired into him. His body was left for the ants to pick.