“Do you think I could leave you?” interposed Warley reproachfully.
“I will not ask you to do so,” answered the missionary, clasping Ernest’s hands as he spoke; “but you two—”
“We too will not leave you,” broke in Frank. “I know I speak for Nick as well as myself. We will all stay and endure whatever may chance together. I will tell Kobo so forthwith.”
He sought out the Bechuana accordingly, and acquainted him with the resolution to which all the party had come, adding however, that they would all keep Kobo’s secret most inviolably, and if any occasion should arrive when his services might be required for an attempt of the kind suggested by him, they would at once apply to him to help them.
“Meanwhile,” he said, “Kobo, let us have plenty to employ our time and thoughts. It will never do for us to sit down and brood over our troubles; we should go mad, I expect. Look here, didn’t you tell us that the spoor of some elephants had been seen yesterday or this morning, at a short distance from this?”
“Great many elephant in bush,” said Kobo; “six, seven, big bulls, twenty cows, not three miles away. Not go away to-day, perhaps not to-morrow.”
“Do you hear that, Nick?” said Wilmore. “We had better set out the first thing in the morning, hadn’t we, and try to get a shot at one?”
“White boys see them to-night, if they like,” said Kobo. “See here. Kobo love white boys because they English. He wait here till they ready to run away. Then he run with them. Meanwhile they shoot, hunt, fish. Chuma not suspect they mean to run.”
“All right, Kobo,” said Nick. “You’re a brick, if you know what that means, though you have been baked pretty black in the kiln. Well, let us set off at once. Where do you propose that we should pass the night?”
“Bavian’s Pool, Master Nick; three miles from here—beautiful pool, sweet water, steep rock overhang it, too steep for beasts to climb, not too steep for us. There we sleep among bushes; animals come down to drink by moonlight; buffalo, gnu, zebra, giraffe, lion, rhinoceros, all sorts of beasts—elephant come too—”