“Indeed we do, white lord,” answered the old chief, “but how can we? The Asika has a grudge against our tribe and but for you would have killed every one of us last night. We are snared and must stop here till we die.”
“Would not your people help you if they knew, Fahni?”
“Yes, lord, I think so. But how can I tell them who doubtless believe us dead? Nor can I send a messenger, for this place is guarded and he would be killed at once. We came here for your sake because you had Little Bonsa, a god that is known in the east and the west, in the north and the south, and because you saved me from the lion, and here, alas! we must perish.”
“Jeekie,” said Alan, “can you not find a messenger? Have you, who were born of this people, no friend among them at all?”
Jeekie shook his white head and rolled his eyes. Then suddenly an idea struck him.
“Yes,” he said, “I think one, p’raps. I mean my ma.”
“Your ma!” said Alan. “Oh! I remember. Have you heard anything more about her?”
“Yes, Major. Very old girl now, but strong on leg, so they say. Believe she glad go anywhere, because she public nuisance; they tired of her in prison and there no workhouse here, so they want turn her out starve, which of course break my heart. Perhaps she take message. Some use that way. Only think she afraid go Ogula-land because they nasty cannibal and eat old woman.”
When all this was translated to Fahni he assured Jeekie with earnestness that nothing would induce the Ogula people to eat his mother; moreover, that for her sake they would never look carnivorously on another old woman, fat or thin.
“Well,” said Jeekie, “I try again to get hold of old lady and we see. I pray priests, whom you save other day, let her out of chokey as I sick to fall upon bosom, which quite true, only so much to think of that no time to attend to domestic relation till now.”