“Nay, Mugema, I must ask thee to be patient. Food ye shall have in abundance, through my women, and much more is in store for ye. But come, I will visit the young stranger, and thou shalt lead me to him.”
Kimyera had been deep in thought ever since he had parted from Naku, and he had not observed what Mugema had complained of; but on seeing Naku enter his house, he hasted and laid matting on the floor, and, covering it with leopard-skins, begged Naku to be seated on them. He brought fresh banana-leaves in his arms, and spread them near her, on which he arranged meat and salt, and bananas and clotted milk, and kneeled before her like a ready servitor.
Naku observed all his movements, her admiration for his person and graces of body becoming stronger every minute. She peeled a mellow banana and handed it to him, saying, “Let Kimyera taste and eat with me, and I will then know that I am in the house of a friend.”
Kimyera accepted the gift with thanks, and ate the banana as though he had never eaten anything so delicious in his life. Then he also peeled a beautiful and ripe banana, and, presenting it to her on a fragment of green leaf with both hands, said to her:
“Queen Naku, it is the custom of my country for the master of the house to wait upon his guests. Wherefore accept, O Queen, this banana as a token of friendship from the hands of Kimyera.”
The queen smiled, bent forward with her eyes fixed on his own, and took the yellow fruit, and ate it as though such sweetness was not known in the banana land of Ganda.
When she had eaten she said:
“List, Kimyera, and thou, Mugema, hearken well, for I am about to utter weighty words. In Ganda, since the death of my father, there has been no king. Sebwana is my consort by choice of the elders of the land, but in name only. He is really only my kate-kiro (Premier). But I am now old enough to choose a king for myself, and according to custom, I may do so. Wherefore I make known to thee, Mugema, that I have already chosen my lord and husband, and he by due right must occupy the chair of my father, the old king who is dead. I have said to myself since the day before yesterday that my lord and husband shall be Kimyera.”
Both Kimyera and Mugema prostrated themselves three times before Naku, and, after the youth had recovered from his confusion and surprise, he replied:
“But, Queen Naku, hast thou thought what the people will say to this? May it not be that they will ask, ‘who is this stranger that he should reign over us?’ and they will be wroth with me and try to slay me?”