Kalulu breathing free again, after his escape a second time from slavery, felt light as air, and was for the moment as happily disposed as he could well be, while Selim and Abdullah felt in their hearts an overflowing gratitude to Allah for his protection and deliverance from vile bondage, and breathed prayers to him to continue in his care of them.
Long before morning dawned, they felt that the character of the country was changed; for rounded shadows heaving upwards gave them an idea that hills were becoming frequent, and that these they saw were but the vanguard of some range they were approaching. The morning and its welcome light confirmed this opinion; for before them rose a majestic ridge of mountains, clothed from top to base with greenest verdure.
Prudence counselled them to seek the mountains by the most unlikely way, and they accordingly adopted the precaution, and were soon scaling a steep slope, overgrown with the feathery bamboo. From the eminence they attained, they turned their eyes to note the plain they had left, which was now spread out before them in one grand prospect, while it spoke or revealed nothing of the misery and sorrow which they knew existed in some part of it, among the human beings driven to hopeless bondage by the cruel Wazavila. Unable to dwell upon its false and treacherous beauty, they turned towards the mountains, which, so far, had nothing of the ominous or fatal in its features for them.
The sun seemed a long time coming out, they thought, as they looked towards the east; but then it was the rainy season throughout Central Africa, which had been heralded in by that awful storm on the sea of Ujiji, and out of which they had escaped to experience the privations of bondage; and the lowering mist and humid fog hovering over the crag-bound ridges above them was the result of the rains that had lately submerged the Bikwa Plain throughout its length and breadth.
About noon, after they had lost themselves in the deep folds of the mountains, our party rested to recover their strength, and to aid the recovery more rapidly by grinding some of their corn rations between their jaws. Simba thought this very dry eating, since they were free, and expressed a decided objection to remain much longer without meat, which, in his opinion, was the only food fit for a free man. Kalulu agreed with him in all he said, and volunteered to accompany any man in a search for game, which, he said, ought to be plentiful in such solitudes. Whereupon Simba agreed to accompany him; but since he did not know much about a bow, he would take his spear, which he could throw as well as any other man, while Kalulu could take a bow and his quiver of arrows.
Matters being thus arranged, Moto promised to be very good, and look after the boys, and see that they got into no mischief during the absence of Simba and Kalulu, upon which Simba thanked him, and bade him surely expect something within an hour.
Kalulu held three arrows in his left hand, and his bow in his right, and descending a deep ravine which opened shortly into a mountain valley of exquisite beauty, he was gratified to observe a solitary eland lying under a tree, with a splendid pendulous dew-lap, moving about as it erected its head to chew the cud and to enjoy in that solitude the sweet repast of grass it had lately eaten. Simba stood hid behind a tall tree, while Kalulu, master of the art he was now practising, began to move through the grass towards it with the ease of a snake. For a moment the young chief debated within himself when to send his arrow, but finally arrived at a conclusion; for he drew his bow, and drove an arrow behind the fore-shoulder, which, penetrating through, pierced the heart, and after one or two spasmodic bounds into the air, the eland stretched himself on the ground, dying.
Kalulu turned round to beckon to his companion, when he saw with surprise that Simba had broken his spear short, and, after stripping himself, had rolled his loin-cloth around his left hand, and raising his shortened spear, had put himself into an attitude of defence against something.
He at once bounded forward to assist his friend, when at the first step he took he saw a leopard spring upon Simba with a terrific cry. Uttering a cry of horror—but nothing daunted by the ferocity of the animal—he placed a barbed arrow on the string of his bow, and came up close to the combatants just as he witnessed Simba thrusting his left hand into the leopard’s mouth, and driving his spear repeatedly into his side. The animal’s claws were buried in the left hip and knees of Simba, which he was viciously tearing; but his jaws were rendered useless by thick folds of cloth which Simba had thrust into his mouth at the first onset of the brute. It was well that Simba was such a powerful man, else the shock of the onset would have knocked him down, when it would have become doubtful work to save his throat from the gleaming fangs.