They found the meat of the mud-fish very good, though very fat; but being half-starved, their stomachs were not over delicate.
Continuing their march next day at sunrise, they came to a park-land, agreeably diversified with noble sycamores, and islets formed by dense growths of aloetic plants and thorn-bush; and about noon they came to a well-tramped road, which, after noticing its direction, Moto declared would take them to the Unyanyembe road.
Inspired by this news, which certainly, after all they had gone through, was well calculated to produce joyous emotions within them, they tramped along this road at a rapid rate, and visions of home, though still far away, came vividly to the minds of the Arab boys, and they unconsciously pictured their mothers looking out of the lattice-windows of their homes, ever-gazing towards the continent and ever-wondering where their absent boys were.
A couple of hours before sunset they arrived in a thin forest. They formed their camp, and surrounded it with brushwood to guard against beasts of prey, and proceeded to warm what fish they had left. It was such a very small morsel for hungry men that Kalulu proposed that he should sally out with his bow and endeavour to pick up something more. He was strongly dissuaded not to go by Simba and Moto; even Selim and Abdullah begged him to remain with them, as they could well afford to be without more food until morning; but Kalulu laughed merrily, and told them not to be alarmed, he could take good care of himself. Seeing that he was determined, they said no more.
As Kalulu left the little camp, he threw out, for a last remark, that they might expect him shortly back with something fit to eat. He chose the road before him—the road that his companions would have to take next morning. He looked keenly to the right and the left, searched every suspicious place, and allowed nothing to escape him. The thin forest thinned once more to a small plain sprinkled with dwarf ebony and a species of blue gum-thorn. Numbers of ant-hills also dotted the plain, whose grey tops presented a strong contrast to the young grass of the plain. Beyond this loomed a forest thickening again; it was but ten or twelve minutes walking; success might meet him there, he thought, and he proceeded towards it, arriving there by smart walking a few minutes earlier than he anticipated.
He still marched on, hoping that something might meet his eye which might be broiled over a comfortable fire, and enliven the little society of wanderers with whom he found himself; and thus arguing with himself, he proceeded still further. Suddenly he saw smoke. There is nothing specially dangerous in smoke, he thought; but what smoke could this be in the forest? There was no cultivation about, therefore it could not be a village. What was it? Kalulu was a true son of the forest—a true hunter; his instincts were on the alert. The curious phenomenon of a smoke in the forest daring the rainy season must be explained. What could it be?
He began to glide from tree to tree, from clump to clump; now crouching behind a wart-hog’s mound, that that beast had raised above its burrow, then wriggling along the grass like a snake, and presently leaping up with the activity of a leopard, until he drew nearer to the smoke, so near that he heard voices.
“Voices!” The very fact of a human voice being heard in the forest, except his own, had something portentous in it; for had not all voices lately been those of enemies? He was ten times more cautious now; and something like a half-regret for venturing hither came into his mind. Why had he come so far at all? Why had he not listened to his brother Selim and his friends, who begged him not to go out?
He watched from behind the tree, and saw people; men wearing cloth round their heads, long cloth clothes leading down to their feet, like those (he heard from Selim often) the Arabs used at Zanzibar. He listened; and while trying to distinguish the language heard words such as Selim, Abdullah, Simba, Moto, and Niani used. The language was not of the interior of Africa around Ututa, nor Uzivila, nor Uwemba, surely; and these people going about the camp in white cloths and long white clothes were not natives. He had never heard of any natives wearing such clothes. They must be Arabs! Did not Moto tell him that they were on the Unyanyembe road, and that they might meet an Arab caravan going to Fipa, or catch up an Arab caravan going to Unyanyembe from Fipa. Of course these were Arabs; people of Simba, and people of Selim, Moto, Abdullah, and Niani! They were his friends, since he was a brother of Selim!
What should he do? Should he go back at once and gladden the hearts of his friends with the good news? Ah! the suggestion came near being acted upon; but it was not, for immediately it was replaced by another, “Why not go to them, make thyself known, and they will be good to thee for Selim’s sake?”