Soon Abdullah and Niani, left alone in the camp, heard the shouts at intervals of each of their friends as they wandered off—
“Kalulu! O Kalu-lu! Ka-luuu-luu!” was the cry they heard repeated until the sounds were lost by distance.
Selim strode on, uttering the name of his lost friend over and over. He made the thin forest ring with its liquid sounds until he fancied that every tree lent its aid to cry out the sweet name.
“O Kalulu—Kalulu—Ka-luu-luu-u!” was uttered on the desolate plain among the dwarf ebony and blue gum. The thick forest beyond was reached, and here again the stunted woods re-echoed to the name of “Kalulu.” There was no reply. There was not the slightest trace of any Kalulu in the grim solitude. The forest was as calm and silent as though no one had ever ventured within its gloom since it grew. He looked down on the road; the road was smooth and compact, though now and then he thought he saw traces of human toes; but there were so many of them, one person could never have made so many marks with the toes of his feet. Was it not the road on which caravans journeyed to Unyanyembe?
After he had gone many miles through the forest, Selim began to retrace his steps towards the camp, but still shouting the beloved name of “Kalulu;” but there was no reply to it, and sorrow, alarm, and gloom settled down on his heart, and in this state he reached the camp, a little before noon, to wait the arrival of Simba and Moto.
His friends soon returned, as unsuccessful as he, without having seen the slightest trace of him whom they now began to lament as a lost friend.
The sorrows of Kalulu’s friends were deep. Selim wept copious tears, and all his imagination could not lighten the gloom he felt over the fate of his friend and adopted brother, who had been so good to him; no fancy could alleviate for one instant the overwhelming misery that the unexplained absence of Kalulu now caused. Continually he asked himself what could have befallen him, but all in vain. He had gone away in the full vigour of his youth; his lithe, slender, but sinewy form seemed so indurated and so protected against all mischances by the clever head to plan, the muscular arm to execute, and the clean-shaped limbs and swift feet to run, that he appeared invulnerable. And he had gone away smiling, but since then there was no clue, and his imagination and fancy were paralysed.
Selim turned to Moto, and asked:
“Oh, if thou canst give me the slightest hope that I shall see Kalulu again, I will bless thee?”
“I can’t think of anything. A lion may have followed him and sprang on him, and carried him away bodily—though it is unlikely. A buffalo may have gored him, and left him dead. Savage men may have found him and made him a captive; though as this is a ‘polini’ (a wilderness) I don’t see how men could be here. Thou knowest what he has done already, how quick and cunning he was with his arm and feet. He was a true son of the forest; and if danger and death overtook him, it must have been very sudden.”