“Salaam Aleikum!” (Peace be unto you.) To which greeting the Arabs responded with one voice:
“Aleikum Salaam!” (And unto you be peace.)
“Well, Moto, speak,” said Khamis. “Why, you have brought the present back! You have been unsuccessful?”
“These are the King’s words, which he commanded me to tell you: ‘Why have you come to my country? Know you not that there is enmity between the Warori and the children of the Arabs? Mostana, the great chief whom the cruel traders slew, was my friend; and can I forget his death with such a contemptible present as that which you have brought to me? Go slaves, and tell your masters that, unless they send me fifty bales of cloth, and fifty guns, with twenty barrels of gunpowder, they must return the way they came.’ These, my masters, are the words which Olimali bade us tell you.”
A deep silence followed this declaration of the King of Kwikuru, and the Arabs instinctively looked at one another in surprise and dismay.
Sheikh Mohammed, the black-browed Arab, resolute and determined as he always was, first broke the silence with the question, directed to Moto:
“Have you regarded well this village of Olimali?”
“I have, master,” said Moto.
“Is it strong? Speak, for I respect your opinion, Moto.”
“It is strong, master, much too strong for us to attack it with our people. If the Warori come out of their village they could not take this camp while our men remained within.”