Kali stood up, turned to Stasch, and said:
“The Great Man will bring Bibi to the boma and live in Fumba’s hut. Kali will be king of the Wa-himas and the Great Man king over Kali.”
Stasch nodded his head as a sign of approval, but he remained there a few hours longer, for he and King needed a rest.
He did not leave until toward evening. During his absence the corpses of the Samburus were carried away and thrown into a deep ravine near by, over which a great many buzzards immediately settled. The sorcerers now made preparation for Fumba’s burial, and Kali assumed the rulership as an absolute monarch, with power of life and death over all his subjects.
“Do you know who Kali is?” Stasch asked the girl on the way back from Lunla.
Nell looked at him in surprise.
“He is your servant!”
“Oho! A servant! Kali is now king of all the Wa-himas.”
This news amused Nell very much. This sudden change, by which the former slave of the treacherous Gebhr and later Stasch’s servant had become king, struck Nell as extraordinary and exceedingly droll.
Linde’s remark that the negroes were like children, incapable of remembering what happened from one day to another, did not apply to Kali, for scarcely had Stasch and Nell reached the foot of Boko Mountain than the young monarch ran hastily toward them, greeted them with the usual reverence and joy, and repeated the same words he had spoken before: