The trionyx steered himself down stream; the lizard, swishing his pliant tail, went off in search of other prey; and Samba's bright eyes followed the mazy movements of the myriad flies sporting on the surface of the sunlit water, and the shining fish darting this way and that in the clear depths. Suddenly a scream of the fishing eagle caused him to glance up. Then a shout made him spring to his feet and look wonderingly in the direction of the sound. He knew no fear. His lithe dusky body, bare save for a scrap of cloth about his loins and a string of cowries round his neck, stood erect and alert; his keen intelligent eyes expressed nothing but surprise and curiosity. Again came the hail.
"W'onkoe!"[[1]]
"Em'one!"[[2]] called Samba in reply.
A boat was being slowly paddled up the stream. Ten stalwart Baenga stood at the paddles, bending forward as they made their strokes. Two other negroes squatted in the forepart of the boat. Amidships sat another figure, the sight of which gave Samba a delightful thrill of expectation. It was a white man, with fair hair and beard, clad all in white. Could this be Bula Matadi, Samba wondered, the white man whom his grandfather, the chief Mirambo, had seen long ago at Wanganga? He waited, standing still as a rock. The boat drew nearer, a few more strokes of the paddle and it came under the bank. The white man leapt ashore, followed by the two men who had been seated. They were big fierce-looking fellows. Each carried a long strangely-shaped stick with a hollow tube; about his waist dangled a bag of skin. The white man stepped up to Samba, smiled upon him, patted his woolly head. Then one of the negroes began to question him. Where was his village? What was it called? Who was its chief? How many huts did it contain? Was there much forest about it? To these questions Samba replied frankly; surely it was a great honour to his grandfather that the white man should take such interest in him! Then came a question that somewhat amused him. Did the forest contain botofé?[[3]] He smiled. Of course it did. Were not the drumsticks in his village made of botofé? What a strange question to ask of a forest boy! The white man smiled in return, and said something in a strange tongue to the negro who had spoken. "Take us to your village," said the man; and, nothing loth, Samba set off like a young deer, the three men following him.
Samba was eleven years old. His home was the village of Banonga, a street of bamboo huts thatched with palm leaves and shadowed by the broad foliage of bananas and plantains and tall forest trees. His grandfather Mirambo was the village chief, a tall, strong, wise old man, a great fighter in his day, his body scarred with wounds, his memory stored with the things he had seen and done. Samba's father, Mboyo (or Isekasamba, "father of Samba," as he was called after his boy was born), was the old chief's favourite son, a daring hunter, a skilful fisher, and the most silent man of his tribe. He had several wives, but Samba's mother was the best loved of them all, and wore about her ankles the brass rings that betokened her supreme place in her husband's affections. Grandfather, father, mother, all doted on Samba, and for eleven years he had lived a happy merry life, the pet of the village.
Nothing had troubled the peace of the little community. Banonga was a secluded village, on the outskirts of a dense forest, not far from one of the innumerable tributaries of the great river Congo. Life passed easily and pleasantly for these children of Nature. In the morning, ere the sun was up, the men would spring from their simple bamboo beds, fling their hunting-nets or fishing-baskets on their shoulders, hang about their necks the charms that would preserve them from accident and ensure success in the work of the day, and repair to the old chief, who, sitting on his forked chair in the middle of the street, gave them the bokaku—the blessing without which they never left the village. "May you be preserved from accident," he would say; "from wild beasts, from snags in the path and snakes in the grass, and return with great plenty." Then they would shout their farewells, and hasten with light-hearted laughter into the forest or down to the river.
Meanwhile the women had been long astir. Some, babe on one arm, calabash in the other, went singing to a forest stream, to bathe their children and fill their vessels with water for the day's cooking. Others, with baskets slung upon their backs and rude implements upon their shoulders, sped to the gardens and cultivated fields, to perform their simple operations of husbandry, and to return by and by with manioc, plantains, ground-nuts, which they would prepare against their husbands' return. The morning's work done, they would dress their hair, carefully, even fastidiously; kindle the fires of three converging logs, and set upon them well-heaped pots of manioc, covered with leaves of plantain or nongoti to prevent the escape of steam. Some would prattle or sing lullabies to their babes, others form little knots and gossip, laughing and jesting without a thought of care.
All day the village was cheered by the merry antics and joyous shouts of the children at play. Like children all over the world, the boys and girls of the Congo delight in mimicking their elders. The boys made little hunting-nets and ran hither and thither in mock chase, or spread their fishing-nets in the stream and gleefully boasted of their tiny catches. The girls wove little baskets and played with beads and shells. One and all, the children of Banonga were deft with their fingers, and none so deft as Samba. He was always busy, shaping now a mortar for his mother, now a chair for his grandfather, now a wicker basket so close in texture that he could bring in it water from the stream without spilling a drop.
Most of all Samba loved to squat by his grandfather's chair in the late afternoon, when the old chief sat alone, chin on hand, waiting for the return of the men. Then, and on dark nights, Mirambo would recite, in his deep musical voice, interminable stories and legends, of the spirits that haunted the woods, of the animals he had hunted and slain, of narrow escapes from the greedy jaws of crocodiles, of fierce fights with cannibals, of adventurous journeys by field and flood. Samba never tired of one story: how, years before, Mirambo had made a long journey to Wanganga, far, very far away, and had there seen a white man, who wore cloth all over his body, and had come up the river on a wonderful smoke-boat, driven by a fiery snorting devil that devoured insatiably great logs of wood. Bula Matadi, "breaker of rocks," this wonderful white man was called; but Mirambo had heard that in his own country he was called Tanalay.[[4]] Samba would listen with all his ears to his grandfather's long narratives, inwardly resolving that he too, when he became a man, would take long journeys and see marvellous things—white men, and smoke-boats, and all.
Then, as the sun draws towards its setting, out of the forest there come faint strains of song. Mirambo's monotone ceases: he sits erect, expectant; the women run out of the huts above which the wreathing smoke proclaims preparations for the evening meal; the children gather in a laughing chattering flock at the end of the street. The sound of singing draws nearer: at length it stops abruptly, but instantly is followed by a loud prolonged shout; only Lianza's brazen throat can utter that sonorous cry:—