"No, sah, me no tell lies, not at all. Lepoko no speak Inglesa all de time, sah. What for two speak Inglesa one time? Too much nise, massa no can hear what Nando say. Nando go, all same; massa muss hab some one can talk. Berrah well; den Lepoko hab go; can talk all right. He show massa what can do."
"One, two, free, forty, hundred fousand," began Lepoko glibly. "Ten little nigger boys. What de good of anyfink? Way down de Swannee ribber——"
"That'll do, that'll do!" cried Mr. Martindale, laughing. "You've got your interpreter, Jack. Nando, get ready to start. Bring nine men with you, the rest will stay with Mr. Jack. The fellow was hankering after the flesh-pots of Boma, I suppose," he added, when Nando had gone, "and that accounts for his sudden discovery of his brother's eloquence—too jealous of his own importance to give it away before. Now there's Barney, Jack. I don't know how he'll take being left here."
Barney took it very well. When Mr. Martindale mentioned that he would be absent for at least two months, he remarked—
"Bedad, sorr, I'll be getting fat at last. Imbono sent another heap of maniac this morning, and seeing that I'll have nothing whativer to do for two months, sure I'll be a different man entirely by the time you come back."
An hour later the shore was crowded with natives come to bid the white man farewell. Imbono was there with all the men of his village. At his final interview with Mr. Martindale he had promised to watch carefully over the welfare of his young blood brother; he would supply him and his men with food, and defend him from wild beasts and aggressive black men, and his villagers should at once set about building new huts for the party.
"Remember, Jack, patience—and tact. God bless you, my boy."
"Good-bye, uncle. Hope you'll have a pleasant journey. And on the way down keep an eye lifting for Samba."
Then the ten natives struck the water with their paddles, the canoe glided down the stream, and as it disappeared round a bend of the river Jack heard the men's voices uplifted in a new song composed for the occasion.
"What are they singing, Lepoko?" he asked of his new interpreter.