"Don't believe Uncle Jack would know me from a chimpanzee," he said with a laugh. "What with this wretched down upon my cheeks, and my long mane, and my patched old toggery, I'm more like one of those begging fakirs in India he has told me about than anything else I ever heard of. Well, now to see what my friend Msala wants."
He went out of the hut. The katikiro, the kasegara, and all the other leading men of the village were grouped with Mwonga, the chief's younger brother, in their midst, shifting from one foot to the other in a sort of nervous excitement. The instant they saw Tom they threw themselves flat on their faces in a line, and began to crawl towards him.
"What on earth's the meaning of this?" ejaculated Tom, aghast. "And what are you grinning at?" he added, turning to Mbutu, whose face was beaming with delight.
"Neyanzi-gé! Neyanzi-gé!" cried Mbutu, clapping his hands. "I praise too much, sah. I fank too much."
"For goodness sake tell them to get up and behave as reasonable creatures. That's the sort of thing they do to their fetishes; I'm not a fetish. 'Pon my word, it's too silly even to laugh at. Up, Msala; don't grovel there. Confound you, leave my knees alone," he added, under his breath, for the katikiro had crawled up to him and clasped his knees.
Mbutu made the crawlers understand that Kuboko would be seriously annoyed if they did not stand on their feet, and they got up, one by one, with manifest reluctance.
"Now," said Tom, "just explain in a sensible way what all this performance means."
The katikiro looked at his companions as though asking their permission to speak; then, leading Mwonga by the hand, he stepped forward.
"O Kuboko," he said, "Barega is dead, a chief brave as a lion, mighty in war, a great hunter, a fearless slayer of elephants. Now we, his people, have no chief; we have lost our father and mother; we have none to lead us in fight or guide us in peace, none to judge us or to do us right. Murasi is unstable as water; he is at this moment mingling his tears with museru. Mwonga here is but a boy; brave--let no man say he is not brave,--but many moons must pass before he can slay elephants and rule men like his brother Barega. Know, O Kuboko, that by the custom of the Bahima we should wait a long moon before we choose our chief; the days of mourning are not yet over; the fresh museru is not brewed. But we dare not wait. The Arabs are gone, those that were left of them; thou, O Kuboko, knowest why and how they went; but they will come again; they will bring their friends in number as the seed of millet, and will fight against us, and what can we do against them without a chief? Why will they come? They will come because they must. If they submit like dogs to a whipping, will they not be dogs for ever-more? What black man will fear them? They will be mocked at, flouted, kicked and spurned; the black man will hunt them. They must come back to prove that they are lions and no dogs. And when they come, what are we, O Kuboko? We have no fire-sticks; we have no strong magic; our medicine-man is but hollow, a tinkler like his own bell. What are we without thee, O Kuboko? Who was it dug the ditch around our village? Who was it made the fireballs? Who built the wonderful thrower that flung stones a thousand miles? Who made the water run like a water-spout from the sky, and saved us and ours from death and chains? Thou it was, O Kuboko; thou didst these things, and more. Barega, yes, Barega was a great chief, and thou, O Kuboko, thou didst save even Barega. Thou art mightier than Barega and ten thousand other chiefs; thou alone canst defend us against the mighty host soon to come upon us; thou hast the magic of the white men, the strong arm of all the children of the Great White King. Thou, O Kuboko, art our chief. We all say it. We have talked; we have spoken to the spirits of our fathers and our fathers' fathers, and they all say Kuboko is our chief."
"It's very kind of you, Msala, and you've said uncommonly nice things about me, but it can't be, my friend. I am really deeply touched by your confidence, but I feel that I ought to lose no time now in rejoining my own people. You are mourning your dead chief, and my friends, you must remember, are mourning me, no doubt, as dead."