"All right, sah! Big sah, little sah, all same for one."
CHAPTER IV: A Stern Chase
An African Village--A Bargain--A False Scent--Up the Ruezi--A Night Vigil--Followed--The Bend in the River--A Man Wounded--No Thoroughfare
The two youths found themselves on a narrow spit of sand projecting some hundred yards into the river-mouth. On the land side Tom saw nothing but a dense wall of elephant-grass and papyrus standing nearly twice as high as himself, into which the river disappeared. On the other side was the blue expanse of the Nyanza, shading into the lighter blue of the cloudless sky. In the distance he could see the faint coast-line of the Sese Islands, and, between himself and them, the smoke of the departing launch stretching across the sky like a long smudge on a clean page. For the first time a shadow of misgiving crossed his mind, but with a silent "This will never do" he pulled himself together, and set himself resolutely to face the task he had undertaken.
He looked meditatively for a few moments at Mbutu.
"Now, Mbutu," he said, "we are left to our own devices. I must trust to you to help me through; I suppose you can make yourself understood in any of these parts, eh? Well now, you stick by me and do your best, and you and I'll be great friends. Now for this village."
Mbutu shouldered the baggage, and they set off towards the apparently impenetrable wall. They were soon ankle-deep in swamp, but, rounding a point and wading a little creek, they came upon a narrow path, evidently worn away by many feet tramping down in single file to the river-side. Striking up this path they were met in another ten minutes by signs of human habitation. There were fields of sweet-potatoes, Indian-corn, and millet, traversing which they came plump upon an irregular circle of grass huts, half-hidden by the surrounding bush.
Tom called a halt. It would be well, he thought, to impress the villagers with an idea of his importance, so he despatched Mbutu in advance, as a herald, to announce his arrival to the chief of the village. Passing the line of grass huts, and picking his way amid fowls and goats and a rather unsavoury litter, Tom found himself in a spacious enclosure, which was already filling with a crowd of jabbering natives. The centre of this open space was occupied by a hut of larger dimensions than the rest. It was a round structure, consisting of boughs of trees held together by grass and mud, and surmounted by a conical roof, roughly thatched. The doorway was low, and not more than eighteen inches wide; Tom wondered whether the chief would come out, and if not, how he himself was to get in. Mbutu, he saw, was talking rapidly and with much gesticulation to a corpulent negro at the door of the hut, while a group of natives stood intently watching at a respectful distance.
As Tom approached, Mbutu came towards him grinning.
"Him say him katikiro," he said. "Him lie; him katikiro not much. Big chief hab katikiro, little chief no hab."