Mbutu told the men that his master was their father and mother; would build up their huts if by any chance they were destroyed during their absence; would give their children charms to preserve them from snake-bites and the sleeping sickness; and as a token of sincerity in these pledges would eat a sheep with them at the first opportunity. They snapped their fingers and smiled, and looked with great reverence at the unconscious Tom, who had been in a brown study while his henchman was speaking.
"I've been thinking, Mbutu," he said; "suppose the Portuguese has been hanging about. If he recognized you he is sure to suspect that I know rather too much about him now, and he may be on the watch for us. We should be no match for him and his eight men if they happen to be armed. What do you think?"
"Sah fink; tell Mbutu."
"Well now, if they are on our track they won't be far away. Just ask these fellows if the river bends at all."
The men declared that the water bent like a bow to south, a half-hour's paddling from where they were.
"Then you and I, Mbutu, will cut across country and meet the canoe by and by. I suppose there's a way?"
Yes; the crew said there was a path through a stretch of thin forest, which rejoined the river after about five miles.
"The very thing. Now, tell these fellows that if a white man in a green coat meets them, and asks after us, they are to say that a white man is in their village, and that they are sent to summon the chief of another village--they can give it a name--to a grand palaver about food for the expedition on its way back."
Mbutu repeated these instructions, adding that the green-coated man had a particularly keen kiboko. The quick-witted natives appreciated at once the part they were to play, and chuckled with enjoyment. They took their seats on the poles which, placed transverse through holes in the sides of the canoe, served as thwarts, struck their paddles into the water, and, raising their voices in a curious chant, drove their red-coloured bark rapidly up-stream.
Tom watched them till they were out of sight among the reeds, then turned and strode off with Mbutu. All their baggage and a stock of food were in the canoe; Tom had nothing but his field-glass and a light switch he had cut that morning from a tree. It was seven o'clock, and the sun being not yet high, marching would not have been unpleasant but for the heavy dew upon the long grass and spreading plants over which they had to walk. Very soon they were soaked to the waist, and Tom thought that Mbutu with his bare legs had decidedly the best of it. Their progress through the forest was not rapid, owing to the tangle of vegetation through which they had at times to force a way. It was nearly nine before they saw the river again. The canoe was waiting for them, and Mbutu ran ahead. Tom could see by the excited way in which the crew gabbled and gesticulated that something had happened. When he reached them, Mbutu informed him that the canoe had been hailed by the Portuguese, who had been lying in wait for them in a creek some three miles up the river. He had questioned the crew, who, after giving him the message as had been arranged, had seen him paddle back hurriedly towards the mouth of the river. They had noticed that all his men were armed with rifles, and volubly regretted that they had been unable to fight him.