Tom awoke when the darkness was fading, and a ghostly light showed him the still sleeping form of Mbutu hard by.
"Wake up, my katikiro," he said cheerily. "I shall have to teach you those lines about the sluggard, my boy. Come, what about breakfast?"
Mbutu was wide awake in an instant. He slid down the tree with the agility of a cat.
"Me get breakfast, sah," he said, "jolly good breakfast."
He was out of sight before Tom, in a more leisurely way, had descended. Soon the Muhima returned, his arms full of magnificent mushrooms. He put them down at the foot of the tree and disappeared again, this time remaining somewhat longer away, and bringing back with him some red berries of the phrynia and the oblong fruit of the amoma. Tom made a wry face as he bit one of the berries, and Mbutu laughed and explained that the kernel was the edible part; but he found the tartish amoma fruit refreshing, and of these and the mushrooms, fried over a twig fire, he made a satisfying meal. Then they started on their way, taking their direction from the rising sun, of which they caught a glimpse through the trees.
But soon the sun was hidden from their view, and they had to tunnel their way through creepers, rubber-plants, and tangled vines. The heat was like the damp heat of a hot-house many times intensified, and they sweated till they were wringing wet. Sometimes they floundered into thick scum-faced quagmires green with duckweed, into which they sank knee-deep, the stench exhaled from the slough almost overcoming Tom. Then came a new patch of thorn, which Mbutu had to cut away laboriously with his knife, Tom standing by chafing at his inability to assist. When they got through, after taking more than an hour to traverse half a mile, their clothes were in tatters, and Tom's rueful look provoked a smile from Mbutu.
"Soon get used to it, sah," he said cheerfully. "No clothes; all same for one."
"Which means, I suppose, that I'm only very much in the forest fashion! Well, it's hot enough for anything; certainly too hot to talk. Let us rest."
"Berrah soon, sah. I see coney track; rest ober dar."
Following up the slight track which his sharp eyes had discovered, he led the way to a spot where a camp had evidently been formed not very long before. The ground was cleared, and several logs of various lengths lay about. On one of these Tom sat down thankfully to rest.