“Are the white men murderers as well as gold seekers?” asked Achmet Ben Arif, pointing to the dead body which lay dark and motionless in the moonlight.
“Look for yourself, chief. The wounds will tell their own tale,” answered the other.
The old man bent over the corpse, putting his hand on the torn face, and feeling the broken ribs. His fingers followed the wounds for several minutes, then rising, “It is a lion which has done this,” he said.
“It is, chief,” and Hughes told how the death had occurred.
Achmet turned to his warriors, spoke a few words with them, when they retired, vanishing among the trees as silently as they had appeared, the old chief alone remaining.
“And you say,” asked Wyzinski, “that you often find worked and smelted gold here?”
“Yes,” replied the chief, “often.”
“It is Portuguese, and wherever they have drawn it from is the country we seek, the ancient Ophir of Solomon. There can be no doubt of that.”
“Let the white men bury their dead,” answered Achmet; “and let them seek Machin, chief of Manica, and the Makoapa.”
And so poor Noti was lowered into his grave, and the missionary breathed the white man’s prayer over the Kaffir resting-place, among the crumbling ruins of Sofala. Heavy stones were rolled over the spot to baulk the jackals of their prey, and the old chief stood calmly by, finally escorting the party to their canoe. All that night and the following they toiled up the stream, resting during the day, bearing the roar of the lion occasionally, and often startled by the plop of the alligators, as they slid off the bank into the water. The afternoon of the third day only, the camp at Gorongoza was reached, their numbers reduced by one.