He therefore decided to strike for Monzi's, the first village where he dared to show himself. First he made his way down to the ford on the Magoi-ee, but luckily observed a party of men watching there. Selous then retreated some 300 yards down stream and swam the river, which he well knew was swarming with crocodiles.
"The Mashukulumbwe I saw had now made up the fires, upon which they were throwing bundles of grass, by the light of which I presume they were dividing my property. I turned my back upon this most melancholy spectacle and, taking the Southern Cross for my guide, which was now almost down, commenced my lonely journey."
Selous' own account of his wanderings in his retreat from the Mashukulumbwe to the Zambesi makes some of the most interesting reading to be found in any book devoted to true adventure. Here he was, alone in Africa, only furnished with his rifle and four cartridges, a knife, and a few matches, and he had to overcome at least three hundred miles or more before he dared approach a village. It was a position that might have depressed any man except a genuine veldtsman, for that danger from all natives was to be feared was a certainty, since they would not hesitate to attack a single man whose life was wanted, just as one dog always chases another running behind a cart. All night long he walked, keeping a watchful eye for lions, and at the hill Karundu-ga-gongoma next day he searched for spoor to see if any of his boys had come that way, but there was no fresh sign, so he lay all day under a tree watching the ford of the river. Here he heard voices, and thinking they might be his own men he concealed himself and listened. Presently two heads appeared above the grass and he recognized two Mashukulumbwe by their cone-shaped head-dresses. They were evidently discussing the imprint of the hunter's shoes left on the sand. Selous was ready to shoot both if they saw him, but it was some relief when they turned and went back the way they had come. Hunger now began to assert itself, and the wanderer determined to shoot anything he could find, but, as his stock of cartridges was so small, he had to make a certainty of each shot. Luckily at this moment a single wildebeest came by within thirty yards and furnished an abundant supply of meat.
After a good dinner and the sun had set, Selous, shouldering his rifle and a supply of meat, again struck south. At dawn, perished with cold, he reached the last Mashukulumbwe village, and, being near Monzi's, he determined to risk trouble, and entered the village. Here he found an unarmed boy, who furnished him with water, but even as he drank it he heard whispering in a hut close by and saw a man come out stealthily and vanish in the darkness. Presently this man returned with a gun in his hand, and later Selous heard him testing a bullet with the ramrod. All was quiet for a time, however, and Selous sat dozing over the fire. Then he awoke with a start, to find that two unarmed men had arrived and sat by the fire close to him. They questioned him and he endeavoured to answer them.
"In endeavouring to do so to the best of my ability, I kept gradually turning more towards them, till presently my rifle lay almost behind me. It was whilst I was in this position that I heard someone behind me. I turned quickly round to clutch my rifle, but was too late, for the man whom I had heard just stooped and seized it before my own hand touched it, and, never pausing, rushed off with it and disappeared in the darkness. I sprang up, and at the same moment one of the two men who had engaged me in conversation did so too, and, in the act of rising, dropped some dry grass which he had hitherto concealed beneath his large ox-hide rug on to the fire. There was at once a blaze of light which lit up the whole of the open space around the fire. My eyes instinctively looked towards the hut which I had seen the man with the gun enter, and there, sure enough, he sat in the doorway taking aim at me not ten yards from where I sat. There was no time to remonstrate. I sprang out into the darkness, seizing one of the pieces of wildebeest meat as I did so; and, as the village was surrounded with long grass, pursuit would have been hopeless, and was not attempted. My would-be assassin never got off his shot."[38]
Bad as his position had been, it was now far worse with the loss of his rifle. His only hope was that Monzi might prove friendly, so, after travelling all night, he reached Monzi's village. When that old chief heard his story he said, "You must leave my village immediately. They will follow you up and kill you. Be off! Be off instantly." Monzi was not so bad as the rest, he filled Selous' pockets with ground-nuts, and sent three men to take him a short distance, and these men strongly advised him not to trust the Batongas, in whose country he now found himself. After a meal it occurred to him that it would be a good plan to make south-east to Marancinyan, the powerful Barotsi chief, and throw himself on his protection. This chief was a friend of George Westbeech, the Zambesi trader, but the difficulty was to find his village. Somewhat unwisely, as it turned out, Selous visited some Batonga huts and asked a man the footpath to Sikabenga's (Marancinyan) kraal. This man at once roused the village, and a dozen armed men pursued and came up to Selous, who faced them, but these men proved not unfriendly, and even showed him the right track to follow.
At last he reached Marancinyan's kraal and found the chief to be a tall, well-built young fellow, and, as he spoke Sintabili fairly well, conversation was easy. He did not treat the wanderer well, "yet had it not been for him I should in all probability have been murdered by the orders of his uncle. This, however, I only learnt some time afterwards, and though for three days I must have lived constantly in the very shadow of death, I had no idea at the time that my life was in danger."
In three days Marancinyan told Selous that his life was in danger and that the Mashukulumbwe had followed, demanding his death, and that he must leave at once and go to a small Batonga village close by and wait there till sundown, when he would bring guides.
Disturbed and suspicious at this news, Selous knew the Mashukulumbwe would never dare to threaten the well-armed Barotsi. However, he saw he must comply and trust to the Barotsi chief's promise. Accordingly he went off, but as Marancinyan did not appear Selous returned to his kraal and thus boldly addressed him: "What do you mean, Marancinyan, who say that you are George Westbeech's friend and the friend of all white men, by sending me to sleep among your dogs? Have you given orders to murder me in the night? If you want to kill me, you can do so here in your own town." This seemed to have upset the chief, who again repeated that Selous' life was in danger and that if he would go and sleep at the Batonga village he would for certain bring guides to lead him to Panda-ma-tenka.