“She knows the country,” he said, after a moment, “and would make a good guide.” Then he glanced up at me and added, more honestly: “She’s very nice and pretty, Sam.”
“She’s a darling, old man; I agree with you there. But it strikes me that to capture the princess and run away with her would be to stir up no end of a rumpus. We cannot run the machine through the tangled forests, so the only way to get back is by the river—the same way we came. The king could assemble a thousand warriors to oppose us, and the chances are he’d win out.”
“Well, what shall we do?” he asked; “fight it out?”
“Of course.”
“Got to fight, anyhow,” remarked Nux, philosophically.
“And we may as well keep up the fable of our being slaves to Nux and Bry,” I added. “They may know a good deal by observation, but the chances are they have guessed at a lot; so as long as we pretend to be two black kings and two white slaves they haven’t any good excuse for attacking us.”
During the afternoon several chiefs arrived at the village, coming in one by one as if from different parts of the country. All had more or less green in their robes, and they were a lot of remarkably shrewd and imposing looking fellows. We decided that they had been summoned by the king to a conference concerning us, for after pausing in the enclosure to take accurate note of our appearance and study the queer machine in which we were seated, they passed on into the royal dwelling.
Toward evening we prepared our supper, while many of the inhabitants came to watch us through our glass case. Presently some one rapped softly upon the glass, and going to the place I saw a woman standing there and holding out a basket made of rushes. I opened a window near and took in the basket.
“Ilalah sends it to the big white slave,” said the woman, in her native dialect.
“The big white slave thanks Ilalah and sends her his love in return,” I answered, laughing. But she nodded and turned away with a serious countenance, as if the message was no more than she had expected.