“You are our Oguizi; we will follow you everywhere,” they replied.
As we were seated by the fire Oshoria said: “There was a time when there were several villages on Crocodile Lake, for the land around is good for cultivating and there is much game in the forest. There are yet two or three villages left, which we cannot see from here.
“Now, Oguizi, I am going to tell you a sad story. Years, years ago, there lived in a village by Crocodile Lake a beautiful woman, the wife of a great hunter. All the people loved them, for they were kind, and when the man killed game he always used to divide the meat with other people. He loved his wife dearly. One day as they were crossing the lake a tornado overtook them and upset their canoe. Just as they were on the point of reaching the shore, a crocodile that was in the weeds near by, in the twinkling of an eye seized the man’s wife and disappeared, the poor woman uttering a fearful shriek; then all became silent.
“Oguizi,” he added, “a man who loved that woman had changed his shape into that of a crocodile and carried her off. That man, who lived in the same village, was never seen afterward.”
“But,” I said, “Oshoria, that man was probably devoured by a leopard or a crocodile.”
“No,” Oshoria replied, “it was witchcraft.”
“We dragged the board with the crocodile upon it into the water”
After this story we went to sleep. The following morning we were once more on the lake. The crocodiles were far more lively than the day before. They disappeared constantly under the water and reappeared. Oshoria was forward in my canoe, watching for crocodiles. We wanted to kill one that we could haul easily. We paddled along until we saw one that was in the right place, and then steered towards the big, ugly, sly creature.
When Ngola saw me take “Bulldog” he said, “Crocodile, your days are numbered. ‘Bulldog’ will kill you, and you will eat no more wild boars, antelopes, and gazelles. What a nice necklace your teeth will make!”