But that very same morning the ngoas had been there and eaten all the nuts that had fallen on the ground, and when they went away they laughed and said, “If the other herds of ngoas or the nginas come, and other men of the woods, to-day, they will find that they are too late, and that we ngoas have been here before them all.”
The ngoas had not been long gone, when the three nginas made their appearance. Great indeed was their disappointment when they found the ground bare of nuts, and they cried, with angry voices, as they looked at the footprints of the ngoas, “Those horrid ngoas have been here this morning and eaten all our nuts.”
The nginas left the place very much disgusted, and continued to roam in the forest in search of food. They had a hard time to get a living, for herds of ngoas and many nshiegos, nkengos, and some nginas had been in that part of the forest before them.
The big ngina, seeing this, said to his mate: “Lately we have worked hard for our living. We have had bad luck, and find that others have been to our chosen places before us.”
“Yes,” she replied, “I think it would be better for us to separate during the day, to satisfy our hunger; for if we three go together, we shall not find food enough for all of us. We will keep as usual within hearing of each other’s voices. When I call, you will answer, and when you call, I will answer.”
The next morning they separated, wishing each other good luck, the baby ngina going with his mother. During the day they kept calling to each other, their powerful, guttural voices resounding through the forest as they did so. The voice of the ngina can be heard about six or seven miles away.
That day the nginas came across fresh footprints of human beings. When they met that evening they told each other of their discovery, and said, “We must shun them.”
The footprints the nginas had seen were those of the five hunters who had sworn never to come back to their village until they had killed some nginas and njokoos. They were the most daring men of their tribe, and had spent a great part of their lives in the forest killing njokoos. They were trying to locate the nginas. They saw by the tracks the njokoos had left behind them that they had gone a long way off.
It happened that the hunters had the day before discovered the place where the nginas had slept. They had seen at the base of the tree the huge footprints of the big ngina, the smaller ones of his mate, and the tiny ones of their little one. So they knew that there were three of them together.
They said: “Now we are on the track of the nginas. These footprints are fresh; but we must be brave, and aim right, for the big fellow is sure to fight and will try to kill us. Our guns are good. With them we have killed many njokoos, and we will kill the nginas whose footprints we have seen. The big idol of our village has told us that we should be successful in our hunt, and that we should not return without having killed nginas or njokoos. We have made powerful incantations, and the charms we wear will protect us against them, and we shall not be killed.”