The playful Obo meanwhile was clambering over his father’s person like a black monkey. He appeared to be particularly fond of his father, and as love begets love, it is not surprising that Kambira was excessively fond of Obo. But Obo, becoming obstreperous, received an amicable punch from his father, which sent him headlong into a basket of boiled hippopotamus. He gave a wild howl of alarm as Disco snatched him out of the dish, dripping with fat, and set him on his knee.
“There, there, don’t blubber,” said the seaman, tenderly wiping off the fat while the natives, including Kambira, exploded with laughter. “You ain’t burnt, are you?”
As Obo could not reply, Disco put his finger into the gravy from which the urchin had been rescued, and satisfied himself that it was not hot enough to have done the child injury. This was also rendered apparent by his suddenly ceasing to cry, struggling off Disco’s knee, and renewing his assaults on his easy-going father.
Accepting an egg which was offered him by Yohama, Harold broke it, and entered into conversation with Kambira through the medium of Antonio.
“Is your boy’s mother a— Hollo! there’s a chick in this egg,” he exclaimed, throwing the offensive morsel into the fire.
Jumbo, who sat near the place where it fell, snatched it up, grinned, and putting it into his cavernous mouth, swallowed it.
“Dem’s betterer wid chickies,” he said, resuming his gravity and his knife and fingers,—forks being held by him in light esteem.
“Ask him, Antonio, if Obo’s mother is alive,” said Harold, trying another egg, which proved to be in better condition.
The interpreter, instead of putting the question without comment, as was his wont, shook his head, looked mysterious, and whispered— “No better ask dat. Hims lost him’s wife. The slave-hunters cotch her some time ago, and carry her off when hims away hunting. Hims awful mad, worser dan mad elerphint when hims speak to ’bout her.”
Harold of course dropped the subject at once, after remarking that he supposed Yohama was the child’s grandmother.