“It seems a good one. When do we start?”
“To-morrow,” said Harold.
“Wery good,” replied Disco, “I’m agreeable.”
The morrow came, and with the early light all the people turned out to witness the departure of the hunters. Scouts had been previously sent out in all directions to make sure that no enemies or slave-traders were at that time in their immediate neighbourhood, and a strong force of the best warriors was left to guard the village.
Of Harold’s band, two half-castes, José and Oliveira, volunteered to stay in camp with the guard, and two, Songolo and Mabruki, the freemen of Quillimane, remained in the village to recruit their health, which had failed. Chimbolo likewise remained, the wounds on his back not having healed sufficiently to admit of the hard labour of hunting. All the rest accompanied the hunters, and of these the three Makololo men, Jumbo, Zombo, and Masiko, were incomparably the best and bravest. Of course the volatile Antonio also went, being indispensable.
On setting out—each man with his sleeping-mat on his back and his little wooden pillow hung at his neck,—there was a great deal of shouting and ho-ho-ing and well-wishing on the part of those who remained behind, but above all the noise there arose a shrill cry of intense and agonising despair. This proceeded from the small windpipe of little Obo, who had not until the last moment made the appalling discovery that Kambira was going away without him!
There was something very touching in the cry of the urchin, and something which brought vividly to the minds of the Englishmen the infantine community of their own land. There was the same sudden gaze of horror on realising the true position of affairs,—the same sharp shriek and frantic struggle to escape from the grasp of those who held him back from following his father,—the same loud cry of agony on finding that his efforts were vain, and then, the wide-open mouth, the close-shut eyes, and the awful, prolonged silence—suggestive of fits—that betokens the concentration of mind, heart, and lungs into that tremendous roar of unutterable significance which appears to be the safety-valve of the human family, black and white, at that tender period of life.
Poor Obo! his sobs continued to burst out with steam-engine power, and his eyes to pour cataracts of tears into Yohama’s sympathetic bosom, long after the hunting party had left the hills behind them, and advanced into the almost impenetrable jungles of the low grounds.