But she knew he was naked, so she told her husband to go and hear what the man had to say. Owondo went, and the man said, “Owondo, I have no friends here; only you and Adova have been kind to me, so I call you my friend. Untie this small strip of cloth I have about my waist. I have four silver dollars there. I am going to die. These dollars are of no use to me; you and your wife take them. My box is in Adova’s care; she must have the few things in it.” So Owondo untied the girdle, took the money, and went out.
Shortly afterward the Orungu people came, bringing the goods and slaves, and took away the man. He was taken by the three messengers to the half-way camp, where they had left their attendants. There were no houses there for shelter, and only their mosquito-nets as tents. They stopped there with the intention of passing the night, and next day of going on to their Orungu town.
When it came evening they began to prepare their sleeping-places, and at bedtime one by one they went to lie down. A large branch from an overhanging tree fell very near the bed of one of the Orungu leaders, which was adjoining that of the sorcerer. So they all said, “Ah! we see what is being done by his arts. If this has begun so soon, who knows what will happen before morning? Let us start at once.”
So they all made ready that very night, and went out of the forest, down to the beach, and got into their boat (as they had come part of the way by sea).
Not long after they had started the sea became very rough. Soon the boat capsized, broke to pieces, and all their goods were lost. They all escaped ashore, but the sorcerer was missing. They waited on the beach until daylight, and then found his loin cloth washed ashore. (His hands had been tied.) They believed that he had caused the storm, and was willing to die with them in the general destruction rather than survive to be put to death by the torture to which sorcerers were usually subjected.
So these people sent back word to Ogwedembe and to the nearer villages to let them know what had happened to them, and they returned to their Orungu country by land.
The little slave boy, who had been left with Ogwedembe as one of the three to be given as the price of extradition, was shortly afterward given by him as a present to the sick friend I was visiting that day. She stated that he was a most faithful servant and affectionate attendant on her infant daughter. He stayed with her, and died in her service a few years later, about 1883; and she mourned for him, for she had treated him, not as a slave, but as a son.
XI. Unago and Ekela-Mbengo.
(In the presence of theosophy, telepathy, thought-transference, astrophysics, and wireless telegraphy, the following Benga legend has at least a standing-place. It was written more than forty years ago by an educated native in the Benga dialect. I translate it into English, preserving some of the native idiom.)
Unago and Ekela were great friends. They lived, Unago at Mbini in Eyo (Benito River); Ekela at Jĕkĕ in Muni (the river Muni, opposite Elobi islands in Corisco Bay. The two rivers are at least forty miles apart; Ekela is supposed to make the journey in two hours.)