True, they might have some surviving veneer of civilization, being an offshoot from the Selekes, but it was a very slender thread of safety to trust to.
"We are sent for a purpose, are we?" Paul muttered. "For the purpose of being converted into black man's pork pie, I suppose. Jack, what on earth are we to do with this chap? He's getting on my nerves. I wish he'd move, and not look so much like a stuffed monkey."
"Ask him what he wants," proposed the other. "If we kick him out, he'll be potting at us with that sardine-opener."
Nodding, Paul turned to the native again.
"What are you called, O child of the Seleke?" he asked, reverting to the man's own dialect.
"I am called N'tshu Gontze," was the dignified response.
"The dickens you are! Sounds like a kind of fish," interjected Jack, who would have joked in the face of a simoon. "Ask him what his grandfather's name is, Paul."
"Why is our presence desired in the kraal of your chief?" Paul continued, maintaining his gravity by an effort, and frowning at his irrepressible comrade. He knew that a Seleke whose dignity has been tampered with is a more unpleasant companion than an enraged orang-otang.
"We are the victims of a terrible scourge, and we would seek the lightning-rods of the brave white princes to aid us," Gontze answered earnestly. "In a month our numbers have been decreased by dozens. Every other night a man, a woman, or a child perishes, and we are powerless to help ourselves. We dare not hunt, our women scarce dare to venture beyond the bounds of N'koto, and we starve for want of food."
The two hunters listened to this impassioned harangue with close attention.