"Will you ever return, Bangana?"
"Why not? To persuade you to peace instead of war. To make treaties for the passage of my workmen through your forests to the new mines, and to give your people work if they will accept it."
The king closed his eyes.
"All that again! What are these white man's promises? Have they made the other tribes happy in their slavery? No, my face will be glad when you return to see me; but never ask me to let the white foot wedge itself in the door of my country. There would only be a great battle without you to help me in it. I and my race, if we cannot be mighty, at least will die free men."
He rose from his heels, and in a strangling voice called out to the guards, who came headlong, stooping, through the low entrance of the pavilion, with bared teeth and darting spears.
"Strike off the chains from my brother!" shouted Muene-Motapa, as one should say, "Slay my dreams!"
Then he stalked away, to sit alone in darkness. Next day, with an escort of Mambava warriors, Lawrence Teck set out for the coast.
At the bidding of the king, to do honor to the white man who was leaving them, they had put on their gala paint, and their plumed headgear bound under their chins with fur lappets. Their bangles made a cheerful clatter as they marched along the dim trails between the enormous trees. They carried food for two weeks.
Emerging from the forests, they saw the lowlands steaming in the heat; for while it was winter in America, here it was summer.
They traversed plateaux that were dotted with islets of jungle, plains covered with flowers and drenched with torrential rains, misty marshes that suggested landscapes of the Paleozoic Age. They saw sodden herds of zebras, the tracks of leopards, acacia trees uprooted by elephants. In a glade filled with blossoms of every color they came upon a family of lions, one of which they headed off and deftly killed with their spears.