They led Winkleman directly to Kingozi's camp. Winkleman followed, looking always curiously about him. His was the true scientific mind. He was quite capable of forgetting his plight--and did so--in the interest of new fauna and flora, or of ethnological eccentricities. Once or twice he insisted on a halt for examination of something that caught his notice, and insisted so peremptorily when the savages would have forced him on, that they yielded to his wish.
It was early in the morning. Kingozi, as ever, sat in his canvas chair atop the hill. He was alone, for the Leopard Woman, always on the alert and always staring through her glasses, had caught sight of the little group before it plunged into the papyrus; and had retired to her tent. Winkleman plowed up the hill blowing out his cheeks in a full-blooded hearty fashion.
"Oho!" he cried in his great voice when he had drawn near. "This is not so bad! It is Culbertson!"
"I am sorry about this," said Kingozi briefly--"a man of your eminence--very disagreeable."
Winkleman dropped heavily to the ground.
"That is nothing," he waved aside the half-apology, "though it would not be bad to have the bath and change these clothes. But fortunes of war--it is but the fortunes of war--I would have done worse to you. How long is it that you have arrived?"
"Long enough," replied Kingozi briefly. "Oh, Cazi Moto, bring tea! I have had your tent pitched, Doctor Winkleman; and you must bathe and change and rest. But before you go we must understand each other. This is war time, and you are my prisoner. You must give me your parole neither to try to escape nor to tamper with my men, with M'tela, or any of his people. If you feel you cannot do this I shall be compelled to hold you closely guarded."
Winkleman laughed one of his great gusty laughs.
"I give it willingly. What foolishness otherwise. What foolishness anyway, all this. War is nonsense. It destroys. It interferes. Consider, my dear Culbertson, here was I safely in the Congo forests, and for two, three months I have lived there, like a native quietly; and of all the world there is to amuse me only the fauna and the flora--which I know like my hand. But I discover a new species--a papilio. But all the time I live quiet, and I wait. And at last the people, the little forest people, little by little they get confidence; they come to the edge of the forest, they venture to camp, slow. Suppose I wave my hand like that--pouf! They have run away. But I wait; and they come forth. So I camp by myself in the forest--for I leave my safari away that it may not frighten this people. And by and by we talk. I am beginning to learn their language. Culbertson, I find these people speak the true click language, but also I find it true sex-denoting language most resembling in that respect the ancient Fula!"
"Where was this? Impossible!" cried Kingozi, interested and excited.