"Bandika!" she cried sharply. The men began to take up their loads.
"I will wish you a good afternoon," observed Kingozi as though taking his leave from an afternoon tea. "By the way, do you happen to care for information about the next water, or do you know all that?" "Thank you, I know all that," she replied curtly.
The askaris began to shout the order for the advance, "Nenda! nenda!" the men to swing forward. Kingozi stared after them, watching with a professional eye the way they walked, the make-up of their loads, the nature of their equipment; marking the lame ones, or the weak ones, or the ones recently sick. His eye fell on the figure of the strange woman. She was striding along easily, the hammock deserted, with a free swing of the hips, an easy, slouch of the relaxed knees that indicated the accustomed walker. Kingozi smiled.
"'I know all that,'" he repeated. "Now I wonder if you do, or if some idea of silly pride makes you say so." He was talking aloud, in English. Mali-ya-bwana stood attentive, waiting for something he could understand. Kingozi's eye fell on the dead rhinoceros.
"There is good meat; tell the men they can come out to get what they wish of it. There will be lions here to-night."
"Yes, bwana."
"If she 'knew all that,'" observed Kingozi, "she knew more than I did. Small chance. Still, if she has information or guides, she may know the next water. But how? Why?"
He shifted his rifle to the crook of his arm.
"That bibi is a great memsahib," he told Mali-ya-bwana. "And this evening we will go to see her. Be you ready to go also."