This went on for over an hour, and two or three times I was seized upon by the excited dancers and hurried round with them or carried on their shoulders, while Tom shouted out, “English bery good.” I was glad when this was over, and the men dropped off one by one as they became too tired to caper about any more.
Tom having apparently danced all his drink and excitement out of him, took me to Karema’s hut to have a conference together as to getting me out of the country.
Karema’s hut stood in the centre of a separate enclosure, around the sides of which were rows of smaller huts belonging to his wives. It was well built, with clay walls and a thatched roof. Inside I found some chairs of the familiar Windsor pattern, evidently regarded as most precious, on one of which I, as a white man and visitor, was given a seat. Karema himself lounged on a cane bed-place in one corner, smoking a water-pipe made out of a cocoa-nut shell with a piece of reed, and Tom squatted down on an elaborately carved native stool.
Tom spoke long and, I could see, earnestly. Karema, lying back on his couch, puffed steadily at his pipe, sending forth huge volumes of smoke, and occasionally, as Tom made an extra point, giving a grunt of approval or disapproval.
At length, when Tom had finished, Karema made an equally long-winded reply, which from Tom I made out to be to the following effect:—Karema was very proud that a white man had come to see him, as it would give him importance in the eyes of neighbouring chiefs; but he would not permit me to go beyond his country, for then his rivals would be able to boast they had also seen a white man, and he steadily refused to fall in with the proposals of Tom that I should be sent across the country to a big river where white men were said to trade, and which I supposed, as we were on the Ogowai, would be either the Gaboon or the Congo.
I asked him to again urge Karema to let me go on; for I did not want to stop for ever in Africa, but wished to get back to my own country and my own people.
Tom again spoke to Karema; but he refused to let me go beyond his country. He said that as long as I chose to stop with him he would look after me as if I were his own son, and that surely some day an English ship would visit the river, and then I would be able to get away without encountering the dangers inseparable from a long land journey in Africa.
On reflection this seemed to me the best thing that could be done. Perhaps my father might meet with a man-of-war and get her to come and punish Okopa for his attack on the Petrel, when I would at once be able to get away.
Tom said that was a good idea, and that though I could not live in his father’s village without danger of troubles with the Spaniards and Okopa, I should be perfectly safe with Karema, and I had better therefore accept his offer.
When Karema heard that we agreed to his proposals he gave a grunt of delight and approval, and said that next day he would, before all his people, exchange blood with me, and I would be accepted as one of his tribe. He also would give me a hut to live in, and wives and slaves to cultivate ground for me and to cook for me.