As we were well treated, we were in no hurry to get away, besides which we had abundance of sport in the neighbourhood, and seldom went out without bringing back eight or ten brace of ducks and other wildfowl. However, at length we thought it time to tell the king that we must be going.
We took the opportunity when he was in a good humour, having just quaffed a few bowls of a sort of palm-wine of which he was especially fond.
“Stay, my dear friends, stay a few days longer, and you shall go forth with honour, and each of you shall take a wife with you and a hundred attendants.”
Charley assured his majesty that we must decline the wives, and that our own rifles were the best attendants we desired, with the exception of one or two intelligent men to act as guides.
“You shall have your will, you shall have your will,” answered the king, “but stay one day longer, just one day.”
We accordingly, hoping to have no obstruction offered to our departure, agreed to stay, but when the evening arrived the king sent a messenger to say he wished to see us.
“What, my friends,” he began as we entered his hut—“do you want to go and leave me all forlorn, stay another day, stay another day.”
Such was the tenor of his address which Aboh translated to us.
“Tell him that to-morrow we must go,” said Charley.
The king smiled benignantly, so Harry declared, although he appeared to me to make a very hideous grimace.