"Why do we not ascend the river further? We must cross to the other side if we would join the Great Salt Road."
"Dangers lurk there, O my Master," the negro answered, hitching his burnouse about his shoulders. "We must travel by a circuitous route."
"Did not my mother command me to speed unto her?" Omar asked, puzzled. "Is it not necessary that we should travel by the shortest path?"
"The safest is the shortest," Kouaga answered with a frown.
"But by following this bank we are turning our backs upon Mo. See!" and he produced from his pocket an instrument which I did not know he possessed, a cheap mariner's compass.
"Bah!" cried Kouaga in anger, after he had looked at it a long time. "That clock of the white men has an evil spirit within. See! its trembling finger points always in the direction of the Great Evil. It is bewitched. Cast it away. Kouaga has already made fetish for this journey."
"But why should we travel in an entirely opposite direction to Mo?" I argued, seeing that a crowd of grinning impish-looking carriers had gathered around us, enjoying our controversy.
"For three-score years Kouaga has lived in the forest and on the plains," he answered, turning to me. "He knows the direction of Mo."
"Oh, let him have his own way," Omar cried at last, finding persuasion of no avail. Then turning to the Grand Vizier he said in a firm tone: "Listen, Kouaga. If by your obstinacy we are delayed one single day, I shall inform my mother of that fact, and you will assuredly lose your office and most likely your head also. Therefore act as you think fit. Omar, Prince of Mo, has spoken."
"Kouaga bore the staff of the Great White Queen unto thee. He is the trusted of the Naya, if not of her son," the negro answered, turning away. But in that brief instant I noticed an expression on his face of relentless cruelty. An expression such as one might expect to see upon the face of a murderer.