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I continued, "now you are the king, which is as it should be. The Bandokolo will rejoice to have you as their sovereign, while, as for me, if you require any help or advice that I can give, it shall be freely yours; and when once you are firmly established upon the throne I will bid you farewell and go my way. But what about Bimbane; what will you do with her?"
But you have this day done a service to the Bandokolo which we shall not forget, for by your action in wresting this ring from the queen, and, with it, all her power and authority, you have saved the country from civil war, with all its attendant horrors and slaughter.
She readily assented to my petition that 'Mfuni, my Mashona, might be permitted to come to the palace, to act as groom to Prince, that animal having manifested a distinct distaste for the attentions of the Bandokolo stableman; and the man presented himself that same afternoon, in response to a message which I sent, commanding his immediate appearance.
In a few words, then, the matter stands thus. The possession of that ring carries with it the sovereignty of Bandokolo, and since you now possess it, you are, in virtue thereof, the monarch of the country; and right glad will all be that such is the case. But, if I may be permitted to ask, how passed the ring into your possession?
"But before he died he told me many wonderful things about the Bandokolo. "That is a very extraordinary story, Mapela," said I. "Did you believe it; or do you think that the man who told you had a sick brain and imagined things that were not?" "Nay, who can say?" returned Mapela.
"There will be neither trouble nor difficulty in disposing of her, for she has not a friend in all Bandokolo," answered Anuti. "It will but be necessary for me to display this ring and even her bodyguards will gladly transfer their allegiance to me.
And when the white man died the Bandokolo took his followers and made slaves of them, treating them so cruelly that at last the man who told me these things resolved to escape. And after waiting many moons for an opportunity it came, and he succeeded. But when he arrived in Mashonaland he was so weak and ill with fever and starvation that, after lingering for a short time, he died.
And perhaps you are right, Chia'gnosi, in the matter of the kingship; it is better that the Bandokolo should be governed by one of themselves than by a stranger.
Despite his disinclination to talk, however, I contrived to extract a little information from him, learning, among other things, that I was not the first white man who had been permitted to enter the Bandokolo country, one other having arrived when Pousa was quite a young man, and died somewhat mysteriously soon afterward.
I was naturally anxious to know whether gold and "shining stones" were as plentiful as I had been led to believe, and I was gratified to learn that they were, gold indeed being so abundant that it was used for every purpose where metal was needed, the Bandokolo having learned to harden and temper it in such a manner that it afforded a very fair substitute for steel, in proof of which he showed me his sword.
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