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He bids you welcome to the country of the Makolo, and his word is that you are to be conducted forthwith in all honour to his presence. You are his guests, to be treated by all men as such, and by them to be supplied with all things necessary to your comfort and wellbeing.
"Men of the Makolo, ye have heard the questions that I have put to these two men, and the answers that they have given to those questions. They have acknowledged that the charges brought against them are true. They have taken many lives, doomed many to die in lingering torment for the mere gratification of their own personal enmity and their love of cruelty.
"Yet," contended Grosvenor, "it is remarkable, to say the least of it, that in our very first communication with these Makolo which, now I come to think of it, was the actual name of the nation given in those books the four Spirits of the Winds should be mentioned. Isn't it?" "Yes, it certainly is," agreed Dick, somewhat reluctantly.
Then the headman stepped forward and said, Mafuta standing by to act as interpreter: "I, Insimbi, headman of the village of M'gama, in the country of the Makolo, bear the greetings of the great King Lobelalatutu to the unknown white men who have crossed the Great Water to visit him, to offer him gifts, and to request his permission to visit the ruins of the great city that are situate near the king's village.
It was this last restriction that occasioned the greatest discontent among certain of the chiefs; because, the Makolo being a powerful and warlike nation, we were generally victorious when we went to war, and the greater part of the spoils went to the chiefs, who thus increased their riches as often as we made raids upon our neighbours.
And, finally, we know that when the four Spirits revisited this country in their great glittering ship that flies through the air, they again deposed M'Bongwele and hanged him and his chief witch doctor from the bough of a tree, because, despite their previous warning, they persisted in their evil-doing. And in M'Bongwele's place they made you, Lobelalatutu, King of the Makolo."
"I am Lobelalatutu, a chief of the great Makolo nation which the four Spirits of the Winds condescended to visit many moons ago; and I was present when M'Bongwele, the king, was banished, and Seketulo was made king in his stead.
A minute later the inhabitants of the village had the gratification of witnessing the flight into the air of their new king, not as a prisoner, but as a friend of the Great Spirits, who were doubtless taking him away with them on some business of importance connected with the welfare of the whole Makolo nation.
"Ay, that have I," answered Mapela, springing to his feet and speaking in a defiant tone of voice. "My justification, O Lobelalatutu! is that under your governance the Makolo, formerly the most powerful and warlike nation in the world, is fast becoming a nation of women, and the contempt and laughing-stock of our neighbours.
Suddenly, the chief who had replied to von Schalckenberg's questions, sprang forward, and raising his right hand, with a sheaf of spears in its grasp, above his head, shouted "Warriors of the Makolo, what is this? Why stand ye, silent, before these strangers, as cattle stand before a hungry lion? Who are they, that they dare come hither to dictate to us and our king?
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