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When Laihova and Mamba took the reckless "headers" which we have described in a former chapter, they tumbled into a court-yard which was used as a sort of workshop. Fortunately for them the owner of the house was not a man of orderly habits. He was rather addicted to let rubbish lie till stern necessity forced him to clear it away.

They surrounded me. You know the end." While Mamba was yet speaking a loud knocking was heard at the door, and a stern voice demanded admittance. On hearing it Mamba leaped from the couch on which he had been laid as if nothing were the matter with him. He glanced hastily round.

"Yes that is my business," replied Mamba. Although Mr Ellis liked the look of his visitor, and was strongly disposed to believe him, he had too much knowledge of the native character to place immediate confidence in him.

"Yes, I love the Lord, and so do many of my kinsmen. But my family is large and scattered." "Have any of them got the Scriptures?" "They have seen and heard them," returned Mamba, "but all that we possess are a few pages of the words of David. These belong to the whole family.

"Now, I pray you, good mamba, to do me no injury, and particularly to spare my cattle, for you do not know what trouble I have had to get them. No doubt you know how anxious I and my people are to eat them, for you have much of the same desire; but I beseech you to exercise self-denial. You don't know how pleasant that will make you feel!

Turning him over on his back he discovered, to his inexpressible amazement, that he was no other than their old friend Mamba the crocodile whom they had left with his mother and the others in the cave many days before. "How is it possible," he exclaimed, while dressing his wounds, "that he can have arrived at the same time with us, for we started before him and have travelled fast?"

Boldness is often successful where timidity would fail. Without hesitation, or even consultation with his friends, Mamba went straight to the palace and demanded permission to visit the Maker of Medicine. He was allowed to pass and conducted by an official to the quarters of Mark Breezy, who was seated with Hockins and Ebony at the time. Great was their surprise at seeing their friend.

Mamba, dressed in a dirty Arab gown, with coronet of lion's nails decorating a thread-bare cutch cap, greeted us with all the dignity of a savage potentate surrounded by his staff of half-naked officials.

I have dived into the river and drawn my snake from its mud; see, its skin is about me now," and opening the mantle she wore she showed what looked like the skin of a black mamba, fastened round her slender body. "I have dwelt in the wilderness alone and listened to its voices. I have sat at the feet of my master, the Opener of Roads, and looked down the road and drunk of his wisdom.

Meanwhile, Mamba hid himself behind some bags of grain in the outhouse until night-fall, when he sallied boldly forth and made his way to the house of a friend, who, although not a Christian, was too fond of him to refuse him shelter. This friend was a man of rank and ancient family. The soot hung in long strings from his roof-tree. He was one of "the ancient soot!"