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The people are flying into the woods; they desert their villages, for they take us to be Ruga-Ruga the forest thieves of Mirambo, who, after conquering the Arabs of Unyanyembe, are coming to fight the Arabs of Ujiji. Even the King flies from his village, and every man, woman, and child, terror-stricken, follows him. We enter into it and quietly take possession.
"The roads are bad; they are all stopped; the Ruga-Ruga are out in the forests; the Wakonongo are coming from the south to help Mirambo; the Washensi are at war, one tribe against another." My men are getting dispirited, they have imbibed the fears of the Arabs and the Wanyamwezi. Bombay begins to feel that I had better go back to the coast, and try again some other time.
And my hope was, that it might be possible, after the defeat of Mirambo, and his forest banditti the Ruga-Ruga to take my Expedition direct to Ujiji by the road now closed. The Arabs were sanguine of victory, and I partook of their enthusiasm. The council of war broke up.
Sayd bin Majid was the father of the gallant young man whom I saw at Masangi, and who fought with me at Zimbizo, and who soon afterwards was killed by Mirambo's Ruga-Ruga in the forest of Wilyankuru; and, knowing that I had been there, he earnestly desired to hear the tale of the fight; but they had all friends at Unyanyembe, and it was but natural that they should be anxious to hear of what concerned them.
We are Wakonongo, who came to your camp to accompany you to Mrera, and we are looking for honey." "Oh, to be sure, you are the Wakonongo. Yes Yes. Ah, it is all right now, I thought you might be Ruga-Ruga." So the two parties, instead of being on hostile terms with each other, burst out laughing.
They had not gone many hundred yards before I heard the whiz of a bullet. 'They have found game, said I. Bang went a second shot. 'It's a herd. Then another. 'Yes, it must be a herd. Then a fourth, and it dawned on me that they were attacked by robbers the far-famed Ruga-Ruga. "'Stay where' you are, I cried, and dashed off, closely followed by my boys.
The King is introduced to me, and he says he had only gone to the woods in order to attack us again he meant to have come back and killed us all, if we had been Ruga-Ruga. But then we know the poor King was terribly frightened, and would never have dared to return, had we been RugaRuga not he.
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