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Probably the uxorious youth had been ordered home by his pet wife, who had once lived with a European trader, who spoke a few words of English, and who cooked with peculiar skill, the solid merits of a "superior person." At dawn on the 23rd we set out for the southern bush, Selim, Forteune, and a carrier Kru-man to carry nothing.
Early on the last morning in March we roused the Kru-men; they were eager as ourselves to leave the "bush," and there was no delay in loading and the mission-boat. Forteune, Azizeh, and Asunye were there to bid me God-speed, and Hotaloya did not fail to supply a fine example of Mpongwe irresolution.
My little stock of goods began visibly to shrink, when I informed the greedy applicants that nothing beyond a leaf of tobacco and a demi verre of tafia would be given until I had seen my way to work. Presently appeared the chief huntsman appointed by Roi Denis to take charge of me, he was named Fortuna, a Spanish name corrupted to Forteune.
It is not a little curious to find these confirmations of Herodotean reports about dwarfish tribes in the far interior, the Dokos and the Wabilikimo, so long current at Zanzibar Island, and so long looked upon as mere fables. Our departure from Mbata had broken the spell, and Forteune did keep his word; I was compelled in simple justice to cry "Peccavi."
Before dark, Forteune appeared, and swore that he had spent the day in the forest, he had shot at a gorilla, but the gun missed fire of course he had slept in a snug hut. This last determined me to leave Mbata; the three Kru-men had returned; one of them was stationed in charge of the boat, and next morning we set out at 6 A.M. for Nche Mpolo, the headquarters of "Young Prince."
It was a spectacle to see the bushmen lying upon their bellies, kicking their heels in the air, and yep-yep-yeping uproariously when Forteune, their master, begged of them to bear a hand. Dean Presto might have borrowed from them a hint for his Yahoos.
As we discussed our plans for moving, Forteune threw cold water upon every proposal. This puzzled me, and the difficulty was to draw his secret.
When giving Forteune his "dash," I was curious to hear how he could explain the report about the dead gorilla shot the night before last: the truth of the old saying, "a black man is never fast for an excuse," was at once illustrated; the beast had been badly wounded, but it had dragged itself off to die. And where was the blood? The rain had washed the blood away!
Presently a decently dressed, white-bearded man of light complexion announced himself, with a flourish and a loud call for a chair, as Prince Koyala, alias "Young Prince," father to Forteune and Hotaloya and brother to Roi Denis, here all tribesmen are of course brethren. This being equivalent to "asking for more," it drove me to the limits of my patience.
Very likely Forteune was tired with walking, and five dollars per shot made the game not worth the candle. Again, perhaps the black diplomatist feared to overstock the market with Njinas, or to offend some regular customer for the sake of an "interloper." In these African lands they waste over a monkey's skin or a bottle of rum as much intrigue as is devoted to a contested election in England.
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