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Updated: May 5, 2025
"I expect their strength is as exaggerated as their dash. Why, this part is not altogether unexplored, yet there is no record of an exceptionally strong tribe hereabouts." Hazon smiled pityingly. "That great god, the African explorer, don't know everything," he said "no, not quite everything, although he thinks he does.
Or was it that at this moment certain words, spoken long ago in warning, now stood forth clear and in flaming letters upon his brain: "Other men have gone up country with Hazon, but not one of them has ever returned!" He himself, abiding henceforward among the Ba-gcatya, and Holmes consigned to the mysterious doom, would not those warning words be carried out in all their fell fatality?
How did it feel, eh?" said Laurence, with a sort of weary imperturbability, filling his pipe and pushing the pouch across the table to his friend. "Bad. Ah, that's right! Instead of fooling about 'cleaning' guns at such times, fill your pipe. That's the right lay, depend upon it." Laurence made no reply, but lighting up, puffed away in silence. His thoughts were wandering from Hazon.
"Au! they came forth to 'eat up' other tribes, not to spare such. They are dissatisfied." "They'd better have their own way," muttered Hazon, in English. "You are sacrificing all we have done and obtained this trip to an empty whim. How does that pan out, Stanninghame?" "I hate to go back on my word," was the reply; "still more to be bullied into it." "Well said!" declared Holmes warmly.
"Only this, that they know a good deal that we don't." "Well, what do they know or say they know?" "Look here, Stanninghame," said Rainsford, rather mysteriously, "has Hazon ever told you any of his up-country experiences?" "A few yes." "Did he ever suggest you should take a trip with him?" "We have even discussed that possibility."
During this conversation the whole party had halted, and now stood in a great semicircle around the white leaders. Then Mashumbwe spoke, and his words, though fairly courteous, managed to cover an extremely defiant tone. "Our people are dissatisfied, father," he said, addressing Hazon. "They desire to return home." "Wherefore?" asked Hazon shortly.
But the remaining Wajalu had withdrawn in terror: and well for all concerned that it was so, otherwise the Wangoni, inspired by the example of their chief, would certainly have commenced a massacre which even the prestige and authority of Hazon and Laurence combined would have been powerless to quell.
"Well, we had talked enough together to let you into that much, eh, Hazon?" said Laurence, with a laugh which was not altogether free from a dash of scepticism. "We have. Still, I'm not gassing when I tell you I knew all about it before. How? you want to ask. Because I've been through it all myself. I thought, 'That chap is throwing his last card; if he loses, he's my man. And you have lost."
And it may have been that the lonely man felt cheered by the companionship and the friendliness that proffered it, what time all others held aloof; or that the two were akin in ideas, or both; but henceforward a sort of intimacy struck up between them, and it was noticed that Hazon no longer went about invariably alone. Then people began to look somewhat queerly at Laurence.
"The Ba-gcatya are in great force," went on Hazon, as calmly as though he were merely announcing the proximity of one more well-nigh defenceless and slave-supplying village. "We shall have to fight, and that hard, but not here. We must fight them in the open." A murmur of assent went up. Every head was craned forward, eager to hear more. Briefly and concisely Hazon set forth his commands.
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