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Updated: June 28, 2025
"That I will not do," declared Gouie; "unless," he added, as an afterthought, "you will make a bargain with me." "Let me hear about the bargain, black one, for I am hungry," said Keo. "I will let your go if you swear by the tusks of your grandfather that you will return to me in a year and a day and become my prisoner again."
Still, that you may not be misled, I will say that in the hippopotamus language "Keo," properly translated, means "fat and lazy" instead of fat and round. However, no one called the queen's attention to this error, because her tusks were monstrous long and sharp, and she thought Keo the sweetest baby in the world. He was, indeed, all right for a hippopotamus.
In the villages one hears constantly, "Yu ti kou yao!" "There is a dog on the road," with the response, "Han lao-pan lai chi tao!" "Call the owner to chain it"; or else, "Tso shou wahwah keo!" "A child on the left hand," and then comes the answer, "Han ta ma lah pao!" "Call his mother to tend him." Every hundred yards or so on the road comes the cry, "Fan keo!"
So he took a knife and tried to stick it into the hippopotamus, but the skin was so tough the knife was blunted against it. Then he tried other means; but Keo remained unhurt. And now indeed the Jolly One laughed his most gleeful laugh, till all the forest echoed the "guk-uk-uk-uk-uk!" And Gouie decided not to kill him, since that was impossible, but to use him for a beast of burden.
But Gouie, being a thoughtful black man, went away without further talk, and did not return until the following morning. When he again leaned over the pit Keo was so weak from hunger that he could hardly laugh at all. "Do you give up?" asked Gouie, "or do you still wish to fight?" "What will happen if I give up?" inquired Keo. The black man scratched his woolly head in perplexity.
Then a dozen black men climbed upon Keo's back to enjoy a ride, and the one nearest his nose cried out: "Run, Mud-dog run!" And Keo ran. Swift as the wind he strode, away from the village, through the forest and straight up the river bank. The black men howled with fear; the Jolly One roared with laughter; and on, on, on they rushed!
Keo recognized the scent of a black man and tried to raise his head high enough to bite him. Seeing which Gouie spoke in the hippopotamus language, which he had learned from his grandfather, the sorcerer. "Have peace, little one; you are my captive." "Yes; I will have a piece of your leg, if I can reach it," retorted Keo; and then he laughed at his own joke: "Guk-uk-uk-uk!"
Keo laughed his jolly "guk-uk-uk-uk!" and ran with the speed of the wind. But this time he made straight for the river bank where his own tribe lived, and when he reached it he waded into the river, dived to the bottom and left Gouie floating in the middle of the stream.
Then the terrible Glinkomok leaned over, and Keo felt its fiery breath scorch him as it whispered some further instructions in his ear. The next moment it glided back into its cave, followed by the loud thanks of the three hippopotamuses, who slid into the water and immediately began their journey home.
All the others snorted approval, being very glad they were not called upon to go themselves. So the queen and Uncle Nep, with Keo swimming between them, set out upon their journey. They swam up the river all that day and all the next, until they came at sundown to a high, rocky wall, beneath which was the cave where the might Glinkomok dwelt.
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