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Updated: May 1, 2025
"Capital!" exclaimed the baronet when von Schalckenberg had translated the message. "This is as it should be. Lower the ladder, professor, and ask Lualamba to come on deck. We must send back a present to the king in return for that which he has sent us; and we can at the same time forward a message explaining our wants."
As the party halted, some ten or a dozen individuals, including Lualamba, flung themselves from their horses, and, advancing reverentially, grouped themselves about the royal charger. Two of them then stepped to the creature's head and grasped the bridle, whilst two more assisted the king to dismount.
Lualamba quickly made his appearance on deck, where, after receiving a further small present for himself and a cast-off soldier's coat, battered cocked-hat, an old pair of uniform trousers, the seams of which were trimmed with tarnished gold braid, and half a dozen strings of beads, as a present for the king, the wants of the travellers were explained to him.
Lualamba was one of M'Bongwele's most trusted chiefs, and shortly before sunset he and the head witch-doctor were summoned to a special conference with the king. Meanwhile the travellers, having enjoyed a most excellent night's rest, rose betimes in the morning and prepared for a thorough systematic investigation of the ruins.
Upon which Lualamba withdrew, promising that a gang of at least fifty should be at the ruined temple or whatever it was "before the sun reached the top of the sky;" in other words, before noon.
Besides, he had already received a practical assurance of his impotency so far as they were concerned; moreover, he was consumed by curiosity to see for himself the marvels so graphically described by his lieutenant, to receive a moiety of those magnificent gifts which the strangers seemed prepared to lavish broadcast upon all with whom they chanced to come into contact, and, above all, to satisfy himself with respect to certain conjectures which had flitted through his brain whilst listening to the astonishing narrative of Lualamba.
All, with the exception, that is to say, of the guard detailed to watch over the prisoners, the anxious Lualamba, and Seketulo. These were all wakeful enough, the latter perhaps even more so than any of the others.
"Now, go," said the professor, addressing Lualamba, "and inform king M'Bongwele that we await him on the spot among the ruins where you found us this morning."
But the explorers were quite satisfied; they were in no particular hurry; the climate was delightful; M'Bongwele was wonderfully civil, sending large supplies of provisions, fruit, and milk to the ship daily, accompanied by the most solicitous inquiries through Lualamba as to whether all things were going well with his visitors.
The professor, having promised to give the savages a specimen of their visitors' power, now waved his right hand very slowly and impressively skyward, as a signal to the watchful Mildmay, loudly exclaiming as he did so: "Lualamba will now accompany the four Spirits of the Winds to yonder cloud," pointing, as he spoke, to a single small white fleecy cloud which was floating at the moment across the sun's disc.
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