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Seizing hold of poor Mamba, without uttering a word they led him away. Hockins instantly followed, and Ebony was about to do the same when Mark laid his hand on his shoulder and checked him. "What would you do, Ebony?" "Look arter 'Ockins, massa." "Hockins is well able to look after himself. No doubt he has gone to see where they take Mamba to. One pair of eyes is enough for that.
"Black 'mamba, or so you would call it, though I know it for something else." "What else, Hans?" "One of the old witch-doctor Zikali's spirits which he sets at the mouth of this kloof to warn him of who comes or goes. I know it well, and so do others. I saw it listening behind a stone when you were up the kloof last evening talking with the Opener-of-Roads."
"Now, we must carry her," he said to the guide, "for she won't be able to walk for many days." On this being translated, Mamba gathered his mother up as if she had been a bundle of clothes, or a baby, and marched away with her. "Stop, stop!" cried Ravonino, "you can't carry her more than a few miles on such ground as I shall soon lead you over. We must arrange for her a filanzana."
If not yet among the martyrs, it was soon evident that Mamba stood a good chance of being among them before long and that the mother of whom he was so fond, and for the gratification of whose spiritual longings he had risked so much, would probably never receive the Gospel of Peace from his hands.
They passed the place where a leopard lay asleep up a tree, and saw a devil's whip of a ten-foot mamba snake and the bite of that same is a sixty-second short cut to the grave flee before them as if they, and not it, were death incarnate.
Four stout young men put the ends of the poles on their shoulders, and the party once more advanced, Mamba walking by the side of the filanzana to be ready to assist in cases of difficulty or danger, and to relieve the bearers occasionally.
"Not so, mother," said Ravonino, taking the poor woman's hand, "be of good cheer; Mamba is not dead. I know not indeed where he is at this moment, having been pressed in my own flight, but I know that the Queen has set him free this much I learned from our white friend, Mark Breezy. More I cannot tell, but is not this cause for joy and gratitude? Come, let us return thanks to our Father."
Hence the "old families" are sometimes complimented by the sovereign, in proclamations, by being styled "the ancient soot!" The particular Ancient Soot who accorded hospitality that night to Mamba was much surprised, but very glad, to see him. "Have you arrived?" he asked, with a good deal of ceremonial gesticulation. "I have arrived," answered Mamba. "Safely and well, I hope."
"No, Laihova goes with them; and Mamba, who knows the secret meeting-places of the Christians, will, I have no doubt, soon find out which way they have gone. Anyhow they will all certainly make for the cave in Betsilio-land where so many of their friends are. May God speed them!
Mamba, grown to a giant, seemed to have come back to her. But it was not her son. It was Andrianivo, her long-lost husband! For one moment poor Reni seemed terrified and bewildered, then she suddenly grasped the man's prematurely grey head in both hands and covered the face with passionate kisses, uttering every now and then a shriek by way of relieving her feelings.
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