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Updated: June 23, 2025
He was laid down to sleep upon a clean mat, and my wife gave him a lump of sugar to moisten his mouth and relieve his thickly-furred tongue. His pulse was very weak, and his skin cold. "Poor Saat," said my wife, "his life hangs upon a thread. We must nurse him most carefully; should he have a relapse, nothing will save him." An hour passed, and he slept.
I called Saat and ordered him to give the two guns to Richarn to clean. Not only my own men but the whole of Ibrahim's party were of opinion that I had some mysterious connexion with the disaster that had befallen my mutineers.
I started off Rabonga, to Magungo, where he was to meet us with riding oxen. We were encamped at a small village on the shore of the lake, called Vacovia. On the following morning not one of our party could rise from the ground. Thirteen men, the boy Saat, four women, besides my wife and me, were all down with fever. The natives assured us that all strangers suffered in a like manner.
To this they demurred; therefore I dropped the subject, and proposed to load the canoe with all the presents intended for Kamrasi. There was no objection to this, and I ordered Richarn, Saat, and Ibrahim to get into the canoe to stow away the luggage as it should be handed to them, but on no account to leave the boat.
The tears ran down the cheeks of the savage but good-hearted Karka, as she sobbed, "He is dead!" We stopped the boat. It was a sandy shore; the banks were high, and a clump of mimosas grew above high water-mark. It was there that we dug his grave. My men worked silently and sadly, for all loved Saat: he had been so good and true, that even their hard hearts had learnt to respect his honesty.
Their time was passed in vociferously quarrelling among themselves during the day, and in close conference with the vakeel during the night, the substance of which was reported on the following morning by the faithful Saat. The boy recounted their plot.
At first this charge was indignantly denied until the boy Saat manfully stepped forward, and declared that the conspiracy was entered into by the whole of the escort, and that both he and Richarn, knowing that mutiny was intended, had listened purposely to the conversation during the night; at daybreak the boy reported the fact to his mistress.
Babies accompanied their mothers, strapped upon their backs with leathern bands, and protected from the weather by the usual tortoise-like coverings of gourd-shells. Thus it may be imagined that the Shooli tribe were born hunters, as they had accompanied the public hunts from their earliest infancy. My two boys, Saat and Bellaal, carried spare guns.
So ended the famous conspiracy that had been reported to me by both Saat and Richarn before we left Gondokoro;-and so much for the threat of "firing simultaneously at me and deserting my wife in the jungle." In those savage countries success frequently depends upon one particular moment; you may lose or win according to your action at that critical instant.
I made him a present of a large quantity of beads that I had promised to give him upon reaching the lake; he took his departure, agreeing to meet us at Magungo with our oxen, and to have porters in readiness to convey us direct to Shooa. On the following morning not one of our party could rise from the ground. Thirteen men, the boy Saat, four women, and we ourselves, were all down with fever.
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