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This was a parting shot. About 10 P.M. the fever had gone. All were asleep in the tembe but myself, and an unutterable loneliness came on me as I reflected on my position, and my intentions, and felt the utter lack of sympathy with me in all around. It requires more nerve than I possess, to dispel all the dark presentiments that come upon the mind.
In the middle of this scorching plain stood the villages of Bihawana, almost undistinguishable, from the extreme lowness of the huts, which did not reach the height of the tall bleached grass which stood smoking in the untempered heat. Our camp was in a large boma, about a quarter of a mile from the Sultan's tembe.
To-day a tremendous commotion took place in Musa's tembe amongst all the women, as one had been delivered of still-born twins.
Nearer, however, to the base of the Mpwapwa the aspect of the plain altered. At first the jungle thinned, openings in the wood appeared, then wide and naked clearings, then extensive fields of the hardy holcus, Indian corn, and maweri or bajri, with here and there a square tembe or village. Still nearer ran thin lines of fresh young grass, great trees surrounded a patch of alluvial meadow.
His servant took possession of his things, his rifle, clothes, and blanket, and moved off to the tembe of a Mnyamwezi, near Kisokweh, where he lived for three months, when he also died. That is all I know about it."
After having expended our mutual stock of congratulations and nonsense, they departed, having stated their wish that I should visit them at Tabora and partake of a feast which they were about to prepare for me. Three days afterwards I sallied out of my tembe, escorted by eighteen bravely dressed men of my escort, to pay Tabora a visit.
When I inquired into the details of the attack, and the manner of the death of these Arabs, I was told that after the first firing which warned the inhabitants of Tabora that the enemy was upon them, Khamis bin Abdullah and some of the principal Arabs who happened to be with him had ascended to the roof of his tembe, and with his spyglass he had looked towards the direction of the firing.
Perceiving that my people were willing to stand by me, I made preparations for defence by boring loopholes for muskets into the stout clay walls of my tembe.
We buried Baruti under the shade of the banyan-tree, a few yards west of my tembe. The grave was made four and a half feet deep and three feet wide. At the bottom on one side a narrow trench was excavated, into which the body was rolled on his side, with his face turned towards Mecca. The body was dressed in a doti and a half of new American sheeting.
When they were mustered for the march outside the tembe, the only man absent was Bombay. While men were sent to search for him, others departed to get one more look, and one more embrace with their black Delilahs.
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