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Updated: June 3, 2025
Let no one touch him, but let him lie there as a warning to other rebellious natures if such, perchance, should be among you." At this moment, Lobelalatutu and his band reappeared, with M'Bongwele in their midst.
I can sympathise with you in your reluctance to do this thing, old chap; merely to depose M'Bongwele was one thing, to hang him and his crowd of murdering witch-doctors is quite another, and this is the first affair of the kind that you have been mixed up in. With me it is different.
"We then proceeded to question the fellow; and presently learned from him that he was the emissary of a certain M'Bongwele in whose territory we now were a king of fierce, cruel, and jealous disposition, as we gathered, and so suspicious of strangers that he had issued a standing order against the admission into his country of any such, under certain gruesome pains and penalties.
Their attendants and guards were allowed to answer any questions except such as related to the king's recent attempt to possess himself of their property; and hints were freely offered to the effect that M'Bongwele was most anxious to secure their friendship, and would gladly afford them an audience whenever they might desire it.
M'Bongwele listened attentively to all the details of the capture, and, upon its completion, rose and, accompanied by the chief, made his way to the hut, which he cautiously entered, placing himself at the foot of each hammock in succession, and long and anxiously regarding the countenances of the sleepers.
In accordance with Sir Reginald's suggestion, he, the professor, Lethbridge, and Colonel Sziszkinski quietly left the ship that same afternoon, about three o'clock, to institute a search in the palace for any relics of the shipwrecked party that M'Bongwele might have preserved.
The hut in which our four friends were thus left had been erected in a spacious palisaded quadrangle which surrounded the king's palace, so that M'Bongwele might, as it were, always have them under his own eye; and the fact that, having got them into his power, the king was determined, if possible, to keep them there, was made manifest by the presence of a strong cordon of guards, who, on the passage of the prisoners within the portal, immediately ranged themselves round the hut outside.
"To engage in a hopeless fight is but folly. And now, tell me, I pray you, has M'Bongwele in any wise profited from the lesson which we gave him, or has he reverted to his former barbarous methods of ruling you?" "His rule is even as it was aforetime," answered the savage.
He stood deeply considering for a moment, and then said, hesitatingly: "Since the Great Spirits are about to right the wrongs which we have suffered at the hands of M'Bongwele and his witch-doctors, it may be that they would be willing to save the life of Siswani, one of the chiefs who was opposed to the reinstatement of M'Bongwele.
And, behold, more than three-fourths of the chiefs stood forth and placed themselves beside M'Bongwele, declaring that the Makolo were a warlike nation, whose spears had grown rusty through remaining so long unwashed in blood, while they were growing ever poorer for lack of their neighbours' cattle, under Seketulo's peaceful rule; and that M'Bongwele was far better as a king than had been Seketulo.
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