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Updated: June 3, 2025
"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."
M'Bongwele looked somewhat doubtfully at the swaying ladder for a moment or two, and then essayed the ascent; but the oscillation set up by his movements proved too much for his nerves or his dignity and, much chagrined, he was obliged to desist.
Their first thought was that Seketulo had proved false to the trust that they had reposed in him, and was repeating the folly of his predecessor, M'Bongwele, by engaging in an attempt to capture the ship.
The ladies listened to Sir Reginald's singular story with an astonishment which they vainly strove to conceal, and had it been uncorroborated, they would probably have suspected in him a touch of the same malady with which they were supposed to be afflicted; but, as matters were, they had no choice but to credit the tale, and very much gratified they were to learn that there existed a means of conveyance affording, if they could but once gain access to it, a safe, easy, and speedy escape from the realms of king M'Bongwele.
"Then spake M'Buta, one of the few chiefs who, with us, had refrained from declaring in M'Bongwele's favour, asking what would happen to the nation, when the four Spirits of the Winds should return and find M'Bongwele again in power, and Seketulo slain.
They had entered the country with the most friendly disposition toward M'Bongwele and his people, and that friendly disposition would be manifested to the distinct advantage of the entire nation if the king showed himself properly appreciative of the honour done him by this visit.
He ordered a number of M'Bongwele's warriors to build a large fire, not very far from the ship, and when this was well alight, and throwing out a dense cloud of smoke, our friend von Schalckenberg used the smoke as a magic-lantern screen, upon which he projected two pictures, the first showing M'Bongwele himself and his warriors at the moment when they halted opposite the ship upon their arrival from his village earlier on in the afternoon photographed by Mildmay and developed and printed during our trip out to sea and the second, a coloured slide, showing a review of a number of our own British troops.
But the owner of the spear recovered himself in a flash, and, seizing the blade of the weapon in his bare hand, he twisted it upward with such strength that the slender wooden shaft snapped, leaving the head in his hand and the innocuous shaft in that of M'Bongwele.
This proposition, however, by no means accorded with the views of the travellers; and von Schalckenberg somewhat sternly intimated that, whilst an interview with M'Bongwele was undoubtedly desirable, it was he who must visit and pay homage to them, and not they to him.
"And now," remarked the professor, as the chief joined them, "our next business, I take it, is to discover who were those unfortunate white people who died under such barbarous circumstances, to amuse M'Bongwele and set his jealous fears at rest." "Certainly," agreed Sir Reginald. "It is our manifest duty to do so.
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