XXII
The caravan started at daybreak on the following day. The young negro was happy, the little female despot was now gentle and obedient, and Stas was full of energy and hope. They were accompanied by one hundred Samburus and one hundred Wahimas—forty of the latter were armed with Remingtons from which they could shoot passably well. The white commander who drilled them during three weeks knew, indeed, that in a given case they would create more noise than harm, but thought that in meeting savages noise plays no less a part than bullets, and he was pleased with his guards. They took with them a great supply of manioc, cakes baked of big, fat white ants and ground into flour, as well as a great quantity of smoked meats. Between ten and twenty women went with the caravan. They carried various good things for Nell and water-bags made of antelope skin. Stas, from the King's back, kept order, issued commands—perhaps not so much because they were necessary, but because he was intoxicated by the role of a commander—and with pride viewed his little army.
"If I wanted to," he said to himself, "I could remain the king of all the people of Doko, like Beniowsky in Madagascar."
And a thought flitted through his head whether it would not be well to return here sometime, conquer a great tract of country, civilize the negroes, found in that locality a new Poland, or even start at the head of a drilled black host for the old. As he felt, however, that there was something ludicrous in the idea and as he doubted whether his father would permit him to play the role of the Macedonian Alexander in Africa, he did not confide his plans to Nell, who certainly would be the only person in the world ready to applaud them.
And besides, before subjugating that region of Africa, it was necessary above all things to get out of it, so he occupied himself with nearer matters. The caravan stretched out in a long string. Stas, sitting on the King's neck, decided to ride at the end in order to have everything and everybody in sight.
Now when the people passed by him, one after another, he observed, not without surprise, that the two fetishmen, M'Kunje and M'Pua—the same who had received a drubbing at Kali's hands—belonged to the caravan and that they set out with packs on their heads together with the others on the road.
So he stopped them and asked:
"Who ordered you to go?"
"The king," they answered, bowing humbly.
But under the mask of humility their eyes glittered savagely and their faces reflected such malice that Stas at once wanted to drive them away, and if he did not do it, it was only because he did not want to undermine Kali's authority.
Nevertheless, he summoned him at once.
"Did you order the fetish-men to go with us?" he asked.
"Kali ordered it, for Kali is wise."
"Then I shall ask you why your wisdom did not leave them at home?"
"Because if M'Kunje and M'Pua remain they would instigate the Wahimas to kill Kali upon his return, but if we take them with us Kali will be able to watch them."
Stas meditated for a while and said:
"Perhaps you are right; nevertheless, do not lose sight of them, day or night, for they have a wicked look."
"Kali will have bamboo sticks," the young negro replied.
The caravan proceeded. Stas at the last moment ordered the guard, armed with Remingtons, to close the procession, as they were men chosen by him, and most reliable. During the drills, which lasted quite long, they had become attached in a certain degree to this young commander, and at the same time, as the nearest to his august person, they regarded themselves as something better than the others. At present they were to watch over the whole caravan and seize those who should take a fancy to desert. It was to be foreseen that when the hardships and dangers began deserters would not be lacking.
But the first day everything proceeded in the best possible manner. The negroes with the burdens on their heads, each one armed with a bow and a few smaller javelins or so-called assagais, extended in a long serpentine column amidst the jungle. For some time they skirted along the southern shore of the lake over the level ground, but as the lake was surrounded on all sides by high peaks they had to climb mountains when they turned to the east. The old Samburus, who knew that locality, claimed that the caravan would have to cross high passes between the mountains which they called Kullal and Inro, after which they would enter into the Ebene country, lying south of Borani. Stas understood that they could not go directly east for he remembered that Mombasa was situated a few degrees beyond the equator and therefore considerably south of that unknown lake. Possessing a few compasses which Linde left, he did not fear that he would stray from the proper road.
The first night they lodged upon a wooded hill. With the coming of darkness a few scores of camp-fires blazed, at which the negroes roasted dried meat and ate a dough of manioc roots, picking it out of the utensils with their fingers. After appeasing their hunger and thirst they were gossiping among themselves as to where the "Bwana kubwa" would lead them and what they would receive from him for it. Some sang, squatting and stirring up the fire, while all talked so long and so loudly that Stas finally had to command silence in order that Nell should sleep.
The night was very cold, but the next day, when the first rays of the sun illuminated the locality, it became warm at once. About sunrise the little travelers saw a strange sight. They were just approaching a little lake over a mile wide, or rather a great slough formed by the rains in the mountain valley, when suddenly Stas, sitting with Nell on the King, and looking about the region through a field-glass, exclaimed:
"Look, Nell! Elephants are going to the water."
In fact, at a distance of about five hundred yards could be seen a small herd composed of five heads, approaching the little lake slowly one after the other.
"These are some kind of strange elephants," Stas said, gazing at them with keen attention; "they are smaller than the King, their ears are far smaller, and I do not see any tusks at all."
In the meantime the elephants entered the water but did not stop at the shore, as the King usually did, and did not begin to splash with their trunks, but going continually ahead they plunged deeper and deeper until finally only their backs protruded above the water like boulders of stone.
"What is this? They are diving!" Stas exclaimed.
The caravan approached considerably towards the shore and finally was close by it. Stas halted it and began to stare with extraordinary astonishment now at Nell, then at the lake.
The elephants could not be seen at all; in the smooth watery pane even with the naked eye could be distinguished five spots like round red flowers, jutting above the surface and rocking with a light motion.
"They are standing on the bottom and those are the tips of their trunks," Stas said, not believing his own eyes. Then he shouted to Kali:
"Kali, did you see them?"
"Yes, master, Kali sees. Those are water-elephants,"[1] answered the young negro quietly.
"Water-elephants?"
"Kali has seen them often."
"And do they live in water?"
"During the night they go to the jungle and feed and during the day they live in the lake the same as a kiboko (hippopotamus). They do not come out until after sunset."
Stas for a long time could not recover from his surprise, and were it not that it was urgent for him to proceed on his way he would have halted the caravan until night in order to view better these singular animals. But it occurred to him that the elephants might emerge from the water on the opposite side, and even if they came out nearer it would be difficult to observe them closely in the dusk.
He gave the signal for the departure, but on the road said to Nell:
"Well! We have seen something which the eyes of no European have ever seen. And do you know what I think?—that if we reach the ocean safely nobody will believe us when I tell them that there are water-elephants in Africa."
"But if you caught one and took him along with us to the ocean?" Nell said, in the conviction that Stas as usual would be able to accomplish everything.
- ↑ Africa contains many uninvestigated secrets. Rumors of water-elephants reached the ears of travelers but were given no credence. Recently M. Le Petit, sent to Africa by the Museum of Natural History, Paris, saw water-elephants on the shores of Lake Leopold in Congo. An account of this can be found in the German periodical "Kosmos," No. 6.