Page:In Desert and Wilderness (Sienkiewicz, tr. Drezmal).djvu/345

 Rh "Kali does not know where the Wahimas live," the young negro answered, sadly shaking his head.

"But I know that they live in the direction in which the sun rises in the morning, near some great water."

"Yes! Yes!" exclaimed the boy with amazement and joy; "Basso-Narok! That in our language means, great and black water. The great master knows everything."

"No, for I do not know how the Wahimas would receive us if we came to them."

"Kali would command them to fall on their faces before the great master and before the 'Good Mzimu.'"

"And would they obey?"

"Kali's father wears a leopard's hide—and Kali, too." Stas understood this to mean that Kali's father was a king, and that Kali was his oldest son and the future ruler of the Wahimas.

So he continued to ask further:

"You told me that white travelers visited you and that the older people remember them."

"Yes, and Kali has heard that they had a great deal of percale on their heads."

"Ah!" thought Stas, "so those were not Europeans, but Arabs, whom the negroes on account of their lighter complexion and white dress mistook for white men."

Inasmuch, however, as Kali did not remember them and could not give any more specific details about them, Stas propounded to him other questions.

"Have not the Wahimas killed any of these men dressed in white?"

"No! Neither the Wahimas nor the Samburus can do that."

"Why?"