Stasch also taught Kali how to use the Remington rifle, and this he learned much more easily than the catechism. After ten days’ practice shooting at a target and at crocodiles sleeping in the sand on the river banks, the young negro killed a large Pofir-antelope,^[25] then several gazels, and finally a Ndiri wild boar. This hunt came near ending in an accident similar to that which had befallen Linde, for the boar,^[26] which Kali had carelessly approached after firing the shot, sprang and flew at him with tail in the air. Kali dropped the gun, took refuge up a tree, and sat there until his screams attracted the attention of Stasch, who found that the wild boar had been slain.

Stasch did not as yet permit the boy to hunt for buffaloes, lions, and rhinoceroses. Stasch would not shoot the elephants which came to the watering-place by night, for he had promised Nell that he would never kill one of them.

But from the mountain-top he would look through the telescope morning and afternoon, and on seeing a herd of zebras, buffaloes, gazels, or deer grazing in the jungle, he would follow them, taking Kali with him. During these excursions he often questioned Kali about the Wa-hima and Samburu tribes that they were bound to meet if they wanted to go east as far as the seacoast.

“Kali, do you know,” he once said, “that a journey of twenty days, or if on horseback a journey of only ten days, would enable us to reach your country?”

“Kali not know where Wa-himas live,” answered the young negro, shaking his head sadly.

“But I know,” said Stasch; “they live where the sun rises over a large stretch of water.”

“Yes! yes!” cried the boy joyfully and greatly surprised. “Basso-Narok! (Dark Water.) That is our name for big black water. Great man knows everything!”

“No; I don’t know how the Wa-himas would welcome us should we go there.”

“Kali order them to fall on their faces before great man and good Msimu.”

“And would they obey you?”

“Kali’s father wear leopard skin and Kali, too.”

Stasch understood that this meant that Kali’s father was a king and that he was the eldest son and the future ruler of the Wa-himas. And so he inquired further:

“You told me once that white travelers had visited you and that the older people remember them?”

“Yes; and Kali has heard that they wore a great deal of percale on their heads.”

“Ah,” thought Stasch to himself, “so they were not Europeans, but Arabs, whom the negroes, judging from the light color of their skins and their white clothes, mistook for white people.”

But as Kali remembered nothing about them and could give no further description of them, Stasch put another question to him.

“Did not the Wa-himas kill any of these people dressed in white?”

“No; neither the Wa-himas nor the Samburus can do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because they said that if the earth sucked up their blood the rain would cease.”

“I am glad they think that,” thought Stasch. Then he asked:

“Would the Wa-himas go with us as far as the sea, if I were to promise them quantities of percale, glass beads, and weapons?”

“Kali go and also the Wa-himas, but great man must first conquer the Samburus, who are on the other side of the water.”

“And who lives back of the Samburus?”

“Back of the Samburus there are no mountains, only a jungle, and in it live lions.”

This ended the conversation. Stasch now constantly thought of the great journey to the east, remembering what Linde had said about the possibility of meeting Arabs from the coast, who trade in ivory, and perhaps mission expeditions. He was sure that a journey like this would be very fatiguing and dangerous for Nell, but he knew she could not stay all her life on Linde Mountain, and that they would soon have to move on. The best time to leave is after the rainy season, when the infectious swamps are covered with water and the ground is still damp. On the summit of the mountain they had not as yet felt the heat; the nights were so cool that they had to cover themselves up to sleep. But below, in the jungle, it was now much warmer, and he well knew that it would soon become unbearably hot there. It now rained less and less and the water-line of the river became lower every day; so Stasch conjectured that the river valley would be converted into a dry bed in summer, the like of which he had formerly seen in the desert of Libya, and that then there would only remain a narrow stream flowing in the middle of its bed.

But he deferred the departure from day to day. On Linde Mountain they all—men as well as animals—felt so much at home! Nell was not only cured of the fever, but also of her anemic condition. Stasch had no more headaches and Kali’s and Mea’s skin began to shine like black satin. Nasibu looked like a walking melon on thin legs, and King, as well as the horses and the donkey, had become quite fat. Stasch knew very well that they would not find another island like this in the midst of the jungle during their entire journey. He looked into the future with much foreboding, although they now had considerable assistance, and, if need be, an important defender in King.

And so another week passed before they began making preparations for the journey. Whenever they were not busy packing they devoted the time to sending up kites containing the information that they were going in an easterly direction toward a certain lake. They sent them up continually, because a strong west wind was blowing almost a hurricane, which carried them off over the mountains. To protect Nell from the heat Stasch made a palanquin out of the remains of the tent; this was to be placed on the elephant’s back, for the girl to ride in. After it had been put on King a few times he became accustomed to the light weight, and also to having the palanquin bound to his back with palm thongs. But this was a featherweight in comparison to the other baggage he was expected to carry, which Kali and Mea were now busy sorting and packing.

Little Nasibu was told to look for bananas and to rub them to flour between two flat stones. King assisted him in picking the heavy clusters of fruit, but they both ate so much that the bananas in the vicinity of the huts were soon gone, and they were obliged to go to another grove, situated at the opposite end of the plateau. Saba, who had nothing to do, often kept them company on these expeditions.

But Nasibu came near paying for his zeal with his life, or at least a very strange kind of imprisonment. For it happened that once when he was gathering bananas on the edge of a steep, overhanging cliff he suddenly saw in a crevice a horrible face, covered with black skin, with eyes that blinked at him as it laughingly showed its front teeth. At first the boy was nearly petrified with fear—then he began to run for his life. But before he had gone far a hairy arm encircled him; he was lifted into the air, and the night-black monster started off running with him toward a gorge.

Fortunately the enormous monkey could only run on two feet; consequently Saba, who happened to be near, easily overtook it and buried his enormous jaws in his back. A terrible fight ensued, in which the dog, notwithstanding his great size and strength, would certainly have been worsted had not succor arrived in time to save him; for a gorilla can even conquer lions, and monkeys seldom let go their prey, even when it is a matter of regaining their freedom or their lives.^[27] The gorilla, having been attacked from behind, could not easily get at Saba, but in spite of that he picked him up by the neck with his left hand and was lifting him in the air when the ground shook under a heavy tread, and King came running up.

A slight blow with his trunk was sufficient, and the terrible “forest devil,” as the negroes call the gorilla, sank to the ground with brains and neck crushed. But to make sure that the monster was dead, or from his natural antipathy to it, King nailed it to the ground with his tusks and then continued to wreak his vengeance on it until Stasch, who had become alarmed at the roaring and screaming, came running up from the direction of the huts, gun in hand, and ordered him to stop.

The gorilla lay in a pool of blood, which Saba began to lick up, and King’s tusks were stained with gore. It was a very large gorilla, and, though dead, its upturned eyes and its teeth made it still a horrible looking object. The elephant trumpeted triumphantly, and Nasibu, ash-gray with terror, told Stasch what had happened. For a moment he considered whether he should fetch Nell and show her the horrible monkey, but he dismissed the thought, for suddenly a great fear took possession of him. Nell often went out walking alone on the island, and might not the very same thing happen to her?

This proved that Linde Mountain was not such a safe refuge as it at first seemed. Stasch returned to the hut and told Nell what had happened; she listened in curiosity and fright, her eyes wide open, continually repeating:

“You see what would have happened without King?”

“That’s right! One need not worry about a child with a nurse like him; so while we are here don’t take a step away without him.”

“And when are we going to leave?”

“The provisions are ready, the baggage sorted, and there is nothing to do but pack the loads on the animals; and so we can start to-morrow.”

“To see our papas?”

“If it be God’s will!” answered Stasch gravely.