The King Said To Him, "And Did You Do It Well?" "Oh, Yes, Capitally." He Spoke The Truth, No Doubt, For He Dared Not Have Trifled With The King; But The Affair Created Hardly Any Interest.

I never heard, and there appeared no curiosity to know, what individual human being the urchin had deprived of life.

The Wakungu were not dismissed, and I asked to draw near, when the king showed me a book I had given to Rumanika, and begged for the inspiring medicine which he had before applied for through the mystic stick. The day was now gone, so torches were lit, and we were ordered to go, though as yet I had not been able to speak one word I wished to impart about Petherick and Grant; for my interpreters were so afraid of the king they dared not open their mouths until they were spoken to. The king was now rising to go, when, in great fear and anxiety that the day would be lost, I said, in Kisuahili, "I wish you would send a letter by post to Grant, and also send a boat up the Kitangule, as far as Rumanika's palace, for him, for he is totally unable to walk." I thus attracted his notice, though he did not understand one word I uttered. The result was, that he waited for the interpretation, and replied that a post would be no use, for no one would be responsible for the safe delivery of the message; he would send N'yamgundu to fetch him, but he thought Rumanika would not consent to his sending boats up the Kitangule as far as the Little Windermere; and then, turning round with true Mganda impetuosity, he walked away without taking a word from me in exchange.

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