He
Returned To Say That The King Was Sleeping - A Palpable Falsehood.
In a huff, I walked home to breakfast, leaving my attendants,
Maula and Uledi, behind to make explanations.
They saw the king,
who simply asked, "Where is Bana?" And on being told that I came,
but went off again, he said, as I was informed, "That is a lie,
for had he come here to see me he would not have returned"; then
rising, he walked away and left the men to follow me.
I continued ruminating on these absurd entanglements, and the
best way of dealing with them, when lo! to perplex me still more,
in ran a bevy of the royal pages to ask for mtende beads - a whole
sack of them; for the king wished to go with his women on a
pilgrimage to the N'yanza. Thinking myself very lucky to buy the
king's ear so cheaply, I sent Maula as before, adding that I
considered my luck very bad, as nobody here knew my position in
society, else they would not treat me as they did. My proper
sphere was the palace, and unless I got a hut there, I wished to
leave the country. My first desire had always been to see the
king; and if he went to the N'yanza, I trusted he would allow me
to go there also. The boys replied, "How can you go with his
women? No one ever is permitted to see them." "Well," said I,
"if I cannot go to the N'yanza with him" (thinking only of the
great lake, whereas they probably meant a pond in the palace
enclosures, where Mtesa constantly frolics with his women), "I
wish to go to Usoga and Amara, as far as the Masai; for I have no
companions here but crows and vultures." They promised to take
the message, but its delivery was quite another thing; for no one
can speak at this court till he is spoken to, and a word put in
out of season is a life lost.
On Maula's return, I was told the king would not believe so
generous a man as Bana could have sent him so few beads; he
believed most of my store must have been stolen on the road, and
would ask me about that to-morrow. He intimated that for the
future I must fire a gun at the waiting-hut whenever I entered
the palace, so that he might hear of my arrival, for he had been
up that morning, and would have been glad to see me, only the
boys, from fear of entering his cabinet, had forged a lie, and
deprived him of any interview with me, which he had long wished
to get. This ready cordiality was as perplexing as all the rest.
Could it be possible, I thought, I had been fighting with a
phantom all this while, and yet the king had not been able to
perceive it? At all events, now, as the key to his door had been
given, I would make good use of it and watch the result.
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