When We Returned To Camp He Deposited My Water Bottle
And Camera, Seized The Cleaning Implements, And Departed To His
Own Campfire.
In the field he pointed out game that I did not
see, and waited imperturbably the result of my shot.
As I before stated, the result of that shot for the first five
days was very apt to be nil. This, at the time, puzzled and
grieved me a lot. Occasionally I looked at Memba Sasa to catch
some sign of sympathy, disgust, contempt, or-rarely-triumph at a
lucky shot. Nothing. He gently but firmly took away my rifle,
reloaded it, and handed it back; then waited respectfully for my
next move. He knew no English, and I no Swahili.
But as time went on this attitude changed. I was armed with the
new Springfield rifle, a weapon with 2,700 feet velocity, and
with a marvellously flat trajectory. This commanding advantage,
combined with a very long familiarity with firearms, enabled me
to do some fairish shooting, after the strangeness of these new
conditions had been mastered. Memba Sasa began to take a dawning
interest in me as a possible source of pride. We began to develop
between us a means of communication. I set myself deliberately to
learn his language, and after he had cautiously determined that I
really meant it, he took the greatest pains-always gravely-to
teach me. A more human feeling sprang up between us.
But we had still the final test to undergo-that of danger and
the tight corner.
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