“Nothing except wood,” replied Babemba, staring at the deal slip with which it was lined.

Then I threw a dish-cloth over it and, to change the subject, offered him another pannikin of the “holy drink” and a stool to sit on.

The old fellow perched himself very gingerly upon the stool, which was of the folding variety, stuck the iron-tipped end of his great spear in the ground between his knees and took hold of the pannikin.  Or rather he took hold of a pannikin and not the right one.  So ridiculous was his appearance that the light-minded Stephen, who, forgetting the perils of the situation, had for the last minute or two been struggling with inward laughter, clapped down his coffee on the table and retired into the tent, where I heard him gurgling in unseemly merriment.  It was this coffee that in the confusion of the moment Sammy gave to old Babemba.  Presently Stephen reappeared, and to cover his confusion seized the pannikin meant for Babemba and drank it, or most of it.  Then Sammy, seeing his mistake, said: 

“Mr. Somers, I regret that there is an error.  You are drinking from the cup which that stinking savage has just licked clean.”

The effect was dreadful and instantaneous, for then and there Stephen was violently sick.

“Why does the white lord do that?” asked Babemba.  “Now I see that you are truly deceiving me, and that what you are giving me to swallow is nothing but hot mwavi, which in the innocent causes vomiting, but that in those who mean evil, death.”

“Stop that foolery, you idiot,” I muttered to Stephen, kicking him on the shins, “or you’ll get our throats cut.”  Then, collecting myself with an effort, I said: 

“Oh! not at all, General.  This white lord is the priest of the holy drink and—­what you see is a religious rite.”

“Is it so,” said Babemba.  “Then I hope that the rite is not catching.”

“Never,” I replied, proffering him a biscuit.  “And now, General Babemba, tell me, why do you come against us with about five hundred armed men?”

“To kill you, white lords—­oh! how hot is this holy drink, yet pleasant.  You said that it was not catching, did you not?  For I feel——­”

“Eat the cake,” I answered.  “And why do you wish to kill us?  Be so good as to tell me the truth now, or I shall read it in the magic shield which portrays the inside as well as the out,” and lifting the cloth I stared at the glass.

“If you can read my thoughts, white lord, why trouble me to tell them?” asked Babemba sensibly enough, his mouth full of biscuit.  “Still, as that bright thing may lie, I will set them out.  Bausi, king of our people, has sent me to kill you, because news has reached him that you are great slave dealers who come hither with guns to capture the Mazitus and take them away to the Black Water to be sold and sent across it in big canoes that move of themselves.  Of this he has been warned by messengers from the Arab men.  Moreover, we know that it is true, for last night you had with you many slaves who, seeing our spears, ran away not an hour ago.”