inexplicable, restless feeling that men say they have felt uuder ghostly visitations, impelled me to get up, and this time, lighting a pipe to prevent mistakes, I resumed my sauntering, and tired at last of being alone, I awoke my men for the start, although day was not yet breaking. Half-asleep a meal was soon discussed, and in an hour we were again on the move. Shumari had lagged behind, as usual, and on his coming up I reproved him for being the last.
“I am not the last,” he said; “Zaidi, the Wangwana, is not here yet. I saw him climbing up for a liane” (the men got their ropes from these useful plants) “just as I was coming away, and I called out to him that you would be angry.”
“Peace!” said Baraka, the man next to me; “is not that Zaidi the Wangwana there, riding on the ass? It was not he. It was that good-for-nothing Tarya. He is always the last to stand up and the first to sit down.”
“No doubt, then,” said Shumari, “it was Tarya; shame on him. He is no bigger than Zaidi, and has hair like his. Besides, it was in the mist I saw him.”
But I had heard enough — the nervousness of the night still afflicted me.
“Sound the halt!” I cried; “call the men together.”
In three minutes all were grouped round me — not one was missing! Tarya was far ahead, riding on an ass, and had therefore been one of the first to start.
“Who was the last to leave camp?” I asked, and by the unanimous voice it was agreed to be Shumari himself.
Shumari, then, had seen the Soko! and our storehouse was the Soko’s home!
The rest of the men had not heard the preceding
