Venning, who had been schooling himself since they passed Banana
Point at the river mouth, picked out other words in the tongue of
the river tribes.

The meaning of his speech, when they had made a mosaic of the
different understood facts, was this--that he was a great man in his
own land, but only a child now, being without arms or men, but that
if the white men ever came to his place, he would be a father and a
mother to them. He would throw his shield before them, and protect
them with bow and spear.

After this they sat together learning a polyglot speech that would
serve roughly as a medium of exchange.

And this was the story of the chief, slowly put together out of
these talks--

"I am Muata the chief. The kraal of my house is toward the setting
sun, but the fire no longer burns on the hearth. The men-robbers
fell upon the place in the early morning. The people were scattered
like goats before the lion. Many were taken by the men-robbers, and
many were slain; and among them my father.

"The chief's wife, my mother, fled with me into the Great Forest.
Many days she lived on roots, and the 'little people' found her in
her wanderings. They took her by crooked paths far from the land of
her people. Ohe!

"Through the dark woods--through the dark and terrible woods,
through the mist and the rain, with much pain, she followed them as