- " you want gold - honestly if you can get it, if not - well, it
is not too wise to ask. Your partnership is a little mysterious,
isn't it - with a man like that? Out of your magnificent morality
I trust that he may get his share."

Trent flushed a brick - red. An angry answer trembled upon his
lips, but Oom Sam, white and with his little fat body quivering with
fear, came hurrying up to them in the broad track of the moonlight.

"King he angry," he called out to them breathlessly. "Him mad drunk
angry. He say white men all go away, or he fire bush and use the
poisoned arrow. Me off! Got bearers waiting."

"If you go before we've finished," Trent said, "I'll not pay you a
penny. Please yourself."

The little fat man trembled - partly with rage, partly with fear.

"You stay any longer," he said, "and King him send after you and
kill on way home. White English soldiers go Buckomari with you?"

Trent shook his head.

"Going the other way," he said, "down to Wana Hill."

Oom Sam shook his head vigorously.

"Now you mind," he said; "I tell you, King send after you. Him
blind mad."