"Ask him if there are any snakes there, sir," he said, and foolishly
enough I put the question to give me time to think of other things.

"Yes, O Bena. Yes, O Cock of the Ashpit," replied Babemba. "My uncle's
Kendar wife told me that one of the guardians of the shrine of the White
Kendah is such a snake as was never seen elsewhere in the world."

"Then say to him, sir," said Savage, when I had translated almost
automatically, "that shrine ain't a church where _I_ shall go to say my
prayers."

Alas! poor Savage little knew the future and its gifts.

Then we came to the question of bearers. The end of it was that after
some hesitation Bausi II, because of his great affection for us,
promised to provide us with these upon our solemnly undertaking to
dismiss them at the borders of the desert, "so that they might escape
our doom," as he remarked cheerfully.

Four days later we started, accompanied by about one hundred and twenty
picked men under the command of old Babemba himself, who, he explained,
wished to be the last to see us alive in the world. This was depressing,
but other circumstances connected with our start were calculated to
weigh even more upon my spirit. Thus the night before we left Hans
arrived and asked me to "write a paper" for him. I inquired what he
wanted me to put in the paper. He replied that as he was going to his
death and had property, namely the £650 that had been left in a bank to
his credit, he desired to make a "white man's will" to be left in the
charge of Babemba. The only provision of the said will was that I was to
inherit his property, if I lived. If I died, which, he added, "of course