The next day was perforce a halt. Forteune and his wives did not
appear till 9 A.M., when it was dead low water. I had lent Nimrod
a double-barrelled gun during the march, and he was evidently
anxious to found a claim upon the protracted usufruct. "Dashes"
also had to be settled, and loads made up. The two women to whose
unvarying kindness all my comfort had been owing, were made happy
with satin-stripe, cassis, and the inevitable nicotiana. In an
unguarded moment my soft heart was betrayed into giving a bottle
of absinthe to the large old person who claimed to be Forteune's
mamma. Expecting nothing, had nothing been offered she would not
have complained; the present acted upon her violently and
deleteriously; she was like the cabman who makes mauvais sang
because he has asked and received only twice his fare; briefly,
next morning she was too surly to bid us adieu.

When giving Forteune his "dash," I was curious to hear how he
could explain the report about the dead gorilla shot the night
before last: the truth of the old saying, "a black man is never
fast for an excuse," was at once illustrated; the beast had been
badly wounded, but it had dragged itself off to die. And where
was the blood? The rain had washed the blood away!

Nimrod seemed chagrined at the poor end of so much trouble, but
there was something in his look and voice suggesting a suppressed
thought--these people, like the English and the Somal, show their
innermost secrets in their faces. At last, I asked him if he was
now willing to try the Shekyani country. He answered flatly,
"No!" And why?