“The sun shines there all day,” said the chief; “and a man can see his shadow lengthen.  The little ones play on the white sand, the women and the girls work in the gardens on the open slopes of the hills, and the men——­”

“Well, what about the men?”

“They lie in the sand like lizards, and talk like parrots.”

It was the chief’s wife who spoke scornfully, using the language they had mastered.

“Wow!” chimed in the chief, “they are timid people, the men; but the time is at hand when those who will not fight will be set to do women’s work in the gardens.”

The woman nodded her head grimly.  “The time is at hand when the reapers will work, not in the cornfields, but about the fires where the men sit.  Hassan is to be feared; but he can only enter if he is helped from within.”

“I listen, O wise one,” said the son, sternly.  “Even if I weed them all out so that there are none left but Muata and these three white strangers, your counsel shall be followed.”

“It is well,” said the mother, nodding her head.

“You seem to have little faith in your people,” said Compton.

“Haw!  They grow fat and timid.  They have no fight in them.  Once before, when I was a boy, I beat them; but they have forgotten.”

“I rather think, chief, that they would be as well off under Hassan as under you.”

“Hassan would yoke them in and drive them out through the forest into the plains.  A man must fight for his kraal.  That is the law.”

“It is the law,” said the woman.

“And that is the Place of Rest?” said Venning, lingering on the sight.  “More like a place of trouble for some; but, at any rate, if there are hills and open places, I shall be glad to get there.  It would be a real treat to have space enough for a trot.  But, I say, it is time you two slept.”

“That is just what I have been thinking,” said Mr. Hume.

The two boys took the levers, but Muata declined to rest.  He said there were two openings leading from the lagoon to the hills—­one a broad channel, commonly used, the other a smaller channel.

“We will take the little river,” he said, “so that Hassan, who will follow the other track, will not know of our going.  But it is hard to find this little water-path, and I must search for it.”

“Don’t go up a track that will not give water for the boat.  Are you sure that it will carry us?”

“Ow ay! there is water enough, great one.  So sleep well.”

For a couple of hours the boys worked the levers, and at the end they came upon a thicket of reeds, along which the Okapi skirted, while the chief and his mother kept a keen outlook.  Twice they plunged into the reeds on a false trail; and then, as they lay off scanning the oily water for trace of a current, the woman held up her hand.

“It is Hassan,” said the chief.

Venning reached for his glasses, and far back over the shining lake he saw little black specks emerging, as it were, out of the forest.