“And ye, white men, will ye help me?  What have I to offer you!  The white stones!  If I conquer and can find them, ye shall have as many as ye can carry hence.  Will that suffice you?”

I translated this remark.

“Tell him,” answered Sir Henry, “that he mistakes an Englishman.  Wealth is good, and if it comes in our way we will take it; but a gentleman does not sell himself for wealth.  Still, speaking for myself, I say this.  I have always liked Umbopa, and so far as lies in me I will stand by him in this business.  It will be very pleasant to me to try to square matters with that cruel devil Twala.  What do you say, Good, and you, Quatermain?”

“Well,” said Good, “to adopt the language of hyperbole, in which all these people seem to indulge, you can tell him that a row is surely good, and warms the cockles of the heart, and that so far as I am concerned I’m his boy.  My only stipulation is that he allows me to wear trousers.”

I translated the substance of these answers.

“It is well, my friends,” said Ignosi, late Umbopa; “and what sayest thou, Macumazahn, art thou also with me, old hunter, cleverer than a wounded buffalo?”

I thought awhile and scratched my head.

“Umbopa, or Ignosi,” I said, “I don’t like revolutions.  I am a man of peace and a bit of a coward”—­here Umbopa smiled—­“but, on the other hand, I stick up for my friends, Ignosi.  You have stuck to us and played the part of a man, and I will stick by you.  But mind you, I am a trader, and have to make my living, so I accept your offer about those diamonds in case we should ever be in a position to avail ourselves of it.  Another thing:  we came, as you know, to look for Incubu’s (Sir Henry’s) lost brother.  You must help us to find him.”

“That I will do,” answered Ignosi.  “Stay, Infadoos, by the sign of the snake about my middle, tell me the truth.  Has any white man to thy knowledge set his foot within the land?”

“None, O Ignosi.”

“If any white man had been seen or heard of, wouldst thou have known?”

“I should certainly have known.”

“Thou hearest, Incubu,” said Ignosi to Sir Henry; “he has not been here.”

“Well, well,” said Sir Henry, with a sigh; “there it is; I suppose that he never got so far.  Poor fellow, poor fellow!  So it has all been for nothing.  God’s will be done.”

“Now for business,” I put in, anxious to escape from a painful subject.  “It is very well to be a king by right divine, Ignosi, but how dost thou propose to become a king indeed?”

“Nay, I know not.  Infadoos, hast thou a plan?”