“Very poor joke, Major, very poor indeed,” said Jeekie when they had reached their own apartment.  “Lady make love to you; you play prig and lecture lady about holy customs of her country and she box my ear till head sing, also kick me all over and throw sharp claws in face.  Please you do it no more.  The next time, who knows? she stick knife in my gizzard, then kiss you afterward and say she so sorry and hope she no hurt you.  But how that help poor departed Jeekie who get all kicks, while you have ha’pence?”

“Oh! be quiet,” said Alan; “you are welcome to the halfpence if you would only leave me the kicks.  The question is, how am I to get out of this mess?  While she was a beautiful savage devil, one could deal with the thing, but if she is going to become human it is another matter.”

Jeekie looked at him with pity in his eyes.

“Always thought white man mad at bottom,” he said, shaking his big head.  “To benighted black nigger thing so very simple.  All you got to do, make love and cut when you get chance.  Then she pleased as Punch, everything go smooth and Jeekie get no more kicks.  Christian religion business very good, but won’t wash in Asiki-land.  Your reverend uncle find out that.”

Not wishing to pursue the argument, Alan changed the subject by asking his indignant retainer if he thought that the Asika had meant what she said when she offered to send the gold down to the coast.

“Why not, Major?  That good lady always mean what she say, and what she do too,” and he dabbed wrathfully at the scratches made by the lion’s claws on his face, then added, “She know her own mind, not like shilly-shally, see-saw white woman, who get up one thing and go to bed another.  If she love she love, if she hate she hate.  If she say she send gold, she send it, though pity to part with all that cash, because ’spect someone bag it.”

Alan reflected a while.

“Don’t you see, Jeekie, that here is a chance, if a very small one, of getting a message to the coast.  Also it is quite clear that if we are ever able to escape, it will be impossible for us to carry this heavy stuff, whereas if we send it on ahead, perhaps some of it might get through.  We will pack it up, Jeekie, at any rate it will be something to do.  Go now and send a message to the Asika, and ask her to let us have some carpenters, and a lot of well-seasoned wood.”

The message was sent and an hour later a dozen of the native craftsmen arrived with their rude tools and a supply of planks cut from a kind of iron-wood or ebony tree.  They prostrated themselves to Alan, then the master of them rising, instantly began to measure Jeekie with a marked reed.  That worthy sprang back and asked what in the name of Bonsa, Big and Little, they were doing, whereon the man explained with humility that the Asika had said that she thought the white lord wanted the wood to make a box to bury his servant in, as he, the said servant, had offended her that morning, and doubtless the white lord wished to kill him on that account, or perhaps to put him away under ground alive.