Alan, who was in no mood for long explanations, answered that he had kept him with them because he might be useful.

“Yes, yes, friend, I see,” exclaimed the old cannibal, “although he is so thin he will always make a meal or two at a pinch.  Truly white men are wise and provident.  Like the ants, you take thought for the morrow.”

As soon as they had swallowed their food they started all together, for although Alan pointed out to Fahni that he might be safer apart, the old chief who had a real affection for him, would not be persuaded to leave him.

“Let us live or die together,” he said.

Now Jeekie, abandoning the main road, led them up a stream, walking in the water so that their footsteps might leave no trace, and thus away into the barren mountains which rose between them and the great swamp.  On the crest of these mountains Alan turned and looked back towards Bonsa Town.  There far across the fertile valley was the hateful, river-encircled place.  There fell the great cataract in the roar of which he had lived for so many weeks.  There were the black cedars and there gleamed the roofs of the Gold House, his prison where dwelt the Asika and the dreadful fetishes of which she was the priestess.  To him it was like the vision of a nightmare, he could scarcely think it real.  And yet by this time doubtless they sought him far and wide.  What mood, he wondered, would the Asika be in when she learned of his escape and the fashion of it, and how would she greet him if he were recaptured and taken back to her?  Well, he would not be recaptured.  He had still some cartridges and he would fight till they killed him, or failing that, save the last of them for himself.  Never, never could he endure to be dragged back to Bonsa Town there to live and die.

They went on across the mountains, till in the afternoon once more they saw the road running beneath them like a ribbon, and at the end of it the lagoon.  Now they rested a while and held a consultation while they ate.  Across that lagoon they could not escape without a canoe.

“Lord,” said the Mungana presently, “yesterday when these cannibals were let go a swift runner was sent forward commanding that a good boat should be provisioned and made ready for them, and by now doubtless this has been done.  Let them descend to the road, walk on to the bay and ask for the boat.  Look, yonder, far away a tongue of land covered with trees juts out into the lake.  We will make our way thither and after nightfall this chief can row back to it and take us into the canoe.”

Alan said that the plan was good, but Jeekie shook his head, asking what would happen if Fahni, finding himself safe upon the water, thought it wisest not to come to fetch them.

Alan translated his words to the old chief, whereon Fahni wanted to fight Jeekie because of the slur that he had cast upon his honour.  This challenge Jeekie resolutely declined, saying that already there were plenty of ways to die in Asiki-land without adding another to them.  Then Fahni swore by his tribal god and by the spirit of every man he had ever eaten, that he would come to that promontory after dark, if he were still alive.