“I don’t know,” grunted Bausi, “but there is one here who can tell a different story,” and he looked at Babemba, who wriggled uncomfortably.

Komba also looked at him with his fierce eyes.

“It is not conceivable,” he said, “that anybody should wish to eat one so old and bony, but let that pass.  I thank you, King, for your promise of safety.  I have come here to ask that you should send envoys to confer with the Kalubi and the Motombo, that a lasting peace may be arranged between our peoples.”

“Why do not the Kalubi and the Motombo come here to confer?” asked Bausi.

“Because it is not lawful that they should leave their land, O King.  Therefore they have sent me who am the Kalubi-to-come.  Hearken.  There has been war between us for generations.  It began so long ago that only the Motombo knows of its beginning which he has from the gods.  Once the Pongo people owned all this land and only had their sacred places beyond the water.  Then your forefathers came and fell on them, killing many, enslaving many and taking their women to wife.  Now, say the Motombo and the Kalubi, in the place of war let there be peace; where there is but barren sand, there let corn and flowers grow; let the darkness, wherein men lose their way and die, be changed to pleasant light in which they can sit in the sun holding each other’s hands.”

“Hear, hear!” I muttered, quite moved by this eloquence.  But Bausi was not at all moved; indeed, he seemed to view these poetic proposals with the darkest suspicion.

“Give up killing our people or capturing them to be sacrificed to your White Devil, and then in a year or two we may listen to your words that are smeared with honey,” he said.  “As it is, we think that they are but a trap to catch flies.  Still, if there are any of our councillors willing to visit your Motombo and your Kalubi and hear what they have to propose, taking the risk of whatever may happen to them there, I do not forbid it.  Now, O my Councillors, speak, not altogether, but one by one, and be swift, since to the first that speaks shall be given this honour.”

I think I never heard a denser silence than that which followed this invitation.  Each of the indunas looked at his neighbour, but not one of them uttered a single word.

“What!” exclaimed Bausi, in affected surprise.  “Do none speak?  Well, well, you are lawyers and men of peace.  What says the great general, Babemba?”

“I say, O King, that I went once to Pongo-land when I was young, taken by the hair of my head, to leave an eye there and that I do not wish to visit it again walking on the soles of my feet.”

“It seems, O Komba, that since none of my people are willing to act as envoys, if there is to be talk of peace between us, the Motombo and the Kalubi must come here under safe conduct.”

“I have said that cannot be, O King.”

“If so, all is finished, O Komba.  Rest, eat of our food and return to your own land.”