“Murderer, known among men as Hassan-ben-Mohammed—­Truly we sinned in not hanging you when you were in our power.  Oh! wolf who grows fat upon the blood of the innocent, this is a fault that we shall not commit again.  Your death is near to you and we believe at our hands.  Come with all your villains whenever you will.  The more there are of them the better we shall be pleased, who would rather rid the world of many fiends than of a few,

                           “Till we meet again, Allan Quatermain,
                                                  Stephen Somers.”

“Neat, if not Christian,” I said when I had read the letter over.

“Yes,” replied Stephen, “but perhaps just a little bombastic in tone.  If that gentleman did arrive with three hundred armed men—­eh?”

“Then, my boy,” I answered, “in this way or in that we shall thrash him.  I don’t often have an inspiration, but I’ve got one now, and it is to the effect that Mr. Hassan has not very long to live and that we shall be intimately connected with his end.  Wait till you have seen a slave caravan and you will understand my feelings.  Also I know these gentry.  That little prophecy of ours will get upon his nerves and give him a foretaste of things.  Hans, go and set this letter in that cleft stick.  The postman will call for it before long.”

As it happened, within a few days we did see a slave caravan, some of the merchandise of the estimable Hassan.

We had been making good progress through a beautiful and healthy country, steering almost due west, or rather a little to the north of west.  The land was undulating and rich, well-watered and only bush-clad in the neighbourhood of the streams, the higher ground being open, of a park-like character, and dotted here and there with trees.  It was evident that once, and not very long ago, the population had been dense, for we came to the remains of many villages, or rather towns with large market-places.  Now, however, these were burned with fire, or deserted, or occupied only by a few old bodies who got a living from the overgrown gardens.  These poor people, who sat desolate and crooning in the sun, or perhaps worked feebly at the once fertile fields, would fly screaming at our approach, for to them men armed with guns must of necessity be slave-traders.

Still from time to time we contrived to catch some of them, and through one member of our party or the other to get at their stories.  Really it was all one story.  The slaving Arabs, on this pretext or on that, had set tribe against tribe.  Then they sided with the stronger and conquered the weaker by aid of their terrible guns, killing out the old folk and taking the young men, women and children (except the infants whom they butchered) to be sold as slaves.  It seemed that the business had begun about twenty years before, when Hassan-ben-Mohammed and his companions arrived at Kilwa and drove away the missionary who had built a station there.