“There’s no fear of news about us reaching any government official,” I announced.  “There’s a curtain of death between us and the government that even suspicion couldn’t penetrate!”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The sleep that is no sleep*

Ten were the plagues that Israel fled, and leaving left no cure,
        Whose progeny self-multiplied a million-fold remain,
The cloak of each one ignorance, idolatry its lure,
        And death the goal till, clarion-called, lost Israel come
again. 
Till then that loaded lash that bade the tale of bricks
increase
        (Eye for an eye, and limb for limb!) shall fail not though
ye weep;
The conqueror’s heel for Africa!—­The fear that shall not cease!—­
        Desire, distrust, the alien law!—­The sleep that is no sleep!

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* It is a characteristic of the so-called Sleeping Sickness that is
decimating the tribes around Victoria Nyanza that the victim, although
he goes into a coma, never actually sleeps from the time of taking the
disease until the end, usually more than a year later.   The natives, a
tribe that came originally down from Egypt, themselves say that the
dreaded sickness is a “visitation” by way of revenge on them for former
sins, although what sins, and whose vengeance, they are at a total loss
to explain.
------------------

Kazimoto was gone five days, and then came preceded by proof of the news he brought.  He came in the evening.  In the morning, unaccountably from the northward, instead of from the westward where Uganda lay,—­avoiding the regular safari route and the belt of sleeping sickness villages, came a genial, sleek, shiny Baganda, arrayed in khaki coat, red fez, and bordered loin-cloth, gifted with tongues, and self-confident beyond belief.

He knew nothing of us at first, for we sat in our hut with a smudge going, nervous about flies, even Coutlass, reckless as a rule of anything he could not see, and perfectly indifferent to death for others, now fidgety and afraid to swagger forth.

One of our Nyamwezi porters suddenly made a great shout of “Hodi!"* and came stooping through the low door, standing erect again inside to await our pleasure.  We could hear others outside, listening under the eaves.  When we had kept him waiting sufficiently long to prevent his getting too much notion of his own importance, Fred nodded to him to speak. [* Hodi!  Equivalent to “May I come In!”]

“Is it true, bwana,” he asked, “that the Germans will come soon and conquer this part of Africa?”

“Certainly not!” said Fred.

“There is one out here, a Baganda, who says they will surely come.  He says the religion of Islam will be preached from end to end of everywhere, and that the Germans are the true priests of Islam.  They will come, says he, when the time is ripe, and call on all the converts of Islam to rise and slay all other people, including all white folk, like the English, who do not accept that creed.  If that is true, bwana, whither shall we go, and whither shall you go, to escape such terrible things?”