We wished we had as good price to offer at the villages on our way, for sleep under cover we must, if we hoped to escape the ravages of fever; and the primitive savage, at least in those parts, had the principle down fine of nothing whatever for nothing.  Yet as it turned out, the very man whose company we looked on as a nuisance proved to be a key to all gates.  We marched along the track the Baganda had taken.  The chiefs of all villages knew him again; and the men who dared take such a prophet of evil prisoner were looked upon as high government officials at least.

We accepted that description of ourselves, letting it go by silent assent, and explained our lack of tents and almost every other thing the white man generally travels with as due to haste.  Heaven only knew what lies Kazimoto told those credulous folk, to the perfectly worthy end of making our lot bearable, but we were fed after a fashion, and lodged after a worse one all along our road.  And who should send in reports about us—­and to whom?  Obviously white men with a prisoner, marching in such a hurry toward the north, were government officials.  Who should report officials to their government?  As for the tale about our having left our loads behind—­are not all white people crazy?  Who shall explain their craziness?

>From being a nuisance the Baganda became a joke.  When it dawned on his fat intellect that we were hurrying toward Schillingschen with only one rifle among us and no baggage at all, he jumped at once to the conclusion we must be Schillingschen’s friends; and his fear that we intended to hand him over to that ruthless brute for summary punishment was more melting to his backbone than the dread of our imaginary whip, that had caused him to give Schillingschen away.

He tried to bite through the thongs that held him, but Will twisted for him handcuffs out of thick iron wire that we begged from a chief, who had intended to make ornaments with it for his own legs.  We did not dare let the man escape, nor care to prevent our men from using force when he threw himself on the ground and wept like a spoiled child.

“I will tell you” he said at last, deciding he might as well be hanged for mutton as for lamb, “what Bwana Schillingschen is searching for!  I will tell you who knows where to find it!  I will tell you where to find the man who knows!  Only let me run away then to my own home in Uganda, and I will never again leave it!  I am afraid!  I am afraid!”

But that was only one more reason for keeping him with us, and no ground at all for delay.  He would not tell unless we loosed his hands first, so we pressed on, camping late and starting early, until about noon of the fourth day we caught sight of Schillingschen’s tents in the distance, and gathered our party at once into a little rocky hollow to discuss the situation.