"
When the last batch had disappeared with the last box I walked up
to him, and said, "Now, Andrews, you take hat, we go Gaboon."
Hotaloya at once assumed the maudlin expression and insipid
ricanement of the Hindu charged with "Sharm ki bat" (something
shameful).
"Please, mas'r, I no can go--Nanny Po he be too far--I no look my
fader (the villain had three), them boy he say I no look 'um
again!"
The wives had won the day, and words would have been vain. He
promised hard to get leave from his papa and "grand-pap," and to
join me after a last farewell at the Plateau. His face gave the
lie direct to his speech, and his little manoeuvre for keeping the
earnest-money failed ignobly.
The swift brown stream carried us at full speed. "Captain
Merrick" pointed out sundry short cuts, but my brain now refused
to admit as truth a word coming from a Mpongwe. We passed some
bateaux pecheurs, saw sundry shoals of fish furrowing the water,
and after two hours we were bumping on the rocks outlying Mombe
Creek and Nenga Oga village. The passage of the estuary was now a
pleasure, and though we grounded upon the shallows of "Voileliay
Bay," the Kru-men soon lifted the heavy boat; the wind was fair,
the tide was ebbing, and the strong current was in our favour.
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