THE REDISCOVERED COUNTRY 201 



He took his kiboko badly, struggling and shouting at 

 the men who were holding him ; and on being released 

 he jumped to his feet and started off downhill on a run. 



"Where are you going?" I shouted after him. 



He snarled something back in Wakamba, which I do 

 not understand. 



"He says he's going to Nairobi," three or four men 

 instantly volunteered. 



"Seize him!" I commanded. 



A dozen porters started in pursuit, but he gained on 

 them at every step. By now he was several hundred 

 yards away, and at every moment nearing the cover. 

 Two of Missambi's men, wrapped in goatskins, stood 

 near. I caught their eager, questioning glance and 

 motioned an assent. Instantly they dropped their 

 robes and darted away, fine pictures of lithe, naked 

 savagery. These people are certainly runners! They 

 bounded easily; but within a half mile they had passed 

 all my men, and within a few hundred yards after that 

 they had seized MooU. The whole lot surged about 

 him in a frenzied, shouting mass. For a moment I 

 was afraid in their excitement they might actually do 

 murder; and I cursed again the wretched back that 

 held me here. In a moment or so, however, they headed 

 on the return to camp. 



Everybody was super-excited, jabbering away madly, 

 running here and there. I had on my hands a fine ex- 

 plosive mixture of savagery that might go off at any 



