A POISONED ARROW 



311 



The words I thought meant £ Kill the caravan people ' were only 

 ' Eain we must and will have,' and that was no business of 

 mine, but of the head Leibon, Count Teleki. 



Kijanja's answer left the question of rain unsolved, for he 

 said a shauri in which so man}^ tipsy men took part could lead 

 to no result. This seemed reasonable enough, and four sober 

 men were picked out for a fresh consultation. Utahaj brought 

 a black bullock and a sheep to make blood-brotherhood. The 

 broiled livers were eaten, and we on our part promised rain. 

 This promise we honourably fulfilled, for some fell that same 

 evening. We really began almost to believe in our own power, 

 so often did it rain when we had undertaken that it should. 

 We may be blamed for our behaviour in this matter, but it 

 must be remembered that the native belief in our being able 

 to make rain was the only thing that enabled us to cope with 

 numbers ten times greater than our own and to prevent much 

 useless bloodshed. 



When it was already dark and the natives had withdrawn 

 to their villages two arrows were suddenly shot into the camp, 

 one of which wounded a man in the arm whilst the other fell 

 to the ground harmless. Count Teleki at once ordered the 

 men to have their guns in readiness, to draw back from the fire, 

 protect themselves with the ox-hides most of them had bought 

 at Ngongo Bagas for such emergencies, and to fire at anyone 

 who approached the camp. Terrere, who was still with us, 

 hastened off to Utahaj 's village, and the Count treated the 

 wounded man, who considered himself dead already, as the arrow 

 was sure to have been poisoned. The wound was washed with 

 a sublimate, an antidote dropped into it, after which it was 

 carefully bound up. Utahaj was soon with us, and assured us 

 eagerly that the culprit certainly did not belong to his village ; 

 he begged us to fire at anyone who came near the camp, but 

 fortunately we did not have to proceed to this extremity, for 



