172 
THE NEW AFRICA 
In the early morning of next day, the 15th, the leader of 
the Okavango boys came to us with the news that he had heard 
we were this day to be attacked by Kikonto’s 
people, with whom a troop of other natives had 
assembled themselves. He gave us the advice 
to be off immediately, and his boys would 
assist to carry some of our loads. We were 
unwilling to make a bolt of it, for, in the first 
place, we felt quite prepared to face an attack 
made by people of Kikonto’s class, and secondly, 
we knew that any display of hastiness or 
trepidation would be a bad precedent for the 
natives to get hold of, for a hasty retreat to 
unknown regions beyond would inevitably lead to our being 
followed up, when probably the retreat would end in being a 
flight. To these chances we were not going to expose ourselves, 
so, arranging with the Mombokooshus to wait a little longer, I 
sent Franz and two of our best boys over to interview Kikonto, 
and to try and find out what was going on. We watched them 
traverse the open flat between us and the river, and then cross 
over the Liana, in a canoe, and make their way up the sandy 
slope amongst the open trees, till they disappeared in the 
distance. We had not long to wait before we saw Franz and 
the two boys returning at a sharp run, followed by a crowd of 
natives, some two hundred yards behind, who, evidently, were 
chasing them. Franz and the boys were good runners, and we 
knew that they could easily maintain the start they had got; 
but our fear was that they would be caught at the river bank, 
while trying to cross over in the canoes, for, before they could 
get under way, the chances were that the natives would be on 
them, and Franz could not swim. To give them time at the 
crossing, Hammar and I dropped a few bullets in front of the 
crowd over Franz’s head, with a nine-hundred yards’ range, just 
to let them understand what might take place if they came 
any closer, whereat they hesitated for the moment. We then 
saw Franz take a running leap into the river, and the splashes of 
