SAVED BY A LITTLE GILL 
295 
fondled her between his knees and managed to extract a few 
shy words out of her in response to some questions he put. The 
whole thing dawned upon me like a flash; surely that was one 
of the children I had vaccinated at Shoshong, who had mean¬ 
while been brought up here by her parents, and the king was 
now questioning the child if she knew us. Apparently he was 
quite satisfied with her answers, for with the words, ‘ Children 
do not lie, you are free and can go/ he politely rose, and taking 
off his hat proffered his hand, which we took and gave a hearty 
shake. However, there was a rider: Paul and Styrman should 
stay behind with them. Knowing full well the import of this 
step, I begged the king to reconsider his decision, but he gave 
the words, ‘ the king has spoken/ and told us to go. To desert 
my good Paul in his hour of need never struck me for a 
moment, so I answered, ‘Well, the king has spoken, and 1 now 
speak. The men are as innocent as we are. Where they stop I 
stop; keep us all or let us go together.’ Paul did a thing that 
probably greatly influenced the king at this moment. He rose 
and stretched himself, saying, ‘ Baas, I am only a servant, if the 
king wishes my life he must have it; do not anger the king for 
my sake. Let me remain so you are safe. Loop maar; alles ist 
recht (go on, all is right).’ Fortunately at this juncture the 
white man we had seen before, who had so coolly walked away 
with the antagonistic Da Tapo, Stremboom himself in fact, 
came on the scene, and, realising the position, said to the king: 
‘ Let the men go, you can always get them later if you require 
them/ an argument that appealed to the king, who thereupon 
went off, leaving us in the hands of Stremboom. We looked at 
each other and, smiled somewhat foolishly, I expect, and then 
introduced ourselves. Stremboom, a short little man with the 
heart of a lion, immediately invited us to his domicile, and 
apologised for his late appearance, under the plea that he had 
been up all night keeping the natives from attacking us. 
We had not gone far when the clatter of hoofs behind caused 
us to turn and look round. It was the king who came up to 
apologise for the inconvenience he had caused us, and said that 
