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an picture to yourselves their amazement at being asked such a question, and finding themselves actually confronted with such mysterious and terrible beings as spirits. They sprang to their feet, as one man, recognising the futility of any further attempt at concealment; and a chief named Lualamba came forward and modestly acknowledged himself to be the leader of the band. Forthwith he was invited to come up on deck and talk to us, a rope ladder being lowered to the ground for his accommodation. He came, in manifest fear and trembling, which feeling we quickly converted into one of delight by investing him with a necklace of glass beads, and a mantle consisting of a piece of flowered chintz. "We then proceeded to question the fellow; and presently learned from him that he was the emissary of a certain M'Bongwele--in whose territory we now were--a king of fierce, cruel, and jealous disposition, as we gathered, and so suspicious of strangers that he had issued a standing order against the admission into his country of any such, under certain gruesome pains and penalties. And it was by his orders that Lualamba and his warriors had come out on the previous night for the purpose of slaying the mysterious monster that had been seen flying so fearlessly and impudently over his sacred territory. "There is no doubt that Lualamba was, for a savage, an exceedingly shrewd fellow; and it was not very long ere we detected in him an evident desire to lure the four Spirits of the Winds into the presence-- and perchance the power--of his master, M'Bongwele, who, he informed us, would be highly gratified by a visit from such celestial beings, whatever might be his sentiments with regard to mere men. We were not so easily to be had, however. In accents of grave reproof the professor pointed out to Lualamba that it was inconsistent with our dignity to pay a visit even to so great a potentate as M'Bongwele; that, on the contrary, it was M'Bongwele's duty to show his appreciation of our condescension in entering his country by paying _us_ a visit within the next few hours, for the purpose of rendering homage to us. And, finally, that Lualamba might be properly impressed with our powers, we took him for a short excursion into the air, and then sent him back, a humbled, frightened, and profoundly impressed savage, to make his report to his master and urge upon him the very great desirability of paying a duty-call upon us forthwith.
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