"Having at length got rid of Lualamba, the professor made a few simple
little preparations for the subjugation of the great M'Bongwele. The
hours, however, passed, and we began to fear that Lualamba had failed in
the somewhat delicate and difficult mission wherewith we had entrusted
him. But at length, somewhere about four o'clock in the afternoon, we
saw a cavalcade of some five hundred fully-armed and magnificently
mounted warriors approaching, headed by an individual riding a very fine
coal-black horse, and clad in lion-skin mantle, short petticoat of
leopards' skin, gold crown trimmed with flamingo feathers, necklace of
lions' teeth and claws, with a long, narrow shield of rhinoceros' hide
on his left arm and a sheaf of light casting-spears in his hand. This
imposing person we rightly judged to be none other than M'Bongwele
himself; and in a few minutes the whole cavalcade, charging down upon
us, divided into two and, wheeling right and left, reined up and stood
motionless as so many bronze statues, within a few yards of the ship.
Then M'Bongwele--a fine but very stout man--rather laboriously
dismounted and, after some hesitation, came on board.

"Now, it is very necessary for you to remember, while listening to what
I am about to tell you, that the man with whom we were dealing was a
crafty, unscrupulous savage, and that we had entered his territory with
a certain definite purpose, in pursuit of which it was imperative that
we should be able to go to and fro freely, without fear of interference,
either direct or indirect, from him. And, as we were only four men,
while his subjects numbered several thousands, all owing him the most
absolute obedience, and all perfectly ready and willing to `wipe us out'
at a word from him, our only chance of accomplishing what we wanted to
do lay in our ability to impress this man and his followers with the
profound conviction that we were something more than mere mortals, and
that any attempt on his part to interfere with us would inevitably be
followed by consequences of the direst description to his people at
large, and himself personally.

"In pursuance of this scheme, von Schalckenberg had, as I have said,
made certain arrangements which, after a little desultory talk with
M'Bongwele, he proceeded to carry out. The first impression which he
desired to produce upon the king was that of our invulnerability to
injury; and with this object he produced a little red rosette, whi