ky you thought of coming on board to sleep."

After this everything went right. I sent some of the men back in the
charge of Stephen for our remaining effects, which they brought safely
aboard, and in the evening we sailed. Our voyage up to Kilwa was
beautiful, a gentle breeze driving us forward over a sea so calm that
not even Hans, who I think was one of the worst sailors in the world,
or the Zulu hunters were really sick, though as Sammy put it, they
"declined their food."

I think it was on the fifth night of our voyage, or it may have been
the seventh, that we anchored one afternoon off the island of Kilwa, not
very far from the old Portuguese fort. Delgado, with whom we had little
to do during the passage, hoisted some queer sort of signal. In response
a boat came off containing what he called the Port officials, a band of
cut-throat, desperate-looking, black fellows in charge of a
pock-marked, elderly half-breed who was introduced to us as the Bey
Hassan-ben-Mohammed. That Mr. Hassan-ben-Mohammed entirely disapproved
of our presence on the ship, and especially of our proposed landing
at Kilwa, was evident to me from the moment that I set eyes upon his
ill-favoured countenance. After a hurried conference with Delgado, he
came forward and addressed me in Arabic, of which I could not understand
a word. Luckily, however, Sam the cook, who, as I think I said, was a
great linguist, had a fair acquaintance with this tongue, acquired, it
appears, while at the Zanzibar hotel; so, not trusting Delgado, I called
on him to interpret.

"What is he saying, Sammy?" I asked.

He began to talk to Hassan and replied presently:

"Sir, he makes you many compliments. He says that he has heard what a
great man who are from his friend, Delgado, also that you and Mr. Somers
are English, a nation which he adores."

"Does he?" I exclaimed. "I should never have thought it from his looks.
Thank him for his kind remarks and tell him that we are going to land
here and march up country to shoot."

Sammy obeyed, and the conversation went on somewhat as follows:

"With all humility I (i.e. Hassan) request you not to land. This country
is not a fit place for such noble gentlemen. There is nothing to eat and
no head of game has been seen for years. The people in the interior
are savages of the worst sort, whom hunger has driven to take to
cannibalism. I would not have your blood upon my head. I beg of you,
therefore, to go on in this ship