hasis, "especially that
witch-doctor who drank nearly all the holy drink."

"Very well; by-and-by I will show you how you can burn a hole in him
with this magic. No, not now, not now. For a while this mocker of the
sun is dead. Look," and dipping the glass beneath the table I produced
it back first. "You cannot see anything, can you?"

"Nothing except wood," replied Babemba, staring at the deal slip with
which it was lined.

Then I threw a dish-cloth over it and, to change the subject, offered
him another pannikin of the "holy drink" and a stool to sit on.

The old fellow perched himself very gingerly upon the stool, which was
of the folding variety, stuck the iron-tipped end of his great spear in
the ground between his knees and took hold of the pannikin. Or rather
he took hold of a pannikin and not the right one. So ridiculous was his
appearance that the light-minded Stephen, who, forgetting the perils
of the situation, had for the last minute or two been struggling with
inward laughter, clapped down his coffee on the table and retired into
the tent, where I heard him gurgling in unseemly merriment. It was this
coffee that in the confusion of the moment Sammy gave to old Babemba.
Presently Stephen reappeared, and to cover his confusion seized the
pannikin meant for Babemba and drank it, or most of it. Then Sammy,
seeing his mistake, said:

"Mr. Somers, I regret that there is an error. You are drinking from the
cup which that stinking savage has just licked clean."

The effect was dreadful and instantaneous, for then and there Stephen
was violently sick.

"Why does the white lord do that?" asked Babemba. "Now I see that you
are truly deceiving me, and that what you are giving me to swallow is
nothing but hot _mwavi_, which in the innocent causes vomiting, but that
in those who mean evil, death."

"Stop that foolery, you idiot," I muttered to Stephen, kicking him on
the shins, "or you'll get our throats cut." Then, collecting myself with
an effort, I said:

"Oh! not at all, General. This white lord is the priest of the holy
drink and--what you see is a religious rite."

"Is it so," said Babemba. "Then I hope that the rite is not catching."

"Never," I replied, proffering him a biscuit. "And now, General Babemba,
tell me, why do you come against us with about five hundred armed men?"

"To kill you, white lords--oh! how hot is this holy drink, yet pleasant.
You said that it was not catching, did you not? For