"

So gathering together what remained of their few possessions, they
started leisurely down the slope towards the island, and as they went
Jeekie explained all that had happened, since Ogula was not one of the
African languages with which Alan was acquainted and he had only been
able to understand a word here and there.

"Look," said Jeekie when he had finished, and turning, he pointed to the
cannibals who were driving the few survivors of the dwarfs before them
to the spot where their canoes were beached. "Those dwarfs done for;
capital business, forest road quite safe to travel home by; Ogula best
friends in world; very remarkable escape from delicate situation."

"Very remarkable indeed," said Alan; "I shall soon begin to believe in
the luck of Little Bonsa."

"Yes, Major, you see she anxious to get home and make path clear. But,"
he added gloomily, "how she behave when she reach there, can't say."

"Nor can I, Jeekie, but meanwhile I hope she will provide us with some
dinner, for I am faint for want of food and all the tinned meat is
lost."

"Food," repeated Jeekie. "Yes, necessity for human stomach, which
unhappily built that way, so Ogula find out, and so dwarfs find out
presently." Then he looked about him and in a kind of aimless manner
lifted his gun and fired. "There we are," he said, "Little Bonsa
understand bodily needs," and he pointed to a fat buck of the sort that
in South Africa is called Duiker, which his keen eyes had discovered
in its form against a stone where it now lay shot through the head and
dying. "No further trouble on score of grub for next three day," he
added. "Come on to camp, Major. I send one savage skin and bring that
buck."

So on they went to the river bank, Alan so tired now that the excitement
was over, that he was not sorry to lean upon Jeekie's arm. Reaching the
stream they drank deep of its water, and finding that it was shallow at
this spot, waded through it to the island without waiting for a canoe
to ferry them over. Here they found a party of the cannibals already at
work clearing reeds with their large, curved knives, in order to make a
site for the hut. Another party under the command of their chief himself
had gone to the top end of the island, to cut the stems of a willow-like
shrub to serve as uprights. These people stared at Alan, which was not
strange, as they had never before seen the face of a white man and were
wondering, doubtless, what had become of the a