I had gone to Zanzibar and hired carriers for a hunting expedition and then pushed into the wild alone--for uneducated natives are not companions. Week after week I had marched, rising steadily towards the great lake, killing game only when food was needed, going wherever the spirit moved, in perfect lawless freedom.

One evening the great mountain Kilimanjaro etched its mass against the opal sky and I made up my mind to climb it, or at least to get to know it, and a week later we were among the foothills. One day the negro captain I had put in charge of the men told me the carriers were all frightened, for a great chief lived on the mountain, and he was a slave-dealer and might send them away in chains to die far from kith or kin on the further side of the sea.

I asked his name. Suleiman, I was told; and for curiosity’s sake or for adventure I resolved to visit him. Two days later, just as we were breaking camp, three men from Suleiman presented themselves with a letter asking me to halt my men and accompany the messengers to the Great Chief. In spite of the captain’s warnings I took my English servant and went with them.

All three were fine specimens; the leader, a chief of the Swahili, must have been six feet three and was broad in proportion, and two of his tribesmen, both above medium height, were stoutly built and armed, as I noticed at once, not with assegais or clubs, but with cheap repeating rifles.

“Where did you get them?” I asked the chief, pointing to the rifles.

“Chief Suleiman,” was his reply. Evidently Suleiman, in his eyes, was a sort of god, for he mouthed the word like a challenge.

That first morning the march lay through scattered clumps of trees and bushes of thorn and was steadily upward, I remarked, for towards evening the air was at once lighter and cooler.

Next day we got into the forest itself and marched along a narrow winding path, which ran like a black ribbon through the gloom. Often I had wondered who first made these winding ways through the forest trees and thorn bushes; wait-a-bit thorns the Boers call them, and indeed if you get caught in them you are likely to wait a bit and be uncommon glad to get free with a whole skin, for the thorns are often as thick and long as a man’s little finger and as sharp as a steel fishhook, and these hooks are set at all angles on tough branches. I’d rather brave a German barrage and the worst barbed wire than that murderous, elastic entanglement.

All that day I walked behind the big chief and learned from him half a hundred Swahili words; savages, I found, are very like children, and love to give themselves airs as teachers.

Early in the afternoon he stopped suddenly and pointed into the thick bush on the right--“Buffalo.”

I looked, and after a while distinguished the beast’s head, chiefly because he kept moving his ears to ward off the flies; but for the life of me I could not see his body.

“Shall I shoot?” I asked the chief.

“If you can kill,” he replied shortly.

I thought the doubt ridiculous at ten yards’ range; besides, I had a double-barrelled ·450 Rigby and felt that if one shot failed to kill, the second would not. I knew the chances, knew that if he were not killed the great beast could rush through the thorn bushes as we would go through rushes, whereas we should all be kept to the path, and as he could move twice as fast as we could, in ten minutes he would have killed us all. But I felt sure and, besides, I was excited. The beast was looking right at me, so I aimed just below the horns and between the eyes and fired. With a grunt the buffalo pitched forward on his knees and rolled over, dead.

In a trice the Swahili tribesmen had cut their way through the thorns and we were standing over the dead body of a fine young bull. They all made much of the shot, though in truth it was not a good one. Either I had aimed a little high or the rifle had thrown high at the short range, and only the force of the nitrous powder had driven the steel-pointed bullet through two inches at least of the bossed horn into the brain. As a matter of fact the whole head was traversed, for we found the bullet in the skin of the neck.

That evening we halted in a clearing and I saw an African feast; it began about six in the evening and went on till after midnight. Each man stuffed down ten pounds, at least, of buffalo meat, and with a bottle of Cape “smoke” they soon became half delirious with excitement, mimicking my shot and the fall of the buffalo a hundred times. The chief, too, though less excited, was just as enthusiastic. I was immediately christened “Rahala,” or the man who kills dead.

Next morning the chief told me that we had nearly reached our destination, and I found that every quarter of a mile or so we had to turn out of the path and make a detour in order to avoid some murderous trap or snare. The whole forest was mined for some three miles deep. I began to have a high opinion of Suleiman’s power and cunning.

I was soon to have convincing evidence of it. A little after noon we came through the forests into the open and found ourselves in cultivated fields of maize and vegetables. I did not pay much attention to these surroundings at the time, for there was a broad road rising steadily, and half-an-hour or so of rapid walking brought us out on a grass-covered slope and in front, a mile above us, there was a collection of kraals, and people moving about like bees before the hives. Beyond the grassy slope again the mass of the mountain rose in almost a cliff at least a thousand feet in height and thickly wooded; the kraals were all together near the foot of this natural bastion.

About a quarter of a mile away from the Big Kraal we were met by some messengers who came to conduct us to the presence of the Great Chief. We found Suleiman seated alone in front of his kraal, with at least two hundred Swahili warriors about him, all armed with repeating rifles; the source of his power was obvious enough.

Chief Suleiman impressed me; he was an imposing figure, with large head, beaked nose and hawk-like eyes, evidently an Arab, or Semite, if you will, of pure race. Usually his eyes were half closed, peering at once and reflective, with a myriad of tiny wrinkles about them, as if he lived in the Great Desert, where men have to shield their eyes from excess of light. Some remark would interest him and suddenly his eyes would flash wide open and the imperious hawk-glance would shock you. He was somewhat above middle height, forty-two or forty-five years of age; his thick black hair and beard were slightly grey already and he was rather stout. An air of high courage and command seemed to emanate from him. He rose from his chair to meet me, took my offered hand, put me in a seat on his right and sat down. While this was going on all the men about him bowed with their hands on their hearts and profuse “salaams.” It was evidently peace.

Though he talked Swahili at first I soon found that Suleiman knew English and French, and talked both much better than I could talk Swahili. Strange to say, as soon as he spoke English he put off some of his pride of place and became more human and friendly. I learned that he had been born near Tangiers and had lived for ten years near Biskra: like most successful men he preferred the English to the French. He was curious to know in what way I represented the British Government, and when I assured him I had no official position whatever, he was still more curious to find out why I had come at the risk of my life to Central Africa. I told him I loved the wild freedom of the life and loved to watch the habits of wild beasts and birds, and even to note the characteristics of native customs. “It rests me,” I said, “to live as a hunter and watch life as it was a hundred thousand years ago.”

“Do you collect ivory?” was the next question, for ivory is the road to wealth in Africa.

“No. I have a pair of enormous horns just for specimens, and that is all.”

“How do you protect yourself from wandering bands of warriors of this or that tribe?”

“I have a dozen well-armed men,” I replied.

“As well armed as mine?” he asked, and I nodded, smiling; no conception of the seriousness of the question even dawned on me.

We talked more than an hour, and then he invited me to dinner in his kraal. The food was very good indeed, but the wine was a sort of native product, and I contented myself with tasting it. After the meal we came out and sat before the kraal, and suddenly a dozen girls came and danced before us, Arab fashion. Some were negresses, but one or two were Arabs of the famous Ouled-Nail tribe, hereditary dancers by profession, as graceful as possible, sylph-like, indeed, for they all exercise assiduously and train themselves as strenuously as our prize-fighters.

The show amused and interested me, for the girls were of different colour and very different type, but all had been selected by no mean judge for their beauty. The Arabs were, of course, white, but there were two or three golden-brown girls, whom Suleiman spoke of disdainfully as Copt-Christians, and in contrast with these the shining bronze of the natives, with their pearly white teeth and flashing dark eyes.

The natives were only clothed in the “moocha” tablier about their waists; but the Copts and Arabs were swathed in silk veils that floated about the slim figures, now revealing, now concealing rounded limbs and curves. The music was a slow chant of the girls’ voices, punctuated by the beat of the tom-tom. Large fires had been lighted, because at sundown a chilliness came into the mountain air.

It would have been impossible, I thought, to have imagined a more primitive or a more picturesque scene. The girls danced between us and the fires, their figures and waving limbs etched, so to speak, against the red glow, while all around the natives sat or hunkered down as a living frame. Gradually the girls left off, the natives first, and then the Copts, while the trained Arab professionals continued to show all their powers, from the famous _danse du Ventre_ to posturings and abandonments, such as the Almas of India display. The fires had died down and the round yellow moon had climbed high above the trees.

“Bedtime,” said Suleiman. “You will find beds and servants yonder,” and he pointed to a kraal near by.

“You have given me a royal entertainment,” I said. “I am infinitely obliged to you.”

His eyes flashed and, as we parted, he summed up:

“Power and women. What else is there in life?”

I laughed and made some remark about wishing that I could show him equal hospitality and that I would do my best when my carriers came. He waved his hand to me: “To-morrow is another day.”

Next morning I was a little surprised to find all my men grouped round the kraal Suleiman had allotted them. The Chief told me he thought I should be more comfortable if he hastened to bring up my baggage and stores. I could only thank him for his foresight. At the same time a doubt of his good faith occurred to me, but I showed no sign of any suspicion; in fact I scarcely felt enough for the apprehension to become articulate.

I had armed a dozen of my best men with Springfield rifles and automatic pistols, and Suleiman, I found, was very eager to know how far the pistols could carry and whether they would kill or not. I soon proved to him that they were more trustworthy and far deadlier than his “trade” rifles, which often burst or jammed. Seeing his admiration of the automatic pistols I made him a present of one and remarked casually that when I returned to the coast I’d send him up a hundred; his face lit up at the promise. Before leaving me that morning he pointed out a kraal some distance away which he had allotted to my carriers and baggage, but, fortunately for me, my armed guards always slept about my kraal, and so I told him. The Chief bowed, smiling (he was really a born diplomat), and went away after saying he would send food in for me. Fortunately, again, I asked him to lunch with me, as I had some champagne.

We had a great lunch and Suleiman, though a Mohammedan, drunk much more than was good for him, and indeed was not to be seen for the rest of the day. But about nightfall one of the Arab dancers whom I had admired the evening before presented herself, declaring proudly that she had been sent to me as a present by the Great Chief. I laughed and shook my head, telling her she must return to the Great Chief’s kraal, as women were not allowed in my religion.

She seemed much hurt, told me she could serve me in many ways, and began unwinding her swathing veils. When I stopped her showing her beauty she would have me touch her arms and breasts and hips to prove that she was firm everywhere, as a trained boy might have been. Were it not for her too large nose she would indeed have been a model of rare beauty. But I could not assume the responsibility for her, so I sent her back pitilessly, and as it turned out I could not have acted more wisely, for I thereby won a priceless ally.

The third or fourth day I had been Suleiman’s guest two or three things happened that gave me pause. Tapp, my English servant, came to me, saying he could not find his automatic pistol, and when I questioned him I found that he had been flirting with one of the Arab dancers, and he believed she had taken it. Tapp was a Cockney youth, undersized and ugly, but wiry and healthy, extremely clever with horses and, strange to say, with machines also, willing to make himself useful in any way, brimful of the spirit of adventure, yet quick-witted in life and extraordinarily loyal. “I thought I ought to tell you the story, sir,” he said, “because that Chief Suleiman’s a slippery sort of gent, and in my opinion he’s up to no good; he’s put our carriers slap-bang in the middle of his soldiers, where they’re no use to us,” he added significantly. I told him to keep his eyes and ears open and report anything suspicious, and I assured him that I was on the look-out, though I didn’t believe in any danger. I had a couple of automatic pistols that were not being used, and I knew the value both of a small gift and large promises.

The next afternoon Suleiman came and told me that he wanted me to come to his kraal to see his daughter. I looked surprised, and he added, “My only real child. The others don’t matter; but Rachel is beautiful. I was married to her mother in Algiers,” he added. “She was of the great tribe of the Ouled-Nail--the tribe in which all the women are dancers from generation to generation.” An hour or so later I went over to Suleiman’s kraal, and I took with me the automatic pistols; his people would perhaps cease stealing them when he got a couple for nothing. But I forgot what I came to do when Rachel, his daughter, came towards me out of the gloom. She was short rather than tall, with very fair skin, and showed hardly a trace of her Jewish origin. Her nose was slightly aquiline, but the eyes were blue--at once candid and cordial eyes that met yours fairly, and lent her a sort of innocent air, at variance with her quiet, self-possessed manner. There were contrasts in her that piqued curiosity. “I wonder if you know why I am glad to meet you?” she asked, after father had introduced us.

“No,” I replied, a little astonished at the unusualness of the greeting. “No, I can’t imagine, except, perhaps, out of loneliness.”

“I have books,” she replied, “and am not lonely--at least not very,” she added truthfully. “But I wished to meet you because my father said you knew French and had lived in Paris, and because--well, because you sent Micah back to him--the dancer, I mean,” she added hastily, for the Chief seemed about to break in, as if he wanted to complete her thought. “He thinks Micah a miracle of beauty.”

“She’s certainly pretty,” I said, “and has a lovely figure; but she speaks only a very few words of French, and I thought she’d be happier with her companions than with a stranger of another race.”

Rachel clapped her hands together with a little crow of delight. “I told you so, father,” she said; and then to me: “You were quite right; she snores dreadfully; what could you expect with that nose! But won’t you be seated? What’s in the package?” she added, pointing to the parcel in which I had the automatics.

“Something for the Chief,” I replied, and I took out the pistols and handed them to him. Suleiman started and the hawk’s eyes stared at me. I saw at once that Tapp’s suspicions had been well founded. I should have to take care.

“I had a couple of these pistols over,” I added significantly, “and I thought you might like them, Chief, and if you do, and find them useful, I can write to London and get you as many as you wish.”

He was trembling with eagerness. “I’d like to try them myself,” he broke in, “then I’ll talk to you.”

“Sure, sure,” I interjected, putting the parcel with the cartridges into his hands. “You have five hundred shots there, and fifty will tell you all about them.”

In a trice he was out of the kraal, his usual dignity thrown off in his excitement. As we sat down Rachel looked at me.

“You are very clever,” she said thoughtfully, “and I like clever people. But how did you know?”

“Know what?” I asked.

“Know,” she replied, “that my father is crazy to have all new weapons. His power,” she added, “is founded on his rifles.”

“Oh, that’s nothing,” I replied negligently. “The Chief has treated me well. I wanted him to have the pistols.”

“When you write to London for more,” she said quietly, “I’d show him the letter and let him send it. It’ll get to Mombasa quickly,” she added, smiling.

I noted the advice and gave Suleiman the letter the morning after. Meantime I went on talking to Rachel. For some reason or other she interested me. She moved gracefully and was beautifully formed--as, indeed, all the women of her tribe are apt to be; for as dancers they have developed in the centuries the perfect dancer’s figure. They are nearly all slight and round, with small breasts and fine limbs. Most Arabs, I think, have small wrists and ankles, and Rachel happened besides to have an interesting, pretty face and the curious, frank ways of one who has always been in authority, so to speak, and had to consider nothing but her own pleasure.

Almost at once she asked me: “Are you married?” and when she heard I was free she rounded her shoulders and hugged herself, so to speak, in a funny little gesture, very expressive of intimate pleasure.

At once, too, she asked me about Paris. I had to tell her what women did there, and speak of theatres and dances and jewellery and dresses--dresses especially. “How did they dress in the evenings?”

A little maliciously I told her how low the dresses were being worn, and her eyes made pictures of all I saw and all I left unsaid as well.

“Do you like those low dresses?” she asked, and I confessed that I did, that the Paris Opera House was a splendid sight with the myriads of nude shoulders set off by the diamond and pearl necklaces.

The music, too, interested her, and she got up and went over to a sort of musical box, which presently wheezed forth _Voi che Sapete_ and _Caro Nome_ and half-a-dozen other favourite airs. Rachel had musical talent and could hum (and did hum in and out of season) more tunes than I had ever heard of.

In many respects she was a child of nature, and if my talk did not interest her, she usually began humming or singing some tune to herself in a way that set all my nerves on edge. What pleased her must evidently please everyone else, and she had no voice, poor girl!

I soon found that she thought over everything I said and acted on it very ingeniously.

Suleiman asked me to dinner a day or so later and told me Rachel was going to be there, and sure enough she appeared in a dress without shoulder-straps, as I had said, and cut far lower even that one would find in Paris. But her figure was almost perfect, and she was as pleased as a child when I praised it.

When the dancing girls came in she drew back, and we talked together in the mouth of the kraal. She asked me again whether “she was pretty this way,” and she touched her low dress. I told her she made one want to kiss her, she was so pretty. “Why not?” she asked simply, and our intimacy began.

After my gift of the automatics and my letter to London ordering a hundred more pistols of the same calibre Chief Suleiman became very confidential, and gradually I learned all about him and his pretty daughter. Whenever I was in any doubt as to the Chief’s motives Rachel enlightened me and unconsciously, at the same time, discovered her own character.

Suleiman was a Mohammedan, and while studying him I found I was getting an astonishing insight into his religion; for his faith was merely the garment of his spirit. He was of an incomparable, a brutal sensuality; he could imagine no heaven without houris, and his individualism was just as marked. Mohammed’s view of life was that of the Arab sheik; he wanted “justice” for all men, kindness to dependents and those of the true faith; but there he stopped. Suleiman had no conception that the claims of other weaker human beings were as valid as his; Socialism was clean beyond his horizon; he thought it as silly as an American banker thinks it or a French Bourbon. And Rachel was as self-centred as her father, as resolved to get what she wanted out of life. All this dawned on me gradually through the intercourse of many days and weeks and shall be told in the next chapter. Here and now I just want to say that as Suleiman grew friendly he showed a wonderful hospitality. He devised a great game-beat for me, where I feasted my eyes for days and nights on all sorts of strange beasts; he taught me, or one of his conjurers did, that snakes talk, and often I spent the night listening to the “mambas” or cobras making weird noises, which the conjurer often interpreted rightly.

He always knew, for example, when they were going to separate; the curious way they rubbed their bodies and heads together before they parted taught me that our human “good-night kiss” may perhaps be found all through nature, even in the rustling of the leaves.

But feastings with dances afterwards constituted the chief element in Suleiman’s hospitality, and one incident illumined the man’s whole being to me in such an astonishing way I must give it as it took place.

I had asked him about African cooking, I remember, told him I wanted a distinctively African meal, and he promised he would have one prepared if I cared to provide the “sweet, foaming wine,” as he called champagne.

In a day or two the feast was arranged, and as usual now Rachel took her place at the board. We had an ostrich egg on a sort of native spinach, and then a small roast that looked like a leg of lamb or kid. I should have thought nothing of it if Suleiman had not expatiated on its merits even before it was brought on the table.

“What sort of meat is it?” I asked casually; “what do you call it in French?”

“Taste it,” he said, putting a large slice on my plate. “Taste it and tell me what you think; this is the best meat in the world, the sweetest and most tender, and agrees with everyone; a fever-sick man can digest it.”

I looked at Rachel and she nodded, smiling encouragement. She evidently thought as much of it as her father. But now my curiosity was roused; I turned the meat over; it was very close-grained and evidently tender, though it was dark in colour.

“What is it called in English?” I asked. “Surely you know its name in French or English, or at least you can describe it.” And I filled their glasses and my own with champagne.

Suleiman saw he could get me no further, so he began: “It is the best meat on earth; that is, tenderer,” and he pointed to the pear-like joint, “than lamb, sweeter than kid or chicken. If you won’t taste it till you know, then learn that it is the thigh, properly kept for a fortnight and smoked, of a young girl about thirteen years old----”

“Did she die?” I asked, cold with horror.

“Sure,” he said with a loud laugh, “that’s not alive, is it?”

“Was she killed?”

“In a row,” he remarked, waving his hand. “She was in a slave-gang and got in the way of a Swahili’s spear when her mother fainted.”

The whole scene flashed before me.

“Good God!” I cried, and poured down my glass of champagne while drawing back from the table.

They both laughed. Suleiman said: “Look at the effect of mere prejudice, stupid prejudice. Try it, man, and you’ll get the same liking for it we have; won’t he, Rachel?”

Rachel agreed, but I got up and went to the door of the kraal. God’s sunshine even seemed unreal to me--from that moment on I began to think better of some prejudices.