"Farewell, my son the Baboon," he said, "and farewell to thee too, O Lion.I can do no more to help you.But if ever ye come to your country, be advised, and venture no more into lands that ye know not, lest ye come back no more, but leave your white bones to mark the limit of your journeyings.Farewell once more;often shall I think of you, nor wilt thou forget me, my Baboon, for though thy face is ugly thy heart is true." And then he turned and went, and with him went the tall and sullen-looking bearers, and that was the last that we saw of the Amahagger.We watched them winding away with the empty litters like a procession bearing dead men from a battle, till the mists from the marsh gathered round them and hid them, and then, left utterly desolate in the vast wilderness, we turned and gazed around us and at each other.
Three weeks or so before four men had entered the marshes of Ko^r, and now two of us were dead, and the other two had gone through adventures and experiences so strange and terrible that Death himself hath not a more fearful countenance.Three weeksand only three weeks! Truly time should be measured by events, and not by the lapse of hours.It seemed like thirty years since we saw the last of our whaleboat.
"We must strike out for the Zambesi, Leo," I said, "but God knows if we shall ever get there."Leo nodded.He had become very silent of late, and we started with nothing but the clothes we stood in, a compass, our revolvers and express rifles, and about two hundred rounds of ammunition, and so ended the history of our visit to the ancient ruins of mighty and imperial Ko^r.
As for the adventures that subsequently befell us, strange and varied as they were, I have, after deliberation, determined not to record them here.In these pages I have only tried to give a short and clear account of an occurrence which I believe to be unprecedented, and this I have done, not with a view to immediate publication, but merely to put on paper while they are yet fresh in our memories the details of our journey and its result, which will, I believe, prove interesting to the world if ever we determine to make them public.This, as at present advised, we do not intend should be done during our joint lives.