"Now," said Tom, "just explain in a sensible way what all this performance means."
The katikiro looked at his companions as though asking their permission to speak; then, leading Mwonga by the hand, he stepped forward.
"O Kuboko," he said, "Barega is dead, a chief brave as a lion, mighty in war, a great hunter, a fearless slayer of elephants. Now we, his people, have no chief; we have lost our father and mother; we have none to lead us in fight or guide us in peace, none to judge us or to do us right. Murasi is unstable as water; he is at this moment mingling his tears with museru. Mwonga here is but a boy; brave--let no man say he is not brave,--but many moons must pass before he can slay elephants and rule men like his brother Barega. Know, O Kuboko, that by the custom of the Bahima we should wait a long moon before we choose our chief; the days of mourning are not yet over; the fresh museru is not brewed. But we dare not wait. The Arabs are gone, those that were left of them; thou, O Kuboko, knowest why and how they went; but they will come again; they will bring their friends in number as the seed of millet, and will fight against us, and what can we do against them without a chief? Why will they come? They will come because they must. If they submit like dogs to a whipping, will they not be dogs for ever-more? What black man will fear them? They will be mocked at, flouted, kicked and spurned; the black man will hunt them. They must come back to prove that they are lions and no dogs. And when they come, what are we, O Kuboko? We have no fire-sticks; we have no strong magic; our medicine-man is but hollow, a tinkler like his own bell. What are we without thee, O Kuboko? Who was it dug the ditch around our village? Who was it made the fireballs? Who built the wonderful thrower that flung stones a thousand miles? Who made the water run like a water-spout from the sky, and saved us and ours from death and chains? Thou it was, O Kuboko; thou didst these things, and more. Barega, yes, Barega was a great chief, and thou, O Kuboko, thou didst save even Barega. Thou art mightier than Barega and ten thousand other chiefs; thou alone canst defend us against the mighty host soon to come upon us; thou hast the magic of the white men, the strong arm of all the children of the Great White King. Thou, O Kuboko, art our chief. We all say it. We have talked; we have spoken to the spirits of our fathers and our fathers' fathers, and they all say Kuboko is our chief."