"Oh, but look here," said Carter, "I can't do this. It means I should be a slave-holder, neither more nor less. Besides, with you seven great lumps sitting there, the raft's awash. If I take you I shall have to jettison some of my tin-stone."
But they had no further arguments. They sat placid. They had lived in cousinship with fear all their squalid lives, and here at last had arrived the strong man who could certainly protect them if he would. And they intended he should.
Carter thought for a minute, and then, "I won't have it," said he. "Trouble, drive them ashore."
White-Man's-Trouble spoke, and nothing happened. He laced into their bare backs with his chiquot, but still they did not budge. One of them, who seemed to be spokesman, merely talked to him quietly.
The Krooboy explained. "Dem bushmen very uneducate. Dey say if you no take 'em dey lib for die. Dem big black fellow there wid one ear, he say if you no take him, he walk into dem ribber an' be crocodile chop."
"They'll do it, too, confound them," Carter assured himself vexedly.
And so it came to pass, as he could not very well condemn the enterprising seven to death--for that is what leaving them amounted to--he was forced to take them with him, and very idle, inefficient boatmen they proved. They knew nothing of the river, once the two miles of their fishing had been passed; they had no idea of the obvious set of currents, no eyes for the plainest shoal. If they were left to themselves for a dozen minutes they would run the raft into the bush, and as likely as not get on board a cargo of red ants that seemed to have white-hot teeth when they started to bite. They gorged upon the scanty store of dried fish if they were not watched, and never caught more unless they were incessantly goaded. When the reeking yellow river was more than usually full of crocodiles they would dangle their legs over the side; and when the raft was drifting past a village which was most probably hostile, they would break into song. They always felt that the great white ju-ju man, under whose protection they had elected to place themselves, was competent to shelter them if he so desired. And if he willed otherwise, and they died, well, that did not greatly concern them. They were very exasperating animals, and Carter about three times a day much wished that the handling of them could be transferred to some of those kind-hearted people at home who always insist that the negro of the West Africa hinterland is a man and a brother.