"We then proceeded to question the fellow; and presently learned from him that he was the emissary of a certain M'Bongwele--in whose territory we now were--a king of fierce, cruel, and jealous disposition, as we gathered, and so suspicious of strangers that he had issued a standing order against the admission into his country of any such, under certain gruesome pains and penalties. And it was by his orders that Lualamba and his warriors had come out on the previous night for the purpose of slaying the mysterious monster that had been seen flying so fearlessly and impudently over his sacred territory. "There is no doubt that Lualamba was, for a savage, an exceedingly shrewd fellow; and it was not very long ere we detected in him an evident desire to lure the four Spirits of the Winds into the presence-- and perchance the power--of his master, M'Bongwele, who, he informed us, would be highly gratified by a visit from such celestial beings, whatever might be his sentiments with regard to mere men. We were not so easily to be had, however. In accents of grave reproof the professor pointed out to Lualamba that it was inconsistent with our dignity to pay a visit even to so great a potentate as M'Bongwele; that, on the contrary, it was M'Bongwele's duty to show his appreciation of our condescension in entering his country by paying _us_ a visit within the next few hours, for the purpose of rendering homage to us. And, finally, that Lualamba might be properly impressed with our powers, we took him for a short excursion into the air, and then sent him back, a humbled, frightened, and profoundly impressed savage, to make his report to his master and urge upon him the very great desirability of paying a duty-call upon us forthwith. "Having at length got rid of Lualamba, the professor made a few simple little preparations for the subjugation of the great M'Bongwele. The hours, however, passed, and we began to fear that Lualamba had failed in the somewhat delicate and difficult mission wherewith we had entrusted him. But at length, somewhere about four o'clock in the afternoon, we saw a cavalcade of some five hundred fully-armed and magnificently mounted warriors approaching, headed by an individual riding a very fine coal-black horse, and clad in lion-skin mantle, short petticoat of leopards' skin, gold crown trimmed with flamingo feathers, necklace of lions' teeth and claws, with a long, narrow shield of rhinoceros' hide on his left arm and a sheaf of light casting-spears in his hand. This imposing person we rightly judged to be none other than M'Bongwele himself; and in a few minutes the whole cavalcade, charging down upon us, divided into two and, wheeling right and left, reined up and stood motionless as so many bronze statues, within a few yards of the ship. Then M'Bongwele--a fine but very stout man--rather laboriously dismounted and, after some hesitation, came on board.