Two Days Afterwards, Musa's Men Came In With Porters, Who Would
Not Hire Themselves For More Than Two Marches, Having Been
Forbidden To Do So By Their Chief On Account Of The Supposed
Watuta Invasion; And For These Two Marches They Required A
Quarter Of The Whole Customary Hire To Karague.
Musa's traps,
too, I found, were not to be moved, so I saw at once Musa had not
kept
Faith with me, and there would be a fresh set of
difficulties; but as every step onwards was of the greatest
importance - for my men were consuming my stores at a fearful
pace - I paid down the beads they demanded, and next day joined
Grant at Mbisu, a village of Ukuni held by a small chief called
Mchimeka, who had just concluded a war of two years' standing
with the great chief Ukulima (the Digger), of Nunda (the Hump).
During the whole of the two years' warfare the loss was only
three men on each side. Meanwhile Musa's men bolted like thieves
one night, on a report coming that the chief of Unyambewa, after
concluding the war, whilst amusing himself with his wife, had
been wounded on the foot by an arrow that fell from her hand. The
injury had at once taken a mortal turn, and the chief sent for
his magicians, who said it was not the fault of the wife -
somebody else must have charmed the arrow to cause such a deadly
result. They then seized hold of the magic horn, primed for the
purpose, and allowed it to drag them to where the culprits dwelt.
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