Simba

“ Oh! the frightful beast!” said Selim, as his eye caught sight of the mangled and gashed leopard. “Speak! art thou much hurt?”
Simba was reclining under the tree, looked slightly troubled with his pains; the clothe he had taken to staunch the blood were lying on the wounded hip and knee, by no means pleasant to look at. The two boys, seeing these things, judged immediately that Simba’s case was very grave—that he was going to die; and, not knowing what else to do, they began to cry, to sound the praises of their dear friend, and lament his sudden “taking off.” ”

“ Art thou not the child of my loins, and of my dear Amina? and have I ever failed in my love for thee?”
“Never—no, never, dear father; but Simba has given thy son back again to thee, else had I been dead. Has Simba paid thee full valuation for the purchase-money thou didst pay for him when he was a child?”
“Simba is good; but had I lost thee, I had surely lost all. Thou hast said it, my child. Simba is free, and is no longer a slave of Amer bin Osman.”
“Simba!” cried Selim, “good Simba, do you hear the words of my father? You are a man, and no longer a slave!” ”

“ Therefore I, Simba the King, make you an offer. Yield yourselves and I swear that no spear shall be driven through your hearts and no knife come near your throats. You shall only be taken to my town and there be fed on the best and kept as prisoners, till once more there is peace between the Black Kendah and the White. ”

“ Moto felt the head, to see if there was internal warmth in it, and Kalulu seemed desirous of knowing the truth by reading it in the eyes of Simba and Moto with his own.
“He lives! my young master Selim lives! Allah be praised!” cried Simba fervently.
“But he will not live long if we don’t carry him away to put something into him,” said Moto, anxiously and hurriedly. “Dost thou see Simba, how thin he is? he is nothing but skin and bone—and look here, Simba! Wallahi! what sheitan (bad man, fiend) has done this? ”

“ Neither man moved. Simba continued to stare, and Kingozi had lifted his prism glasses. A tyro would have attempted to draw near for a finishing shot, and so would probably have been let in for a long chase. A freshly wounded animal, if kept moving, is capable of astonishing endurance. But these two knew better than that. In a very few minutes the zebra, without fright, without suffering--for a modern bullet benumbs--toppled over dead. Again Simba raised his voice exultantly to the waiting porters. ”

“ Speak, Simba and Moto, where do ye both intend to go?”
“Answer thou, young chief,” replied Simba and Moto, together.
“I? Well, let it be so,” he answered. “I mean to return towards the east, through the forest, and then turn up north and west, and seek out every man left of my tribe, and make war against Ferodia. Make war on the traitorous thief, until every man that lifted spear in his cause shall be even as this carrion is,” (pointing to the chilled head of Tifum) . “War, until all my enemies shall fall, and be utterly destroyed as the dry grass of the summer is destroyed by a fire. ”

“ Selim had his gun brought to him by Simba, who lavished praises, almost fulsome, on his bravery and accuracy of shooting, in which Moto, who now came up, joined with heart and spirit. Simba, while he embraced his young master, would have it that Selim was the best elephant hunter known; there never was such an Arab boy before, who shot two elephants dead one after another. “And thou must consider, Moto,” said he, apologetically, “Selim is but sixteen; if he shoots two elephants, one after another, when he is sixteen, what will he do when he is a grown man?” ”

“ He is not a slave,” shouted Simba. “He has been stolen by that Arab caravan, which travelled by night, because the chiefs feared the day, bike thieves. Moto, thou wert right. I see it all now. Wallahi! but I will break the back of the thief, even if the Sultan of Zanzibar cuts my head off. Let me go, Selim!”
“Silence, Simba,” said the factor. “Thou wilt draw attention to the young master. I see what Selim wants. He wants me to go and buy him. Ah, ha! Africa has taught thee cunning, Selim!” ”

“ What a soft fellow thou art, Simba! Dost thou not know that in the night we can do nothing to hunt him up, when he may be anywhere but in the place where we are looking for him? If we had a gun we might signal him; but by going out in this darkness we would only tire ourselves to no purpose. If Kalulu has been taken too far away by following an antelope or something else, the boy has a thousand ways of passing the night. ”

“ That’s only Simba’s way of caressing.’
“‘Oh, well,’ said the donkey, ‘let’s go.’
“So off they started again; but as soon as the lion caught sight of Poonda he sprang upon her and tore her in two pieces.
“When the hare came up, Simba said to him: ‘Take this meat and roast it. As for myself, all I want is the heart and ears.’ [27]
“‘Thanks,’ said Soongoora. Then he went away and roasted the meat in a place where the lion could not see him, and he took the heart and ears and hid them. Then he ate all the meat he needed, and put the rest away. ”

“ Simba next called to Mali-ya-bwana to interrogate the other prisoner apart. As the latter also reported M'tela four days distant--when he understood--this was accepted as the truth.
"Then we remain in camp five days," they concluded, after working out the subtraction.
"But," intervened one of the porters, "we have no more potio."
"I have the bwana's gun," Simba pointed out, "and also the gun of this m'zungu. There is here plenty of game."
"To eat meat always is not well," grumbled the porter.
"To eat kiboko (whip) is always possible," replied Simba grimly. ”

“ I, Simba, a servant of Selim, could not have invited thee to Zanzibar, because Simba has but a very little hut, not bigger than a camp-cote, where the hunter has to coil himself up like a serpent. My hut would then have been no place for the King of the Watuta; but Master Selim has got a big house, bigger than any king’s house in Negro-land; he has numbers of servants, cattle, goats, donkeys, gardens, fields, and fruit-trees, and his riches are beyond my knowledge. Oh! I see light and hope now, young chief. I know what is best for all of us. ”

“ As he was drying his face Simba came for the guns, and a half-dozen of the porters prepared to strike and furl the tent. Already the canvas washstand had disappeared.
"Simba," observed Kingozi in English, of which language Simba knew but three words, "she is no fool. She knows where there is water out yonder; but it is water at least forty miles away. She's got to push and push hard to make it, and that's why she's making so early a start. ”

“ Yet presently the old black man's eyes went wider and he commenced to have his doubts and misgivings. What wonderful sort of creature was this that battled with Simba and held his own despite the mighty muscles of the king of beasts and slowly there dawned in those sunken eyes, gleaming so brightly from the scarred and wrinkled face, the light of a dawning recollection. ”

“ But in Simba and Moto I have two faithful friends. I have a camel, a zebra, and an ass, and you tell me to beat them, Khamis. Fie, boy!”
“Boy, indeed! I am older than thou, and taller and stronger. Thou art a child, or thou wouldst not believe the fulsome words of these lying knaves. I have seen the world more than thou hast, and I assure thee on my head I never saw the black man yet who could keep his hands from stealing and his evil tongue from lying. I—Khamis, the son of Khamis, the son of Abdullah—know whereof I am speaking.” ”

“ About two hours before sunset, soon after camping, Selim, accompanied by Simba and two other men, named Baruti and Mombo, sallied out of the camp with his faithful rifle on his shoulder to hunt for game.
The party travelled towards the upper end of the narrow lake the caravan had camped by. Matete cane, spear, and tiger grass, in profusion, grew near this end, and beyond lay a thin jungle, the borders of which touched the water line. It was to this jungle they directed their steps, for Simba had judged that it was a promising place for such sport as Selim desired. ”

“ Kingozi's finger itched for the trigger. There is no more exciting sport than that of lion shooting afoot. It is a case of kill or be killed; for a lion, once the issue is joined, never gives up. He fights literally to the death; and when he is so crippled that he can no longer keep his feet, he drags himself forward, and dies facing his opponent dauntlessly. No other beast furnishes the same danger, the same thrill. His mere appearance stirs the most sluggish spirit.
"Simba! Simba! Simba!" the exclamation ran back the line of the safari, the sibilant hissed excitedly. ”

“ A couple of hours before dawn, when people sleep heaviest, and their slumbers are supposed to be soundest, Simba, who always slept lightly at night, because of the responsible cares which a just and faithful conscience ever imposed on him, was awakened by the crushing of a twig. ”

“ Think of poor Simba, thy father, suffering for want of it; there’s a good boy, bring plenty,” said Abdullah; while in the meantime Kalulu had chosen an arrow-blade, and with it was preparing the slender sticks to impale the meat when it would be cut into kabobs for broiling, and Moto had bound Simba’s wounded knee with bandages made out of Kalulu’s loin-cloth, and had staunched the blood that had been pouring from the wounded hips. Moto also set to work at erecting a shed, which might shelter the whole party, and made a luxurious bed of grass and leaves on to which his friend was assisted. ”

“ Mali-ya-bwana was a man much above average African intelligence, but he had not the experience, the initiative, the flaire of Simba. Nor had he Simba's magic bone. Simba took that with him. Winkleman knew nothing of the supposed virtues of that property; and in consequence entertained a respect for qualities of Simba that were not entirely inherent in that individual. He began to flatter Mali-ya-bwana; to fraternize just enough; to assume complete resignation to his plight--in short, to use just those tactics a clever man would use to lull the alertness of any bright child. ”

“ Father Simba, rightly called ‘lion,’ and Master Selim, and friend Moto have given thee as good as thou didst intend to have given me. He will roar no more, will he, chief?” he suddenly asked Kalulu.
“No, little one,” responded that more decorous and dignified youth; “he will haunt the forest no more, nor startle the antelopes with his roar during the gloom of night. Thou mayst sleep in peace now, Niani.” ”

“ The lion, the hyena, and the rabbit go in for a little farming.
When they had gone some distance the rabbit stopped again. [50]
“Aha!” said Feesee; “Keeteetee has stopped again. Now he must be eaten.”
“I rather think so,” assented Simba.
“Well,” said the rabbit, “I was thinking again.”
Their curiosity once more aroused, his comrades begged him to tell them his think.
“Why,” said he, “I was thinking this: When people like us put on new coats, where do the old ones go to?”
Both Simba and Feesee, having stopped a moment to consider the matter, exclaimed together, “Well, I wonder!” ”

“ The camp was bung-eyed. It is not given to every people to treat its gods in such fashion: indeed, in very deed, great is the white man! To be fair, having published Little Simba's disgrace, we should publish also Little Simba's triumph: to tell how, at the end of a certain very lucky three months' safari he was perched atop a pole and carried into town triumphantly at the head of a howling, singing procession of a hundred men. ”

“ In a few moments he had come up with them, and they listened in wonder to his tale, how he had slain four of their enemies, to which his trophies bore ample testimony.
Simba began accusing himself of cowardice, and everything else that was bad, when the young chief stopped him, and said:
“Not so, Simba; thou art big and a good target for an arrow; but I am small and thin, and if there had been twenty I could, by being prudent, have escaped easily. None of these people like to come out to the open to fight, and so long as there was but one to fight they would never have chased anybody else ”

“ Do you not think it right for us to take and capture those who waylay us, and make them slaves for their perfidy and savagery?”
“I think the same as before,” answered Simba. “I do not know the Küran so well as Abdullah, it is true, but I know that the same God who gave you sense and feeling gave the savages of Urori some sense and feeling as well; but I should like to know what my young master Selim’s thoughts are upon these subjects.” ”

“ He told us to save his son Selim. I am going back;” and Simba snatched his spears and gun.
“Fool!” said Moto. “We cannot save him from the Watuta by going into their camp. We can only do it by finishing as we have begun. We must go to Katalambula’s village and see Kalulu. He only can save Selim and ourselves.”
“Well, I believe thou art right,” said Simba. “Let us go to sleep, and at dawn let us be off to see this Kalulu.” ”

“ Returning to the camp of our friends, we find the sun has set, and darkness is settling fast over the earth. Simba stands at the gate of the camp with an anxious face, for his young friend Kalulu has not yet returned. Moto, Selim, and Abdullah are just within waiting, and listening eagerly for the slightest sound of footsteps.
“What can be the matter with the boy? Dost thou think he could get lost, Moto?” asked Simba.
“No; Kalulu could not lose himself if he tried. He has slain something, and is coming with a heavy load of meat, so as not to make two journeys. ”