"
Then he went off to cook the dinner.
Certainly it was a wonderful escape, though whether this was a direct
reward of his piety, as he thought, is another matter.
As soon as we had eaten, we set to work to consider our position, of
which the crux was what to do with the slaves. There they sat in
groups outside the fence, many of them showing traces of the recent
conflict, and stared at us stupidly. Then of a sudden, as though with
one voice, they began to clamour for food.
"How are we to feed several hundred people?" asked Stephen.
"The slavers must have done it somehow," I answered. "Let's go and
search their camp."
So we went, followed by our hungry clients, and, in addition to many
more things, to our delight found a great store of rice, mealies and
other grain, some of which was ground into meal. Of this we served out
an ample supply together with salt, and soon the cooking pots were
full of porridge. My word! how those poor creatures did eat, nor,
although it was necessary to be careful, could we find it in our
hearts to stint them of the first full meal that had passed their lips
after weeks of starvation.
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