"
"I have said that cannot be, O King."
"If so, all is finished, O Komba. Rest, eat of our food and return to
your own land."
Then Brother John rose and said:
"We are blood-brethren, Bausi, and therefore I can speak for you. If
you and your councillors are willing, and these Pongos are willing, I
and my friends do not fear to visit the Motombo and the Kalubi, to
talk with them of peace on behalf of your people, since we love to see
new lands and new races of mankind. Say, Komba, if the king allows,
will you accept us as ambassadors?"
"It is for the king to name his own ambassadors," answered Komba. "Yet
the Kalubi has heard of the presence of you white lords in Mazitu-land
and bade me say that if it should be your pleasure to accompany the
embassy and visit him, he would give you welcome. Only when the matter
was laid before the Motombo, the oracle spoke thus:
"'Let the white men come if come they will, or let them stay away. But
if they come, let them bring with them none of those iron tubes, great
or small, whereof the land has heard, that vomit smoke with a noise
and cause death from afar.
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