In
another minute we were walking uphill through the awful wood where the
gloom at this hour of approaching night was that of an English fog.
Three or four hundred paces brought us to a kind of clearing, where I
suppose some of the monster trees had fallen down in past years and
never been allowed to grow up again. Here, placed upon the ground,
were a number of boxes made of imperishable ironwood, and on the top
of each box sat, or rather lay, a mouldering and broken skull.
"Kalubi-that-were!" murmured our guide in explanation. "Look, Komba
has made my box ready," and he pointed to a new case with the lid off.
"How thoughtful of him!" I said. "But show us the spears before it
gets quite dark." He went to one of the newer coffins and intimated
that we should lift off the lid as he was afraid to do so.
I shoved it aside. There within lay the bones, each of them separate
and wrapped up in something, except of course the skull. With these
were some pots filled apparently with gold dust, and alongside of the
pots two good spears that, being made of copper, had not rusted much.
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