Quatermain, that helped to do the trick, for what says
poet? Those who serve and wait are almost as good as those who cook
dinner."
Such were the words which reached and, oddly enough, impressed
themselves upon my darkening brain. Or rather they were part of the
words, excerpts from a long speech that there is no doubt Sammy had
carefully prepared during our absence.
CHAPTER XIX
THE TRUE HOLY FLOWER
When I came to myself again it was to find that I had slept fifteen or
sixteen hours, for the sun of a new day was high in the heavens. I was
lying in a little shelter of boughs at the foot of that mound on which
we flew the flag that guided us back over the waters of the Lake
Kirua. Near by was Hans consuming a gigantic meal of meat which he had
cooked over a neighbouring fire. With him, to my delight, I saw
Mavovo, his head bound up, though otherwise but little the worse. The
stone, which probably would have killed a thin-skulled white man, had
done no more than knock him stupid and break the skin of his scalp,
perhaps because the force of it was lessened by the gum man's-ring
which, like most Zulus of a certain age or dignity, he wore woven in
his hair.
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