CHAPTER X.
THE SENTENCE We stared at Bausi and Bausi stared at us.
"I am the Black Elephant Bausi," he exclaimed at last, worn out by our solid silence, "and I trumpet! I trumpet! I trumpet!" (It appeared that this was the ancient and hallowed formula with which a Mazitu king was wont to open a conversation with strangers.) After a suitable pause I replied in a cold voice: "We are the white lions, Macumazana and Wazela, and we roar! we roar! we roar!" "I can trample," said Bausi.
"And we can bite," I said haughtily, though how we were to bite or do anything else effectual with nothing but a Union Jack, I did not in the least know.
"What is that thing ?" asked Bausi, pointing to the flag.
"That which shadows the whole earth," I answered proudly, a remark that seemed to impress him, although he did not at all understand it, for he ordered a soldier to hold a palm leaf umbrella over him to prevent it from shadowing _him_.
"And that," he asked again, pointing to the music box, "which is not alive and yet makes a noise ?" "That sings the war-song of our people," I said.

"We sent it to you as a present and you returned it.

Why do you return our presents, O Bausi ?" Then of a sudden this potentate grew furious.
"Why do you come here, white men," he asked, "uninvited and against the law of my land, where only one white man is welcome, my brother Dogeetah, who cured me of sickness with a knife?
I know who you are.

You are dealers in men.

You come here to steal my people and sell them into slavery.