The king's face fell, as did those of his councillors.
"Listen, O lord Macumazana, and all of you," he said.

"These Pongo are horrible wizards, a great and powerful people who live by themselves amidst the swamps and mix with none.

If the Pongo catch Mazitu or folk of any other tribe, either they kill them or take them as prisoners to their own land where they enslave them, or sometimes sacrifice them to the devils they worship." "That is so," broke in Babemba, "for when I was a lad I was a slave to the Pongo and doomed to be sacrificed to the White Devil.

It was in escaping from them that I lost this eye." Needless to say, I made a note of this remark, though I did not think the moment opportune to follow the matter up.

If Babemba has once been to Pongo-land, I reflected to myself, Babemba can go again or show us the way there.
"And if we catch any of the Pongo," went on Bausi, "as sometimes we do when they come to hunt for slaves, we kill them.