"Yes," replied Mr. Stott. "Afraid of nothing, poor little mite. When the Ruga-ruga came I hurriedly built up a sort of zariba of boxes and stones, and put a tarpaulin over it and told the little 'uns to keep quiet; and there they were, all through the fighting. Mother and I would go and give 'em food every now and again, and Edgar here"--pointing to the boy--"'ud say, 'How's the fight going, Daddy?' And Edgar's bin a rare good boy since we came here, helping to tie these bundles of reeds and making himself useful. Our eldest's at home in Ireland with her grandmother--for her education. The next one we buried years ago in the Nguru country, and the very youngest--bless her--died of infantile diarrhoea last March at Burungi. That accounts for the six of 'em; and I'll lay there aren't many British children have had such an adventurous bringing-up, 'cept the young Livingstones and Moffats."
Mrs. Stott was now spreading a wrinkled, grey-white cloth over the reed table-top. And the children were up on their feet helping her and a native servant bring the meal from the cook-house to the baraza.
"We're giving you just the native _ugali_--porridge, you know," said Mrs. Stott, "but there's a lovely pot of fresh milk from the natives' cattle. Here's some honey in a calabash. Here are the rest of the scones we had for breakfast. I've made you some tea--rather weak, but it is so precious. And whilst you're tackling _that_ I'm going to fry some fish we got from the lake this morning--bony, but very sweet."
During their meal Roger and Lucy tried to give in instalments a description of the extraordinary circumstances which had brought them here in company. Mrs. Stott, who had fetched her sewing so that she might not be wasting time (Mr. Stott had excused himself, having urgent work to do till the evening), looked a little puzzled and not quite acquiescent over Brentham's explanations.
"Here, children! You go now and help Brahimu and Kagavezi. Don't get into mischief. Keep out of the sun, don't pick up scorpions, and don't go outside the boma.... I'm an outspoken woman, you know, Lucy. I can't help saying I think you ought to have stuck by your husband."
"But I was so _ill_, Mrs. Stott, and John _insisted_ on my going. Didn't he ... Captain Brentham?"
"He did really, Mrs. Stott. I had instructions to advise all the missionaries to leave their stations and return to the coast--indeed, I come here to you with that message, but I suppose you won't obey it?"
"Indeed I won't, Captain Brentham, though I thank you for your efforts to find us and help us. I do indeed. But wherever my husband is, there will I be too, unless he absolutely ordered me to go away.... And I saw it was the will of God that I should go."
"Well: that was what John did to me--absolutely _ordered_ me to go," said Lucy, beginning to cry. "He ordered Ann to go with me. It isn't my fault--our fault--that Ann has gone back, in spite of John's _positive commands_. Ann never obeys any one. Oh dear, oh dear! _what_ should I do ... I feel if I go back to that place I shall simply die ... and yet I shall lose your good opinion ... if I go to the coast with Captain Brentham...."
"Oh, I don't say that. I'm not one for passing judgments on my fellow creatures. It's between them and God. But look here, Captain Brentham: I don't want to keep you idle. I'll be bound there's a hundred things you want to see to in your camp. I'll keep Lucy with me. She and I are old friends, as you know. If you'd send over her loads and her native woman--let's see, what was her name? I remember how she nursed you when your poor baby came--and went--Halima? Yes. Well, send over everything that belongs to Lucy and her tent shall be pitched inside our boma whilst she stays here. She and I will talk things over a bit and then, maybe, we'll call you into consultation. I'm sure you want to do what's best for us all. What a _strange_ place to meet in! The last time we spoke together was in your grand Arab house at Unguja and I was more than a bit afraid of you."
Mrs. Stott rose up from her sewing, walked with Brentham to the exit from the compound, and gazed across the outer greensward to the very blue lake, with its whitish rim of scum or salt. In the distance the blush-tint flamingoes flew with wings of black and scarlet in V formations, against an azure background of colossal mountains rising tier above tier; or, their glistening plumage showed up more effectively against the violet shadows of the western cliffs and wooded gorges bordering the lake, and still more strikingly when contrasted with the cobalt surface of the lake itself. Other flamingoes waded into the lake, filtering through their laminated beaks the minute organisms evidently abundant in its water. Hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of these birds stood in serried ranks along the curving, diverging shores. The rear ranks were composed of immature birds of dirty-white plumage streaked with brown; but these were masked by the front rows of adults, affectedly conscious of their beauty of plumage and outline. They exhibited a hundred mannerisms in their poses: lowered their kinky necks to dabble in the ooze, or raised them perpendicularly and "honked" to let the humans know they were on their guard (though never a man in these parts thought of harming them). Or they cleaned their backs with rosy coils of neck, stood on one vermilion leg and bent the other limb beneath the belly feathers. Or they fenced at each other with decurved bills of purple and red in make-believe petulance, and because life-conditions were so perfect that they had nothing whatever to grumble at.... Some Wambugwe canoes were approaching the lake shore with fish to sell to the white men. A considerable section of the flamingoes rose into the sky with a display of roseate tints against the blue ... then landed and folded their wings in assurance of safety.
"Yes," continued Mrs. Stott, "I little thought we should meet under circumstances like these. Aren't those flamingoes _wonderful_? Like a revelation of God--almost. I shall stay here if only to look after them. _They_ shall be the roses in my garden. I shan't want any others. You see they're not afraid of man and they don't get in man's way. They aren't good to eat--much too fishy. And, as far as I can see, they don't eat fish; only mud, seemingly--shrimps, p'raps...."
"Well, Consul: come again at supper-time; and if I'm too stingy over my precious tea, at any rate I'll give you hot milk and pancakes and honey."
Left with Lucy, Mrs. Stott first took her to the washing hut and provided the means for a good bath and next lent her some garment of the dressing-gown order with which to clothe herself till her luggage and her attendant arrived.
"I'll tell you what I am going to advise Captain Brentham to do, Lucy," said Mrs. Stott. "Come what may, you'll be none the worse for a good rest here. This place is evidently far healthier than the lower country. The Consul shall bargain with your Masai guides to go as fast as they can back to Ulunga and find out what has happened at Hangodi. If things are still quiet there, the probability is they are going to remain quiet. In that case--if your husband does not absolutely forbid it, Captain Brentham ought to take you back to Hangodi and leave you there. He can then find his own way _somehow_ to the place he lives at--Medina. If the messengers come back with _bad_ news about the Arabs, or if John Baines positively vetoes your returning, _then_ all you can do is to put yourself under the Consul's care and travel with him to Mvita ... unless you like to stop with me and live on country produce. I think we can--whilst you're waiting here--get in touch with the Masai beyond the mountains and by giving them a present induce them to guide you to the Kilimanjaro country, to one of the mission stations there--Evangelical or Methodist, don't matter which. After that all would be plain sailing, for I don't believe the Arabs of the British sphere are going to rise."
When in the evening of that day, by the light of a camp fire--they had practically no artificial light--Mrs. Stott put this plan before Roger, he promptly agreed. It would show he had done the right thing. It would go far to save Lucy's good name, especially among Mission folk. And it would give him nearly a month to stay and explore the Happy Valley. He had spent much of the day with James Stott helping him in his work on the embryo station, and Stott had told him of wonderful things he had seen or had gleaned from native information. There was the new lake to survey roughly; there was a paradise of big game to shoot in. Here Mrs. Stott intervened: "I hope you and my husband will go slow as regards shooting. I know we must have the meat and we're so nearly bankrupt at the coast that a few tusks of ivory would come in handy. But somehow I should like to think of this Happy Valley as a sort of preserved zoological gardens where all these innocent creatures of God's handiwork----"