At the end of the straight vista they turned sharp to the right and climbed a tongue of land--what would be called a "hog's-back" in the West. It was grown sparsely with trees, and commanded a wide outlook. Now the sinuous course of the papyrus swamp could be followed for miles in its vivid green; and the tops of the forest trees lay spread like a mantle. The top of the "hog's-back" had been flattened, and on it stood M'tela's palace.
The Leopard Woman stared curiously. There was not much to be seen. A high stockade of posts and wattle shut off the view, but over it could be distinguished a thatched roof. It was rectangular instead of circular and appeared to be at least forty feet long--a true, royal palace. Smaller roofs surrounded it. Outside the gate stood several more of the gorgeous spearmen, rigidly at attention. Not another soul was in sight.
But whatever seemed to lack either in the cordiality or curiosity of the inhabitants was more than made up for by the escort. With admirable military precision, a precision that Kingozi would have appreciated could he have seen it, they deployed across the wide open space at the front of the plateau. The drums lined up before them. In the echoing enclosure of the forest walls the noise was prodigious. And then abruptly, as before, it fell. In the silence the voice of the old headman was heard:
"Here will be found the way to the guest houses," he urged gently.
The ragged safari, carrying its loads, plunged again into a forest path, walking single file, a tatterdemalion crew. And yet a philosophic observer might have caught a certain nonchalance, a faint superiority of bearing on the part of these scarecrows; ridiculous when considered against the overwhelming numbers, the military spruceness, the savage formidability of the wild hordes that surrounded them. And if he had been an experienced as well as a philosophic observer he could have named the quality that informed them. Even in these truly terrifying, untried conditions it persisted--the white man's _prestige_.
The forest path, wide and well-trodden, led them a scant quarter mile to a cleared wide space on the very edge of the hill, which here fell abruptly away. A large circular guest house occupied the centre point, and other smaller houses surrounded it at a respectful distance. To the right hand were the tops of trees on a lower elevation; to the left and at the rear the solid wall of forest; immediately in front a wide outlook over the papyrus swamp and the partly clothed hills beyond.