"John and I are to go as envoys to the Pongo, and you, Quatermain, will stop here to look after the hunters and the stores." "Young man," I replied, "do you wish to insult me?
After your father put you in my charge, too! If you two are going, I shall come also, if I have to do so mother-naked.

But let me tell you once and for all in the most emphatic language I can command, that I consider you a brace of confounded lunatics, and that if the Pongo don't eat you, it will be more than you deserve.

To think that at my age I should be dragged among a lot of cannibal savages without even a pistol, to fight some unknown brute with my bare hands! Well, we can only die once--that is, so far as we know at present." "How true," remarked Stephen; "how strangely and profoundly true!" Oh! I could have boxed his ears.
We went into the courtyard again, whither Komba was summoned with his attendants.

This time they came bearing gifts, or having them borne for them.

These consisted, I remember, of two fine tusks of ivory which suggested to me that their country could not be entirely surrounded by water, since elephants would scarcely live upon an island; gold dust in a gourd and copper bracelets, which showed that it was mineralized; white native linen, very well woven, and some really beautiful decorated pots, indicating that the people had artistic tastes.