Page:Two kings of Uganda.djvu/85

hand side of the entrance. The king was clothed from head to foot in a snowy white robe, and lay back holding in his right hand a small round looking-glass, in which he could see reflected the faces of the courtiers who clustered round the doorway without. At the foot of the couch were two handsome boys, their bodies shining with a superabundance of oil. They too were dressed in snowy cotton robes. One was clasping his royal master's feet, and warming them with his hands, while the other held himself in readiness to brush away any miserable fly whose brain was too undeveloped to comprehend the awful majesty of its fellow-mortal, upon whom it sacrilegiously dared to settle. It is the custom that every great chief shall give some of his sons to the king to be his pages or "bagalagala," and it is from these that future lords and nobles are recruited. Little Nyonyi Entono ("the small bird"), not allowed yet to enter the presence of the king, but a sub-page in one of the great houses outside, in no long time will reach man's estate, and find himself standing in the mighty Katikiro's shoes. And little Kagwa, quickly grown to manhood, by the strange turn of fortune's wheel will find himself a mighty earl — Mukwenda, Lord of Singo ; but before they reach that uncertain eminence, they will have to suffer much both of torture and of shame.

At the head of the couch, kneeling half outside, and with his head inclined so as to be near the king's ear, was Kolugi, chief storekeeper. He, though not noble,