about four o'clock in the afternoon
And , finally , that Lualamba might be properly impressed with our powers , we took him for a short excursion into the air , and then sent him back , a humbled , frightened , and profoundly impressed savage , to make his report to his master and urge upon him the very great desirability of paying a duty-call upon us forthwith . `` Having at length got rid of Lualamba , the professor made a few simple little preparations for the subjugation of the great M'Bongwele . The hours , however , passed , and we began to fear that Lualamba had failed in the somewhat delicate and difficult mission wherewith we had entrusted him . But at length , somewhere about four o'clock in the afternoon , we saw a cavalcade of some five hundred fully-armed and magnificently mounted warriors approaching , headed by an individual riding a very fine coal-black horse , and clad in lion-skin mantle , short petticoat of leopards ' skin , gold crown trimmed with flamingo feathers , necklace of lions ' teeth and claws , with a long , narrow shield of rhinoceros ' hide on his left arm and a sheaf of light casting-spears in his hand . This imposing person we rightly judged to be none other than M'Bongwele himself ; and in a few minutes the whole cavalcade , charging down upon us , divided into two and , wheeling right and left , reined up and stood motionless as so many bronze statues , within a few yards of the ship . Then M'Bongwele -- a fine but very stout man -- rather laboriously dismounted and , after some hesitation , came on board . `` Now , it is very necessary for you to remember , while listening to what I am about to tell you , that the man with whom we were dealing was a crafty , unscrupulous savage , and that we had entered his territory with a certain definite purpose , in pursuit of which it was imperative that we should be able to go to and fro freely , without fear of interference , either direct or indirect , from him .