further south, to Fashoda. One day the group encounters a lion who attacks them. The Arabs (who do not know how to fire a shotgun) hand the weapon to Staś and beg him to shoot the beast. Staś kills the lion, and then shoots down the Arabs as well. This is dictated by the despair and fury: the boy knows that the men were not going to set the children free. He hated the Arabs for abusing them – especially Nel. Free of the Arabs, the children are marooned in the depth of Africa. They set out on an arduous journey through the African desert and jungle in the hope that sooner or later they would encounter European explorers or the British Army. The journey is full of dangers and adventures. The children, accompanied by two black slaves (a boy named Kali and a girl named Mea) whom Staś had freed from the Arabs, encounter a number of wonders and perils. The children stop for a rest on a beautiful hill near a waterfall. They soon find out that a gigantic elephant has been trapped in a gully nearby. Nel, who loves animals, takes pity on the beast and saves it from starvation by throwing fruits and leaves into the gorge. The girl and the elephant (which is extremely intelligent and benign and whom Nel calls "King" because of its size) quickly become friends. Soon Nel is stricken with malaria and is about to die. Staś, mad with grief, decides to go to what he thinks is a Bedouin camp and beg for quinine. When he gets to the camp he find out that it belongs to an old Swiss explorer named Linde. The man had been severely injured by a wild boar and is waiting for death. All of his African servants have fallen ill to sleeping sickness and die one after another. Although horrified by this gruesome death camp, Staś becomes friend with Linde who generously supplies him with food, weapon, gunpowder and quinine. Thanks to the medicine, Nel recovers. Staś, grateful for Linde's help, accompanies the Swiss until the man's death. Then, using Linde's gunpowder, he frees King from the trap and they set out on a further journey. Accompanying the children further on their journey is Linde's 12-year-old slave boy, Nasibu. The group sojourns on top of a small mountain mentioned by Linde before his death