hissing brew looked uncommonly
inviting in its black clay bowls. Denham had tried it before, but had
never been able to take to it. This, however, looked different.

"Try again, Alaric," said Verna. "You'll find this a superior brew. I
know I'm dying of thirst."

A portion was set before each of them, with the _punga_, or preliminary
sip, which custom required on the part of the entertainers. Denham did
try it, and voted it excellent, and then took a very long pull indeed.

"Now you're initiated, dear," said Verna merrily, "once you've learnt to
drink _tywala_."

"I call this uncommonly jolly," pronounced Denham, looking around.
"These chaps must have a good time of it."

The domed huts within their ring fences shone yellow and picturesque in
the sunlight. A few men were seated in groups chatting in a bass
undertone, and the red top-knots of women showed above the thorn fence,
gazing curiously at the visitors.

"Sapazani would tell you `must have _had_ a good time of it,'" said Ben
Halse. "He's a man of the past."

"Discontented?"

"Rather."

"Tell him I want to give him this, Halse," producing the binoculars.
"To remember my visit by."

Sapazani received the gift in the same dignified fashion, and they
instructed him how to find the focus. He tried it on various objects
and then handed it to an attendant.

"It is good," he said. "I will remember."

But to the proposal to snapshot him he returned a decided negative,
polite but firm. Denham was disappointed.

"Couldn't he show us his hut?" he said. "I should like to see what the
hut of a big chief is like inside."

This was readily acceded to. Sapazani rose and led the way. Then
Denham was even more struck by the tall, magnificently-proportioned
form, the great muscles showing through the brown satiny skin as the man
walked, easily, leisurely, straight as a pine-tree, with head slightly
thrown back. Verna could not help noticing that the two men, standing
upright together, were of exactly the same height and build, the savage
chieftain and the up-to-date English gentleman.

Denham admired the interior of the cool, spacious hut, with its polished
floor of hard, black clay, and the bowl-like fire-place in the centre,
the assegais disposed on pegs around the walls, and the clean, rolled-up
mats against one side. The place was a model of coolness and
cleanliness, he decided.

When they got outside again several of the chief's wives, conven