to the spear and take
your kraal again?"

"In our land this may not be, Otter, for there wealth is more than race.
So we should have been brought to still greater shame. Riches alone
could give us back our home, and we had none left. Therefore we swore
an oath together, the dead Baas and I, that we would journey to this
far country and seek to win wealth that we might buy back our lands and
kraal and rule over them as in past years, and our children after us."

"A good oath," said Otter, "but here we should have sworn it otherwise,
and there would have been a ringing of steel about that kraal, not the
chink of yellow iron."

"We came, Otter, and for seven years we have laboured harder than the
lowest of our servants; we have travelled to and fro, mixing with many
peoples, learning many tongues, and what have we found? The Baas yonder
a grave in the wilderness--I the food that the wilderness gives, no
more."

"A poor wage so far," said Otter. "Ah! the ways of my people are more
simple and better. A red spear is brighter than the red gold, yes, and
it is more honest."

"The wealth is unwon, Otter, and I have sworn to win the wealth or die.
But last night I swore it again to him who lies dead."

"It is well, Baas; an oath is an oath and true men must keep it. But
riches cannot be gathered here, for the gold, most of it, is hid in
those rocks that are far too heavy to carry, and who may charm gold out
of the rock? Not all the wizards in Zululand. At the least you and I
cannot do it alone, even should the fever spare us. We must trek, Baas,
and look elsewhere."

"Listen, Otter, the tale is yet to tell. The Baas who is dead dreamed
before he died, he dreamed that I should win the gold, that I should win
it by the help of a woman, and he bade me wait here a while after he was
dead. Say now, Otter, you who come of a people learned in dreams and
are the child of a dream-doctor, was this a true dream or a sick man's
fancy?"

"Nay, Baas, who can tell for sure?" the dwarf answered; then pondered a
while, and set himself to trace lines in the dust of the floor with his
finger. "Yet I say," he went on, "that the words of the dead uttered on
the edge of death shall come true. He promised that you should win the
wealth: you will win it by this way or that, and the great kraal across
the water shall be yours again, and the children of strangers shall
wander there no more. Let us obey the words of the dead and bide here
awhile