the leaves and the juices of the trees, and he
bade the women keep clean the huts and the place around the village.
But the thing he said most was that living here in peace, in a place
set aside for the weak, it was well we saw that no strangers who
came in should ever leave. For, said he, the strong will take from
the weak."

"This is a small place," said Venning--"too small for any people to
fight over."

"I thought I heard the sound of battle in the valley but two days
since."

"It might serve Hassan as a robber's den; but I spoke of other
people--white men, mother."

"Since I had ears to hear the meaning of words," she said, "the talk
was ever of white men, and one 'white man' warned us against those
very men who eat up the land and the waters."

"But what use would this little spot be to them? In a short time it
will be too small for your own people."

"When that day comes, O Spider, we would be free to go to the land
of my fathers, where my son will find his kraal."

"You will want many canoes, mother, when that day comes."

"And they tell me," said the woman, with a keen glance, "that you
white men are good boat-builders. Aye, I have seen your boats on the
great river, with wings and with fire."

"Our boat--the one you sat in--the boat down in the pool, has
wings," said Venning, innocently.

"Muata the chief tells me the boat has gone. Wow! The place is
taboo; I knew the spirit people would take it; but you can build
others."

"We have no tools."

"Wow! You could make them."

"We have no skill in such work."

The wise woman pondered. "He, the white man who lived here,
consulted a familiar he carried much with him; he would find from it
how to build boats and to forge iron."

Compton produced his log-book. "See, mother, was it like that?"

"Wow! It was like."

"Bring me the 'familiar' of the white man, for he was my father, as
you know, and you will hear his voice again. Maybe we will learn
from it how to make tools for the building of boats."

"I will search, O son of my white man."

She sat awhile, then produced a cob-pipe, and, after getting a fill
of tobacco, went off smoking with the bowl against her cheek.

"Humph!" said Venning. "Wants to keep us as boat-builders. I bet
she's taken the Okapi as the first of the fleet for the great
exodus."

"And intends that we should be the navigators as well as the
builders."

Mr. Hume was of the same opinion when he joined them later on an