the niggers drumming and capering as
though it were a show for their amusement. Then they went
back, leaving the crops untouched, but pulling all the huts
in one kraal to pieces as they passed. It was the kraal of
the old white-tufted Shangaan, as Shadrach learned
afterwards.

"Shadrach was pleased that the row had saved his corn, and
next day he gave the twisted yellow man a lump of tobacco.
The man tucked it into his cheek and smiled, wrinkling his
nose and looking at the ground.

"'Did you get speech of the baboons last night among the
rocks?' Shadrach asked.

"The other shook his head, grinning. 'I am old,' he said.
'They pay no attention to me, but I will try again.
Perhaps, before long, they will listen.'

"'When they do that,' said Shadrach, 'you shall have five
pounds of tobacco and five bottles of dop.'

"The man was squatting on his heels all this time at
Shadrach's feet, and his hard fingers, like claws, were
picking at the ground. Now he put out a hand, and began
fingering the laces of the farmer's shoes with a quick
fluttering movement that Shadrach saw with a spasm of
terror. It was so exactly the trick of a baboon, so
entirely a thing animal and unhuman.

"'You are more than half a baboon yourself,' he said. 'Let
go of my leg! Let go, I say! Curse you, get away--get away
from me!'

"The creature had caught his ankle with both hands, the
fingers, hard and shovel-ended, pressing into his flesh.

"'Let go!' he cried, and struck at the man with his
sjambok.

"The man bounded on all fours to evade the blow, but it
took him in the flank, and he was human--or Kafir--again in a
moment, and rubbed himself and whimpered quite naturally.

"'Let me see no more of your baboon tricks,' stormed
Shadrach, the more angry because he had been frightened.
'Keep them for your friends among the rocks. And now be off
to your kraal.'

"That night again the Kafirs drummed all about the green
corn, and sang in chorus the song which the mountain-Kafirs
sing when the new moon shows like a paring from a
fingernail of gold. It is a long and very loud song, with
stamping of feet every minute, and again the baboons came
down to see and listen. The Kafirs saw them, many hundreds
of humped black shapes, and sang the louder, while the
crowd of beasts grew ever denser as fresh parties came down
and joined it. It was opposite the rocks on which they sat
that the singing men collected, roaring their long verses
and clatt