m the leather bag which he always carried. This bag
was simply the skin of a kid, the head of which had been cut off, and
the body drawn out through the aperture at the neck thus made. He
struck a spark with his flint, and when the tinder glowed, he shook out
a little of it on to some dry grass, which soon blazed up, and which he
then placed under the twigs. In a few minutes he had a cheerful fire,
and then he untied his little three-legged pot from where it hung from
one of the wattles of the roof. This pot was half full of mealies
already cooked, and which he simply meant to warm for his supper. The
remainder of his week's ration of meat (the skinny ribs of a goat that
had died of debility down near his master's homestead) was also hanging
from the roof, but with a sigh he determined to reserve that delicacy
for the morrow, remembering that two days would elapse before a fresh
supply was due. His dog, Sibi--a starved looking mongrel greyhound--lay
at his feet and gazed up with expectant eyes, waiting for the handful
of tough mealies which would be flung to him when his master had
finished supper.

It was a clear starlit night in Spring. Supper over, Maliwe sat on the
ground just outside the floor of the hut, and thought of Nalai, the
daughter of old Dalisile, for whom he was paying lobola. In a month
more, another year's service would be completed, and another cow would
be his. This he meant to take as he had taken the two already earned,
and deliver to his prospective father-in-law. His mother had promised
him the calf of her only cow as soon as it should be weaned, and then
he hoped that old Dalisile, skinflint as he was, would deliver the
girl, trusting him for payment of the fifth and last beast in course of
time. In two or, at the outside, three months this calf would be
weaned. It was a red bull with white face and feet--he knew every mark,
and one might almost say every hair on the animal, having looked at it
so often. It was a remarkably fine calf, but Maliwe thought it took a
strangely long time in growing up. He lit his pipe, and dreamt dreams.
Soon he would be no longer alone in his hut. He loved the girl Nalai,
and she seemed to love him, so the future was bright. She was tall and
straight, still unbent by that toil which is the portion of the female
Kafir. Her teeth gleamed very white, and her breast swelled each year
more temptingly over the edge other red blanket. As boy and girl they
had grown up toge