hey were so weary that they fell asleep in each other's arms. At
dawn they rose, but now they were very tired and berries were few, so
that by midday they were spent. Then they lay down on the side of a
steep hill, and Nada laid her head upon the breast of Umslopogaas.

"Here let us die, my brother," she said.

But even then the boy had a great spirit, and he answered, "Time to die,
sister, when Death chooses us. See, now! Do you rest here, and I will
climb the hill and look across the forest."

So he left her and climbed the hill, and on its side he found many
berries and a root that is good for food, and filled himself with them.
At length he came to the crest of the hill and looked out across the sea
of green. Lo! there, far away to the east, he saw a line of white that
lay like smoke against the black surface of a cliff, and knew it for the
waterfall beyond the royal town. Then he came down the hill, shouting
for joy and bearing roots and berries in his hand. But when he reached
the spot where Nada was, he found that her senses had left her through
hunger, cold, and weariness. She lay upon the ground like one asleep,
and over her stood a jackal that fled as he drew nigh. Now it would seem
that there but two shoots to the stick of Umslopogaas. One was to save
himself, and the other to lie down and die by Nada. Yet he found a
third, for, undoing the strips of his moocha, he made ropes of them,
and with the ropes he bound Nada on his back and started for the king's
kraal. He could never have reached it, for the way was long, yet at
evening some messengers running through the forest came upon a naked
lad with a girl bound to his back and a staff in his hand, who staggered
along slowly with starting eyes and foam upon his lips. He could not
speak, he was so weary, and the ropes had cut through the skin of his
shoulders; yet one of the messengers knew him for Umslopogaas, the son
of Mopo, and they bore him to the kraal. They would have left the girl
Nada, thinking her dead, but he pointed to her breast, and, feeling it,
they found that her heart still beat, so they brought her also; and the
end of it was that both recovered and loved each other more than ever
before.

Now after this, I, Mopo, bade Umslopogaas stay at home within the kraal,
and not lead his sister to the wilds. But the boy loved roaming like a
fox, and where he went there Nada followed. So it came about that one
day they slipped from the kraal when the